From Biophilia to Cosmophilia: the Role of Biological and Physical Sciences in Promoting Sustainability *

Ideas from the life sciences and the physical sciences, particularly the ideas that ecosystems, the planet itself, and even the cosmos are interconnected and ‘organismic’, have in uenced the development of sustainability discourse. Sustainability advocates strategically deploy such scienti c concepts through subtly spiritualized language and metaphors to advance their arguments. Even when the language of sustainability advocacy is not explicitly religious, it re ects core values and deep beliefs of particular individuals, communities, or groups. In such cases, sustainability movements derive their power by following a neo-religious narrative, and when deployed in the public sphere, such narratives are performing religious work.