How Culture influences Ecology

Politics:
Ecological policy is made by people in power depending on who their friends are because those are the people that they trust. These trusted friends are usually wealthy campaign supporters with an agenda of their own.  Environmental laws too often overlook the economic benefit that a clean ecosystem gives everyone by way of performing free environmental services such as flood control, clean drinking water, decomposition of wastes, climate regulation, and carbon sequestration.  If we, as a society, had to pay for these services because the environment was too degraded to do it, we couldn't afford it. 
Religion:
Religion has a powerful say in ecological issues.  
Christianity says that God created us in his image and that humankind has dominion over the Earth and all of its other forms of life.  This belief allows people to degrade ecosystems because we have the right to, and it allows us to not take into consideration the possibility that humans may be subject to the same laws of ecology and natural selection that the rest of the Earth's species are.
Hinduism is a religion that has a positive respect for nature.  In Hinduism, man lives in harmony with nature and believes that all forms of life are sacred.  The principle of balance, or dharma, when applied to the science of ecology seems to fit with scientific terms like equilibrium.
Native American religions seemed to also worship nature, while not having a concept of land ownership.
Education:
How do scientists communicate with the general public?  They don't, for the most part.  Does the public care about ecology?  Sometimes, if they have incentive.  Do scientists and educators see eye to eye?  Not always, look at the evolution vs. creation debate.
Media:
The media has a big role in how we look at climate change and what we do about it.  It can make people doubt that climate change is even happening and distract them the role that their own consumption plays in it.

the science of ecology and the Gaia hypothesis

Ecology is the science that studies organisms and their relationships with each other and the environment.  Ecology is a very broad science that encompasses a lot of topics because the Earth has a lot of species and a lot of environments, and is considered by some (Lovelock, James 2007) to be one big interconnected ecosystem, rather than many isolated ones.  Some even consider the Earth to be a single organism made up of many interconnect parts, that tries to maintain homeostasis.  I'm fond of this theory, called the Gaia hypothesis, because I believe that ecosystems are always connected to and affected by other ecosystems.  The evidence for the theory that the Earth is one single organism stems from three pieces of evidence for the fact that the Earth somehow maintains homeostasis: by keeping atmospheric content, ocean salinity, and global temperatures relatively constant despite changing inputs.  One of the reasons that I think this theory has merit is that homeostasis seems to be a common theme to both organisms and natural environments, so why not the whole Earth?  Feedback responses (both positive and negative) are observed to be activated in organisms and natural environments when conditions vary too much from the set point of a particular parameter.  I also likes this theory because it expands on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by adding the idea of the evolution of natural environments.  In other words, the Earth, as a single organism maintaining homeostasis around set points that can change with time, selects for environments which help it to do that, and these environments select for the species that occupy them.