India, Jan. 9 -- William Wordsworth, the poet who believed nature to be humanity's greatest teacher, once wrote that a single impulse from the natural world could reveal more about moral good and evil than all the wisdom of sages. His lament that "the world is too much with us" feels prophetic today. Despite unprecedented material progress, humanity remains restless and dissatisfied, increasingly alienated from nature. Nowhere is this rupture more visible than in the accelerating crisis of environmental degradation.

Across the globe, pollution has triggered alarming climatic changes - rising sea levels, floods and droughts, declining crop yields, the spread of tropical diseases, energy insecurity, and the steady extinction of wildlife, b...