If only there were a field that examines the spiritual, therapeutic and psychological aspects of human-nature relationships, I'd abandon my graduate studies in Theoretical Phys Ed and embrace this new discipline instead.

Luckily, there is. For those of you dumb enough to have spent $80,000 for a two-year program in Environmental Journalism at Columbia but now can't (they closed it - even unlimited student loans reached a gullible student limit), Ecopsychology is here.

Sure, environmental problems may seem like material ones - we simply need cows that burp less, plants that require fewer pesticides and more natural gas - but people in Ecopsychology are much more nuanced than rubes in the real world and know environmental problems are simply human behavioral ones. If we teach everyone to not brush their teeth with the water running, Greenland won't melt.   The field covers areas such as eco-spirituality, experiential learning about environmental harmony and the interdependence between our physical and psychological health and that of the planet.

It even has a peer-reviewed journal.   

You can imagine the downside to a peer-reviewed journal regarding something as mystical as ecopsychology.  Ain't no one critical passing that peer review, any more than non-believers in astrology or homeopathy are passing their peer-reviews. 

That's not to say their isn't a legitimate psychology issue. Some people on the right are not going to believe that anything we do to the planet matters. And every plant geneticist, no matter how liberal they are politically, regards anti-GMO protesters as creepy and dangerous, for good reason.  Those are valid psychological barriers to getting responsible discourses on science policy.  

But a field based on 'coping with anxiety or grief about environmental destruction'? 'Investigations into the subjective, experiential, and existential states associated with connectedness to nature and ecocentric conceptions of self and identity'? 'Spiritual practices that support a healthy environment'?  I know there is a left/right divide about some science issues - kooky science bloggers who think the only anti-science issues in America are stem cells, evolution and global warming come to mind (you know who you are; not that you read actual  science sites, so you do not see me making fun of you) - but can we not all agree that this is a waste of money?  I don't mind if some rich kid or athletic scholarship type takes this stuff if all of the basket weaving classes are full, but this sort of major is ground zero in the growing 'psychology is not science' movement regarding funding.

The problem will be that, since this article is critical, a whole bunch of people in psychology will insist maybe this is science - instead of driving the quacks out of their field.

Think medicine before 1850, people.  It was all skull drilling and leeches and no interest at all in germs. But finally one medical school in the world decided medicine should be a real thing and not full of charlatans and now when people hear 'doctor' they think of 'Medical Doctor', when in the past that 'Medical' had to be a prefix because Doctors (PhDs) wanted no part of their silliness so M.D.s had to be ghetto-ized .  Psychology needs its 1850 version of Harvard Medical School.