Synopsis This, the 43nd volume of the Socialist Register, has been one of the most challenging to put together, even though-or because-it deals with what may well prove to be the most important issue facing socialists in our life-time.  This is not just a matter of the complex science and technology involved in understanding the looming environmental crisis, or the variety of problems involved.  Over the past dozen or so years the Register has published some twenty essays pertaining to the environment, several of which have been widely cited.  But when we decided to devote a whole volume exclusively to 'coming to terms with nature' the greatest challenge we faced was that the absence of a strong eco-socialist left is reflected in a corresponding lack of coherence in eco-socialist theory.  We see this volume as contributing to the development of a better eco-socialist  understanding of contemporary capitalism, and the kind of politics that could lead to an ecologically sustainable as well as a democratic socialism.