Spiritual Ecology is a slippery slope for me. I think that any time people decide to attach "greater meaning" to something, that thing can become too important or powerful.
As for the readings, I found Lovelock's hypothesis the mostly attractive. It is more like a scientific proposal that happens to be called the "Gaia" hypothesis. I can get behind the idea that the Earth is regulated by the life on it, such that the environmental conditions remain more or less stable for millennia. I am not convinced and am wary of contributing this phenomenon to some conscious entity. Personally, I have no use for latching onto some ancient deity to find meaning in the natural world or to find connection to it.
But maybe this is not what the spiritual ecologists and other "old" religions are getting at. Maybe the worship of animals, elements, and reproductive unity is simply a way to remind us of what is ultimately important - namely the preservation of the biosphere such that we - humans - are able to exist in it. Unless I missed it, the readings did not refer to that fact that if humans alter the biosphere enough - and we are not able to live here anymore - that life will go on. Life will evolve and eventually find a new stability that may or may not be amicable to human life or even the mammalian radiation itself.
A quote from Spretnak's reading was probably closest to what I believe. - "What we need now is the maturity to value freedom and tradition, the individual and the community, science and nature, men and women."
I like how you apply the main ideas of the the readings to our society and you question their conclusions. Although I dont think this would constitute as a slippery slope and if it was I would think it would only benefit our society.
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