For a series that revolves around a character who "saved the world a lot," BtVS has remarkably few references to that site of real-world apocalyptic anxiety: large-scale environmental degradation. This lack of explicit environmental concern is particularly surprising given the show’s generally liberal and very active engagements with so many social issues. Buffy criticism is likewise rife with various applications of social theory but is generally silent about ecological issues.

In this paper, we will argue that the fourth season of Buffy is a pivotal point in the life of the show, the point at which it becomes concerned with demonstrating the value of ecological balance.  The University becomes the space in which the characters develop an environmental ethic, not a completely surprising development given research that shows that, second only to early childhood, the college years are the best for instilling environmental awareness.  While the Initiative represents the temptations and, ultimately, the dangers of attempting to assert humankind’s supremacy as a species by manipulating natural forces, Buffy and the Scooby Gang find themselves battling to preserve the primacy of the forces of nature and to keep them in balance, a decided shift from the ethic in the first three seasons, in which the lines between good and evil were clear and the group spent its energy destroying mostly "natural" evils.