Aquinas's Natural Law and Integral Ecology

Pope Francis has rightly called for an integral ecology, which would see the interests of human beings and of nature in general as inherently united and not in competition (Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home). The theoretical claim here is that it is impossible to pursue the true interests of one without the true interests of the other. How might such an integral ecology relate to an integral politics, by which I mean specifically a politics that would make no ultimate separation between the concerns of all natural creatures and of human beings, nor between those of human animal nature and human spiritual, grace-endowed existence? Such a vision can be centered on the notion of law as understood by Thomas Aquinas.