This paper explores a theme which has become widely debated both in the newly emerging subdiscipline of ecolinguistics and in environmental discourse: the role that tropes such as metaphor and metonymy play in constructing our perceptions of and actions towards the environment. Next to ecolinguistics this paper also draws on increasingly sophisticated approaches to the analysis of advertisements, where again figures of speech 'figure' prominently (e.g. Vorlat 1985, Cook 1992). (Peter Mühlhäusler)