The pervasiveness of metaphor in environmental discourse suggests important questions about the role of metaphor in environmental learning. A conception of environmental thinking and action is proposed, which identifies five analytically distinct "moments" of "environmental sensemaking": conceptualising, knowing about, knowing how to respond, responding and acting. The (much-criticised) "information deficit" model of environmental learning requires that the second moment--knowing about the environment--is the only locus of environmental learning. On the information deficit model the only role of metaphor is didactic. On the proposed conception, all five moments of environmental sense-making may be independent moments of environmental learning. Metaphor can have a rhetorical role (encouraging responsiveness) and, more importantly, conceptual metaphors can frame our understanding of the environment. The development of new metaphors plays a key role in environmental learning. The "natural capital" and "real options" metaphors are considered as "case studies" of conceptual (or first-moment) learning. It is argued that while they may be important innovations in environmental sense-making, our general discussion of the role of metaphor in environmental learning suggests that we need to look beyond economic metaphors to improve our understanding of the environment-human relationship. (Contains 19 endnotes.)