Evolution is the key to why humans think in terms of "full circle", a concept that Dan espouses well. Of course not all of us think circular. We are fed gigabytes of "green" concepts that are the farthest thing from it. Instead of "thinking green", humanity needs to "Think Full Circle", to modify its way of thinking with regard to our relationship to the Earth and the "changing circumstances".
Now, I'm not a mystic. I'm not superstitious. I'm a skeptic. I am a naturalist. My wish (using this word with caution, since a wish... is just wishful Thinking) is for civilization to think full circle, even if the loop is measured in times longer than we can comprehend. You can't run the linear system we have now, on finite resources.
Anyway, to use a recent example of how I am phasing in full circle thinking. At night, when the hens are going to sleep it's fun to watch how they will, little by little, make their way back to their perch for the night, one after the other in a quasi-societal heirarchy, some more dominant than others. They sleep all together, for safety, warmth or just plain fraternity. For them, the day has come full circle, and the pattern repeats, just as it does for us.
Likewise, the relationship between the garden (aka. the earth) and the chickens is... starting an an arbitrary point in the circle, they lay eggs, we eat them, we give them what we don't want from the harvest, they eat it, they produce eggs with the molecules in the garden harvest, we eat those molecules again in their eggs, compost the shells and other veggies, the compost fertilizes the garden, and so on.
The full circle is full of holes, though. There are things coming in and out of the circle all the time. In fact, there are many circles on the Earth, overlapping, interacting in unfathomable numbers of combinations. The Universe has been contemplated for ages.
Until we realize that an individual's realm of influence is actually quite small. We are all living organisms, with no preferential direction. Our small influence, interacting with circumstances, etches a path into what we have come to call the future.
The Earth doesn't care about us! (sorry to be so dispassionate :) ) We may make gestures to care about the Earth, but it really has no meaning beyond sustainment of life in the biosphere. No matter what our actions (above all, intustrial civilization's actions) have on the biosphere, the Earth will be fine without us, not better off, not worse off, just off. James Lovelock describes well through his Gaia theory the emergent nature of the planet.
Happy New Year!
Peace,
Grant
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