ABSTRACT
I have tried to show with “sound bite” vignettes, cartoons, and charts how ecological thinking and human common sense can help us understand and deal not only with environmental problems but with other human predicaments as well. In fact, the environment is no longer an issue separate from such human concerns as crime, welfare, health care, food, or pollution but is an important part of all of our problems and aspirations. Perhaps for the first time in human history we are faced with the fact that too much of a good thing (material wealth, consumption, automobiles, technologies, even people) is becoming as great a threat to our future as too little. Bigger may no longer be better, and quality is certainly better than quantity over the long run, so we have to modify or extend our economic system to include all of the values that make for quality of life. To do this requires some major changes in the way we think, educate, and do business.
