ABSTRACT
The biomass has the capacity to receive and to utilise solar energy in the form of light. The range of life in the biomass in any particular location is also limited by temperature and moisture. The biomass is highly diversified, from simple lichens and mosses to giant redwood trees; from bacteria to elephants; and from lice to men. The coral organism laboriously builds limestone reefs which, on reaching the surface, collect soil-forming flotsam and finally form tropical islands. The biomass therefore, including voles and elephants, functions as an ecosystem. Man is an integral part of the biomass but Western civilised man is no longer part of the ecosystem, because, though he lives on it, he fails to restore his waste material to it. Western civilisation has distorted the cyclic relationship between man and his ecosystem.
