EXAMPLES OF THE COMPLEXITY OF RESOURCE CYCLES
Resources can be followed through cycles both as atoms and as molecules.
Carbon: Take a carbon atom, as it is expelled in the breath of an elephant as a part of a carbon dioxide molecule. It is now part of the air. From the air, the carbon dioxide molecule is taken up by a plant through photosynthesis, so that the carbon atom becomes part of the plant structure as a carbohydrate molecule. Thus our carbon atom becomes part of a leaf which is eaten by the elephant again, and is then excreted in the faeces of the elephant thus becoming part of the detritus of the forest floor to be decomposed by micro-organisms and released back into the atmosphere in a carbon dioxide molecule.
Alternatively our carbon atom may remain in the detritus which through geological processes (for instance if it is buried under river deposits) becomes coal or oil. Here the carbon atom will remain for millions of years until it is released back into the atmosphere, again in carbon dioxide, if the oil or coal is burnt. It may be taken up by marine life on the surface of the sea, becoming organic carbon again and eventually part of the "rain" of detritus which pours onto the deep ocean floors. Thus we see that a carbon atom can be recycled within a matter of hours through the breathing of animals and the photosynthesis of plants, or through millions of years if it becomes incorporated into geological processes.
Water: Take a water molecule as it falls onto a tropical rainforest in a drop of rain. It may quickly evaporate again and condense within a cloud, so that very soon the molecule falls as rain again. Or the molecule may form part of a drop which drips falling from leaf to leaf until reaching the detritus of the forest floor it becomes part of the soil water. The soil water may be taken up by the roots of a plant to become part of the plant structure or to work its way up through the plant by transpiration to reach the clouds again; or it may percolate down to a stream where it can be drunk by an animal; or it may finally find its way to the sea, thus becoming part of different and yet inevitably inter-related resource-cycles.
Animals exploit resources for their survival by diverting them through their own systems. For instance, elephants obtain the elements which they need by breathing, by eating plants, by licking the minerals from dry lakes and riverbeds, and by drinking. Subsequently, for example, they return carbon and oxygen (as carbon dioxide molecules) with every breath, but the calcium in their bones is not returned until they die and their bones decay.
People are just another animal and Natural Human Society is not very different from elephants in their relationship to ecosystems. However, as Viable Society, our use of resources becomes more sophisticated. For instance, forest is cleared and the soil resource is used for agriculture; trees are cut and used as timber. But these uses, while they alter the resource cycles, do not break them: the food grown on the soil is eaten and the elements returned to the ecosystem as human faeces; a tree cut and used to build a house eventually returns to the local ecosystem when it has served its purpose and decays.
It is Modern Society's exploitation of resources which tends to break resource cycles. For short periods Modern Society can manipulate an ecosystem to produce resources at a level which is not sustainable, so that eventually the resource disappears. A simple example is hunting: a specific animal can be hunted in small numbers indefinitely (assuming that its habitat is not damaged) but once a certain number is
