The industrial system – what we make, buy, and use (from cars and TVs to buildings and power plants) – sits within the larger systems of nature.
This larger natural world includes renewable resources, such as forests, croplands, and fisheries, that require air, sunshine, rivers, oceans, and soil. They can sustain human activities indefinitely, so long as we do not harvest them more rapidly than they replenish themselves.
It also includes non-renewable resources such as such as coal, minerals, fossil fuels, natural gas; that exist in fixed quantities, or whose regeneration rate is mega lower than their exploitation rate. Basically, they can only be extracted.
In the process of extracting and harvesting resources in order to produce and use goods, the industrial system also generates waste – waste from extracting and harvesting resources, and from how we produce, use, and eventually discard goods. This waste damages the ability of nature to replenish resources. This is the focus of Green Projects. Such projects deliver: clean air; drinkable water; fertile soil; stable climate; etc.
The industrial system also sits within a larger social system of communities, families, schools, and culture. Just as overproduction and waste damage natural systems, they also create anxiety, inequity, and stresses in our society.