Dwelling on the primary ecological functions of life, energy, and matter, this book offers an artistic and graphic display of fundamental knowledge and beliefs about the environment. It seeks to contribute to a widespread appreciation of the earth's limits, to the shaping of human attitudes toward the earth and to increasing environmental awareness which passes across national boundaries and through cultural and linguistic differences. Throughout, man is viewed as a part of a process on which he is totally dependent, not simply as the dominant proprietor of the earth's resources. To understand the process, the parts of which it is composed are treated separately: the need for air, the need for water, the meaning of earth, the meaning of energy, and the process of living. The dramatic use of color in the graphics highlights the threats underlying natural processes. (BL)