If we go to the root of the present ecological crisis we will find a state of disconnection. We appear frighteningly disconnected from real awareness of the effects of our materialistic culture upon the very ecosystem that supports us. The challenge is to develop a value-based economic structure, that is not concerned solely with our material well-being, but embraces the whole human being – body and spirit – as well as the rich biodiversity of the Earth.
A 1996 study found that long exposure to normal levels of indoor lighting can reset the human biological clock, which implies that many people in industrialized countries may be continuously sleep-deprived, and so in a permanent state of jet lag-like tiredness. Brighter light resets the biological clock more quickly than does ambient light, and may be more useful for treating this jet lag -like tiredness and shift work. Lower light might require more time to take effect.
The accelerated time frames of industrialized societies separate people from the rhythms of nature, distancing them from the periodicities that make up the many physiological time worlds of the biosphere. Humanity has developed an artificial time environment governed by mechanical contrivances and electronic impulses. This linear form of time is quantitative, fast-paced, efficient and predictable.
Isolation from nature is not just a matter of living in cities. Even more important, it involves a momentous change in man's outlook on the world. Men do not simply coexist with nature; they search for meaning in it. All religions in their integrative functions and rituals explain and support the basic solidarity between man and nature. Such beliefs help create and sustain the bond between man and the external world.
Humanity has developed new insights by separating itself from nature's biological clocks. This detailed knowledge has been gained at the price of increasing distance from the rest of creation and the rhythms of intimate temporal participation. The perspective gained has been at the price of each person's loss of contact with the ground of his temporal being. Increased understanding of nature has been accompanied by a self-imposed exile from biological time. People are unable to experience any close connection with rhythms of the planet. Human time is no longer related to that of the tides, to the movement of the sun and moon, or to the changing seasons. If a more empathetic relationship to nature is to be achieved, and life is to be resacralized, then time itself must be resacralized through understanding the natural rhythms of people and accepting the inherent pace, tempo and duration of the natural world. The rhythms by which nature produces and recycles have been so utterly taxed by the dictates of economic efficiency and speed requirements that the planetary ecosystems are no longer capable of renewing resources as fast as they are being depleted, or recycling waste as fast as it is discarded.