Time, like space, is increasingly perceived as a scarce resource which must be manipulated in ever more sophisticated ways to shape and mould the life of society for its greater well-being. Whilst the increases in efficiency of the industrialization process have resulted in short-term material benefits, the long-term psychic and environmental damage has outstripped whatever temporary gains might have been wrought by the fanatical obsession with speed at all costs. The artificial temporal environments created by this process, and the accelerated pace of life within them, increase the separation of man from the rhythms of nature and from the tempo at which nature is able to recycle wastes and renew basic resources.