Seeing Three Circles: A Fundamental Failure of Environmental Vision

Seeing Three Circles

3 circle image:
society
economy
environment
Usually seen as equal overlapping circles with a 
sweet spot
in the middle

3 circle reality:
environment
society
economy
smallest circle economy inside
smaller circle society inside
largest circle environment

Once upon a time,
some MIT enviro scientists
were in Nepal & commissioned
a mandala
It was the usual 3 circles 
all the same size
overlapping in the middle

I asked them why they didn't use
the 3 circle reality

The speaker said they considered it
but liked the usual Venn diagram better

8/28/23

Seems to me this confusion between the image where two human concerns, society and economy, are equivalent to all the rest of entire world and the reality where human economy is smaller than human society and human society is merely a subset of the entire world is the central difficulty in understanding the biosphere and our human place within it.  

The three equal circles overlapping in the center is a design known as the Borromean Rings and is the logo for Ballantine Beer.