The Green Movement, which started nearly twenty-five years ago, has gripped the imagination of the entire human race. In 1972 the world's first nationwide Green party was founded in New Zealand. We have shifted from a mechanistic view to a holistic and ecological view of the world, a shift as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus. For the first time there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living organism, with its own vital processes that must be respected and preserved. The phrase describing the earth as 'a living organism' chiefly conveys that the earth: