Most Venn (bubble) diagrams relating Environment, Society and Economy look something like this:

Source: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/oml631csgjs7/xhrhmn/sustainability2.jpg

But, while convenient for identifying important conceptual interlinkages, there are some very obvious difficulties when it comes to representing Reality for decision-making...

For example, Society (human culture) cannot actually exist outside the Environment, and an Economy (trade) does not exist without the Environment (for materials) or Society (to give it meaning).  

However, the first diagram has increased an implicit modern misperception that "We do not need the Environment (at least a local one) to survive".  So it represents how we tend to behave and make decisions - separately and unsustainably - unconsciously relying upon resources from further and further away for survival and, beyond that, to thrive at the expense of others (in 1990, about 8 people suffered for each 1 person thriving - currently that number may be as high as 20 to 1 - and growing).

A more physically accurate image might look something like this, developed at least by the early 90's in Cambridge, UK, but without the same level of popularity, partly because it does not illustrate the linkages:

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Nested_sustainability...

Next: REFER to coming BLOG entry entitled :

Economic Policies & Human-caused Changes in Environment leading to "Smaller Earth" (less availability of fewer total resources)