Superstorm Sandy, People, and the Five Elements

Just a little thought regarding Five Element (Phase) Theory in light of Hurricane Sandy.
Sandy, as everyone already knows, wreaked untold havoc on the east coast, especially the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. I'm not going to go into the damage here, as that information is easily found elsewhere. I do want to talk about something that came out in conversation while walking around the city today.
At the entrance to Fort Tryon Park, a woman and I got to talking about trees that came down. During the course of the conversation, it struck me how accurate the Chinese were in formulating Five Element theory. Wood indeed controls Earth, by rooting into it and securing it. Water indeed controls Water, by forming natural berms and dams that channel it. Water indeed controls fire but extinguishing it or lowering heat, one of the three legs of the fire stool (the others being fuel and oxygen). Fire indeed controls metal by melting. Metal controls Wood by cutting.
This is the controlling, or ke cycle. The flip-side is the engendering, or sheng, cycle: Wood begets Fire by fuel (there's that stool again). Fire begets Earth by converting Wood to ash. Earth begets Metal by virtue of ores found in the Earth. Metal begets water, mostly in this case by condensation. Water begets Wood, by nourishing trees.
These Five Elements are always seeking to balance each other, in much the same way that the body seeks homeostasis. There is nothing static. Therefore, if there is a disturbance in the system, the system will look to balance itself. Always. If the system is, however, is always being disturbed, then it will always seek to balance itself to the point of running amok.
This is happening now, with out climate. What we have is a case of Metal over-controlling Wood. How? Axes, chainsaws, earthmovers; all the Metal accouterments of modern civilization. With this disruption, the system (Earth, or Gaia) is now looking to balance itself. The result? Weather run amok; Earth is eroding and sliding into the sea; Fire is rampant, adding heat to the seas and with this energy, Water has new-found force, with little to counter-balance it.
We love Metal. It's in everything that we identify with in the modern world; jewelry, cars, iPhones, Blackberries, our homes. Everything. Metal, the Son, is running rampant and drawing way, way too much on Earth, the Mother. But that's because we are drawing far too much on our Mother, making demands on her that go way beyond her ability to balance out what we are asking.
We as people have to recognize that we, contrary to what it says in some doofy book, are not masters of all that we survey. We are a part of this world just as much as any tree, rock, bird, fish, dog, pig. We are not apart from, but part and parcel with all that we see. It's incumbent on us, then, to take care of, and be mindful towards, the others who inhabit this rock with us. Because if we are not mindful of this green paradise, it can very well turn against us. And we have nowhere else to go.