ABSTRACT
The old Chinese proverb certainly applies to modern civilization and its relationship to world resources that support it. Evidence abounds that humans are degrading the Earth life support system upon which they depend for their existence. The emission to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is almost certainly causing global warming. Discharge of pollutants has degraded the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the geosphere in industrialized areas. Natural resources including minerals, fossil fuels, freshwater, and biomass have become stressed and depleted. The productivity of agricultural land has been diminished by water and soil erosion, deforestation, desertifi cation, contamination, and conversion to nonagricultural uses. Wildlife habitats including woodlands, grasslands, estuaries, and wetlands have been destroyed or damaged. About 3 billion people (half of the world’s population) live in dire poverty on less than the equivalent of U.S. $2 per day. The majority of these people lack access to sanitary sewers and the conditions under which they live give rise to debilitating viral, bacterial, and protozoal diseases. At the other end of the standard of living scale, a relatively small fraction of the world’s population consumes an inordinate amount of resources with lifestyles that involve living too far from where they work in energy-wasting houses that are far larger than they need, commuting long distances in large “sport-utility vehicles” that consume far too much fuel, and overeating to the point of unhealthy obesity with accompanying problems of heart disease, diabetes, and other obesity-related maladies.
