ABSTRACT
Standing in the way of human and social development, however, is the endangered condition of the resource base upon which such development ultimately depends. Extinction of kinds of plants and animals, mainly through destruction of their habitats, is an irreversible loss. A social and biological loss, this diminishment of the potential of life on earth is not a kind of pollution for which people can find a set of control strategies and technical repair fixes once the political will to do so becomes established. The situation of Costa Rica illustrates the process in which "development" leads to environmental degradation and ultimately threatens to destroy itself. Studies of the forest industry forecast deficits in domestic roundwood and woodfiber within a decade. Totalitarian controlled and centralized large social experiments have also contributed to human suffering. Massive global environmental degradation seems likely now, as in the past, to be accompanied by restriction of alternatives, losses of freedoms, and by cultural decadence.
