Overview

Every civilization in history has faced moments of overwhelming existential crises, and they all eventually collapsed. Was this failure inherent in the evolution of civilization, something within the human species, or a combination of both? More importantly, was it predictable and unavoidable? Most civilizations believed they had a special relationship with the divine and were beyond the laws of nature. Our current economic civilization is now global and interdependent. Today's economy is responsible for the most rapid mass extinction in Earth's history. We face imminent catastrophic climate change and environmental disruption, yet the same sense of exceptionalism and hubris clouds humanity's judgement and ability to act rationally. Environmental disruption is making the planet uninhabitable. No economy can consume its way out of scarcity. This law of nature conflicts with many longstanding economic theories. Sheltered and self-absorbed elitists promote lies and prey on humanity's most vulnerable instincts of pecking order, conformity, and obedience to authority. These primal instincts may be maladapted to civilization in its current form. Today's elitists are choosing mass extinction in a false belief in their own invincibility. To survive, humanity can no longer follow delusional leaders to self-destruction. In non-technical language, the author explores common phases in the development of past civilizations, and the critical junctures and decisions that made collapse inevitable. He investigates the linkages and contradictions between human social behavior, the economy, and the environment. In the closing pages, he identifies a clear path to redemption.

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"W. Douglas Smith is an environmental scientist with thirty years of field experience with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition to conducting hundreds of investigations, he wrote the most widely used EPA training manual and trained new inspectors and investigators for EPA and the National Enforcement Training Institute (NETI) in Denver, Colorado. He led multi-media teams that monitored regulatory compliance and ""environmental management systems"" under domestic and international operating standards. From 1996 to 2005, Mr. Smith served as the EPA liaison to the United Nations and the World Bank Institute. Together, they assisted nations in developing their own environmental protection programs. Mr. Smith also served on the Board of Directors for the Seattle chapter of the United Nations Foundation. Additionally, he owned an international adventure travel company for more than thirty years, which allowed him to explore numerous ancient civilizations, cultures, and remote regions around the world. His intimate experiences with environmental laws, multi-national corporation management systems, and the development of environmental programs provide him with a unique perspective on sustainability, human behavior and the multiple existential crises threatening today's global civilization."

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