What did the last Easter Islander say as he chopped down the last tree? The Easter Islanders didnt have anthropologists.

Federal elections happen every two years in this country. Presidential elections every four years. And four years just isn't long enough to dismantle all the environmental laws we've got in this country.

Eurasia ended up with the most domesticated animal species in part because it's the world's largest land mass and offered the most wild species to begin with.

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference.

Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices.

Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.