Another agricultural trend of growing concern is the increased nutrient content of coastal waters resulting from fertilizer runoff in agricultural regions. Augmented by urban sewage discharge in some situations, this results in huge algal blooms, which, as they die and decay, deplete the oxygen content in the water, leading to the death of the fish.

Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance.

The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.

The foundation is being laid for the emergence of both wind and solar cells as cornerstones of the new energy economy.

Humanity's greatest challenge may soon be just making it to the next harvest.

The problem with water, though, is that the shortfalls don't show up until the very end. You can go on pumping unsustainably until the day you run out. Then all you have is the recharge flow, which comes from precipitation. This is not decades away, this is years away. We're already seeing huge shortages in China, where the Yellow River runs dry for part of each year. The Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization. It first failed to reach the sea in 1972, and since 1985 it's run dry for part of each year. For 1997 it was dry for 226 days.

Socialism failed because it couldn't tell the economic truth. Capitalism may fail because it couldn't tell the ecological truth.