During 7000B.C. Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations consisted of productive forests and grasslands. As each generation passed elaborate networks of irrigation canals filled with sediment from deforestation, soil erosion, salt build up in irrigated soils and overgrazing. By 3000B.C. most of this land had turned into barren desert, which is now where Iran and Iraq is today. Around the Mediterranean Sea and in Saharan Africa the remains of cities are now buried in sand due to severe environmental degradation.

The great Mayan civilization in Central America, which peaked in A.D.800, collapsed once its agricultural base failed after they depleted the soil that once supported their civilization. The same problem is now being repeated as industrialized societies intensify existing resources and environmental problems, and thus creating new problems.

When European colonists began settling continents they found seemingly abundant and inexhaustible supplies of timber, fertile soil, wildlife, minerals and other resources they could harvest for their own use and export to Europe. Settlers viewed the continents as hostile wilderness, able to be conquered and cleared. There was incredible resource waste and little thought for future resource needs. They believed that the forests and wildlife would last forever and that they had the right to do with it what they pleased. As for the native populations, well.....