Noted engineer and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller (1895– 1983) once predicted that people would increasingly realize that the earth’s biosphere is humanity’s only “life-support system,” bringing a new sense of stewardship to planet Earth and its resources. Indeed, whether the biosphere can safely bear increased human development and population growth has become the subject of much debate.

For most of human history, a virtually pristine environment could withstand the effects of the earth’s sparse population. But as the population began to grow rapidly, so too did stress on the environment. Following unprecedented increases in population growth (to 5.5 billion) and industrialization during the twentieth century, many experts began to warn that human activities were leading to an environmental apocalypse. They believed that this environmental disaster—including global warming and ozone depletion—would...