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In the past two hundred years, the world has changed profoundly.  With the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the world has witnessed an explosion in the numbers of fossil fuel consuming machines.  Something dramatic happened when you consider that in the year 1890 there were no automobiles on the road, but a hundred years later literally a billion cars belched carbon into the air.  Humans have grown accustomed to incredibly high levels of consumption, an unprecedented break from eons of human tradition. Population has also exploded, which, when combined with our vastly expanded appetites, has produced cities of gargantuan size, overwhelming millions of acres of once fertile land with concrete. Complex industries polluted the natural environment with heavy metals and toxic chemicals, the consequences of which we still deal with today.  Some hope the Information Age industries will place less stress on the environment, but as billions of discarded computers clog landfills, we being to wonder if the world will ever regain a balance without deliberate human action.  Some thoughtful people have gone so far as to redefine what a nation's security is, and believe it is as much 'natural' security as it is military (see Center for New American Security and its division, "Natural Security").  After a two century experiment with Industrialization, the key to sustainability seems clear:  a shift back to a more natural way of life.