We need the humbleness and clarity to see that our food, while benefitting from technological advances, has benefitted even more from free ecological resources: Cheap energy, lots of water everywhere, and a stable climate.

If you look at the carrying capacity of agricultural areas throughout the world, their ecological habitats are changing. So I think we're looking at - in our lifetime - great collapses of food services.

Some global hazards are insidious. They stem from pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources. And they will be aggravated as the population rises to a projected nine billion by mid-century, and by the effects of climate change. An 'ecological shock' could irreversibly degrade our environment.

but based on solid technological advances.

The way you can go to Paris or Beijing and everywhere there's a McDonald's hamburger, this is the ecological quivalent of franchised life-forms. Every place is the same place. Kudzu. Zebra Mussels. Water Hyacinths. Starlings. Burger Kings.The local natives, anything unique gets squeezed out.The only biodiversity we're going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi.We're landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time.

Yet, despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems, including global climate change, energy dependence on unsustainable fossil fuels, and loss of biodiversity.