So we're going to save our planet by "going green." Unfortunately, it's only going to prolong the problem.

Even if we survive — or halt — global warming. Even if we survive the end of fossil fuels, the demands our huge human population is making on the biosphere will be our undoing.

With increasing numbers of people wanting to enjoy living the consumer economy — wanting to live how, when and where they want; wanting to recreate where, when and how they want — their demands are increasingly destroying the worldwide environment.

Forests and rain forests are being cleared; oceans are being overfished and polluted; other species, denied their habitats, are being brought to extinction.

This trend, of course, can be reversed, but the cost of doing so is prohibitive. And for each year we don't try, the cost rises considerably.