As we observe the world around us today, signs of deterioration and symptoms of degeneration are everywhere evident. We are engulfed by a concatenation of interrelated crises; crises in energy, crises in the global water-balance, crises in agriculture and, worst of all, crises in Nature herself. Wherever we look, things are not going nearly as well as we have been led to believe. The downward spiral of disintegration seems to be accelerating at an alarming rate, with few if any really concrete proposals or action being implemented to arrest it.