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"That human populations can exert strains upon their natural surrounding is nothing
new. However, from the dawn of history until about thirty years ago, the impacts of
human activities were primarily localized. Early regional civilizations –
Mesopotamia in the Near East, Mohenjo Daro in Southwest Asia, the Mayans of
Central America, possibly the Anasazi in the southwest of what is now the United
States – collapsed due to a likely combination of overpopulation and scarcity or
depletion of arable land and water supply. In some places, archaeologists have
found evidence of adverse environmental effects caused by deforestation and by
gradual salinization of irrigated land. The final blow may have been a regional
climate change: a succession of unusual dry years, probably ascribed by local
spiritual leaders to angry or capricious gods. Many centuries before the Aswan
High Dam, Herodotus wrote of salinization in the Nile Delta. Much later, rapid
industrialization in Europe and North America was accompanied by severe local
pollution of air and water." (excerpt)
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