The United Nations “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report” published in March of 2005 detailed some disturbing conclusions. Produced by 1,360 of our leading scientists from 95 countries the report’s core findings can’t help but alarm us. The report found that over the last half century, humans have polluted or over-exploited two-thirds of the earth’s ecological systems on which life depends, dramatically increasing the potential for unprecedented and abrupt ecological collapses. And the report determined that most of these ecosystem damages were the direct or indirect result of changes made to meet growing demands for ecosystem services---in particular the growing demands for food, water, timber, fiber and fuel.