I remember studying this chart in biology classes in secondary school, how bacteria in a nutrient rich test tube will explode in population but the growth phase will taper off and eventually a mass die off will unsue because all the nutrients would have been used up and toxic waste would have built up to a lethal level in a limited environment.
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Aren't we humans in the same situation? Only on a grander scale? Our earth resources are limited, and our population is growing like crazy.
Right now, we are all in the growth phase, being happy and feeling rich with all the seemingly unlimited products and services we are able to buy.
It may or may not be in our lifetime that a catastrophic mass die off of humans will happen but the signs are all there to show us we are trashing our environment like there is no tomorow. We are definately trading our species future for the economic success we are having now.

Today's star
Fouling our world
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?...6&sec=lifefocus

Where your plastic waste are ending up...
Digging into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/digging...-143049093.html

It's a dilemma for all of us. We all want to be successful. We(or at least, a lot of us) want to have children to have a happy family. Governments want to have economic growth. We all want better products and better services. We build and build, make and make.
In the end, the more consumption we have, the more guilty we are, actually, at destroying our natural world.
We, as consumers of products and services, are actually the pay masters of all the forest clearing, logging and digging to build more and more roads, houses, malls, factories, airports, sports arenas etc etc to satisfy our unending desires.

At the most fundamental level, it seems the best way to prevent future destruction to our environment is to stop breeding like mad. And to reduce consumption. Yet, governments, as well as practically everybody, will not want that to happen because that would mean a recession because growth itself supports tons of industries.

It seems we, as humans, have no choice but to drive ourselves eventually to an inevitable end.