ABSTRACT
Every crisis in today’s world—whether social or environmental—is a historical archive of human choices, decisions, legal opinions, subsequent actions, and compounding consequences, including those of yesterday. Despite all the evidence before us, we keep making the same types of unwise social-environmental decisions, staunchly defended by legal opinions that ignore the myriad volumes of historical evidence depicting their dire consequences. Each time we expect a new and different outcome. We humans face a growing cataclysm of suffering, not the least of which is caused by ideological strife, with its wanton destruction of irreplaceable resources, and the growing threat of global warming. Yet, those rare individuals who make decisions that would, in fact, further the social-environmental well-being of humanity and the Earth are too often thwarted through the political/legal system by the socially powerful minority who are afraid of losing their economic advantages.
