W. Douglas Smith is an environmental scientist with thirty years of field experience with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In addition to conducting hundreds of investigations, he wrote the most widely used EPA training manual and trained new inspectors and investigators for EPA and the National Enforcement Training Institute (NETI) in Denver, Colorado. He led multi-media teams that monitored regulatory compliance and "environmental management systems" under domestic and international operating standards. From 1996 to 2005, Mr. Smith served as the EPA liaison to the United Nations and the World Bank Institute. Together, they assisted nations in developing their own environmental protection programs. Mr. Smith also served on the Board of Directors for the Seattle chapter of the United Nations Foundation. Additionally, he owned an international adventure travel company for more than thirty years, which allowed him to explore numerous ancient civilizations, cultures, and remote regions around the world. His intimate experiences with environmental laws, multi-national corporation management systems, and the development of environmental programs provide him with a unique perspective on sustainability, human behavior and the multiple existential crises threatening today's global civilization.