Easter Island, located in the Pacific Ocean, was settled by Polynesians approximately 1,500 years ago. They developed an agricultural society that supported an estimated population of seven thousand people. Their culture included technology that enabled the people to carve enormous stone statues on one side of the island and move them to the other side. However, by the time Europeans reached the island in the 1600s, only the statues remained. Archaeologists theorize that as the population expanded, deforestation and soil erosion caused a massive drop in food supplies, causing the Easter Islanders’ civilization to collapse and disappear.

Lester Brown and Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute assert that humankind, by depleting such natural resources as clean air and water, runs the risk of replaying the Easter Island experience on a global scale.

As an isolated territory that could not turn elsewhere for...