The essays in the first volume of the Phenomenology of Biocatastrophe publication series explore the impact of complex western market economies on the biodiversity and productivity of natural ecosystems, with emphasis on the evolution of industrial society and the resulting contamination of the atmospheric water cycle with anthropogenic ecotoxins. Topics include the biohistory of human civilization, cataclysmic climate change, chemical fallout, the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria, the proliferation of pharmaceutical wastes, and the development of genetically modified organisms. Also discussed are the social, political, economic, and public safety components of biocatastrophe, including the spectacular increase in national and world debt in the Reaganomics era (1981-2008) and the role of the shadow banking network in the ongoing collapse of global consumer society.