‘Full of talking heads saying there are too many people on the planet, endangering wildlife, habitats, ecosystems, what-have-you.’
if you were to take a bird’s eye view of a typical suburban sprawl in a typical affluent area, with its attendant automobile gridlock, you’d get an idea of what they are saying...of course, they go off the rails by recommending forced reductions of populations...
I agree with the problem, just not with their solution.
Most people who complain or are concerned about overcrowding live in overcrowded areas.
I visited Southern California not too long ago. The beach sand was filthy. You could see drilling rigs offshore. There were oil pumps in shopping center parking lots. The air was smoggy. No wonder Californians think we are killing the earth, they have made a mess of their corner of it.
Just a few hours drive east and you are in open, beautiful areas. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles.
I am not advocating raping the Earth, we need to be good stewards, but to claim that we are overcrowded is alarmist and silly. We are bunched together because we want to be bunched together. We want to be close to shopping, close to schools, close to hospitals, close to our jobs. When everyone wants to be close to everything, you get population density.
I was amazed when I discovered that the population of Broward County, where I moved from, is about the same as the population of New Mexico, where I moved to.