Environmentalism became political in the 1970s.
Nothing can be trusted.
The era of rational and pragmatic environmental consideration ended with bullshit like Silent Spring and DDT, the EPA’s first major act of regulating and entirely based on public perceptions and junk science.
Today, environmentalism is more about pushing ulterior motives that always come back to making someone very wealthy or put them in power. Even business has to some degree learned to exploit this nonsense with EV’s (which are NOT environmental at all - they are horrible, worse than an efficient compact car), carbon offsets, or forcing people to buy new refrigerants, AC units... Were it not for massive federal, state and local government helping, where would Tesla be today?
Starting in the 1970s, MOST environmentalism eventually turned out to be a slogan, a fad, a social movement that has an economic and political agenda behind it, but accomplished little to nothing for the environment. In some cases, as with paper and glass recycling, it is actually counterproductive, i.e. produces MORE pollution.
The ozone hole, rain forest, coming ice age, DDT, save the whales, spotted owls, polar bears, baby seals (often white fluffy animals because it’s all about “science”), acid rain, deforestation, to much trash, running out of potable water, global warming rebranded now to climate change (can’t be wrong now)...
It’s a very long list of junk science and really bad policy making.
Richard Nixon should have never created the EPA.
Absolutely NO ecology / environmental sciences / environmental biology department at any university will get even a penny in Government or private foundation money to come to a conclusion there are no major problems with Wetlands.