I agree that we’re on the verge of a population doubling, but I do not agree that that is the reason behind much of environmental legislation. That certainly is tendered as a reason,however. Fact is, the net change for development land use in this country is not all that large compared to the total acres that could be used. The pressure is in a few large urban centers in each state. The drivers behind regulation are international treaties on the environment and the global loyalties of our “leadership.”
In the last few decades, the air, water and soils in America have gotten measurably cleaner with each passing year. Further, we produce more food with less land each year. Our forests, despite cutting, have produced more biomass than was lost every year since WWII. We have 72% of the forested acres (not the same ones) that were here when Columbus landed. All, with increasing population and their material demands.
No, the de facto control of your land is courtesy of something the Founders feared and hated - well meaning authority run amok.
Have you considered the water needs of the Los Angeles basin and Las Vegas? have you seen the New Jersey shore and Barnegat Bay which once used to be pristine wilderness? Have you tried to drive your car anywhere in Northern Virginia in under an hour? have you tried to get a camping place in Yellowstone?
Your statistics are of interest but I prefer the evidence of my own eyes.
There is a saying in the Rocky Mountains, "definition of a developer: someone who wants to build his cabin in the mountains; definition of a conservationist: someone who built his cabin last year."
When the population of America doubled in my lifetime from 140 million to 300 million or more, the pressure on the land more than doubled and regulations are not only inevitable but indispensable and desirable. We do not have clean rivers and water in America except by regulation. Industrial polluters did not have an epiphany and join hands with everyone to sing kumbaya.
It is not only the amount of people that stresses the environment but the way we live. We travel more and we use more waterby way of two examples. The land we want is in the rich and productive valleys, and on desirable beaches and around harbors where commerce can flourish. It is now gotten to the point where we are eating much less desirable land in the deserts heedless of future generations' needs for water.
My point is that winging about overreaching bureaucrats and mindless regulations is a losing battle in our population environment simply because people will accept the evidence of their own eyes and vote to regulate their neighbors in their own self interests.
