Choices made as to how natures resources utilized can be independent of population size. As example compare the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans there no separate Countries per se but after the Colonialists got through with the Island, it was divided into two Countries.

Satellite images could not be more telling when one looks at them. The forest that once covered the entire Island stops abruptly at the border with the Dominican Republic side still green and Haiti much more heavily deforested. Forests remaining In Haiti are de-fragmented and root causes of this while tied to different climates (Haiti gets less rain) are also linked to how the lands were exploited in the past.

Jared Diamond pointed out in his book collapse that the French turned Haiti over completely to agriculture while the Spanish all but ignored their half of the island. Added to this there was more private ownership of land in Haiti with the corresponding mindset of “This is MINE and I can do what I want with it”.

Doing SOMETHING to mitigate the damage to our ecosystems need not be overly complex. It has been in our POWER to make these changes for a long time. It the inertia of the system and the drive for growth and profits at the expense of these ecosystems that is the single largest problem. This in turn tells us why nothing has been done and nothing being done. Profits and growth are what the system called Capitalism built upon and Capitalism by design intended to serve the 1 percent.

The 1 percent has all the wealth and the 1 percent has all the power. The 1 percent are shielded from the direct consequences of their actions more then any other group. It will catch them in the end but given they love only money they already speak of building sanctuaries for themselves be it on the moon or mars, in South America or New Zealand or downloading their minds into some computer.