I don't know why ecological stress is so rarely traced back to population size, outside of "debunkings" of Malthusianism.
Edit due to rate limit: One of the replies claims the US has a positive natural growth rate. This is false - US fertility is currently at 1.78 births/woman. The last time it was above the replacement level of 2.1 was in 1972, 49 years ago:
Edit 2: As dragonwriter pointed out, I was mistaken and both are true - fertility is below replacement, and natural population growth (birth - deaths) is positive. I think this is due to population aging, and due to immigrants skewing younger (i.e. childbearing age): https://cis.org/Report/Birth-Rates-Among-Immigrants-America
I don't know why ecological stress is so rarely traced back to population size, outside of "debunkings" of Malthusianism.
Edit due to rate limit: One of the replies claims the US has a positive natural growth rate. This is false - US fertility is currently at 1.78 births/woman. The last time it was above the replacement level of 2.1 was in 1972, 49 years ago:
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert...
Edit 2: As dragonwriter pointed out, I was mistaken and both are true - fertility is below replacement, and natural population growth (birth - deaths) is positive. I think this is due to population aging, and due to immigrants skewing younger (i.e. childbearing age): https://cis.org/Report/Birth-Rates-Among-Immigrants-America