Kendal and Bill D, be assured the problem is NOT over-population. Anyway,your problem seems not to be how many people there are, but what they do. And OK, they chop trees and kill elephants, in their relatively impoverished countries, but they'd have done it in N America too if trees and elephants had got in the way. I mean people got in the way, and look what happened to them.

Your anxiety may just be recognition that if even half the world caught up with PRESENT (it's a moving target) USA extravagance, the planet would be fucked. (Well humankind anyway; good post Clinton!) The answer is not to cull the wannabees but for the richest countries to set a better lead.

The reason that's not going to happen? Short-termism. This is the real root of all our evils, and I bet it's this that inflamed and frustrated our flaming guest. No-one in authority can afford to act long-term. Any who try will just get blown away. Only two words count. Me. Now. The USA is just a product of this - not the cause.

But trying to justify the USA on the basis of what smaller, poorer nations do is going to sound to every other nation on earth like the states is in denial. There's no prospect whatsoever of change until the USA can heed its own governmental reports and admit it's on the wrong track.