We can rail all we want about consumption, industry, wilderness, attitudes, etc....

We can pretend that the space program is the principal relavant detail regarding our future course (its not, and I say that as an advocate of the space program).

We are principally concerned with our own survival, and therin lies the principal problem. We believe that having children is good, that living long is good, that having plenty to eat is good, and having to work less hard is good. As long as we continue to see human life and happiness as the principal value, and thus continue to work toward prolonging life, having children, etc, then our population will continue to grow. Especially in rural/agrarian cultures where children are critical to a family's productivity, and large families are therefore needed.

The preservation and restoration of the "wilderness" of which Thoreau spoke will not come about by recycling, solar power, attitude shifts about consumption or anything like that. The thing that has to happen is massive reduction not only in the growth of the population, but a massive reduction in the human population, with a concurrent reduction in what we typically call 'The quality of life'. What does that mean? In short, it means death, and plenty of it. It means reduction in the life span, increased infant mortality, and especially a reduction in the number of people of childbearing age. Men, women and children must die in large numbers, and soon. The questions are: who, how & where? The answer to the first is, it has to happen to everyone, the answer to the second is 'any way possible', the answer to the third is everywhere.

Then, and only then, will attitude changes, and policy make a significant long term difference.

I'm not speaking as an advocate of such a thing. Just saying that population reduction has become the price of wilderness restoration, and that such a reduction will come at a price of human suffering that most of us are unable to contemplate.