ABSTRACT
Economic expansionists often argue that environmentalists exaggerate the human impact on earth. After all, humans are increasingly an urban species and cities occupy only 2 to 3 per cent of earth's land area; the entire human population could live in the US state of Texas in single-family dwellings with room to spare! Some economists even suggest that humanity's impact may actually be shrinking as people get richer and the economy ‘dematerializes’ or ‘decouples’ from nature.
