<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Joe Scalia’s criticism isn’t baseless. He does cite truths that need to be under close discussion<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’d largely fault his analysis for excluding a high-importance trend that accounts for, for example, just how damaging mountain biking can be. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">To cut to the chase, get to the point, how much damage would mountain biking do on a planet with just 10 people, or just 10,000 or even 10,000,000? </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Scalia’s not alone. Mora (2014) reviews “recent studies showing how the issue of population growth has been downplayed and trivialized among scientific fields.” </div><div class=""><div class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><br class=""></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">He argues that human population size, “...despite being directly or indirectly linked to the deterioration of ecological systems and a key factor for the success of conserving species and ecosystems, has been rarely considered and in fact ‘trivialized or ignored’ by much of the conservation biology community.” <br class=""><br class="">Mora, C. 2014. Revisiting the environmental and socioeconomic effects of population growth: a fundamental but fading issue in modern scientific, public, and political circles. Ecology and Society 19(1): 38. <br class=""><<<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06320-190138" class="">http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06320-190138</a>>></div></div>
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