Peter Wendell wrote:
 I bet that if were to multiply our
> respective populations by the appropriate number we would find that the 250
> million inhabitants of the US have a much larger environmental impact that
> the 1.2 billion or so inhabitants of India and Bangledesh.

Measured only in energy, I agree, but measured in other ways, such as
pollution of water or air, soil loss, forest and wildlife lost, etc. I
don't think so. All of the heavily populated western nations have
gotten considerably
cleaner in the last few decades. If we compare them with the old nasty
socialist economies of Eastern Europe, we use a lot more energy but
produce a lot less pollution. The same is true of third world nations.
Only the most low populated areas of the third world are maintaining
wild animal levels. Anywhere with many people is losing them, with few exceptions.

I don't know if you have traveled much in the third world, but the
differences are shockingly clear. Rivers are filthy, air anywhere near
a city is filthy, the countryside, while picturesque, is severely
mistreated. We certainly have our blind spots and short comings in the
West, but this is one area we are moving in the right direction. I
believe, hope that the third world will be able to avoid the worst
that the west went through in the twentieth century. We now can not
deny many of the effects of our actions.