They make places like Chernobyl and Fukushima look desirable.

"Factory farm" meat and dairy production is ugly too. It's one of the reasons I'm mostly vegetarian.

But I'm also a hypocrite. We've got dogs we've adopted from the animal shelter. I don't expect our dogs to be vegetarian but I could never afford to feed them carefully sourced meat. One of the dogs is a born pig hunter, but I'm not willing to hunt pigs. Sorry dogs, you get to eat what chicken parts are left over when they turn chickens into McNuggets or fish into fish patties.

One of my nieces has been doing research similar to Sean Maxwell's. She's been comparing more traditional agricultural practices to modern more "productive" agriculture. Traditional agriculture is far less damaging to native species than high intensity high-herbicide-insecticide-fertilizer-flatten-everything farming and suburbia. Old-style farming, and old style residential areas, leave some land undisturbed; ditches, rocky fields, vacant lots, forested places, wetlands, and so on.

Factory farming uses every square meter of land. Everything is cleared and flattened, leaving no place for biological diversity. Affluent suburbs are hardly any better. Green front lawns and commercially maintained landscapes are dead zones.

I'll say it again, "Economic Productivity" as we now define it is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

The very first sentence sums up the situation consisely and accurately:

Global climate change, including sea-level rise, drought and extreme heat, is no doubt taking a toll on our planet ― but it’s far from the biggest threat humans have imposed on Earth’s plant and animal species.

I worry that the energy being expended on fighting climate change is taking resources away from other more important problems.