I often hear Europeans make sweeping judgements about the US that reflect a lack of understanding of the country and continent. In part I think this is because most visitors from abroad only travel to NYC, SF, or LA, which are great cities, but not representative of the majority of the country.

Incredible as this may sound, around half of the US land area is completely uninhabited. Fully 1/3 of the land is owned by the federal government, and most of this is managed with environmental considerations at the forefront. The only part of the US that is even vaguely like European population density is the northeast corridor from Boston to DC, which represents a small percentage of the country.

People in the US care a lot about the environment, but the issue has been politicized of course and pits different factions against each other. We also have a housing crisis, and it’s very difficult to get humans to worry about saving anything else when they can’t get a roof over their head.

The US has myriad environmental problems and needs to do better, but it also has a very different situation on the ground compared to Europe, and thus requires different approaches in some areas.