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nitpick: I think almost every single country has irreplaceable natural beauty.

It is incredibly sad that the US has come to this though. Yet another example of the country self-harming in ways that will leave permanent scarring.

A quote I've repeated before: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment".

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I haven't studied this but isn't it the case that England basically completely transformed their ecosystem over time? Like there are essentially no parts of it that look like they did before humans arrived.

Personally, I'm a big believer in upscale cities massively and leave lots of nature. Like Hong Kong.

Many areas for sure, although there is the Lake District, the coasts of Cornwall, and so on which are fairly untransformed, so to speak. Looking at Great Britain overall, the Scottish Highlands of course come to mind, as well. I think your overall point stands though, farmlands and villages which are regarded as positive through the romantic lens nowadays are of course a man-made change to the whole ecosystem.

There is hardly any wilderness left in Europe.

There are many, many places of natural beauty. They've actually contained suburban sprawl better than the US. It doesn't have a lot of completely trackless zones the way the US does, but places like the Alps and the Scottish Highlands are quite pristine.

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