If there were one motto that everyone should be required to contemplate, it's this one.
When they discover that we have tried fairly hard to reduce our footprint on the planet, people generally get apologetic and explanatory (as if I want to hear their excuses! but I try to be nice).
Generally there are two big strategic points - "Thing are fine, because he Earth is so big that humans can't really change it," and. "It doesn't make a difference, because we're doomed."
What really rots me is in the last five years, I've met a lot of people who start with, "Things are fine," but the moment any evidence is trotted out, they fold like a cheap suit and immediately jump to, "We're all doomed" - right from denial to despair, conveniently skipping over the "action" part.
This is wrong. A better world *is* possible.