Anyway, I'm going to put down the screen and go outside and look at the dark starry sky now.

Your irritation is irrational; the group you are talking about is not coherent and it also exists where you live. I agree with you that there are choices being made that makes nature so much worse. I've always been a cityslicker with relatives on farms, my view of those that move in their circles they are a lot more pro destroy the nature.

If you are just talking about the privileges of nature from living in far out suburbs or country side, then I might be inclined to put you in the same category. I won't because our situation will be so different and it would be irrational to make you an enemy without knowing what your situation actualy is.

That has been my sad experience too. I live in a beautiful place. Lack of services keep most people away, but as more people seek to enjoy nature, it gets trashed. I used to go on walks and things were clean, now I can fill a small bag with trash.

There are some local attractions that the world should see, but the locations are not shared online for fear they will be trashed. Those fears are not unfounded.

As for the dark, starry sky - just last night I looked out my window at a cold, clear night and all the stars. It is our there, but who wants to live in a place with spotty cell service, no trash service, a few small restaurants and abundant cold weather?

If anything, I'd say nature is finding its way back to city and town centers. Or is this an exaggeration, wishful thinking? Let's think about "everyone's nature conservation" and other similar memes. Recreational areas in towns seem to be greener and way better thought out in my country than they were some 20 years ago, etc.

It's a different, more exhausted planet than some decades ago, but current 20+ generation is clearly acting towards preserving and reincarnating nature as much as they can.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/urban-and-rural-populatio...

I think it's probably deliberately appealing to people who are miserable and feel helpless to change their lives by, say, leaving their city for a rural life.

Not that it's helping them, but it's addressing them.

The reasons why it's impossible to move to a rural area and be done with it are left unstated.

There are a lot of hot spots on this map:

* https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

For the US, one-third of the population lives in coastal counties:

* https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/07/millions-of-a...

Two-thirds of the US population lives within 100mi (160km) of the border:

* https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

While I haven't been engaged in amateur astronomy for a long time, I vaguely remember an event/meeting years ago that was not that far out in the country, and just a few miles/minutes travel away from the "strip malls" made a huge difference. Northern lights were visible and I think the Milky Way.

I have been out west where it is really dark, so whether or not my recollection is accurate, I do know what undisputedly dark skies are like.

It's about 180 km (110 miles) to merely get into a light blue spot for me, and it's actually a quite short distance compared to country's average.