There is no alternative. Defeat and death are not an alternative to working harder. It is infinitely better to fail while having tried to overcome than it is to concede defeat, give up, and lay down. The former is noble, and the latter cannot, and should not, be countenanced.
Join the fight. I am right now today building machines that grow more food on the same land. It's my day job. We don't have to work on adtech and digital casinos. We can win, we can have fun doing it, and we can be prosperous and happy.
You seem like you don't accept that nature is already critically depleted, that biodiversity is severely threatened (or you simply don't see its value), and that we're doing (as a species) too little too late too reluctantly to change the current "business as usual" approach to solving this problem.
I accept that I can't change your viewpoint here & now.
P.S. being alarmed is not hysteria, an opposite to optimism, or even defeatism.
Optimism is a must, I agree. But it should not stop us from searching for ways forward, it should not make us complacent, it should not limit the actions we could take.
You want to believe. I get it. I was there myself. But then you'll open your eyes, see that all that progress is just words and smoke and you'll stand on the corner with the sign: "the end is nigh".
<https://www.chrismadden.co.uk/cartoon-gallery/the-end-is-nig...>
Some links for complementing your viewpoint.
Protected areas:
<https://www.ecowatch.com/earth-environmental-protection-area...> How Much of Earth Is Currently Protected? - 17% land, 6% sea, "many protected and conserved areas are not demonstrating effectiveness"
Fish farming:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_farming#Issues> Fish farming - issues <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy> Seaspiracy
Hardwood:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Present-day> - (... in 2019 ...) a third of that loss, 3.8 million hectares, occurred within humid tropical primary forests, areas of mature rainforest that are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. That's the equivalent of losing an area of primary forest the size of a football pitch every six seconds