It is a defeatist sentiment in many ways, but we actually are in a more dismal place environmentally than we can afford to be. It's not even 'if we continue at our present rate there will be serious consequences' any more. There will be serious consequences if we cut our rate of consumption in half. And we're not going to do that.

I'm at work right now, so I'm going to be loose with sources, but while there are some interesting and hopeful advances on the horizon (the Tesla Roadster comes to mind) we are in a bleak place. We produce more trash than we can afford by far. And defeatist or not, it's a biological inevitability that species reach a plateau in their environment after they grow to saturation. While humans have certainly done a lot to extend what "their environment" means, there is no free lunch. There is no infinite energy supply. Entropy increases. A human plateau doesn't mean a slow decrease in population. It means mass starvation, increased aggression. It means a whole lotta trouble.

I think the most amazing quote from the article was:

“Romanticizing the past” is a familiar accusation, made mostly by people who think it is more grown-up to romanticize the future.

What a succinct way to describe the dream of infinite progress.