Humans are a force of nature.
As nations develop, they increase consumption. This simple reasoning is true as far as it goes, but the larger picture is more complex. A very small proportion of the population consumes the majority of the world's resources. Every 20 minutes, the world adds another 3,500 human lives but loses one or more entire species of animal or plant life at least 27,000 species per year. This is a rate and scale of extinction that has not occurred in 65 million years.