Yes, Hardin was a pretty dodgy dude actually. Worth looking up.

As for life in cities being disconnected from nature, I always remember one of Alastair Cooke's 'letters from America', old-time rambling radio talks by an expat Brit who moved to the USA in WW2 and never went back. In this particular one, from the 90s, the by then rather ancient Cooke mentions how America's crops were shrivelling in a heat wave and that this was having major economic effects, but that this was not mentioned in an economic address by Alan Greenspan, whereupon Cooke said that obviously everywhere Greenspan went was air-conditioned, before digressing about how uncomfortable much of America was before the invention of air conditioning, to the point where Washington DC would effectively be abandoned for three months of the year by anyone who could afford to get out of town including the lawmakers ... Obviously we are more disconnected than ever.