Thematically I can appreciate the statement there, but I don't think the gameplay backed it up very well, at least not for me.

If I had enjoyed my time with it and been one of these people who continues to strip the planet bare in order to launch rockets for its own sake, then I would say that the game's theme was an incomplete thought since I was never confronted with the weight of my actions. I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, maybe at some point the biters cease to exist, the plants all rot and die, the day time gets darker and darker as the sky is obscured with smog. Something like that.