I do agree that it is important to preserve some natural environment - not just for the "sake" of other species, but for our own sake - we depend on a natural ecosystem that we cannot artificially duplicate. In fact, I think we have already destroyed too much of it for our own specie's good.
That said, I also see a lot more of "not in my backyard" than real environmental concerns being raised against many projects. If we really want to conserve an area, we need to keep the public out of it, too. Mostly, the public resistance seems to be against the loss of what local people see as a quiet natural recreational space that they want to use. They enlist the "groups" that champion the "causes" that will help them fight the projects. But, they don't necessarily live by the academic desires of those groups.
Finally, I want to say that I think SpaceX would have been better-off waiting for a more robust launch pad, not just publicity-wise, but technologically, as well. In particular, if the pad debris was responsible for the vehicle equipment failures, it blocked SpaceX from getting data on a lot more phases of the test flight - particularly the stage separation, Starship heat shield re-entry behavior, Super Heavy post-separation maneuvers, and Starship re-entry manuevers.
So, I am wondering if SpaceX is feeling pressure to make Starship available for the Artemis luner lander mission, and taking unwise risks to gain some basic data as early as possible. And I am concerned that political/bureaucratic interference is having a negative effect on the logical progression of the technological efforts.
The media seems to be hyping the negative effects in a somewhat disengenous manner. Was there any indication that the "potentiallly hazardous particulates" that blew to the town was anything more than dust kicked up by the rocket exhaust? Why was it reported that the fire started was in a nature preserve, without indicating that was part of the safety zone? Why was it not mentioned in most articles that a search for carcasses of killed animals found none? Why was the car left near the pad (with remotely controlled camera equipment) usually depicted as "damage to a photographer's car" without mention that it was set up in an area where damage was not unexpected (although not expected to include impact by a chunk of concrete from the launch pad)?
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