How can people deny the obvious?

Apparently, a large portion of humanity denies the obvious realities of human overpopulation/population overshoot and environmental degradation. There is a common myth about how technology can supposedly fix all of the world's problems. I would assume that this denial of reality is largely rooted in willful ignorance and scientific illiteracy. Not to mention the 24/7 brainwashing, by mainstream media, has cemented this denial and willful ignorance.

First of all, the mainstream media denies the reality of human overpopulation (for the most part). Here is the truth...overpopulation is not a myth. And overpopulation is obviously a very serious problem. Not just a problem in certain densely-populated, "developing" countries (like China and India). This applies to literally every country of the entire world.

Neo-Malthusianism is the reality of the world...a grim reality which most people pretend is not real. This reality of there being too many people in the world and too few finite (and mostly nonrenewable) resources for humans to exploit. 

It may be true that overpopulation is not the root of all of the world's problems. But it is the most obvious symptom of the root problem of the world...that is humanity's fundamental inability to live in harmony with the planet's ecosystems. Humanity is not much different from a virus or disease on this planet...that will continue to expand its population, until the resources on this planet are exhausted...and the world is overflowing with humanity's pollution and waste. And then there is a global, mass die-off of the human population. Resulting in 8 or 9 billion people quickly vanishing...resulting, very likely, in near-term human extinction aka NTHE.

Of course, I don't know the exact date when collapse of industrial civilization (CoIC)/NTHE will happen. But it is obvious that such a catastrophic scenario is inevitable...sooner or later (probably happening much sooner than anyone could have predicted). It depends on what your definition of "near term" is. Even 20 to 30 years from now would be considered "near term" in comparison to the 100,000 to 200,000 year existence of the species Homo Sapiens. Perhaps 20 to 30 years from now, there might not be a single human left alive on this planet?  Yeah, NTHE will most likely happen within the life span of most young adults and anyone born after the year 2000.

The baby boomers may all be dead before NTHE arrives, even though most prophesizers of NTHE (like Guy McPherson, Michael Ruppert and David Price) were part of the baby boomer generation. Of course, some of the younger generations of humans carried on the legacy of Neo-Malthusianism...although these Neo-Malthusians are a small percentage of the human population. 

It seems like most people are living in a world of hopium and denial. Yet, sooner or later, no amount of denial can save humanity when CoIC and NTHE finally arrives. I doubt there will be a new civilization emerging out of the ashes of industrial civilization. I am fairly certain that this civilization will be the final and last human civilization on this planet...before humanity goes extinct forever within the following decades of the 21st century.