You made what seems like a persuasive argument for voluntary population control, which is to say that women have fewer children. This is already the case in heavily industrialized nations, where replacement rates are well below 2.1.
Such is not the case, however, in many of the economically poorer nations of Africa. For example, Niger leads with a birth rate of 6.6. A good part of the reason is tradition; another is economic, with larger famalies a hedge against poverty.
So, there is an irony at play here. Should African nations like Niger become wealthy and thus encourage a lower birth rate, it would be like other economically wealthy nations that deforest, destroy habitats, exploit the earth, have high consumption rates, use a lot of plastic, be consumerist, etc. In other words, do unbelievable harm to our Earth like we here in the West do.
It is us, the wealthy nations (I live in Canada) that do the greatest harm, both in absolute terms and in.per capita terms--much more than the combined effects of the poorer nations of Africa. Look at the carbon footprint of African nations. Look at water usage. Look at any figure related to climate change. Miniscule by comparison.
Sorry, Jason, I do not agree with this argument that voluntary population control is necessary. Or what is contributing in any significant way to making our Earth unsustainable. The science behind it is shaky at best.
Here is what I believe and I have written about it, and the science behind it is rock solid and undeniable.
We here have to change our way of thinking. We ought to view ourselves, homo sapiens, as the greatest threat to our Earth, chiefly because of our consumerist, exploitive and dominant appetites. Yet, it might already be too late for us obnoxious and arrogant humans, particularly us here in wealthy nations, who have removed ourselves from seeing our place within Nature.
Regardless, Nature is beginning to act
It is a certainty that we will blow past 1.5C and hit 2C by 2032 and likely 2.5C by 2100, if not 3C. The scenarios are not good. This is reality. Nature has spoken; Humans have refused to listen. Nature always has the last word.
Thanks for chiming in. Tradition and poverty guided the choice for large families in Europe and the U.S. too. Fully-funded education and family planning services in those countries with high birthrates now would go a long way toward reducing them. This has been true every time. And reinventing our consumption culture would allow developing countries to develop moderate wealth without the long, world-burning path we've been on.
As I noted in the piece, I agree that we in the wealthy nations do, and have always done, the most harm. Fewer Americans would make a much greater difference than fewer Pakistanis. So lowering our already low birthrate will be essential. But this should be happening everywhere. Simply provide the services that women in every nation ask for; it should be done anyway, right?
At the same time, as you note, our whole notion of what society is in regards to commerce and consumption has to change. The limits to growth are based in physical laws, and the task ahead is to adjust society so that it can thrive in a thriving living world. The problem is cultural, and culture can be changed. Whether we will is another question, and the timing is already too late for a peaceful transition. A lot of heat - and thus chaos - is baked in.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I hold another perception, based on my own experience and observations, as you do yourself. We are not going to agree on this one. All the best, Jason.
So what are you advocating, Perry? Governmental control, as in China's exercise only recently reversed of physically restraining women from deciding for themselves how many babies to make? Do you recommend that we do nothing except contemplate our sins and wait for the earth to shrug our species away? Or what? Really, I'd like to know.
No, I do not think governments can or will be able to solve our climate crisis What I propose is the only sensible and possible solution. Change our mindset that sees consumptionism and consumerism as not only normal but good. Start by reducing both. Even then, there is a scientific consensus that we will soon blow past the 2C guardrail.
The only way I know is through education and the sharing of facts. People can be encuraged to adopt a way of living that leaves a smaller footprint. Humans have changed habits, such as smoking, which is not as common as it was in my time.
I think it was Cato the censor who prefaced every speech he gave in the Roman Senate with the phrase, "Cartago delenda est." Carthage must be destroyed. Likewise, I just keep reiterating, "Depopulate. Rewild.". There are just two many of us. By far. 8 billion is too many. Four billion is too many. Even 2 billion is too many. We need to bring our numbers down to below a billion. Even then, we are a risk to the world. We are a virus the planet has no antidote for, is defenseless against. And my hope is that we will bring ourselves under control, before there is nothing left but us and our client species.
Thanks, Michael. The question of how many cannot be answered now because of the rapid transformations in both human society and the physical world. How many can thrive in the 21st century will be a different answer than how many might have thrived in the 19th. The virus is cultural, though, and thus improvable. But like you I think the number of comfy, ensconced humans would be much much lower than our current numbers.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Jason. This is one of the few topics we disagree on. You have a much more sanguine outlook on human nature than I do and put more emphasis on the "nurture" side of things. You see humanity as being perfectible through cultural evolution and learning from past mistakes. I am more on the 'nature" side of things as see the virus aspect as the playing out of biological imperatives hardwired into our DNA, for resource acquisition, competition over territory, elimination of competitors, and so forth. I am also more pessimistic about our learning from our past mistakes..the continuation of the institution of war is a good example.
Lastly I'm not afraid to say that our mutation of high intelligence was unfortunate for not only us but the planet as a whole and I am willing to accept that the place would be better off without us. But that's aspirational, not rational I suppose. We're here to stay, for better or worse. We may make progress while conditions are benign, but God help us if conditions worsen. Then the music stops, everyone tries to find an available chair, winners and losers; it's the bellum omnium contra omnes, sauve qui peut and devil take the hindmost.
I never said perfectible... But culture is a parade of choices, and better cultures are always possible. We see the best ideas of culture - the hardest ones like restraint and respect and equity - ebb and flow as we succeed and fail to be our better selves. Scale is of course a core problem. We're not meant to live, much less communicate, with such a large population.
But mostly I want to say that there's no shortage of examples of more benign culture. It's just a question of keeping the worst of us, with the worst ideas, from running the show. I am by no means sure this will happen, and am as I've often said a pessimistic optimist, but I like to point to the exits as a reminder that we don't need to stay in the room we've built.
Thanks, Jason. Let me conclude by saying that I hope history will prove you right! I'd hate to be proven correct--there would be no pleasure in it. Lastly I thought there is a joker in the deck. Machine Artificial General Intelligence is coming to the planet soon and that alters all my gloomy forecasting, but not necessarily in s positive direction.
What would happen if every single person (no matter the number) on the planet actually contributed to helping the planet regenerate? If they understood about ‘enough’. That everyone contributed in what I call an ‘enabling loop’, rather than a extractive loop? (i.e. enabling nature to do what she does so well: generate life). Perhaps we could find a way to be close to nature and nurture it, even with so many of us...
I used to think of humans as a scourge and chose in the 60s not to have children, something I have stuck to and have not regretted. But I have come to realize that humans can be amazing, myself included, but we are traumatized and grief stricken by 2500 years, at least, of Western (especially) systems that for some reason know only how to exploit...
Just living in a system that accepts destruction and slavery as part of its very ability to exist traumatizes everyone no matter your connection to the system: exploiter or exploited. The grief and trauma of that eats away at every human being. Traumatized people cannot make clear decisions, they have difficulty in seeing for themselves what is going on around them, they have difficulty changing their behaviors... and The System loves this because it is able to sell more to fill the hole that people's pain and loneliness is creating within them. The System is also able to keep people there by brainwashing and pushing comfort, through media, advertising, entertainment, fast food... etc.
Most everyone that I know who cares deeply for the earth has done work on themselves - they have attempted to face who they really are; without facing our pain we will dig ourselves into a hole no matter what governments or organizations or activists do -- deep loving change only happens one person at a time. Any other change (enforced change) will backfire and create even bigger holes with even bigger appetites to be filled by stuff and power...
We so want 'the quick fix' but they have always been detrimental - plastics, cane toads and rabbits in Australia, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, insecticides to name but a few. Repair is a slow task and while we think all is lost – it is lost as we see it NOW, nature has never been static and while yes I hate the idea that we outweigh wildlife and I yearn for a time of wildness everywhere we have the task of working out how can wildness be part of our lives?
I know this seems idealistic but it is the only way out… as good systems thinkers note we must look beyond simplistic event-level analysis (the numbers) which is the data that causes us to generate more quick fixes, we must go deeper and see the patterns that are causing the damage to spaceship earth.
How can I be a participatory contributory inhabitants of our earth?
Who will I be when a ecological civilization comes into being? How will (do) I tend the earth? What role will I play? (Not 'what job will I have'… we have jobs to ‘make a living’ and these jobs extract from the earth rather than enable.)
Thank you, Greer. So much good stuff to respond to here. I love your articulation of enabling vs. extractive loops. And yes, it's all about the disconnect between the systems we have and the empathy we need. Or rather, the empathy the systems should be rooted in. I think the data has a role to play - as signposts for the redirection of systems - and I think even if every person on Earth was helping to restore, rewild, regenerate the natural systems that have fallen under the wheels of civilization, there would be a recognition of the necessity of accelerating the declining birth rate. And you're so right about quick fixes being part of the problem, but the problem is that we've let things get so bad that a lot of work must be done quickly now. No easy path ahead, to be sure. Sorry to be brief, but I'm neck-deep in this week's writing and other work. Thank you again for the excellent comment.
Thanks for taking the time reply -- good luck with the the writing and other work.
I think if every single person was attuned to the earth, birth rates would automatically go down; we would be living - and thinking - differently, we would understand instinctively the 'carrying capacity' of our place... we would be face to face with growing our own food (or our local community's food) in an enabling loop... the feed back loops we would directly experience would make it crystal clear that there is a limit to what the earth can provide.
Yes data is important but is does not address the heart stuff -- very few people are swayed by data (unless they are already on that pendulum swing) -- they are only swayed if their heart feels it makes sense and with so many frozen hearts in the world this is a challenging task...
I am an artist and my work is focused on grief -- it includes spending time talking to people about grief and life and death... and I find people desperate to speak about it, their hearts are atrophied and have lost the knowledge of how to love enough to grieve... but the spark remains... we must fan that spark.
PS no need to reply, I understand being neck-deep...
Thank you, Greer, for the comment but especially for working publicly on grief. The need is vast. Interesting too that you're talking about two different but certainly related needs for attunement - to the Earth and to grief.
The way I have come to understand it is, attunement to grief is attunement to the earth. Grief arises as a consequence of being part of a living earth — the tapestry of Life is after all fueled by the death of past life.
Human's particular kind of consciousness allows us to see that happening around us and know that we too are part of it and will die, and our loved ones will die …to be fuel for future life... We must walk with loss and its grief if we live within a living earth. Grief is love — it is also feedback... if we allow our hearts to be open enough to see.
Indigenous cultures danced with this reality and instead of doing all they could to ignore it —as modern humans have, for some reason, learnt to do over at least 2500 years— it was/is a sacred practice and it held them attuned to the earth.
This is beautifully articulated, Greer. I can tell that you've been walking this path for some time. The level of empathy and awareness you're describing here really does act as a mirror to the existential problem we/I often call the climate and biodiversity crises. We're living in this civilizational experiment that sweeps grief under the rug along with the fundamental understanding of what it means to be part of - and responsible to - the living world. This delusion that we are somehow detached from natural limits or, more importantly, multi-species community, is unhealthy at all levels. Thanks for working to tune folks back in, one by one.
Thanks for very thoughtful and informative essay! I and some of my relatives are getting used to the reality of never being grandparents as we had always hoped to be. Fewer children being born in the white middle class, that’s for sure. We can certainly get used to that, especially when I see a family with 5 young kids up the street, recent immigrants. On to neighbor babysitting!
You've laid it out. I cannot understand why the media and everyone handed a microphone are not airing concern and urgency on this subject all day every day.
Thank you, Diane. It does feel like we're looking behind the curtain, doesn't it? I think a lot of ordinary folks have some sense that the numbers don't work, but without that public daily awareness you suggest, it gets swept under the rug of "all will be well" and "tech will save us." It's a harder media topic than mortality or climate chaos or biodiversity loss, because we don't know how to have a quiet conversation about anything that seemingly impinges on the right to have children. That conversation would have to focus on the future we're building (tearing down?) for those kids, but that's a complex topic competing with the noise of rights-based fear.
Malthusians have been inventing Limits to Growth for what, 150 years, while fossil fuels and Capitalism enabled a blossoming of freedom and human well-being.
You who indulge in the luxury of Western self-hatred, allow your African and Asian brothers and sisters to enjoy the wealth that we in the West consider our birthright.
Take a look at Bjorn Lomberg and Hans Rosling, who acknowledge our serious climate and environmental dilemmas, but propose a radical solution:
Energy and economic abundance.
Secure and educated women have far fewer children.
Middle-class societies care about their environment.
Indeed. The solutions you list here are spot-on, and the hypocrisy of those in the west asking those in less developed nations to forego what we enjoy are wrong. But the limits to growth are embedded in physical laws, not philosophy. The task is to reinvent civilization so that our ideas of cultural abundance are compatible with actual biological abundance.
You made what seems like a persuasive argument for voluntary population control, which is to say that women have fewer children. This is already the case in heavily industrialized nations, where replacement rates are well below 2.1.
Such is not the case, however, in many of the economically poorer nations of Africa. For example, Niger leads with a birth rate of 6.6. A good part of the reason is tradition; another is economic, with larger famalies a hedge against poverty.
So, there is an irony at play here. Should African nations like Niger become wealthy and thus encourage a lower birth rate, it would be like other economically wealthy nations that deforest, destroy habitats, exploit the earth, have high consumption rates, use a lot of plastic, be consumerist, etc. In other words, do unbelievable harm to our Earth like we here in the West do.
It is us, the wealthy nations (I live in Canada) that do the greatest harm, both in absolute terms and in.per capita terms--much more than the combined effects of the poorer nations of Africa. Look at the carbon footprint of African nations. Look at water usage. Look at any figure related to climate change. Miniscule by comparison.
Sorry, Jason, I do not agree with this argument that voluntary population control is necessary. Or what is contributing in any significant way to making our Earth unsustainable. The science behind it is shaky at best.
Here is what I believe and I have written about it, and the science behind it is rock solid and undeniable.
We here have to change our way of thinking. We ought to view ourselves, homo sapiens, as the greatest threat to our Earth, chiefly because of our consumerist, exploitive and dominant appetites. Yet, it might already be too late for us obnoxious and arrogant humans, particularly us here in wealthy nations, who have removed ourselves from seeing our place within Nature.
Regardless, Nature is beginning to act
It is a certainty that we will blow past 1.5C and hit 2C by 2032 and likely 2.5C by 2100, if not 3C. The scenarios are not good. This is reality. Nature has spoken; Humans have refused to listen. Nature always has the last word.
Thanks for chiming in. Tradition and poverty guided the choice for large families in Europe and the U.S. too. Fully-funded education and family planning services in those countries with high birthrates now would go a long way toward reducing them. This has been true every time. And reinventing our consumption culture would allow developing countries to develop moderate wealth without the long, world-burning path we've been on.
As I noted in the piece, I agree that we in the wealthy nations do, and have always done, the most harm. Fewer Americans would make a much greater difference than fewer Pakistanis. So lowering our already low birthrate will be essential. But this should be happening everywhere. Simply provide the services that women in every nation ask for; it should be done anyway, right?
At the same time, as you note, our whole notion of what society is in regards to commerce and consumption has to change. The limits to growth are based in physical laws, and the task ahead is to adjust society so that it can thrive in a thriving living world. The problem is cultural, and culture can be changed. Whether we will is another question, and the timing is already too late for a peaceful transition. A lot of heat - and thus chaos - is baked in.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I hold another perception, based on my own experience and observations, as you do yourself. We are not going to agree on this one. All the best, Jason.
So what are you advocating, Perry? Governmental control, as in China's exercise only recently reversed of physically restraining women from deciding for themselves how many babies to make? Do you recommend that we do nothing except contemplate our sins and wait for the earth to shrug our species away? Or what? Really, I'd like to know.
No, I do not think governments can or will be able to solve our climate crisis What I propose is the only sensible and possible solution. Change our mindset that sees consumptionism and consumerism as not only normal but good. Start by reducing both. Even then, there is a scientific consensus that we will soon blow past the 2C guardrail.
The question is how to change OTHER people's mindset.
The only way I know is through education and the sharing of facts. People can be encuraged to adopt a way of living that leaves a smaller footprint. Humans have changed habits, such as smoking, which is not as common as it was in my time.
I think it was Cato the censor who prefaced every speech he gave in the Roman Senate with the phrase, "Cartago delenda est." Carthage must be destroyed. Likewise, I just keep reiterating, "Depopulate. Rewild.". There are just two many of us. By far. 8 billion is too many. Four billion is too many. Even 2 billion is too many. We need to bring our numbers down to below a billion. Even then, we are a risk to the world. We are a virus the planet has no antidote for, is defenseless against. And my hope is that we will bring ourselves under control, before there is nothing left but us and our client species.
Thanks, Michael. The question of how many cannot be answered now because of the rapid transformations in both human society and the physical world. How many can thrive in the 21st century will be a different answer than how many might have thrived in the 19th. The virus is cultural, though, and thus improvable. But like you I think the number of comfy, ensconced humans would be much much lower than our current numbers.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Jason. This is one of the few topics we disagree on. You have a much more sanguine outlook on human nature than I do and put more emphasis on the "nurture" side of things. You see humanity as being perfectible through cultural evolution and learning from past mistakes. I am more on the 'nature" side of things as see the virus aspect as the playing out of biological imperatives hardwired into our DNA, for resource acquisition, competition over territory, elimination of competitors, and so forth. I am also more pessimistic about our learning from our past mistakes..the continuation of the institution of war is a good example.
Lastly I'm not afraid to say that our mutation of high intelligence was unfortunate for not only us but the planet as a whole and I am willing to accept that the place would be better off without us. But that's aspirational, not rational I suppose. We're here to stay, for better or worse. We may make progress while conditions are benign, but God help us if conditions worsen. Then the music stops, everyone tries to find an available chair, winners and losers; it's the bellum omnium contra omnes, sauve qui peut and devil take the hindmost.
I never said perfectible... But culture is a parade of choices, and better cultures are always possible. We see the best ideas of culture - the hardest ones like restraint and respect and equity - ebb and flow as we succeed and fail to be our better selves. Scale is of course a core problem. We're not meant to live, much less communicate, with such a large population.
But mostly I want to say that there's no shortage of examples of more benign culture. It's just a question of keeping the worst of us, with the worst ideas, from running the show. I am by no means sure this will happen, and am as I've often said a pessimistic optimist, but I like to point to the exits as a reminder that we don't need to stay in the room we've built.
Thanks, Jason. Let me conclude by saying that I hope history will prove you right! I'd hate to be proven correct--there would be no pleasure in it. Lastly I thought there is a joker in the deck. Machine Artificial General Intelligence is coming to the planet soon and that alters all my gloomy forecasting, but not necessarily in s positive direction.
🙏🏼
What would happen if every single person (no matter the number) on the planet actually contributed to helping the planet regenerate? If they understood about ‘enough’. That everyone contributed in what I call an ‘enabling loop’, rather than a extractive loop? (i.e. enabling nature to do what she does so well: generate life). Perhaps we could find a way to be close to nature and nurture it, even with so many of us...
I used to think of humans as a scourge and chose in the 60s not to have children, something I have stuck to and have not regretted. But I have come to realize that humans can be amazing, myself included, but we are traumatized and grief stricken by 2500 years, at least, of Western (especially) systems that for some reason know only how to exploit...
Just living in a system that accepts destruction and slavery as part of its very ability to exist traumatizes everyone no matter your connection to the system: exploiter or exploited. The grief and trauma of that eats away at every human being. Traumatized people cannot make clear decisions, they have difficulty in seeing for themselves what is going on around them, they have difficulty changing their behaviors... and The System loves this because it is able to sell more to fill the hole that people's pain and loneliness is creating within them. The System is also able to keep people there by brainwashing and pushing comfort, through media, advertising, entertainment, fast food... etc.
Most everyone that I know who cares deeply for the earth has done work on themselves - they have attempted to face who they really are; without facing our pain we will dig ourselves into a hole no matter what governments or organizations or activists do -- deep loving change only happens one person at a time. Any other change (enforced change) will backfire and create even bigger holes with even bigger appetites to be filled by stuff and power...
We so want 'the quick fix' but they have always been detrimental - plastics, cane toads and rabbits in Australia, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, insecticides to name but a few. Repair is a slow task and while we think all is lost – it is lost as we see it NOW, nature has never been static and while yes I hate the idea that we outweigh wildlife and I yearn for a time of wildness everywhere we have the task of working out how can wildness be part of our lives?
I know this seems idealistic but it is the only way out… as good systems thinkers note we must look beyond simplistic event-level analysis (the numbers) which is the data that causes us to generate more quick fixes, we must go deeper and see the patterns that are causing the damage to spaceship earth.
How can I be a participatory contributory inhabitants of our earth?
Who will I be when a ecological civilization comes into being? How will (do) I tend the earth? What role will I play? (Not 'what job will I have'… we have jobs to ‘make a living’ and these jobs extract from the earth rather than enable.)
Thank you, Greer. So much good stuff to respond to here. I love your articulation of enabling vs. extractive loops. And yes, it's all about the disconnect between the systems we have and the empathy we need. Or rather, the empathy the systems should be rooted in. I think the data has a role to play - as signposts for the redirection of systems - and I think even if every person on Earth was helping to restore, rewild, regenerate the natural systems that have fallen under the wheels of civilization, there would be a recognition of the necessity of accelerating the declining birth rate. And you're so right about quick fixes being part of the problem, but the problem is that we've let things get so bad that a lot of work must be done quickly now. No easy path ahead, to be sure. Sorry to be brief, but I'm neck-deep in this week's writing and other work. Thank you again for the excellent comment.
Thanks for taking the time reply -- good luck with the the writing and other work.
I think if every single person was attuned to the earth, birth rates would automatically go down; we would be living - and thinking - differently, we would understand instinctively the 'carrying capacity' of our place... we would be face to face with growing our own food (or our local community's food) in an enabling loop... the feed back loops we would directly experience would make it crystal clear that there is a limit to what the earth can provide.
Yes data is important but is does not address the heart stuff -- very few people are swayed by data (unless they are already on that pendulum swing) -- they are only swayed if their heart feels it makes sense and with so many frozen hearts in the world this is a challenging task...
I am an artist and my work is focused on grief -- it includes spending time talking to people about grief and life and death... and I find people desperate to speak about it, their hearts are atrophied and have lost the knowledge of how to love enough to grieve... but the spark remains... we must fan that spark.
PS no need to reply, I understand being neck-deep...
Thank you, Greer, for the comment but especially for working publicly on grief. The need is vast. Interesting too that you're talking about two different but certainly related needs for attunement - to the Earth and to grief.
Thank you...
The way I have come to understand it is, attunement to grief is attunement to the earth. Grief arises as a consequence of being part of a living earth — the tapestry of Life is after all fueled by the death of past life.
Human's particular kind of consciousness allows us to see that happening around us and know that we too are part of it and will die, and our loved ones will die …to be fuel for future life... We must walk with loss and its grief if we live within a living earth. Grief is love — it is also feedback... if we allow our hearts to be open enough to see.
Indigenous cultures danced with this reality and instead of doing all they could to ignore it —as modern humans have, for some reason, learnt to do over at least 2500 years— it was/is a sacred practice and it held them attuned to the earth.
This is beautifully articulated, Greer. I can tell that you've been walking this path for some time. The level of empathy and awareness you're describing here really does act as a mirror to the existential problem we/I often call the climate and biodiversity crises. We're living in this civilizational experiment that sweeps grief under the rug along with the fundamental understanding of what it means to be part of - and responsible to - the living world. This delusion that we are somehow detached from natural limits or, more importantly, multi-species community, is unhealthy at all levels. Thanks for working to tune folks back in, one by one.
Thanks for very thoughtful and informative essay! I and some of my relatives are getting used to the reality of never being grandparents as we had always hoped to be. Fewer children being born in the white middle class, that’s for sure. We can certainly get used to that, especially when I see a family with 5 young kids up the street, recent immigrants. On to neighbor babysitting!
Neighbor babysitting sounds like a great plan, Sylvia. Have fun.
You've laid it out. I cannot understand why the media and everyone handed a microphone are not airing concern and urgency on this subject all day every day.
Thank you, Diane. It does feel like we're looking behind the curtain, doesn't it? I think a lot of ordinary folks have some sense that the numbers don't work, but without that public daily awareness you suggest, it gets swept under the rug of "all will be well" and "tech will save us." It's a harder media topic than mortality or climate chaos or biodiversity loss, because we don't know how to have a quiet conversation about anything that seemingly impinges on the right to have children. That conversation would have to focus on the future we're building (tearing down?) for those kids, but that's a complex topic competing with the noise of rights-based fear.
Depopulate? You first?
Malthusians have been inventing Limits to Growth for what, 150 years, while fossil fuels and Capitalism enabled a blossoming of freedom and human well-being.
You who indulge in the luxury of Western self-hatred, allow your African and Asian brothers and sisters to enjoy the wealth that we in the West consider our birthright.
Take a look at Bjorn Lomberg and Hans Rosling, who acknowledge our serious climate and environmental dilemmas, but propose a radical solution:
Energy and economic abundance.
Secure and educated women have far fewer children.
Middle-class societies care about their environment.
Indeed. The solutions you list here are spot-on, and the hypocrisy of those in the west asking those in less developed nations to forego what we enjoy are wrong. But the limits to growth are embedded in physical laws, not philosophy. The task is to reinvent civilization so that our ideas of cultural abundance are compatible with actual biological abundance.