My instinct is that you’re right, but I wonder if what we’re really saying is that earth’s population is too large under the currently dominant socioeconomic and lifestyle constructs.
It’s clearly the current lifestyle. Africans are destroying the world much less than the industrialized world because they’re too poor to live the climate-wrecking lifestyle of the West.
A key issue though is that it takes a while for lifestyles to change. The higher the population, the quicker the switch needs to be done to avoid catastrophic consequences.
If the Earth’s population were 100 million, it might be fine to take a century to switch away from fossil fuels. But at nearly 10 billion, if it takes a century, the results will be catastrophic.
My instinct is that you’re right, but I wonder if what we’re really saying is that earth’s population is too large under the currently dominant socioeconomic and lifestyle constructs.
It’s clearly the current lifestyle. Africans are destroying the world much less than the industrialized world because they’re too poor to live the climate-wrecking lifestyle of the West.
A key issue though is that it takes a while for lifestyles to change. The higher the population, the quicker the switch needs to be done to avoid catastrophic consequences.
If the Earth’s population were 100 million, it might be fine to take a century to switch away from fossil fuels. But at nearly 10 billion, if it takes a century, the results will be catastrophic.