Of course, the problem is overbreeding isn't it?
There are no such independent events as pollution, water
shortage, over fishing, mass extinction. They are the
consequences of over breeding.
All we do when we reduce consumption is make it lower the cost
of people elsewhere (and who often despise us) to breed
beyond the planet's productive capacity. It looks by the numbers
that 1B is a very nice and tidy number of human beings for a
planet this size. It looks like 8 or 12 Billion means that cities are
destined to become vast urban slums - large ghettos of
corruption poverty, disease, and lawlessness. And there is no
evidence to the contrary.
Jarred Diamond is wrong. The reason civilizations die, is
because they breed beyond the environment's capacity, not
because people destroy the environment.
Mathus wasn't entirely incorrect. We can overpopulate and
starve the world quite easily even if technology has given us a
temporary respite from the vicissitudes of nature.
The problem is over breeding. If there is a place for government,
that place is mandating one-woman-one-child policy.
