Saving the planet by reducing the population

A train of thought is that a lot of our problems could be solved by reducing our numbers. For this question I am limiting it to environmental changes. For example: a successful species will increase its population until their natural resources are consumed. In the case of humanity: people attempt to be 'green', some people choose to be vegan and so on, with the intent of reducing ones footprint on the planet. However, our numbers keep increasing, which could mean that it might still be a 'half-measure' and eventually we still will use up all our 'footprint-space' or natural resources. Our population limit will just be greater that it would have been when using bigger footprints. This would make us live in a more crowded manner.

I am pondering a limit to the population (say 3.5 billion, 1 billion, even less...). Not to allow us to use ridiculously large footprints, but to artificially stop us from using up everything while maintaining our current standards of living. My question has two parts:

1) What would be the environmental consequences of a hard-limit on our population? (Deforestation, wildlife, pollution,...)

2) Is this achievable through birth-control, single-child-policies and the like? To achieve this, should we stop attempting to longen the average lifespan even more? Should we make a point to drop it by 10 years?

Some related topics :

• Carbon dioxide levels when 50% of people die: Would the death of 50% of the human population drastically reduce carbon dioxide levels?

• How to humanely reduce human population: Humanely reducing the human population?

posted over 8 years ago

Bjorn‭

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