And that taboo is probably rooted in evolutionary psychology, people have a genetically driven tendency to criticize those who advocate having less children? So could there be an instinctual drive behind it?
https://www.flashpack.com/solo/relationships/dont-want-kids-...
Each American or European, whose food is grown thousands of km away, is plenty more only to make their salad. Can they be blamed for their Carbon Footprint^TM? I think we should blame the fossil fuel corporations which have turned us into fuel junkies
It's less true that a valid comparison should be "if not modern 21st Century life then hunter gather".
There's a middle ground more agrarian, less hunter, lifestyle that supported a large population in the past and can likely support a larger population than Victorian times if farming | mining switched across to renewables (electric | hydrogen) instead of fossil fuels - we've learnt a lot about efficiencies in the past century, it's a matter of application and less consumption now, certainly time for less greenhouse gas being released.
There are billions of shades of grey, like, for example, living like before the 2000’s, when the massive production of plastic crap in China produced pollution levels to skyrocket.
The alternative meant paying wages in the west