zlacker

    > If we were 500 million globally, for instance, we would not be having this discussion because there would be no problems.

I think even 500 million is too much with current lifestyles. Given that a very large proportion of current emissions are caused by 500 million.

But this aside, let's assume you are right.

Which 500 million would you preserve? How would you get there before climate change is irreversible anyway due to melting tundra etc?

Especially given that a lot of human history can be summed up as "wars to determine WHICH one will be the surviving set of humans to survive on limited resources". So which billions do you think will go willingly?

-- Yes, of course, assuming that this magically just happened it would solve the problem. So would a number of other unrealistic solutions that has nothing to do with population control. Are we going to discuss which one out of a number of completely unrealistic uptopias are best?

I see your 500 million inhabitant world, and raise with imagining a world with a population of 20 billion, with a million nuclear plants, no use of fossil fuels, LED-powered vertical farming, centralization of populations in big cities to let wildlife grow back and focus all efforts in responsible, non-disruptive mining of the resources needed.

Which one of those is more or less preferable or realistic is pointless, and distracting from possibilities that may be within reach.