> Malthusianism has been thoroughly debunked at this point.
It really hasn't, it has merely been updated, and yet people like yourself deliberately ignore the revisions and always focus on the obsolete original argument from the 1700's.
The only thing that has been debunked was Malthus prediction that human populations grow exponentially whereas the food production grows at an arithmetic rate. That hasn't proven true because we produce more than enough food for everyone (yet people are still hungry), but population it still continues to grow in a way we cannot accommodate even now for a variety of reasons.
Besides, the main thing people disliked about Malthus's initial prediction was not that it simply suggested limiting population growth (although the religious types certainly balked at this), but rather what his predictions implied in terms of future solutions to the problem; i.e. euthanasia, eugenics and mandatory sterilisations.
They are the main reasons people don't like to entertain the idea of population control, which is fair enough; but they are ideological arguments against population control, not practical ones.
I'd suggest reading more about this though, because I think you've just picked up on the 'Malthus was debunked' soundbite that people like to repeat ad nauseaum without really understanding the debate around it and how it has evolved into the modern era.
The peak population numbers provided by the UN that supposedly 'debunked' this theory have been repeatedly updated and revised because they don't hold. Even the idea of a 'peak' population is one that is not univerally accepted as it only factors in prosperity among developed nations leading to lower birth rates. It does nothing to account for the mantra many religions have of 'be fruitful and multiply'.
The religious are going to be primary drivers of population growth going forward while secular societies are those that are falling below replacement rates for births.
It was originally supposed to peak at 9 billion. Then it was revised to 11 billion. Then 13 billion. Now it sits somewhere around 15 billion because the models used to estimate the peak population numbers are imperfect and do not take into account all variables.
Besides, Malthusianism has nothing to do with the point of my post, which is that we are slowly poisoning the ecosystems we depend on because we consume and waste too much.
That is an entirely separate issue to raw population numbers and is an issue of poor waste management, over-consumption spurred by a an addiction to perpetual growth (in capitalist terms) and ineffective logistics.
The main problem isn't how many people we have, that's just an amplifier of other problems. The main problem we have is one of greed and apathy and an insistence on infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.
You've changed the topic of conversation into something else to avoid addressing my point.
Some info:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/01/09/thom...
https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-26-2-t...
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43735423?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...
You said:
> There's a lot more to life than minimizing carbon footprint in the immediate term.
Which is a profoundly selfish (yes, selfish, I'll stand by that) sentiment given the shit state our global ecosystems are in as a direct result of our wasteful, greedy culture and highly self-centred, amoral economic model.
If you gave a single shit about the future of the species (as well as other species) instead of just your own DNA you would be trying to minimise your footprint every day.
A relevant quote from National Geographic:
The number of people does matter, of course.
But how people consume resources matters a lot more. Some of us leave much bigger footprints than others. The central challenge for the future of people and the planet is how to raise more of us out of poverty—the slum dwellers in Delhi, the subsistence farmers in Rwanda—while reducing the impact each of us has on the planet.
The population question has not been answered, it has merely evolved and expanded. Anyone suggesting otherwise is deliberately trying to shut down debate.