"natural self-regulation"... of human population, in the best case. But before we will extinguish all the biodiversity left. Future generations will see us as the stupid ones, killing the richness of the planet created after eons of evolution.

I guess people who say this kind of things don't believe they themselves will be part of the cohort undergoing the shrinkage.

This so called natural self-regulation will be ugly and painful. I don't envy the generation that will have to go through it.

We've already hit peak child and longer lifespans is the only thing keeping the population growing. Assuming this trend continues then human population will start dropping within a lifetime.

(It's just a shame that renewables and other tech (plus the required behaviour changes) are coming in to maturity a couple of decades too late. Surely we just need to bridge the gap between demographic changes and adoption of cleaner tech. I might be overly optimistic on this front)

The problem is that when it comes to emissions and the resulting climate change, it won't be a smooth self-correction but rather sharp and catastrophic. I believe we've already reached the point of no return and the greenhouse effect is out of control (north pole ice not recovering, permafrost melting, etc).

We'll see drastic climate change happening everywhere. It'll probably have little effect on "us" in the west; probably limited to local tragedies because of extreme weather and a price increase in food. But elsewhere it'll cause famine, mass death, and mass migration.

Sure if you zoom out enough, humanity will manage and survive just fine. But at what cost? You can try to be utilitarian about it, but you shouldn't shrug at the prospect of millions dying and getting displaced.

"Natural self-regulation" - that's a nice euphemism for mass starvation. Pity wars tend to cause a spike in population growth.