> It is a truth that the human population should have never become this large.
It would be tough to cite exactly how large is too much, and there's a legitimate difference of opinion on whether it's already too late by now.
Regardless of the absolute population size at the time, the real problem seems to be out-of-control growth.
For that there's no citation needed if you're old enough.
Because of the rise in radio, then TV, today's elderly are about the first to have lifetime exposure to world events and developments in real time across the widest number of decades physically possible for our species.
Not everyone gets wiser as they get older, but plenty do and that's a type of wisdom that can not be acquired any other way.
Live long enough with enough attention to these things locally and in communication with a lifetime of first-hand information as well as world-wide media, things which turn out to be fully corroborated in every single way you just eventually can not realistically deny.
The unbridled reproduction of consumers rather than producers for quite some time now seems to be the underlying exponential problem.
And that's not human nature, it's simply expressing the same inhuman nature as all the other living creatures.
According to all sources, always, everywhere, things were better for everyone, when they were less crowded with consumers for which there is not enough being sustainably produced.
If we're not going to end up joining the majority of Earth species that have become extinct, this is one key element where a much more distinctly human touch needs to be completely ingrained in place of natural instinct.
Not surprisingly, out-of-control reproduction is almost like cancer leading to eventual death in a local microcosm and many have been aware of this for millennia.
With nothing but text and oral tradition to preserve these near-prehistoric observations, that may be why so many different ancient cultures have such elaborate taboos regarding reproductive activity.