[undulation]

"Life is complicated, but in general humans have been becoming much more respectful of the environment as we become more wealthy." - This is highly reductive and untrue. Increases in wealth directly correlate to higher rates of consumerism and more resource intensive diets. Just because wealthy countries are talking more about environmental degradation, doesn't mean they are making significant strides to reduce impact. Take the much talked about environmental agreements that pop up every other decade for example. Both the Kyoto protocol and now the Paris Agreement have done little more than pay lip service to the fact the environmental destruction is an existential threat to humanity. Both international agreements were non-binding in their terms and had exceedingly unambitious goals to reduce pollution and waste (as relates to avoiding detrimental increases in temperature and collapsing ecosystems.'

"The other alternative really boils down to a belief that it would be best if humans weren't around." - This too is overly reductive and amounts to nothing more than a straw man's argument. Are you to suggest that the only way to reduce pollution and environmental impact is to get rid of people entirely? How about tightening emissions standards, banning/taxing destructive materials like plastic, putting immense taxes on dirty energy? All of these measures are oft talked about, half-heartedly implemented for the most part, and could do much to reduce our impact all without addressing the population (not that that isn't an issue in and of itself.

The problem with the argument that we should just plow ahead full steam, hope that we can technologically solve our way out of the problem, and then clean up the mess afterwards is that we don't actually know if the problems will be solvable in a couple of decades when the time arrives. We simply don't know if this will work and the further destruction that happens in the meantime will make the challenge all the greater. For example the risk of armed conflict due to resource scarcity or famine (look at Syria right now) or the unforeseen consequences of fully collapsed fisheries and desertification of farmland is a very real one, and should be viewed as a direct danger of climate destruction. We do know, however, that taking extreme measures to reduce emissions and our environmental impact in the present will make this problem easier to solve. I simply don't understand how some find it valid to respond to such an impending risk with nonchalant suggestions that we'll simply solve this one later.

[njarboe]

Complex problems can't be well discussed in such a short form. I don't really have time to create a full steelman argument.

I think that the "we should just plow ahead full steam" part of humanity started loosing power in around 1970 (I agree we were probably getting a bit too powerful too quickly and a slowdown was a good idea). The "safety first" part of humanity began ascending and has taken over most of the powerful institutions. Some swing back the other way is needed. Seems like life must go in these destructive/rejuvenating cycles and that a steady state of goodness is not really possible.