[MrVandemar]

If you have a population that want rising material living standards, that's easy too. Any increase in living standards should be balanced against a concomitant decrease in population. Resource usage (meaning pollution, waste, energy production) stays steady or even goes down.

Apparently population control is anathema to most people though, so the unrelenting environmental rape continues unabated.

[fc417fc802]

> Apparently population control is anathema to most people

Well yeah that too, but first and foremost when a population shrinks it leads to a demographic crisis. The government actively attempts to prevent that.

But also the issues you point to aren't inherently due to population. Most of our activities don't need to impact the environment to the extent that they currently do. We just cut corners to save money on a massive scale.

[ehnto]

That seems to happen naturally, just with a lot of lag in the system. Declining birth rates can be seen in almost all modernised societies that have had a strong middle class.