An Earth Not 'Designed' for 8 billion Humans

John Vidal (former Guardian Environment editor) highlights the truism that 'runaway climate change' is a consequence of both overconsumption by individuals and an excessive world human population (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/15/population-8-billion-climate). Vidal notes that rich folk (with their frequent flying, space tourism and overconsumption) individually generate a much higher proportion of the 'greenhouse gases' than their poorer bretheren. Getting them to change their behaviour is clearly important. It will not, however, stop the planet continuing to heat at an alarming rate. Every human directly and indirectly generates carbon dioxide. This will be the case, even if we all adopt a vegan diet; dramatically reduce travel; power our buildings/ transport with only renewable energy sources; effectively insulate all buildings; never become involved in wars; cease having International 'Sporting' events et cetera, et cetera. The human species was once only a relatively minor component of the Earth's biota but has now become an agent capable of terraforming the entire planet (as did the bacteria billions of years ago!). Eight billion people is clearly way too many. Effective contraception is needed to ensure that every birth is an actual choice. In spite of this, much of the recent Western coverage is from countries concerned about their declining birth rates. Worried that this could impact on their 'economies' and result in a lessened ability to cater for their aging populations (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/16/latvia-baltic-population-demographic-crisis).