Overview of 2023's CO2 Weekly and Monthly Concentration Data at the Mauna Loa Observatory.

[RandomNumbers]

3. You missed the "theoretical" on my post and responded to a misstatement of my conclusion.

Let me try to state my question more clearly:

(actually TWO questions, to avoid the exact insulting inference that you jumped to anyway)

1. What would it look like if population had by now only grown to 4 billion instead of 8 billion?

2. What would it look like today, if population had managed to grow to 16 billion instead of 8 billion?

The premise for each scenario is: other than reproductive activities and resulting population growth, the types and frequency of human activities were approximately the same per person. (realizing this might be physically impossible in the second scenario, but make it as close as possible.)

I would add here that each scenario should assume similar distribution of population around the world. So in the first scenario, 50% less population means 50% less everywhere - so 50% in the high-consumption regions and 50% in the low-consumption regions.

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To respond more directly to your reply: of COURSE I am not talking about deliberately killing off a bunch of people. That is why it is stated as a theoretical. (I really thought I was clear about that in my post).

The POINT is that population matters. That people who care about climate change should care about ensuring access to voluntary means of reproductive control, as well as other approaches that tend to stabilize populations and reduce the birthrate, while caring for the entire population adequately.

It bothers me when otherwise caring liberals buy into the capitalist dogma of the need for perpetual growth to sustain the economy and support the older population. (with "perpetual growth" also requiring a growing population). That is pure bullshit and liberals should know better. I was hoping your excellent OP, if extrapolated mathematically on the population vector (as a thought exercise anyway), might help make it clear.