8 billion humans: How population growth and climate change are connected as the 'Anthropocene engine

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. There are far too many people on this planet.

A truly sustainable number would be no more than 1 billion. Sadly, we are so overpopulated, and have collectively so trashed the environment, that, were we to be fortunate enough to have a swift and drastic crash of population, we'd probably need to go down to half a billion. And it would still take years, maybe decades, possibly centuries, for the damage to be undone.

To read an interesting science-fiction series that addresses this, look at John Barnes' Directive 51 series. Really good, and really scary.

Oh, and as for the another glaciation event thing, several years ago at a Mile Hi Con in Denver (it's a science fiction thing with lots of science stuff also) there was a talk about glaciation, how often it's occurred, and so on. The climatologist giving the talk stated very clearly that we should be in the clear beginnings of a new glaciation, but global warming has confused the issue. Fascinating.