Environment & Energy

So the absolute growth is offsetting the falling TFR. Each 80 million people (about a new Germany every year) need to be fed, no matter where they live. They need to be housed, transported, educated, provided with basic medical and sanitation services...

The fact that the growth rate is falling is irrelevant until the absolute population growth begins to fall.

For someone in the developed world, the cumulative CO2e saving of having one less child is 58.6 tonnes per year - far ahead of living car free, which is in second place at 2.4 tonnes per year.

That's a good thing, because it means that here in the industrialized West, birth control might help fight climate change. As long as the world population keeps rising, however, the total draw on other resources like cropland, fresh water, fish etc. will continue to rise - as will the conversion of natural habitat for human use to support that growth.

Is birth control the global answer? IMO, probably not - our addiction to families is too strong. It will likely take an intervention by Mother Nature in the form of a pandemic or two (or three or four) to drop our absolute population numbers significantly.