> That's not actionable advice on a timescale that will affect co2 emissions any time soon. Are you suggesting we kill people to reduce the population?
Your second sentence is an overreach. The natural death rate in the United States is about 0.9% of the population. [1]
Okay, so how many years would it take to halve the world population through natural death rate, and how do you stop all people on earth from having children without a world war?
> Okay, so how many years would it take to halve the world population through natural death rate
If the natural death rate is 0.9%, the population would decline by about 9% each decade.
The drop doesn’t have to go to 50% - just down to whatever the sustainable limit is.
> how do you stop all people on earth from having children without a world war?
I’m not sure that even a world war would achieve that. And again, it’s not necessary or desirable to go to that extreme. If the goal is sustainability, we just need to rightsize the population for sustainability. The actual population depends on the prevailing per capita emissions from whatever energy technologies we are using at any given time. The more carbon neutral the technology, the higher the population can be sustained, at least with respect to greenhouse gases.
To reduce the birth rate, rather than force everyone to stop, we could just reward those who are willing with tax breaks. X% tax break for zero children. Y% tax break for 1 child. 0% tax break for 2 children. And extra taxes for >2 children.
