Extrapolating the extremes - the humanity started when they were few people and many resources, and it will end up with many people and few resources.
Assuming anything else is just being conned into one huge pyramid scheme.
As I understand, it's the poor and undeveloped countries where populations increase the most. When countries develop and become more prosperous, with a rising middle class, the need for large families diminishes, and the population growth tends to stabilize or even fall, as in the case of Japan.
The problem with fossil fuels is not the CO2 emissions, but the real pollutants which produce unhealthy haze and smog, plus the fact that such fossil fuels will eventually become a scarce commodity as all the poor countries gradually progress towards a Western life style with electricity-consuming fridges and air-conditioners, and petrol-drive vehicles.
Being adaptive and innovative, so we can exploit all potential resources in a sensible and environmentally safe way, is the solution, and that solution should involve exploiting the benefits of CO2, by surrounding any coal-fired power plant with greenhouses, for example. After removal of the 'real' pollutants, the CO2 emissions could be funneled through dozens of greenhouses to increase crop growth, and/or wafted through new forests which have been planted around the coal-plant.
However, the solution should also include the development of renewable energy sources in order to prepare for a future scarcity of fossil fuels. Harnessing energy from the sun is a fantastic and brilliant idea, but not so smart if one covers large areas of fertile land with solar panels, which amounts to essentially destroying the environment and preventing the land being used for other purposes, such as agriculture or reforestation.
Solar panels, or films, or solar paint, are ideal for use on surfaces where the environment has already been destroyed, such as the roofs and walls of buildings, and arid regions such as deserts.
The main problem is, 'how do we get governments to prepare for a future scarcity of fossil fuels?' Any suggestions?
