FWIW if you ignore immigration, nearly all first world countries are gradually depopulating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility
Of course, that doesn't mean for a second that the solution to the world's problems somehow involves population control in developing countries.
So the solution is probably to help them develop ASAP.
There are two kinds of mythologies that have been the cause of reckless and thoughtless procreation leading to overpopulation: 1. Religion 2. ‘Abundance’ mythologies penned by the Peter Diamandis/Steven Kotler ilk.
Regarding "religion": do you think "religions" came up with the concept of having a lot of children?
You don't think it's simply a natural instinct, like in all other animals? And that in a world where few make it to adulthood, people tried to have more children?
It's pretty well-established that it isn't poverty per se but gender equality that predicts birth rates.
Here is a blog post of the author in case the above is not readable for you: https://www.niussp.org/article/gender-equality-and-fertility...
This study is in the context of previous assumptions of a U-curved relationship: low equality == high birth rates, medium equality == low birth rates, high equality == high birth rates. That study shows that the last part doesn't seem to be true.
The macro trend of poverty <> birth rates points in the opposite direction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
Data points on the very poor end are all over the place, though.
The high workforce participation -> low birth rate correlation is definitely visible over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-and-female-labo...
Why not? A lot of people on the left are saying that having children is bad for the environment, why shouldn't this be true in poor countries?
Fewer children is better for the environment; that doesn't mean one has to favor population control. It's easier, more democratic and probably at least as effective to enforce equality for women in education and economics, and the lower birthrates follow automatically.
Not that there's anything particularly democratic about "enforcing equality" in foreign countries.
That would be wonderful because it would mean that workers get fair wages. Lack of productivity can be compensated by automation.
>How do you reverse it when it becomes a problem?
That's biologically impossible. Even if you sterilize every human with a birth certificate on earth.
As this article [3] (unfortunately not in English) aptly puts it: "Air travels represents around 5% of the emissions of humanity [4], but 90% of humans have never taken a plane." (the 90% figure is arguably difficult to assess [5]. It comes from an article in French behind a paywall, but other sources [6] show similar numbers).
Finally, CO2 is of course not the only source of pollution. But this map [7] showing meat supply per person shows a similar direction.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/CO2_emis...
[2] https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2014;&mar...
[3] https://medium.com/enquetes-ecosophiques/d%C3%A9mographie-et...
[4] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30987495.pdf
[5] https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-the-worlds-population-...
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-caus...
[7] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Meat_sup...
Of course, this is the average American, which is a deceptive number when talking about countries with high levels of wealth inequality.
I’m not an advocate for population control, but if I were I wouldn’t exclude poor countries from my scope. Many poor countries are “developing” and it seems more reasonable to ask people that were planning to have 8 children to instead have 4 rather than targeting people that were aiming for one or two. Especially when the 8 kid family to be is already poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...