Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people.
8 billion people is just too much, even if we all recycle and take the bus.
The only solution is strong government action to reduce emissions and environmental consequences of consumption. It's not completely un precedented: the hole in the ozone layer was the unavoidable apocalypse in the late 90s and is an almost solved problem right now.
I wish. We only halted its growth and it is only barely healed. From Wikipedia [1]:
> A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol.[107]
> The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to continue for decades. Ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica will increase by 5–10 percent by 2020 and return to pre-1980 levels by about 2060–2075.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_o...
Surely if humans are the cause, they can be the solution too. Planting more forests is possible. Breeding Elephants, Giraffes, Hippos, and other large mammals we displaced is possible and is bing done now. Making land more hospitable to wild animals is also possible. Perhaps we need more people to be born not less to fill these roles.
Even large ultra modern cities like Dubai, are not all bad. They terraformed the desert. All kinds of plants, birds and animals live in Dubai that never could before. New York is home to billions of rats.
I'm not even sure that human activity has in anyway reduced the biomass of the earth. Cities provide ideal habitat to all kinds of birds, plants and animals. And Carbon emissions are good for plants, CO2 is needed for photosynthesis.
Forests have been converted to farms, and we grow way too much corn, that is used for fuel. A terribly inefficient and wasteful process. So I'm a big proponent of Nuclear Energy technology, which would greatly reduce our need for fossil fuels.
I also think Farms should be surrounded by treed buffers, and we should build green forested corridors that span the continent.
All of that might require more people not less to accomplish. That rare genius that will bring us break through energy technology might be someone in the next billion people not yet born.
Read in this voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G19B7lTgwCE
I think if the world really got behind this, we could get the population down in 3 or 4 generations.
1/3rd of all emissions are produced by 20 companies
The US Military alone puts out more carbon than the top 60 carbon emitters.
“The Earth is not dying-it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” — Utah Phillips
Sure, but mostly they're producing goods and services that millions/billions of people consume. Getting rid of those 20 companies won't change anything.
I'm pro-anti-trust and I believe that breaking up certain big corporations would a good thing. But that's a long way from "the problem is capitalism and imperialism" and the implication that eliminating those things is possible or would fix environmental problems. The Soviets were even worse for the environment.