> All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. This is not how demograph

> All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half. This is not how demography works. Even an instant and global halving of the birthrate, holding all else equal, would not even begin to reduce total population. In 2016, global birthrate exceeded deathrate by a factor of ~2.4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthrate). There is also serious inertia involved when reducing natality to balance mortality. Exponential population growth has momentum. Population leveling could take decades to manifest. "...there is a large time lag between the point at which the fertility rate falls to the replacement level and the point at which the population stops rising." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth) And in any case, it's by no means obvious that population and total carbon emissions are directly proportional. I don't disagree that population reduction will likely be forced upon us by ecological and concomitant socio-political crises: e.g., water/food shortages, extreme weather, war, etc. Does that really deserve to be called a solution, though?