It's a very arrogant comment indeed. A human's permitted CO2 output should not depend on how much she/he contributes to science or even the GDP. Anyway, earth

It's a very arrogant comment indeed. A human's permitted CO2 output should not depend on how much she/he contributes to science or even the GDP. Anyway, earth could very well sustain even 20 billion people according to Martin Rees (in "On the Future"). It does require that we really reduce our resource usage, however. Going vegan, using virtual reality instead of travelling etc. Luckily the trends seem to indicate we won't reach more than 11 billion (which is still way too much at today's resource usage) before the numbers go down.