I hope by "modest proposal" you mean "satirical take meant to show how awful people are being", which is the whole point of the original modest proposal. The b

I hope by "modest proposal" you mean "satirical take meant to show how awful people are being", which is the whole point of the original modest proposal. The big issue isn't the number of people, but the amount of energy and resources they require. The carbon emissions per 1000 people in India is 0.922 metric tons a year. For the United States that number is 19.86 metric tons a year. That's a difference of over 21 times. To put it another way, preventing a single US birth is the equivalent of preventing 21 births in India. Focusing on the raw population is, and always has been, a distraction that high consuming countries use to ignore their own role in our current environment. This isn't to say that populations should rise forever, but it's pretty common for countries that reach higher levels of developments to have their population growth level off. Reducing poverty is by far the best and most ethical way to combat booming population growth.