Well, yes, and we are currently experiencing a huge demographic change, by force of numbers. Mass extinction, climate change (just beginning), chemical and plastic pollution, deforestation and sea level rise are about to demonstrate the truth of your and Wat’s words. I think the coming acceleration of change may even exceed the black death plague, because we are entirely beguiled by the status quo, lucky us, so smart. But whatever happens, afterwards people will become smugly used to the new normal. If they’re lucky.

Poverty and ignorance (their poverty and our ignorance) are already killing millions a year, let’s face it.

They’re always some combination of lump-sum payment that might possibly cover the cost of nappies and a stroller and/or a token allowance to cover (and raise sufficiently to immediately absorb the allowance) the costs of childcare. Meanwhile educated women spend a couple of minutes doing basic calculations and figure out that, no thanks, they’d rather not aspire to a life as impoverished incubators.

What you will never see is a policy that progressively removes wealth from the comparatively rich elderly and redistributes it to young families.

and seem to be coping

You may not have noticed, but Japan is not coping well. If you worked in the same office as Japan they’d be a prime target for a tentative “RuOK?” It’s at the point now where things are great for tourists due to the “low prices” but not so good for people who live there and get paid in yen. Sort of like Bali, Vietnam or Rumania are great tourist destinations if you want value from your dollar.

inconvenient for the survivors but doubled wages for a while

Wat Tyler, speaking from the great beyond, would like to point out that those “doubled wages” came after huge upheavals. When serfs became a scarce resource, their owners’ first response was to have laws passed preventing them from moving to the next village (where life was better) and in general attempting to preserve the old status quo. A lot more death happened before those wages rose.

When demographic changes occur the resulting changes are painful. They don’t “just happen”.

Ha ha.. Ouch! (…am I dead? Or is this just foreplay..?)

bite, bite, bite.

“Pattern of consumption” is true to a point but to say numbers aren’t an equally significant factor is ridiculous.

https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/

Scroll down to the countries at 1.0 or below and see if there’s any there you’d like to live in.

Pick the country you would like to live in with the lowest score and see what that score is. I reckon you’ll struggle to find one under 2.0.

Be cautious of people who believe infinite growth in a finite system is possible.

Attenborough is not a scientist, but a failed actor who moved into wildlife docos.

He is also a patron at Population Matters UK = Tanton Network, what else? 🙂