[blueadept111]

No viable way? All it takes is a single generation to have 50% less children to cut the world population (and therefore carbon emissions) in half.

Not only is it viable, it the solution that will be forced upon humanity if humanity doesn't embrace it on its own terms.

[walleeee]

> 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).

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)

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?

[blueadept111]

Holy nitpick, batman.

It's an outcome. "Solution" depends on the goal. If the goal is to have a planet so choked with humanity that almost everything else dies, then no, it's not a solution.

[hedora]

A 50% reduction in CO2 isn’t enough, and even if it were, over half the earth’s population would need to die by ~2030 for that plan to work on time.