Gently easing population to 4 billion by 2200 would help people and nature

The past century of increases in human population and resource consumption has produced some undesirable effects, ranging from environmental degradation to political unrest. We are accustomed to seeing these dependent variables charted with time on the x-axis. But this study presents metrics of biodiversity, consumption, and pollution and their extremely strong correlations when charted against human population size. Then we suggest that a more rapid yet non-coercive lowering of global Total Fertility Rates to 1.75 by 2050, and holding there, will produce many benefits for current and future generations of our own species and for nature. Among these benefits are reduced CO2 emissions, habitat recovery, protection of wild species, reduction of poverty, and reduced conflict over scarce resources.