(Although, it's actually on the high side for the planet right now, anyway)
There you go! Let's just degrow until our population and its lifestyles fit on this planet. We could solve most of our environmental problems in a generation or two by letting the population age out and shrink naturally.
We suspected that drought may be inhibiting plant growth, but we threw a variety of plants in the lake and they had all the water they could ever ask for, and we didn't see the growth we expected. Water must not be a factor.
I find it hillarious that neoliberal government have done everything they can to increase private profits and destroy financial safety and security with anti-union policies, the death of competition in banking & finance, telecom and grocers, the gigification of the economy and the rise of the precariat, the near death of pensions, a housing crisis that was manufactured, deliberately, continuous attempts to privatize healthcare, let alone the climate crisis and ecological overshoot. Our dental care, pharma care and daycare are being deliberately made inadequate.
Then an article like this comes out and pretends like we don't know, and really tries its best to not look too hard and the world we made.
"Incentives don't work"
Lol! Give a plant $20 to make offspring and see how that goes. Create an environment where they thrive and you can't stop it, like weeds. This article has a lot of smart people playing really dumb.
The US has a ton of forced labour. Between their insurance racket and the prison industrial complex, we should rely on ourselves first and foremost, then trade with like partners second. Everything else is last resort.
Oh! Right in the climate change. Oof. Ow.