I always kind of shake my head when people try to say we're some sort of puny presence that has no impact on the health of the planet.
It's just mathematical. We're using the earth's resources at a rate that isn't sustainable, and polluting and destroying habitat at rates that aren't sustainable. We have to change the way we do things.
The kind of changed life that you describe, however, simply isn't worth living. I'm not some kind of commune living hippie.
We needed to be more responsible with procreation globally. We weren't. We're fucked.
Now it's just about over, so we may as well do whatever the fuck we want.
Just don't drag new people into the world to suffer.
We weren't a puny presence. We were enough of a presence to destroy the earth.
But the answer wasn't to not live well. In that case, why live at all? If I can't enjoy a reasonable standard of living, I didn't need to be born at all.
I like deodorant cans with propellant that actually works. I like big cars with V8 engines. I like my house to be at the temperature that I find comfortable.
And I look down at stoics who don't care about living well and say that I shouldn't either. Fuck them. I keep them out of my life.
The answer was to not fuck ourselves into overpopulated dystopia, and we've already done that. Every fucking person decided to be a breeder.
Intelligent people understood that fucking was for pleasure, but breeding was to be carefully planned.
There just weren't enough of them globally.
People without a pot to piss in had ten kids when well to do people who could afford them wisely had one or maybe two, merely replacing themselves.