Theoretically, it's possible. But....

Theoretically, Bernie Madoff could pay back that $50 billion, too.

What are the odds a population on it's way to 9.2 billion, in the best case scenario, can reduce it's footprint and population numbers to a few billion before that wrath arrives?

How would you increase the death rate?

If it's really a "stretch" to think a return to life within natural carrying capacity limits couldn't occur without a die-off, then it should be easy to outline how this might occur and how to implement such a process.

I don't think it's a stretch, I think it's a bit of a stretch to think it can (or will) occur without a die-off.

I guess what I'm looking for are these easy to find and implement solutions to the overshoot problem (or even the exceeding the carrying capacity problem).

Now THERE'S a stretch...if you were favored by nature.

I think many people have the notion that....if we could just reduce the per capita footprint...then we could somehow get back under the carrying capacity.

Sorry. it's like Dr. Catton remarked, we are too far in excess of carrying capacity with raw numbers...for even for a return to the old ways of living to make much of a difference.

Carrying capacity, at least in my neck of the woods, is much lower than it was in ye olden days. About 1/5 what it was, so this area could only support 1/5 the population it did back then (100-150 years ago), whatever that was.

Even with 100% Trojan success (why not just get a vasectomy?), it would take decades to reduce the population to that far below historic carrying capacity, it seems to me.

I also agree with the other ecology trained individuals on this thread regarding the human species having no free pass to the phenomenom of overshoot and die-off.

We are entering the stage where ideology and education about sustainability and living within carrying capacity will be augmented by the reality of identifiable consequences of our overshoot. External consequences like the peaking and decline of below ground energy and commodity resources, above ground environmental degradation of our climate, soils, fisheries and climate will have a profound effect on our culture.

Now we leave behind the realm where ecology, environmentalism and sustainability has been a competing ideology against consumption, capitalism and modernism etc.

The reality of planetary limitation (the peaking of everything) which is the most glaring evidence of overshoot I can think of will exert an enormous pressure on our culture. It has already started.

Human response to the consequences instead of the arguments of overshoot may very well prove to be the moment our modern civilization will shine and surprise us with a transendent renaissance toward sustainability from the lessons we learn as the crippling consequences ruthlessly and brutally strip us of our 2000 mile long peacock feathers of materialism and consumption.

I would encourage everyone engaged in this topic to not waste their precious short lives obsessing on seeing their fellow humans as brainless lemmings going over the cliff of overshoot.

Humans will go over that cliff but we wont go over the cliff brainless. This is what does separate us from our fellow creatures. We will be transformed. But not all 7 billion of us. Only that fraction that make it through.

How eloquent is both our ecological heritage and our potential for cultural evolution.

Yes. Overshoot destroys carrying capacity and die-off from overshoot devastates it.

We cannot go back to the days before fossil fuels and just apply our technology to wood, solar, and biomass.

And yes again, birth control takes 50 to 75 years to have a net effect due to population age demographics.

This momentum is why the population will continue to grow even in the face of declining food and resources...that is, until it crashes.

Certainly very small, but definitely not nil.
I'd start with the extermination of general contractors; the more we build, the more and longer we live. Just kidding.

Just like we passed numerous unpopular laws for the benefit of the whole.

I doubt they'll be easy to find and implement.

For the record, I don't.

I don't think that either. I do feel it is absolutely possible and imperative to reduce footprint while shrinking population, through birth control. Also, I get the feeling that we may have our numbers sharply reduced by diseases we aren't prepared to handle.

Monte, If you were a little less dogmatic, we'd all be eating out of your hand.

Ah c'mon now. He's simply sharing a message some may have a tough time with and may make them a bit uncomfortable. It's really tough to tell people this sort of message in a nice and friendly manner. In fact, it may not be possible unless through a philosophical or religious perspective, and Monte is just telling the harsh facts.

In the coming months, we may get a clearer perspective, depending on how the general world economy moves.

He's not "sharing a message", he's dogmatically pounding it home, like some horny fundamentalist preacher.

I realize he has a 'unique style' of communicating on this topic, but try to read through the 'sparkle' and what he writes becomes clearer.

What he writes, personal commentary aside, is really interesting and thought provoking.