My thought is its pretty obvious we've exceeded our limits. The fact that Ehrlich's Population Bomb predictions were thwarted only by using fossil fuels, fossil fertilizer and fossil water in many places, tells us that we have exceeded our
sustainable carrying capacity. IOW, only by tapping into resources concentrated over millennia have we benefitted from this one-time reprieve. We are too many to revert to sustainability on this planet. The question isn't whether will we decline but will it be via decreasing births or increasing deaths?
I don't believe that in the short term we will crash, momentum and sunk investments are too big. Our societies may or probably will erode as they've always done. But for example, only half of the global grain crop is consumed by humans directly, an incredible 40% goes to animals and 10% to feed internal combustion engines—both a hugely inefficient use of our very sustenance. Some will starve but it will continue to be due to waste (however you define it) and unequal distribution rather than low yields... for now.
I've said for years that the population curve will continue to bend and low replacement will outpace any increase in death rates. And considering death rate is continuing to fall and birth rates are too I feel a speck optimistic at least. This is US death rate and life expectancy at birth:
Global life expectancy:
But even at the best case the curve is loooong, maybe too long:
The thing I fear most is a global reenactment of the Irish famine. Capitalists WILL seek the most profit and count government bribes as just another cost of business. The potato crop in Ireland did suffer a blight, but potatoes were only about 20% of the ag output in the 1840's. The crops raised by Irish tenant farmers were exported because the ownership could get better prices elsewhere and the politicians could get better wigs by letting them.
Witness the export of natural gas and oil in the US as prices rise worldwide. After 150 years of extracting fossils it wasn't until 2014 the drillers bought enough congressmen to allow unregulated exports (TRRC imposed shipping limits before 1972 to stabilize price) What else was going to happen with a supermajority of our "representatives" going to the highest bidder? Its capitalism baby!
I think there are still only 2 ways to go on a personal level, get either small or get big. Either get a plot of land and a job to keep it or get in bed with the people running the show and hope they stay on top.
.
.