Yes, population growth is a problem as most people in poor countries aspire to consume more; eventually becoming more like Americans.

Some people say that criticizing population growth is unfair to poorer countries as they think the main problem is over consumption in rich countries.

Problem is, it seems like most people, in poor countries, aspire to consume more. China is a good example. It now has a higher carbon footprint than USA due to 1.3 billion people industrializing, versus USA's 0.34 billion. Of course much of China's manufacturing is consumed in USA and other countries, however.

Still 1.3 billion has a big footprint even when the average Chinese citizen still consumes less than the average American. They do still have billionaires, in China, as do many other countries, in the world, including third world nations.

One big change that has happened in the last 50 years, since I entered college, is a huge rise in the consumption levels of people all over the world. Many folks have risen out of poverty in China and other places. This is a bigger change than the population growth, itself, though world population has doubled since then. Over the same time period, consumption has gone up far more.

Population growth is now slowing down, but it is still growing.

Even though many folks, in USA, feel guilty about our level of consumption, I don't see a huge trend toward voluntary simplicity. That can still happen and some folks embrace voluntary simplicity, but it doesn't seem to catch on in a big enough way.

These days, China may be doing more than USA to make it's economy greener. High speed rail, solar power, electric cars, even nuclear power. China has an easier time organizing on a big scale. In USA there are lots of citizen groups who fight changes.

I'd still rather live in USA in spite of democracy's inefficiencies, but it would be better if our self interests could bend a little more for common good.

Let us build that green infrastructure, for the most part at least. We are kind of gridlocked when it comes to making transformational changes. Trump wants to break the gridlock, but he and his supporters want to take us back in the wrong direction.