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Huge Reduction in Meat-Eating 'Essential' To Avoid Climate Breakdown (theguardian.com)
Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's impact on the environment. From a report: In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses. The research [PDF] also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet's ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades. Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets.
Switching to a plant based diet will reduce your carbon footprint by less than one ton/year. Having one fewer child will reduce it by _60_ tons per year.
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news...
The CO2 impact of children is the equivalent of burning a 55 gallon drum of oil, per week, per child.
You forgot the easiest, which also can not only reduce growth, but also reduce population itself:
4. War.
Unstable war-torn countries tend to have the HIGHEST birthrates, and the fastest population growth rates.
The country with the highest birthrate in Asia is Afghanistan.
The highest birthrates in Africa are in Mali, Niger, and Angola.
Birthrate by country
People in war-zones move toward an r-selection reproductive strategy.