History teaches us that the nature of humans is to consume as much as they can in any given situation, the number of children one has are regarded as a sign of virility and a measure of the abundance available to consume.
If you ask humans to suddenly start acting in a different way then history shows us that it will only occur because conditions no longer allow the previous lifestyle to be maintained.
In the past the usual answer to this has been to move somewhere else where the living is easier, the trouble with this is the planet is full and there is nowhere else to go.
There have always been ascetics who have decried worldly pleasures and admonished the sins of excess, but these are almost always to do with purifying the soul in preparation for an after life of some sort and not out of concern for the physical environment, and people in general seem to regard exhortations to be frugal and abstemious as just a revamping of this in new "green" terms.
For a long time people especially in the west have been told that as consumers they can consume as much as they want and that population control is for those in poor countries who are less worthy than we, and now some of the powers that be have joined the holy Joe,s and excessive and conspicuous consumption is again declared as sinful, the American public for instance seem to regard this as a Satan inspired liberal plot.
The fact is that people are most probably going to act the way they do until they have no choice at all in the matter and are forced into a sustainable lifestyle, the unfortunate thing is at that point many billions will probably have to suffer for the lesson to get home and it might be learned too late.
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