According to AOC, those nearly 10 billion humans will place a major burden on the Earth. With what they need to live a comfortable existence — the house, car, utilities, food, travel, and other services, each with its own carbon footprint — those ten billion will increase carbon emissions by at least 43%. Just the livestock that human beings raise emit 37% of non-natural methane emissions, 23 times more damaging than all the CO2 from cars. From an environmental perspective, 10 billion humans seems an unacceptable number.
For radicals like AOC, here are two solutions. One is to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of every human being on the planet. This could be accomplished by mandating electric vehicles or no car at all, and by using taxation and zoning to force humans into smaller, more efficient apartments.
But housing and transportation would not be enough. It would be necessary to slash electricity and other utility usages, since power plants are the largest source of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and to outlaw animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy. It would also be necessary to limit travel and restrict land use so as to return land to its state of nature.
