So, to summarize :
General trends (pulled out of my ass if you ask) :
First world : If without immigration, almost exponentially shrinking (the population grow older, and women have less child) ; and continually reducing its environmental footprint per Capita.
Second World : Demographic transition almost ended, and in a population stabilization phase. Also, stabilization of the environmental footprint per Capita (still augmenting, but really smoothly, and will begin to diminish in one or two decades as the per Capita income increase and the country gain a First World standing)
Third World : Beginning or middle of the demographic transition, leading to an exponential increase in population with an highly and rapidly augmenting per Capita environmental footprint, leading to a rapidly unsustainable pressure put on the environment leading to a rapid collapse of agricultural yields if nothing is done, leading to famine, leading to chaos and Society's collapse in the concerned country – A downward spiral.
Ethic solution :
Rise the whole world as rapidly as possible to a First World living standing via a massive world “reconstruction” fueled by First World technical expertise, First and Second World money, and while trying to comfort the Third World to think that, no, definitively no, we aren't going to colonize them again, just that we are acting selfishly in order for them not to screw our planet, and that they should just shut the f*ck up and do what we tell them to do.
Oh, and while we are at it, pass something to the effect of a “Two Child Policy” in the Third World countries, and enforce that no
sex selection is to be done (that could result in a destabilization of the Sex-Ratio that would fuel civil unrest and things like that, like in India).
There is no need to mass sterilize population or to "increase the death rate". Just enforce the child restriction, and ensure that every women be either sterilized after the birth of her second child if she try to have a third (if it is just a non-desired pregnancy - to be proven by the court -, leave her ovaries alone) and enforce the termination of any third fetus. The limit is set to two living child, not two pregnancy.
This policy, in order to ensure that the Third World don't screech "Hypocrisy !" is to be generalized to the World's Population as a whole, until the Human population drop back to 4 Billion (two child per women isn't the natural replacement rate, because it does not take into account those that could and will die before producing one or two descendant).
Such solution will be really hard to accomplish (if not impossible), and an optimal solution would be to put in a place some sort of
World Government, or a '
Global Reconstruction and Wealth Redistribution Commissariat', but this is highly unlikely. Instead, it would be “possible” to help the
African Union and other regional States association to build themselves as equals of the European Union, in order for them to promote and ensure some sort of sustainable Good Governance. And for them to efficiently do what the fuck we tell them to do.
I want to hope we'll reach one day a solution like this, but the most likely outcome will more probably look like :
The First World will become more and more sustained by machines and robots as the population grow older, with some immigration coming from Second World countries not yet passed to a First World living standard and injecting some fresh blood in the system ; while the peoples in all the failed states of the Third World will continue to breed, like the human mind dictate, until there isn't enough food to feed everyone, leading to further instabilities, societies collapsing, war-lord rising and launching Djihad and fatwa and what-else on them-dirty First and Second Worlder. There will be waves of illegal immigrant flooding First and Second World country in their attempt to flee from a certain doom, fueling tensions between states.
Expect some sort of “world war”, where the First World will steamroll the Third World, but will be then paralyzed in a giant occupational clusterfuck that will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a walk in the park, destabilizing the First World countries, and sending them in their own downward spiral... In the end, it will likely come down to Us First-Worlders obliged to take actions making the Nazis looking almost human.
I hate myself for this, I hate Doom-and-Gloom, but sometime I doubt that we could ever find a peaceful outcome for this crisis, unless some miracle.
Bah... Either way, by 2150, the dust will have settled, and the problem will have found a solution, whatever it is ; be it our total and utter extinction, or a peaceful and thriving global human society, slowly but surely colonizing the solar system and using its resources to further fuel the progresses of Mankind. Or more likely something between that.
TL;DR :I think we should come out of this crisis not by renouncing to our commonly accepted Ethic, but precisely by generalizing it to the whole world
by any mean necessary. It will be harder, but it will also be the
Good Thing To Dotm