[AlexanderHowl]

How would you explain all of the scale, scope, and speed of the human-caused environmental problems? It is not that human civilization cannot deal with them through investment and technology, it is that they are occurring in the first place that is the sign of exceeding carrying capacity. If we were not exceeding the carrying capacity, we would not be dealing with human-caused environmental problems.

We can also use economics to determine overpopulation. The global per capita nominal income was ~$10,000 in 2017, which is less than one-third of the per capita income suggested for TL8 in Space, which us pretty close to what it should be for a population of 7.5 billion. If Earth possessed Affinity 9, it would have a carrying capacity of 5 billion people and the per capita income would be $23,250. If Earth possessed Affinity 10, it would have a carrying capacity of 10 billion people and the per capita income would be $43,400.