This article is dogshit. Absolutely extremely terrible. I'm going to argue against one tiny piece of it, a single paragraph, because I think this paragraph encapsulates the issue I have with the article.

Here's the paragraph:

We need to have far fewer smartphones, because we will never be able to manufacture them sustainably. We need to use less energy, because the energy transition and renewables revolution have already failed. And for these things to happen we need to have fewer humans, because it is the only way which absolutely guarantees the reduction of our impact on the planet.

I agree that we need to produce fewer smartphones and we need to consume less electricity. That far, I'm with the author. But the conclusion, that only by having fewer people will we have fewer smartphones and less usage of electricity, is patently ridiculous. Just, incomprehensibly wrong. Let me give one extremely easy, like, embarrassingly easy, counterargument for each of these claims.

For smartphones, the counterargument is that we "need" so many smartphones because of planned obsolescence, because phones are specifically made to be replaced in a year or two so that smartphone manufacturers can sell expensive pieces of equipment to people every couple of years.

For electricity, data centers use like 10 times as much electricity as everything else combined. Just get rid of data centers and electricity is significantly less of a problem. Oh no, we'll no longer have access to so-called "AI" or cryptocurrency. Oh no.

This article fucking sucks. The earth could easily support as many humans as currently exist, probably even more, but not if the wealthy insist on continuing to amass capital to the detriment of literally everyone on earth.