If fully assured of children's survival, most people have quite modest desires for family size. But their desire to consume knows no upper bounds. Appliances improve every year and old ones need replacing. New needs are created that never existed before. The number of households is increasing as people live longer and family breakdown becomes more common.
Smaller households consume considerably more per person than large.
Moreover, consumption is politically very difficult to restrain. No one can get elected promising people they can earn and spend less, or re-elected if they fulfil their promises. In view of this much of the burden of reducing our environmental impact will rest on technology. Technology will have to deliver major shifts in improving resource productivity, and in reducing the amount of waste we create. All our institutions and forms of management which affect technology will need to be geared to this end.