That's not quite what I said.

It's a direct (though partial) anchoring quote to identify what portion of your comments I was addressing. You said it. Exactly.

Longer lives => contributing to pollution for a longer period

That's one effect.

Another is that life becomes far more predictable. Risk and uncertainty are both factors which tend to work against the development of a rich and advanced culture. If a family can be reasonably assured that the children it births will live to maturity, the costs of food, housing, education, etc., are more likely to reach fruition and payoff. That's a large part of the dynamic that's though to lead to the demographic transition (see Hans Rosling and others). I've got my own concerns about DT, and theories about the reduced birthrates of highly concentrated cultures (Western Europe, non-hispanic US, Japan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere), but as a first order approximation it seems to hold. Once you've stabilized the population you can look at both reducing it (critical to long-term survival) and enriching it.

Are you making the point that modern medicine has contributed to global warming?*

There's very little in the history of the past 250 years that hasn't contributed in some way. It's complicated. My overarching point, however, is that we now know far more about what our limits are and can address them.

So I think you're responding to something I said.

Fossil fuels are the primary driver toward anthropgenic global warming, which is in fact the matter at the heart of this HN article. They've also been the driver of most economic (and population) growth of the past 250 years, by making a vast, clean[1], reliable[2], readily utilized, and highly fungible form of energy available. So yes, it's complicated. And it's a question I'm looking into at more length. And it's specifically fossil fuel use curtailment which India is fighting in international accord proceedings.

Indus Valley Civilization

An instance of the collapse of an advanced culture which happens to be proximate to your presumed location (I take it you're in India or have spent considerable time there). There are others. I strongly recommend Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies (his work is referenced strongly in Jared Diamond's Collapse).

Greer

He's not an orthodox thinker. I won't speak to all of his beliefs, but I've found his blog to be useful reading (and recommend you look at it) and the concept of catabolic collapse specifically useful. As I indicated, it's got credence in Marc Andreesen's "software eats everything" concept, in financialization, see books of the past decade or two on Wall Street / financial market shenanigans from Mark Lewis, and others (The Big Short, Hollowing Out America, etc.).

Orthodox economics certainly has its own set of fantastical beliefs (and gross distortions). Something I've more than a passing relationship with (I majored in the subject).

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Notes:

1. As compared with animal power for transportation. "Mud", a/k/a dung, was a huge pollution and public health problem prior to motorized transport. The polluting effects which are experienced from fossil fuels occur at levels of utilization which simply had not been attained by its precursor fuels and energy sources. That said, yes, in sufficient quantity it can be quite bad (acute effects) and the chronic effects of CO2 release are now understand to be of vast significance.

2. Not subject to seasonal or other variability as with growing fuelwood, grains, water, wind, or direct solar energy. Until the point at which stocks of fossil fuels are practically exhausted.