Maybe it's violates another rule we like, and we can't keep both. If we posit that it's a positive thing that anyone in the world have unrestricted capacity to own a home, vehicle, pursue happiness and basically make use of resources as a Westerner does, then keeping the number lean could respect that - if the resource extraction, land encroachment and other externalities from demand become a problem at scale.

The fantasy from the greens is that Westerners are "consuming more and more". Really, there are just more people consuming.