Mammele,
“One of the problems we Frum Yidden have – or should have – with environmentalism is their logical conclusion against population growth. If one believes carbon dioxide is bad for the environment, there’s no way to escape this conflict. We can’t simultaneously believe that we need to reduce our carbon footprint yet actively increase our numbers.”
This is a good point about the current state of policy debate with respect to our response to climate – and an example of why I feel it’s important to make distinctions between the climate science itself, which is politically neutral, and the policies proposed by people with their own biases. I personally see your inescapable conflict as a false dilemma. City planners who try to develop the urban landscape to mitigate traffic congestion as the population grows are not lacking faith in Hashem, nor advocating for a cessation of city growth. I see this problem as city planning on a larger scale. We should be smart about how we use our resources, because we want to create a great quality of life for as many people as we can. And when we’ve optimized resource usage as much as possible and it’s still not enough for our children, it’s time to move to the suburbs or grow the city! Hashem created a vast universe beyond Earth that is full of resources. I personally don’t believe that a need for population control must be part of any plan to try to create an environment that is optimal for a thriving humanity.