Consider also that reality today may have unique intractable problems: plastic pollution, acidic oceans, mercury contamination, temperatures nearing unsurvivable in places, etc.
I don't discount the effects of pollution and consider climate change to be a very important problem to recognize that said, more humans are thriving (as in not starving to death or dying at young age) today than in any time in history.
More humans existing today isn't a sign of stability or sustainability though. Would horses have thought the same in the early 1900s, just before their population rapidly declined?
