Humans are an uncontrolable virus on the planet

I spend a lot of time thinking about how one thing effects another and so on. It is the economist in me. I recognize, or appreciate, and anticipate things of the nature that if fewer people are spending money, than eventually businesses will be making less money, hence they won't need as many people to work for them or won't be able to afford those people which puts people out of work and now you have fewer people spending less and so on. I got to thinking about the earth and the strain humans place on it. I recognize that Americans have notably the best standard of living on the planet, in general. We consume great amounts of protein and grain products. We consume a lot of energy. Slowly more countries and their populations are being elevated to our same standards of living. They will want to improve their diets and will consume more energy. If everyone on the planet eventually was elevated to our standard of living, could the planet support us. If not, which I'm seriously beginning to doubt, then we have to change something, or many things. What population level at our standard of living could the planet support? Do we hold the population steady? Do we reduce the standard of living for all? Do we figure out ways to reduce energy consumption? It is a very overwhelming quandary.