Take the choice of pregnancy out of women's, one persons hands, all together by making it commonplace for teen boys to freeze sperm and get vasectomies. When they are older and SOBER they can choose when to assume the responsibilities of family and children instead of having it forced on them.
No more "accidental" unwanted pregnancies. Fewer broken families, less stress on natural resources, less poverty, less divorce, less abuse, less domestic violence, less suicide, less mental health issues due to the stress of providing and caring for larger than wanted family and above all less people.
Get rid of religion that requires you to have children heck get rid of all of them. Without disease to control population we would need to limit the number of children to a family most likely 1. The large countries with excess populations would need to export them to lower pop nations. Birth control and abortions might need to be enforced by nations. Economics would play a very large role as it is the poor with large families that are now causing the problems in third world nations and those that are Muslim.
They did this in China . They passed a law requiring a limit of only one child per family , and enforced it , using forced abortions and sterilizations . Since the majority of families wanted to pass on things to a male heir , the majority of families disposed of females . Some twenty or so years later , as the male majority began looking for brides , they discovered a major shortage of brides. .
You suggest that the Pope is a responsible world leader and the opposite is probably the case. The Catholic church, and probably all churches, want people to have babies to eventually fill the pews even when the prospective parents are not capable of being responsible parents. Instead of paying irresponsible whores to have babies at the expense of society in general I would place them in a commune type situation to work and be educated until they are able to provide evidence that they are capable of making responsible decisions and giving the child a chance to develop into a responsible adult. It might be the Native American genes in me but I believe a tribal community where all adults take part in rearing all children would serve us much better. It appears to me that all of our problems eventually come back to the corrupt legal profession.
My exclamation mark was added as a touch of sarcasm !!
Things like free contraceptives are good ideas in and of themselves, but overpopulation (currently, at least) is a myth. We produce enough food for 10 billion already, for instance. What we need is better access and greater equality.
But to answer the policy part of the question, I would encourage or enact rules that gave increased voice to the people, slowly staging direct democracy in place of representatives where possible, supporting coops and nonprofits while rescinding support for private companies, and banning privatization of natural resources wherever possible. All while supporting education initiatives world wide.
@DonThiebaut
This is communisim, and it has already proven not to work ?
@VAL3941
So the complaint about communism is always that it's authoritarian and devolves into corrupt dictatorships. Direct democracy is the opposite of that, yo. Coops and non profits are also widely known to be beneficial to society. Education initiatives shouldn't need defending. Is keeping natural resources publicly available, instead of in the hands of monopolists, the issue? 'Cause it seems like common sense to me.
@DonThiebaut
It was common sense to all communist followers, it still did not work though ?
@VAL3941 Because of the whole authoritarian thing. See, when you nationalize the resources, then privatize the government, you end up with essentially privatized resources. A monopoly. When the government is public (democratic) and the resources are public (democratically controlled) there is no monopoly, and no problem. You have to start with democratisation, though, which is why blocking privatization was at the bottom of the list.
@DonThiebaut
OK ! But it still does not work !
@VAL3941 And what would your solution to rampant inequality be?
@DonThiebaut
Read my comment right at the bottom of this page !
@VAL3941 Sounds terrible.
@DonThiebaut
But effective ?
@VAL3941 at killing off all humankind? Yes. At solving population and inequality issues in a reasonable way? Not so much.
@DonThiebaut
Problem solved ! Maybe Mankind should be wiped out seeing the crap job they doing to the world/earth ?
@VAL3941 Maybe we should start by not doing a crap job first.
@DonThiebaut
Thats a whole different topic so not going there !