Decreasing population

There are signs that we are in fact an intelligent species. Birth rates are coming down. In the 1950s the average woman bore six children; in the 1990s that number fell to 2.9. In every rich nation the fertility rate is below the replacement rate of two children per woman. Some, such as the United States, are still growing because of immigration and/or baby-boom cohorts moving through their reproductive years. But if fertility holds at present levels, the population of Europe will decline from 728 million in 1998 to 715 million in 2025. We could, inspired by the awesome spectacle of our six billion, choose to bring our numbers down gracefully, gradually, everywhere, over a century or two, to around two billion, which would allow good lives for all humans and leave plenty of room for nature as well.