Without economic growth, the standard of living does not go up. Even with a neutral population growth rate, the standard of living will remain stagnent unless there is growth, new products created, etc. It has nothing to do with so called consumer goods. Food, clothing, and toiletries are the only real consumer goods. Furniture can last a lifetime if properly taken care of, so can homes. Even vehicles can last for years if properly taken care of. Most appliances can last for 20 years. People misuse them. We have an 18 year old refrigerator-freezer we bought new. The ice maker quit working, we replaced it ourselves for $35. Anyway, when it gets down to it, we can do without TV, computers, phones, even refrigerators. We can go back to the 1800's and use firewood, dry, smoke, salt/sugar meats, and can our food. Seems like that is what many here want to do. Peek oil was actually never reached as claimed. Cars got more efficient, but there are more cars. In Texas many old unproducing wells are slowly filling back up with oil. Also, I just read and article that said the UN lied about the world's climate increasing, when for 15 years it remained the same. They also said years ago that much of Florida and low lieing areas would be flooded by now. 20 years ago Al Gore said the poles would be melted by now. All of what they said hasn't happened.
I think one of the biggest problems since 1960 has been the transition from glass and canned containers to plastics. I collected soft drink bottles to sell back to the local grocery store for a penny a bottle, later 2 cents a bottle. Then they went to aluminum cans and plastic bottles. I also remember growing up with glass mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup bottles. My grandmother used mustard jars for canning jellies. They reused the glass containers for fruits and vegetables you could water bath or make into pickled things. They used used ketchup bottles for peppers. Nothing was wasted. Cans could be recycled or put to other uses. Not anywhere near as much waste as today. Living in the country, no one had to deal with trash. Paper trash was burned. Glass and metal were recycled into other usable things or taken to a metal or glass recycling center. No one used throw away diapers either, they used cloth diapers and washed them.
I do agree that uneducated 3rd world people flooding 1st world countries will be a huge problem in the future if there is not enough time for them to assimilate and learn the the first world skills. I do see a lot of Hispanic labor in my area doing house framing, masonry work, and sheet rock work. As time goes on, the older homes in my area are torn down and new homes are being built. New homes are more efficient and use far less energy than the older homes. This is improving the standard of living.
Forests in my state are constantly being cut for wood and paper product production. They are always replanted. Southern pines mature in 20 years. So they are constantly being cut and replanted. Lumber is made and the scrap sawdust is made into press board or wafer board. The bark is stripped and used for mulch, or they burn it to dry the lumber. Very efficient, these new sawmills. My hometown has a metal recycling center. If an older home is torn down, the piping and wiring are stripped out and taken to the recycling center. Bricks are sometimes recycled, even the old wood in the home, even windows and doors. Very little is wasted. My uncle built a cabin on a lake from getting recycled wood from an old wooden school that was torn down. He made a lot of trips in his pickup truck. After work every day and on weekends.
It is not all gloom and doom, just changing time. However, we do need to get immigration under control, the federal budget under control, otherwise we will have banking problems and too many people in poverty to deal with. Economic growth for 200 years has been faster than the population growth. Population growth does not equal economic growth.
