Reply to O’Sullivan: Wicked problems demand sophisticated understandings of complexity and feedbacks, not focus on a single variable

[Extract] O’Sullivan (1) both misunderstands and misrepresents our analysis (2). We tested, and found support for, the hypothesis that national economies tend toward one of two attractors because of complex feedbacks among ecosystem services, economic growth, and population growth. We then explored the possible consequences of alternative feedback loops for global sustainability. O’Sullivan seeks to simplify and reframe our analysis as a debate on population growth, ignoring both the thesis of our article and our empirical analysis. While human population growth is an important component of social–ecological sustainability, our analysis also demonstrates empirically that there are other important forces at play, such as changing consumption patterns. Reducing population growth is not a panacea for everything