"Less doesn't have to mean less comfort."

It really does. You can live without clothes, that's less. You can live on 1500 kcals a day. You would be at the brink of starving all the time but you would be alive. I could lock you in a cage and just give you the bear minimum of bread and water. Just enough heat so you don't freeze and never let you out. That's certainly less. Just how much less do you want?

PS Young people almost always use more resources than the old. When my kid isn't here, our trash and recycling containers are pretty empty. When he is here, they overflow. And he is only a 50% increase in the house's population.