You need to finish this statement.

"We must somehow find a way to make it work, and work quickly,"

work quickly or else........ what?

We will not find the miracle you say we must find so there will be consequences.

The actions/results are not binary, it is a spectrum at best we could preserve most of the biosphere and then try to restore it. More likely will be a huge loss and an impossibly long recovery.

We will see a prolong period of greater inequality that might or might not get corrected.

I agree the problem is the world is overburdened but the huge human population is not an asset, it is a bug.