>>139258
Elites and governments are panicking because the way our economy is structured requires the continuing growth of markets. A declining population is a declining market. Beyond that, the speed of decline is too fast in some places to be stable because of the disproportionately long-lived older population that needs to be supported. A slower population decline wouldn't really be a problem without our current system so long as your nation wasn't threatened by external groups that you require a large population to compete with, but the powers that be need that eternal growth and expansion to remain in control regardless of this and the switch between one paradigm and its dependent systems to another is traumatic and violent.
The more foundational problem (separate from our current economic system and the speed of decline) is the uneven nature of it across groups. To the point, White nations are declining faster, and began doing so before, non-White nations; and beyond that the civilised races in general drop in population faster. This leaves a world where the civilised groups that built the world as we know it are unable to maintain the global system and become at risk of swamping by their lessers. Does a world that is overwhelmingly filled with Africans, Islamic Middle Easterners, Indians etc with a tiny white minority sound like either progress or good for the world? For that, there should be a third frame in your picture: the island utterly polluted with trash and on fire.