Re: Can/should Bitcoin software be reconfigured to limit the # of miners?
Can/should Bitcoin software be reconfigured to limit the # of miners to reduce the transaction wait time and transaction fees or does it already do that?
1. Bitcoin protocol cannot enforce who can mine and how many can mine
2. Transaction wait time & fees depends on many things, such as total unconfirmed transaction and transaction fee of the transaction itself
3. Bitcoin full node software (such as Bitcoin Core) can be configured only to set minimum transaction fee (currently it's 1 sat/vbyte) which will be broadcasted
In the news the carbon footprint of such high network usage is too high so the above would help reduce that? 
If your concern is carbon footprint, it's more efficient to ask government to do something about it.