This growth will produce serious challenges for our society. I believe that many of our present social problems may be related to the fact that we have had only fifty years in which to accommodate the second hundred million Americans. In fact, since 1945 alone some 90 million babies have been born in this country. We have thus had to accommodate in a very few decades an adjustment to population growth which was once spread over centuries. And now it appears that we will have to provide for a third hundred million Americans in a period of just 30 years.

NOTE: the maps do an excellent job of showing population growth, which is horrific in many places. They do not actually show where growth is due to direct immigration, or flight from other areas due to traffic congestion or other factors, as opposed to a high birth rate.   Karen Gaia says: For example, the map shows that California is ranked as Number 12 in growth, growing by 54% from 1980 to 2008. However, after WWII, the high growth rate was due to migration of mostly natives to California. And in the 1960's there was a large baby boom in the U.S., with an average of four children per couple. The 1980's saw the children of those baby boomers being born. California shares a border with Mexico and large numbers of legal and illegal immigrants cross the border there. Many of them go back and forth. There is no doubt that more recently immigration, if you include children born to immigrants, is responsible for the higher growth rate in the last two decades. But the birth rate is higher than the immigration rate in Calif. Best to address unintended pregnancies, which run about 50%. Even Catholics, many of them, practice birth control after 1 or 2 kids, if given the means.

In other developed countries, populations have either slightly dropped or stayed constant. "It may be time for the United States to establish a national population policy, one that would lead toward population stabilization sooner rather than later," Brown says. It may be important to switch the focus toward population stabilization and then decide how to stretch the resources among society.

No matter how many water shortage reports, climate change indicators, mass species extinctions or air pollution stories you read about, America blissfully adds 3.2 million people annually.

Another 77 million humans add themselves, net gain, to the planet annually and 1.0 billion add to the globe every 12 years.

Such a population growth cannot be sustained. Religious, cultural interests, and big business push the growth ever faster.

Distractors write that overpopulation is a New World Order myth or that the 'Illuminati' expect to kill off half the human population or some other nonsense. Mother Nature, who kills 18 million humans from starvation and related diseases annually, is ultimate population Nazi!

From 'WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE' by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, November 6, 2008 and www.dominantanimal.org (click on 'Further Information'), here is an outline what we should do:

One: put births on a par with deaths --

"Human beings have always fought against early death from accident, hunger, and sickness, and in the past century or so have employed improved sanitation and the use of pesticides and antibiotics to raise life expectancy. But given the frightening potential consequences of the explosion in human numbers that has followed reductions of the death rate, it is essential to pay equivalent attention to reducing high birthrates as well. Programs to educate and open job opportunities for women, and to make effective contraception universally available, must be an integral part of development policies in poor countries. Placing women in important cabinet posts in a new U.S. administration should have high priority and would send a strong signal in support of women's empowerment (even in developed nations, prejudice against women is widespread)."

"And, of course, a global discussion over the next several decades will be required to reach a consensus on those lifestyles and thus on the appropriate maximum population size - which we already know must be smaller than the present 6.7 billion."

Two: emphasize conserving more than consuming --

"At any given level of technology, there is a trade-off between the numbers of people in a society and the level of per capita physical affluence that can be sustainably supported. The more people there are, the smaller each one's share of the pie must be. One way of dealing with this unavoidable trade-off would be a cultural shift away from creating ever more gadgets to creating more appreciation and better stewardship of Earth's aesthetic assets." We need "careful husbandry of manufactured and natural capital (our ecological assets), and a crash program to abandon the use of fossil fuels and transition to sustainable energy technologies, would eventually permit most people to live satisfactory lives." We must abandon "the irrational idea that constant growth in consumption is automatically good and can continue forever."

Three: judge technologies not just on what they do for people but also to people and their life-support systems

"A novel synthetic chemical added to the plastic in a sports bottle may increase its durability, but if it leaches into a baby bottle's contents or into the environment and functions in tiny doses as an endocrine-disrupting agent, is the risk worth the benefit?"

Four: transform the consumption of education

"It is widely recognized that literacy and civic education are keys to 'development;' they could also be keys to sustainable development. Reform of education to help us solve the human predicament is thus crucial."

Five: rapidly expand our empathy

"We're a small-group animal, trying to live in large groups." .. "Can affluent people in the West learn to empathize enough with a child in Darfur so as to take real action to save her? Can they learn to care about the world her grandchildren will live in, and act to move that society towards peaceful sustainability? If the global community takes step five, the answers to both questions will be 'yes,' and we'll be on the kind of road that could lead to a level of global cooperation that might allow a billion or two, perhaps three billion, small-group animals to live together sustainably in relative peace, in the next century.

Six: decide what kind of world we all want

"What are the ultimate goals of our lives?" .. "Are Americans really happier traveling to work an hour or more each day wrapped in a ton or two of steel and breathing smog that threatens their lives? While the U.S. GDP has multiplied almost five times since 1958, satisfaction, as shown by surveys, has not increased at all."

"We could initiate a Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB) to begin a discussion of what economic, social, and political systems will best fulfill human desires as we struggle to live in gigantic, culturally diverse groups." ... "The USA could meet developing cultures halfway by focusing less on 'standard of living' and more on 'quality of life,' and it could bring the experts along with it."

Sales of over-the-counter contraceptives jumped 10.2% in the first two months of 2009. Condom sales jumped 5% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6% in January, compared with last year. Sales of a non-invasive, irreversible birth control method for women were up 28% over last year.

Planned Parenthood clinics report increased traffic over the past several months.

If recent trends show that contraception is a great form of protection against uncertain times and many are opting for the permanent form. A vasectomy will cost between $500-$1000.

Family planning is a foundation on which many Americans build responsible lives. Those who have lost their jobs and health insurance are in great need of family planning. Family planning is an American value and, something we rely on in our times of need.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Right on! I run this webpage because I care about people's right and capability to control their family's future. It has been difficult to make this point without sounding racist, because Americans have been relatively well off, up to now, but the same holds true the world over. People and governments who feel they suffer bad economic times benefit by cutting down their planned family size or delaying a pregnancy. Resources are not without limit!

The U.S. birth rate for teenagers 15 to 17 years old rose in 2007 by about 1%, to 22.2 births per 1,000 girls. Our population is at an all-time high with an increase in the number of women of childbearing age

.

An influx of immigrants and a growing minority of groups that tend to have higher fertility rates contributed to a higher birth rate.

In 2007, fertility rates increased in all racial groups by 1% percent, to 69.5 births per 1,000 women age 15 to 44, the highest level since 1990.

The year's total fertility rate is 2.1 children per mother, only slightly higher than past years, and the increase cannot compare to the impact of the post-World War II baby boom. Some of this boom is from single mothers.

In 2007, births to unwed mothers hit a record high of nearly 40%, continuing a trend fueled by a lessening of the stigma on single parenthood. More than three-

quarters of those unmarried mothers were over 20.

As the economic recession continues, the rising birth rates may not last. The lowest birth rates in the US occurred during the Great Depression before modern contraception.  rw   Karen Gaia says: there are signs that the current economic crisis may result in a lower birth rate.

The U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend.

However, the teen birth rate was up for the second year in a row.

The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40%. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older.

It's become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband. Happy couples may be living together without getting married. Some cited a growing trend among all adult women to have children regardless of their marital status.

Countries with much lower rates face future labor shortages and eroding tax bases as they fail to reproduce enough to take care of their aging elders.

Some experts think birth rates are declining because of the economic recession that began in late 2007.

The 2007 snapshot reflected a relatively good economy coupled with cultural trends that promoted childbirth.

U.S. abortions have been dropping to their lowest levels in decades. Some attributed this decline to better use of contraceptives, but others have wondered if the rise in births might indicate a failure in proper use of contraceptives.

Teen women tend to follow what their older sisters do, so teen births are going up just like births to older women. The numbers also showed:

Cesarean sections continue to rise, to almost a third of all births, much higher than is medically necessary.

Utah continued to have the highest birth rate and Vermont the lowest.

CDC officials noted that despite the record number of births, this is nothing like what occurred in the 1950s, when a smaller population of women were having nearly four children each, on average. That baby boom transformed society, affecting everything from school construction to consumer culture.

Today, U.S. women are averaging 2.1 children each.  rw   Karen Gaia says: with the increase in population due to immigration, we don't need a natural increase of 2.1. This amounts to a net increase of around 1%, which will double our population in 70 years.

Many of the problems facing California today have one root cause: too many people. As California's population grows by a half-million or more each year, virtually all of that growth stems from immigration, legal and illegal.

Population growth, creates the demand for more housing, more water, more schools, more highways - more of everything and that puts pressure on the environment.

Overpopulation driven by unsustainable levels of immigration is bringing on more traffic congestion, escalating energy prices, overcrowding of our beaches, parks and recreational areas, and increasing demands on our limited water supply.

That said, while the low- or no-growth policies might lessen the environmental issues, they would also create new and difficult economic and social problems.

Shortages of trained workers are looming in California. Low-growth countries such as Japan are already feeling that pinch.

Without ever-expanding, tax-generating construction, employment and retail sales, state and local governments would be compelled to raise taxes on an aging population with fixed incomes.

Changes of political policy often produce unintended consequences.  rw   Karen Gaia says: add more workers to solve the aging population problem and you will have those workers becoming aged themselves one day. Who will take care of them? It is an insane pyramid scheme to keep growing the population to take care of the aged. Regarding immigration contributing to growth, most of California's growth is due to births, many of which are unintended and can be prevented - regardless of whether or not the parents are native born. There are many legislative measures that affect California's fertility. Let us work on them!!!

Appropriate partners may not be available due to death or incarceration.  rw

Natural increase drives nearly 60% population growth annually. International immigration accounts for about 40%. One of the most significant trends has been the shift of the population west and south. Between 1970 and 2000, the population share in the South and West rose from 48% to 58%. People are moving farther from central cities and their inner suburbs, pushing into woodlands and farmland.

The percent of the total population living in the suburbs of metropolitan areas grew from 38% to 50% between 1970 and 2000, while those living in central cities stayed at around 30%. People are concerned about crowding.

One-person households are more than twice as common as those of five people or more at more than 26% of the total. Young adults are moving out on their own. Older people who are divorced or widowed often choose to live alone.

Many forces underlie these changes. The age at first marriage has risen from 23 to 27 for men and from 21 to 26 for women. Increasing levels of women's education give women more options for independence outside marriage.

Children are moving back home after college. Saddled with school loans, many overcome any reservations they might have had to returning to the nest.

Between 1970 and 2004, the share of women in the labor force rose from 43% to 59%. The array of occupations include far more than the traditional options. Economic forces exerted pressure on families until it was hard for one-income families to get by.

Experts believe the current Social Security system will not be able to cover the payments promised to retirees after 2030. Of Americans ages 25 and older the share who finished high school soared from 55% to 85% between 1970 and 2004. Now more applicants are expected to have a college degree. The number of foreign-born people in the US has reached more than 35 million. But at 12% of the population, the share is lower than it was between 1860 and 1920, when it ranged to 15%.

The largest share of immigrants to the US still comes from Latin America, and from Mexico in particular.

Many are not authorized to be here. Recent estimates peg the number of unauthorized migrants at 11.5 million, with more than one-half from Mexico.

Immigrants are fueling the growth in the number of ethnic minorities. One-fifth of all children under age 18 are either foreign-born or in a family where at least one parent was foreign-born. Today, almost half of all children under age 5 are members of a racial or ethnic minority. And if current trends persist, that share will increase.

These trends could have an impact on the US. Since 1974, the under age 18 have been more likely to live below the poverty line than other age groups. In 2005, 18% of the young lived in poverty, compared with 10% of people 65 and over and 11% ages 18 to 64. Members of racial or ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, with blacks the most likely 34%, Hispanics 28% and whites 14%.

If we don't address these age and race differences in poverty and well-being, today's children may be less able or willing to support the predominantly white when they reach adulthood.  rw

What's missing are initiatives that tackle U.S. population growth.

The environmental establishment has abandoned talking about the nation's growing populace, particularly as it relates to immigration. The debate centers on economics and national security.

The US population has nearly doubled since 1950, and is expected to hit 300 million in October.

The link between population and the country's environmental capacity, its water supply, farmland, fisheries and other natural resources, is getting more attention from groups that aren't among the names in environmentalism.

The scientific data shows that the U.S. is reaching many of the nation's ecological limits, and that many are linked to population trends. It's a shame that environmentalists haven't found a way to get involved in a prominent way.

Countries in Europe, with Russia and Japan, have shrinking populations because births aren't keeping pace with deaths.

America's relatively high population growth and high rates of consumption and pollution make result in the largest environmental impact per capita.

Americans occupy about 20% more developed land per capita for housing, schools, shopping, roads and other uses than they did 20 years ago, partly because the average number of people per household has dropped while the average size of homes has swelled. About 40% of the nation's rivers and 46% of its lakes are too polluted for fishing and swimming. Wetlands are shrinking by 100,000 acres a year, mainly because of development.

More than half the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of the coast, and can damage seaside ecosystems.

There's no universally accepted estimate of how many people the nation can accommodate.

The number is ultimately a question of balancing quality and quantity.

Technological advances that help clean the air, conserve water and grow more food on less farmland have helped to mitigate or delay predicted population-induced disasters.

Last year, one of every five immigrants worldwide lived in the United States. The National Audubon Society supports international family planning while taking no position on U.S. immigration. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council largely stay out of domestic immigration issues, though neither explain why.

Sorting out the ecological costs and benefits of immigration and population growth can be enormously complex and has led some environmentalists to say their groups should stick with saving species, curbing pollution and preserving open space.

Aggressively advocating birth control or abortion rights could alienate church groups. The U.S. population grew by 14.9 million between April 2000 and July 2005. Immigration accounted for more than 42%.

Immigrants also play a key role in population growth once they arrive in the United tates.

A 2005 report found that there was an annual average of 84 births per 1,000 foreign-born women in the U.S., compared with 57 births per 1,000 native U.S. women.

The US has 12 million unauthorized immigrants. About 3 million of them, mostly from Mexico, live in California.  rw   Karen Gaia says: we could work harder at preventing unintended pregnancies, especially for teens, who have the highest birth rate in the developed world.

In each year after the country's last four recessions, general fertility rates dipped slightly. For example, following the 1980-1982 recession, the fertility rate [birth rate] fell from 68.4 in 1980 to 65.7 in 1983.

How far the birth rate falls depends on how severe and long this financial crunch turns out to be. The U.S. birth rate has been at replacement levels for the past three decades, which, plus immigration, ensures the population remains robust.

The No. 1 thing in this calendar year is postponement, But if this translated into a long-term fertility drop, it would be a big deal. Some clinics around the country are seeing signs of a financially driven baby chill.

In vitro fertilization increased about 17% in 2008 over the prior year, and consults for new IVF patients seem to be holding steady. A middle-class family making more than $77,100 will spend nearly $300,000 raising a child from birth to age 17, not taking account of college tuition or inflation.

For some families, postponing may mean just delaying a few months. For others, it could mean they never have children, due to age-related declines in fertility.  rw

The data shows significant increases for 2006. In the two previous years only one state in each year had a significant increase.

In 2006, the general fertility rate hit its highest level since 1971. New data gives credence to the idea that the downturn in birth rates is over. The highest teen birth rates are Mississippi with 68.4 per 1,000, followed by New Mexico, with 64.1 and Texas, with 63.1. The lowest rates are in New Hampshire with 18.7 per 1,000, Vermont, with 20.8 per 1,000, and Massachusetts, with 21.3 per 1,000.

Some blame a more sexualized culture and greater acceptance of births to unmarried women. Others say abstinence-only and a de-emphasis on birth control may play a part.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy claims that abortion is driving higher teen birth rates and suggests that increases in high-profile unmarried births in Hollywood, movies and even politics is a factor for impressionable teens.

The new data reflects the first decline since 1968 in the average age of first-time mothers, from 25.2 years in 2005 to 25 in 2006.  rw

Experts believe the reasons are: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty.

Hispanics have fertility rates about 40% higher than the U.S. overall. Americans, especially those in middle America, view children more favorably than other Westernized countries.

Demographers say it is too soon to know if the sudden increase in births is the start of a trend.

To many economists and policymakers, the increase in births is good news. Countries with much lower rates face future labor shortages and eroding tax bases as they fail to reproduce enough to take care of their aging elders.

But the higher fertility rate isn't all good. The CDC reported that America's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years.

Births are more common in nearly every age and racial or ethnic group. Total births jumped 3% in 2006, the largest single-year increase since 1989. The recent birth numbers are a result of many women having a couple of kids each, rather than a smaller number of mothers, each bearing several children.

The 2006 fertility rate of 2.1 children is the highest level since 1971. The fertility rate among Hispanics 3 children per woman has been a major contributor. The high rate probably reflects cultural attitudes toward childbirth developed in other countries. Fertility rates average 2.7 in Central America and 2.4 in South America.

Fertility rates often rise among immigrants. The rate among Mexican-born women in the U.S. is 3.2, but the overall rate for Mexico is just 2.4.

Some complain that many illegal immigrants come here purposely to have children.

"The child is an automatic American citizen, thus entitled to all benefits of American citizens."

Fertility rates were also relatively high for other racial and ethnic groups. The rate rose to 2.1 for blacks and nearly 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites in 2006.

Fertility levels tend to decline as women become better educated and gain career opportunities. Experts say those factors, along with the legalization of abortion and the expansion of contraception options, explain why the U.S. fertility rate dropped to 1.7 in 1976. The fertility rate climbed to 2 in 1989 and has hovered around that mark since.

Other factors include: declines in contraceptive use here; limited access to abortion in some states; and opportunities for mothers to return to work. It is more common for American women to have babies out of wedlock and more common for couples to go forward with unwanted pregnancies. New England's fertility rates are more like Northern Europe's. American women in the Midwest, South and certain mountain states tend to have more children.

The influence of religions in those latter regions is an important factor.  rw

For 2006 births to unmarried mothers hit a new record high, and the overall birth rate has climbed to its highest level since 1971.

The teen increase was based on the 15-19 age group, which accounted for about 99% of the more than 440,000 births to teens in 2006.

The rate rose to 41.9 live births per 1,000 females in that age group, up from 40.5 in 2005.  rw

When people don't have the means and information to control their fertility, the results are that you can't go a week without seeing evidence of overpopulation, choked highways, crowded classrooms. We have to maintain not having living space and forests, farms, wetlands, etc.

One-third of all pregnancies in this country are unintended. Yet we're wasting millions on abstinence programs that have been shown never to work. Abstinence proponents want to punish people who act, in their view, immorally.

Current attacks on birth control are as much about making political hay as making babies.

They see access to contraception within marriage as a negative influence: it gives easy access to adultery and therefore has reduced faithfulness in marriage.

A professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said "We've got room. Don't let the fear of overcrowding discourage you, the issue is what the Lord wants for them."

Jennifer Shawne has published her book "Baby Not on Board: A Celebration of Life Without Kids" last year and says that it's not just religious conservatives who try to convince her of her duty to have children. She points out the unsupported assumption that political and cultural attitudes are inherited traits.

The Oakland-based think tank Redefining Progress estimated that this nation's level of consumption and waste generation requires 269 global acres per person, almost nine times the footprint of the average in China and more than 22 times that of the average Indian or Pakistani.

From the planet's point of view, the birth of a single American child has the potential impact of 10 births in those countries.

What would 400 million Americans look like?

Pat Buchanan argued that our nation's existence is threatened by insufficient enthusiasm for childbearing and growing immigration from Mexico. Buchanan urged a return to large, patriarchal families as a way of outstripping the immigrant population.

Negative Population Growth (NPG), is a U.S. population of 150 million and advocates the two-child family and curtailment of resource consumption, but now spends most of its energy on immigration issues.

Working for reproductive rights and smaller families without forceful action on immigration is doomed to fail.

"If not for immigration, we already would have stabilized the U.S. population. Our problem is immigration. It's easy for one person to bring in his sisters, brothers, parents. And immigrants have more children. Pretty quickly, one immigrant can really amount to 12."

Can we find ways of viewing immigration that lead to a less cruel course of action?

What is really going on is capitalism operating normally. Employers gain. Native workers lose. Immigrants lose too. Both groups lose because they are not united.

If it's hard to predict how many of us there will be, it's even tougher to know who we'll be. Jennifer Shawne said, "This culture, is constantly evolving. I'm more interested in seeing how it changes in the future than in preserving it as it is or was."  rw

It's going to be nowhere near the baby boom of the 1950s or '60s. The 2007 numbers can be attributed to: more immigrants having children, professional women who delayed childbearing until their 40s, and larger numbers of women in their 20s and 30s in the population. The average number of births per woman was 2.1 in 2006, the highest since 1971.

From the perspective of schools, this is a real increase in the number of births and something they're going to have to deal with. But it won't be the kind of shock that we saw at the beginning of the baby boom in 1952 and '53.  rw

Some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut back in recent years, and the decline in contraceptive use could be a result of those changes. Programs have increasingly focused on abstinence and some have argued that the switch is leading to reduced contraceptive use and more unintended pregnancies. Many social conservatives argue, that all contraceptives have limitations and the only way a woman can ensure she will not have an unintended pregnancy is to refrain from sexual intercourse.

A larger study found that the overall abortion rate has declined steadily for years and a higher percentage of women with unintended pregnancies are carrying them to birth. Women who get abortions are doing so earlier in their pregnancies, when it is safer for the woman.

Among poor women, the proportion of unintended pregnancies increased by almost 50% between 1994 and 2001, while it declined for women with twice the official poverty level. Poor women who had abortions did so on six days later in their pregnancy than women of greater means.

A study found there were 6.4 million pregnancies in the US in 2001, resulting in about 4 million births. There were 1.3 million abortions and 1.1 million miscarriages. The pregnancies were evenly divided between intended and unintended, and the unintended led to almost even numbers of births and abortions.

The growing disparities between richer and poor women appeared to be the result of higher levels of contraceptive use by the more affluent. In 20, after decades of increasing contraceptive-use rates, the trend stalled in the late 1990s and began to decline. The decline was almost entirely in poorer women.

The overall pregnancy rate for women of child-bearing age declined from 1994 to 2001, as did the overall abortion rate. Black and Hispanic women were more likely to become pregnant than white women, and black women had the highest percentage of unintended pregnancies and abortions.

A study found in 1994, 87 women out of 1,000 below the poverty line had unintended pregnancies. In 2001, the number was 112 out of 1,000.

For women earning between $16,000 and $32,000 a year, the number of unintended pregnancies increased from 65 per 1,000 in 1994 to 81 per 1,000 in 2001. For women in families earning more than $32,000, the number declined from 37 to 29 unplanned pregnancies for each 1,000 women.  rw

Rebecca, now 16, felt isolated during the first months of the pregnancy because her family urged her to have an abortion. But she was determined to see the pregnancy through. "In my heart I felt I could take care of my daughter even though I couldn't be there financially. I could be there physically and emotionally."

When her daughter was 14 months old, Rebecca was referred to Planned Parenthood's Teen Success program, designed to motivate pregnant and parenting teen mothers to maintain their family size and finish their education.

At first, Rebecca feared being judged, and was reluctant to go to the meetings. But after the first session and hearing other young girls' stories, she was relieved and decided to come back the following week. Now, after 3-1/2 years, she has been faithfully attending weekly Teen Success meetings.

She said the program has helped her with goals. For example, she was very self-conscious about being overweight after her pregnancy. The Teen Success facilitator reminded Rebecca could come to group meetings without being judged. She went on a diet and lost 50 pounds, with fellow Teen Success moms applauding her new healthy eating habits and trimmed-down shape.

"Teen Success is real encouraging," she said. "They make you feel like you don't want to give up on anything - staying in school, being a parent, maintaining your family size or getting a job.  rw

In a study by Elizabeth Miller, MD, of the University of California Davis, and colleagues of 1,278 women ages 16 to 29 treated at five family clinics across northern California, about 20% of women said that their partner tried to coerce them into having a child. The results were reported in the online journal 'Contraception'.

More than half of the women surveyed reported physical or sexual partner violence and a third of those also reported pregnancy coercion or birth control sabotage.

Both pregnancy coercion and birth control sabotage were separately associated with unintended pregnancy, and the two together nearly doubled a woman's odds of unintended pregnancy.

Men wanted their partners to have children for various reasons: to leave a legacy, a desire for attachment, having absolute control over her body, or to make them dependent on their partner. There have been cases where a young mother who has a child with another partner will be forced by her new boyfriend to have another baby with him.

Key strategies include advising women about "invisible" forms of birth control such as injectable and intrauterine contraceptives, as well as easy access to emergency contraception. "If we can identify that reproductive control is going on," Miller said, "we can offer the woman methods for birth control that the partner can't mess with."

Physicians and counsellors should talk about women's empowerment with regard to reproduction during reproductive health visits. We need to have a discussion around whether the girl is feeling ready for sex, rather than just talk about birth control.

Among gynecologists and family-planning clinics throughout the South Bay, there have been more birth-control consultations since the fall, and women are asking for more reliable, more permanent methods of contraception.

"They want to focus their finances on the one or two kids that they have," said an OB-GYN. "Instead of going with condoms or birth-control pills, they want longer-term solutions like the intrauterine device." IUDs have a lower failure rate than birth-control pills and condoms, according to the CDC.

A national Gallup poll revealed that 20% of women surveyed were more concerned about an unintended pregnancy during the bad economy, and 19% were more conscientious about using birth control.

In the years straddling the market crash of the Great Depression, birthrates plummeted almost 30%. Rates peaked after World War II, then took another nose-dive following the recession of the early 1970s.

Even lower-income women are filling the rooms of in a Planned Parenthood clinic East San Jose.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which runs 33 clinics in Northern California,

including the South Bay region, sees between 40,000 and 50,000 patients every month. Last December clinics had 25% visits than the previous year, and in March, it was 16% more, with the bulk of patients coming in for birth-control consultations, refills and infection screenings and treatment. Local abortion rates went down during the same time period.

One woman who opted for an IUD said she wanted a more reliable method since her boyfriend started having trouble finding painting and construction jobs. They can hardly pay the rent on their one-bedroom apartment, and as their public benefits run out, they're struggling with the four kids they have. "I tried the injection and I got pregnant, I tried the pill and I got pregnant. I needed something safer."

Some women use permanent sterilization, such as the outpatient procedure of placing titanium coils in the fallopian tubes.

Sometimes it is more than the money. For Indian immigrant women on H-1B visas that require them to be actively employed, losing a job can mean leaving the country.

Paying for the birth control itself is usually a challenge for low income women. California's Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment program, which provides free contraception and reproductive-health services to low-income Californians of childbearing age, received 5,000 more claims in 2008 for services than in 2007. Latinos make up the majority of enrollees in the

program at 65% statewide.

With the proposed up to $36 million in cuts to family-planning programs in the state budget, there is much to fear. The federal government matches

every $1 the state spends on family planning with $9, so even more is at stake.

Men are also undergoing more vasectomies to cushion their families against hard times.

Before 1970, most unmarried mothers were teenagers. But in recent years the birthrate among unmarried women in their 20s and 30s has risen -- rising 34% since 2002, in women ages 30 to 34.

In 2007, women in their 20s had 60% of all babies born out of wedlock, teenagers had 23% and women 30 and older had 17%.

Many of the births are from parents who are living together but are not married. These cohabitation arrangements tend to be less stable than marriages, studies show.

Government data taken from birth certificates shows that Hispanic women's unmarried birth rate has climbed 20% from 2002 to 2006, compared to 11% for Hispanic women, 7% for black women and 3% for white women.

In Iceland, out-of-wedlock births are also rising: 66%; in Sweden, the share is 55%. While in some countries, like Japan, it is just 2%.

"In Sweden, you see very little variation in the outcome of children based on marital status. Everybody does fairly well," said Wendy Manning, a professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. But increases of out-of-wedlock births in the United States are of greater concern because couples seem to be less stable than in many other countries, the U.S. has less government support for children, children of unmarried parents tend to have poorer health and educational outcomes than those born to married women, but that may be because unmarried mothers tend to share those problems.

Decades ago, pregnant women often married before giving birth. But the odds of separation and divorce in unions driven by pregnancy are relatively high. So when a woman gets pregnant, are children better off if their parents marry, cohabitate or do neither? That question is still unresolved, Dr. Manning said.

Marriage or cohabitation may cement financial and emotional bonds between children and fathers that survive divorce or separation, but familial instability is often damaging to children.

It is mystery that unmarried birth rates have risen after stabilizing between 1995 and 2002 and declined among unmarried teenagers and black women. In 1940, just 3.8 percent of births were to unmarried women.

In 2007, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had the highest rates: 59% and 54%, respectively, while Utah had the lowest rate: 20%.

Sarah S. Brown, chief executive of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit advocacy group, said sex and pregnancy were handled far too cavalierly in the United States, where rates of unplanned pregnancies, births and abortions are far higher than those of other industrialized nations.

At first the story was that Bristol and boyfriend Levi were in love and would marry soon after the election. Now Bristol and Levi are broken up and seem to be doing much of their communicating, including negotiating custody/ visitation arrangements for their son, on prime time TV.

Bristol appeared on ABC and NBC, emphasizing the abstinence-only approach to pregnancy prevention on Good Morning America ("It's important for me to get involved just to advocate and promote abstinence and send my message out...abstinence is a hard choice but it's the safest choice and the best choice") and on the Today Show admitted that abstinence can be unrealistic for some teens and they should use contraception ("If you're going to have sex I think you should have safe sex.")

While her messages are mixed, they are definitely worth listening to. While she has seemed at times brainwashed by the group which still believes abstinence is the only direction a teenager needs to get, Bristol has in fact voiced the core message of comprehensive sex ed which is: there's no better protection against pregnancy and disease than abstinence, teens should postpone becoming sexually active, but those that are having sex need to use to protection.

The REAL Act calls for sex education that is medically and scientifically accurate, free of religious bias, and empowers young people to make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual behavior.

With a new and more supportive Congress and President, we have a real opportunity to make a difference in the lives and health of teens.  rw

Taking a pledge seems to make a difference in condom use and other birth control. The new analysis, however, focuses on teens who had similar values about sex before they took a virginity pledge and compares only apples to other apples.

The new Obama administration is about to reconsider the $176 million in annual funding for such programs.

The Democratic Congress needs to get its head out of the sand and get real about sex education.

Proponents however, dismissed the study as flawed.

The new study is the first to use a method to account for other factors that could influence the teens' behavior. Rosenbaum focused on about 3,400 students who said they had not had sex or taken a virginity pledge in 1995. She compared 289 students who were 17 years old on average in 1996, when they took a virginity pledge, with 645 who did not take a pledge but were otherwise similar.

This study came about because somebody who decides to take a virginity pledge tends to be different from the average American teenager. The pledgers tend to be more religious and conservative.

About 82% of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises, and there was no difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity. Abstinence has to come from an individual conviction rather than participating in a program.

The percentage of students who reported condom use was about 10 points lower for those who had taken the pledge, and they were about 6% less likely to use any form of contraception. About 24% of those who had taken a pledge said they always used condoms, compared with about 34% of those who had not taken a pledge.  rw   Karen Gaia says: abstinence is good, but only when combined with knowledge of human sexuality and of how to prevent pregnancy and disease if pledges are broken.

Largely because of immigration, the U.S. Census estimates that from 303 million today we'll grow to 400 million people as early as 2040, and 420 million by 2050. The U.S. is growing so fast it now has the third largest population in the world.

America is a nation of immigrants. We absorbed 25 million people between 1860 and 1920, and most observers believe we are a stronger nation because of it.

America's rapid population growth makes it nearly impossible to achieve sustainability. About 93% of U.S. increases in energy use since 1970 can be attributed to population growth. We pave over an area the size of Delaware every year, and every day we remove 3.2 billion gallons of water from aquifers that are not replenished by natural processes.

The energy and climate effects are little understood. Any efficiency gains we make are being swamped by rapid population increases.

With just 5% of the world's population, the U.S. is the top consumer of 11 of the world's top 20 traded commodities. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., which rose 13 between 1990 and 2000, mirrors the population increase. A huge percentage of climate emissions can be attributed to population growth.

Many people want to come to America from the overpopulated developing world. The swelling numbers abroad create pressures leading to "increased poverty, hunger, land degradation, a lack of health services and limited social and economic mobility."

How do we address these pressures without calling for the mandatory caps on U.S. immigration? The organization Population Connection wants to combine action at home (reducing teen pregnancy, ensuring contraceptive availability, defending reproductive rights) with foreign aid. If people see hope for better lives at home, they will feel less pressure to emigrate.

Such views have many supporters. If we and the governments of the countries they are coming from were to devote as much to improving their standard of living at home, they might not feel the need to come to America.

The obstacle is to get countries around the world to focus on eradicating hunger, infant mortality and poverty, and limiting births through universal access to family planning. A 20-year plan to address these issues has languished as donor countries, including the U.S., have fallen short of meeting their financial commitments.

In addition, the reinstatement of the "Global Gag Rule" which mandates that no U.S. family planning assistance be provided to foreign organizations that use funding to make abortion available, has had a severe impact. Cultural and religious opposition have also combined to thwart efforts.

Nevertheless, UNFPA, says that the process offers the best hope for reducing migration pressures. The growing poverty and demographic divide between rich and poor countries must be addressed.  rw

Lake Mead which provides water for millions of people in the West, will dry up by 2023. The cause comes from drought, global warming and population growth. Lake Lanier, Georgia has already dried up in 2007 while Georgia expects to add six million more people in four decades.

We cannot change drought. At the same time, population growth devours water faster than it can be recharged. Everyone thinks population growth remains inevitable. False! Nature stops populations from growing when they cannot obtain enough water or food.

In America, corporations, political leaders, realtors and home builders salivate at the word growth. They pour concrete onto 6,000 acres daily and 2.19 million acres annually.

It's time to try again to correct the innumerate experts who say that growth is inevitable. They fail to recognize that after maturity, continued growth is either obesity or cancer.

The authors of growth would like us to believe that the battle against growth is lost, so our only role is to be the best losers. We should remember that Smart Growth and Dumb Growth both destroy the environment, but Smart Growth� destroys the environment with good taste.

Our leaders yank our leash into unending, unacceptable and relentless growth? Such growth yields chronic and painful ramifications for everyone in America regarding quality of life and standard of living?

What does growth really bring to you and me? It creates a few rich people. It brings more homeless and unemployed, more people living in poverty, more traffic congestion, higher parking fees, more school crowding, more unhappy neighborhoods, more expensive government, more and higher taxes, more fiscal problems for the state, more air and water pollution, higher utility costs, diminished democracy, crowded highways, growing costs of infrastructure maintenance, higher food costs and more destruction of the environment. You will encounter overloaded campgrounds, beaches, ski resorts, more litter, higher gas costs, greater housing costs, water shortages and loss of choices and personal freedom.

It's not clear why the government would think that people would want these known consequences of growth. Crude oil increased from $20 a barrel in 2002 to $100 a barrel in 2008. We could look at $500 a barrel in another six years.

Culprit? Immigration causes 80% of our growth!

By their continued promotion of growth, the innumerates are speeding the arrival of painful but predictable shortages and consequent rationing of gasoline, natural gas and water across America.

Bartlett concluded: The arithmetic of population, resources and growth is inexorable. The consequences cannot be avoided by believing that wishing will make it so.  rw

Right now, the battle is being waged between Republicans who want to punish undocumented Mexican workers and Republicans who want to exploit them. Kennedy will succeed in cobbling together a bill that preserves a militarized border, a guest-worker program and a large disenfranchised army of undocumented workers.

In the last decade, businesses have been able to easily relocate overseas. Meanwhile, workers fleeing Mexico's crumbling rural economy have been sneaking north. The argument that "they're taking jobs Americans don't want" doesn't tell the whole story. Illegal immigration has been a boon to Wal-Mart and its shareholders -- and not just because the retail behemoth has itself exploited it. Thus the global model embodied by NAFTA -- capital and goods move freely, while workers are restricted, has led to rising corporate profitability and stagnating wages.

The immigration boom is a legacy of the free-trade fervor that conquered the Mexican elite in the early 1980s. The U.S. investor class has reaped the benefits.

If we agree that a global economic system hinged on export and long-distance trade is energy-intensive, and that U.S. policy has worked to promote global trade, then a way forward comes into view.

An environmentalism that challenges this status quo has potential to bolster sustainability. By promoting local production for local consumption on both sides of the border, the U.S. economy can wean itself from its addiction to Mexican labor. And the Mexican economy can begin to work for its own citizens. To do so means challenging the assumption that state power exists to promote long-distance trade. One place: the 2007 Farm Bill, which will govern how the government subsidizes agriculture. Since the 1970s, the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars rewarding production of environmentally ruinous commodities like corn, which threaten rural livelihoods in Mexico.

Let's work to promote organic agriculture destined for nearby consumption. Ending the commodity-corn subsidy will instantly provide relief to rural Mexicans now contemplating a trip north.  rw

Abortion restrictions hurt poor women - "If people realize that, maybe they will have a different attitude." Since Roe, "over a generation of young women have grown up, understanding they can control their own reproductive capacity, and in fact their life's destiny."

Ginsburg first met Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan during a federal clerkship Kagan held and later "grew to know" her during Ginsburg's Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993. She praised Kagan's performance during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.

Publicly funded family planning centers have responded to this need, serving 7% more clients in 2008 than in 2001. More than seven million in 2008, helping to avert 1.5 million unintended pregnancies.

Without these publicly funded family planning services, the overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate would have been 47% higher and the abortion rate 50% higher.

Rising costs have made it difficult for publicly funded family planning centers to provide these services. The annual cost per client increased by 27% between 2004 and 2008. By assisting women to avoid unintended pregnancies, publicly funded family planning clinics save taxpayers $3.74 for every $1 spent providing contraceptive care. The services provided in 2008 generated savings of at least $5.1 billion in Medicaid expenditures.

Public funding sources—such as the federal Title X program and state revenues—fail to keep pace with the need.  rw

What the "Pill Kills" site doesn't make clear is that the American Life League opposes all contraception of any kind. If the group cared about the environment, it would acknowledge that unplanned births lead to more environmental degradation than the Pill.

The League wants you to protest on June 5, to mourn the anniversary of the 1965 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of married couples to use birth control.  rw

Its approval 50 years ago by the FDA didn't mean it was available to all women, but it was a huge step forward.

In June 1960, women were finally able to walk out of a medical office with a prescription in hand, at least in the states where it was legal and with women who could afford it. A prescription that might as well have been a ticket to the future, and to a life that held so much more opportunity than it had just a day before.

Within a decade, one in four married women under 45 had used The Pill — thanks in part to a Supreme Court case fought by Planned Parenthood to guarantee access for married women in all 50 states. By the 1980s, that number was up to nearly 80 million women worldwide, and today it is 100 million women. Still, countless women lack access to affordable birth control, including The Pill.

Chances are, if you're a woman reading this, you have used the Pill and probably have a story about how, with the pill, everything changed for you.

Planned Parenthood and others have been pushing the effort to force all insurers to cover The Pill for years. Now, we are also pressing the current administration to include contraception along with other preventive health care at no cost under the new health care reform law. You and I know just how critical it is that every woman everywhere has access to quality, affordable reproductive health care, including The Pill. We need to make sure federal officials know it, too.

If you have a story about how The Pill changes lives or how we fought for access to The Pill to share those stories, help stand with those women who still don't have access by sharing it. There are those who still don't understand how transformative that little pill can be for the health, happiness, and opportunities of millions of women. By sharing your story, you'll help make sure that contraception is covered at no cost under health care reform.

Follow the headline link to share your story.   Karen Gaia says: I first started using the pill in 1963, after my first child was born a couple of years before I had planned to have children. I had just turned 20 and was a married college student. At my postnatal check, my doctor asked me if I wanted to get pregnant again right away. Of course I said 'No', and he recommended the pill. I was amazed 30 years later, to find on a visit to a family planning project in Bangladesh, that the same method was used for young women shortly after the birth of their first child. Female health care workers were prepared to administer several methods of birth control when birth spacing is desired. Although the pill failed me twice, and also an IUD, I am extremely grateful since I would have had 6-7 (or maybe 13, like my grandmother) children, instead of just four. Fortunately birth control has improved a lot since then and so far I only have two grandchildren.

The families PPMM serves will benefit from Medicaid expansion to more of the working poor. Its clients will no longer fear being dropped from or denied access to insurance because they have a pre-existing health condition. Young adults can now continue to be covered under their parents' plans up to the age of 26, and insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate based on gender.

It was disappointing that two previously pro- choice representatives in California territory voted for Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment in the House bill that would have banned all abortion coverage. After thousands of calls to the two Congressmen, it was encouraging to see that they voted for the final health care reform bill without the Stupak amendment.

Fortunately the Senate indeed voted down the Stupak ban, but it was replaced with the problematic and burdensome Nelson amendment that sets up accounting and administrative obstacles to women seeking an abortion.

The Nelson amendment - which violates the promise of President Obama that "no person would have less coverage" after health care reform - may be the lesser of two evils in health care reform. However, it threatens abortion coverage for every woman buying insurance through the government health care exchanges,

even those paying with all private dollars. Over time, it has the potential to erode all abortion coverage for insurance, as it has done in states with similar laws.

The anti-choice groups' relentless attacks on access to abortion won't stop with the passage of health insurance reform. We will need to remain vigilant at every step of implementation at both the federal and state levels.

Meanwhile, however, millions of women, children and families who previously lacked access to health insurance will now have the peace of mind that health coverage can bring. Many of them are PPMM's clients.  rw

The new version "designates the 'intentional or knowing' miscarriage as criminal homicide" and "stipulates that a woman can be charged with homicide for 'the death of her unborn child', unless the death qualifies as legal abortion".

Utah already requires parental consent for minors seeking abortions, a 24-hour waiting period to terminate a pregnancy, subjects women seeking abortions to state-directed counselling which discourages abortion, and allows public funding for terminations only in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or threat to the women's life or physical health.

There were 6 abortion providers in the whole of the state in 2005, and currently the state has only one licensed abortion clinic.

Utah has become a frontline in the war against legal abortion. Roe is still in place, but anti-abortion activists are battling to render it an impotent statute, hollowed out by state legislation that chips away at abortion rights.

Legal abortion is only worth as much as the number of women who have reasonable and affordable and access to it, and that number is dwindling: 88% of counties in the US have no abortion provider - a figure that rises to 97% in non-metropolitan areas. This can put legal abortion out of a woman's reach.

Anti-choice activist's current strategy is to make legal abortion as inaccessible as possible and criminalise everything else.

Terminating a pregnancy by any other method than the one which has been most ruthlessly restricted - via piecemeal legislation and the defunding of clinics and the unfettered terrorising of abortion providers - is illegal.

In Utah, women have a technical legal right to abortion, but little means to exercise that right.

In pursuit of ensuring that women's right to abortion is as limited as possible, the state has opened the door to prosecuting women who miscarry after having a drink of caffeinated coffee or a beer or a cigarette, or take a vigorous walk, or miss a prenatal care appointment, or shoot up heroin, or go to spinning class, or any one of a number of things that pregnant women do every day, good and bad, if there's someone who will testify she was trying to miscarry; she told me.

The state has conferred personhood on foetuses, and reduced women to incubators. This comes from the same lot who won't properly fund childhood education or support universal healthcare.  rw

Goals include improved pastoral care of marital relationships, domestic abuse and infertility, and training for prospective clergy in sexuality-related matters.

According to the manifesto, religious leaders should provide lifelong age-appropriate education for youth and adults and to become more effective advocates for comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health in society.

Clergymen who are often first responders in matters of domestic violence and potential (and actual) suicides by young people struggling with sexual identity have usually received little to no training for the job.

The document offers an uncompromised progressive vision that does not seek "common ground" with conservative evangelicals and Catholics.

It calls for full access to reproductive health care, including abortion, marriage equality, full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the life of religious communities.

The report as generated only a little media attention but progress is already being made.

The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary saw it as "evidence of the continued subversion of biblical authority and confessional integrity that characterizes the revolt against orthodoxy in so many churches."

But he acknowledged: "Our pews are filled with people worried about their sexuality, wondering how to understand these things, struggling with same-sex attractions, tempted to stray from their marriages, enticed by Internet pornography and wondering how to bring their sexuality under submission to Christ." And evangelicals "should not avoid its urgency in calling pastors and Christian leaders to teach and preach about sex and sexuality."

The Religious Institute is a national network of more than 5,000 clergy and religious leaders from 50 religious traditions. Its founder Rev. Debra Haffner, is a former executive director of SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States), the nation's leading association of sex educators.

Advances have been made in the last 10 years, with female clergy taking leadership roles in major denominations; a woman is presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church; Lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual people gaining acceptance; and marriage equality being recognized by the United Church of Christ, the Union for Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

One Church recently announced that clergy will now be required to be "competent" to address matters of sexuality in the lives of their parishioners.

The manifesto said that 75% of progressive clergy had not addressed sex education and 40% had not preached about sexual orientation over a two year period. 70% had never preached on reproductive justice.

Issues that parishoners have where they need the help of clergy are: sexual abuse, marriages breaking up, and infertility.

When matters of sexuality are avoided, it shows up in clergy sex-abuse scandals. "And it's not just the Catholics." When you can't talk about it in your churches, where can you talk about it. Silence contributes to people's alienation and aloneness.

Five mainstream denominations are working on mandatory sexual competence for clergy and 15 denominations on matters that affect everyone. a number of denominations have focused on issues of domestic violence. All would benefit from clergy training and open discussion of matters of sexuality, including the teaching of young people and strategies for keeping children safe from sexual predators.

Dr. Martin Marty, the eminent historian of religion at the University of Chicago compared sexuality to religion. "If you get it right, it's beautiful. But if you get it wrong, it really messes you up."

The campaign is blessed by near-perfect timing, with Florida on the edge of a depression with plunging home prices, rampant foreclosures and abandoned houses rotting in the heat and dragging down neighborhoods. There are 300,000 empty houses in Florida.

What is more extreme than the build more-more-more mentality? "They had everything they wanted for the last five to six years. They crashed the economy. They have no solution other than bring the bubble back. Hometown Democracy is the only genuine reform on the table that can change the politics of growth once and for all," says Blackner.

Office vacancies are skyrocketing. The state's population is declining for the first time since World War II. Yet there are requests pending to build more than 600,000 more homes, along with millions more square feet of commercial space. There are plans to create massive new cities in the middle of nowhere.

Our development pandemic threatens the economy as much as the environment. Building more houses when the number of buyers has not increased deflates the value of houses that is going to linger for years and years.   Karen Gaia says: sounds like the population bubble has burst in Florida. Time for the "build it, they will come" mentality to be replaced.

The U.S. population constitutes only 5% of world population, but consumes 24% of world's energy. The U.S. is losing 400,000 acres of rural land per year, while urbanized land area increased between 1969 and 1990 at twice the rate of population growth in the same time period.

Cities lost 33-50% of their pre-1950 population density, as automobiles became the primary mode of transportation and families moved to the suburbs.

The average suburban shopping center takes up as much land as the core center of the city of Florence, Italy.

These are only a few of the statistics showing that our current levels of consumption are not sustainable. We cannot continue gobbling up our diminishing oil supplies and rural lands at the rate we have been doing. We need to bring our social, economic and environmental systems back into balance in a way that replenishes them for future generations.

Is our city sprawling outward, or is it becoming more compact, walkable and transit oriented? Are we creating convenient transit systems, and mixed-use streetscapes that encourage walking and biking? What percentage of our land use is devoted to neighborhoods where people are within a 10-minute walk of basic necessities?

Do city residents have greater access to public parks, plazas, community gardens and urban farms than to parking lots, strip malls and big-box stores? Are we encouraging the use of renewable energy, while reducing the use of carbon-based fuels?

"I think this is the most exciting time to be alive in all of human history. In the following months and years, we're going to have to make some big decisions.

Whether we make the right decisions or fail to make the decisions, will determine the fate, not only of all human kind, but of countless species of plants and animals.

"This is the defining moment, when we will decide whether or not we're going to be a spectacular, flash- in-the-pan failure, or whether we can step up to the plate and show that we are capable of finding humility, compassion, patience and wisdom to truly find a sustainable path."  rw

County commissioners denied a request to raze the 962-square-foot house and replace it with a home 20 times the size. The technical reason was complex: The parcel of land is part of a wildlife migration corridor; the house would teeter on important riparian habitat; the land is designated of "statewide agricultural importance"; and the house would not exist "harmoniously" with its neighborhood, among other arguments.

But Commissioner Will Toor much summed it up: "I think it's just too big," he said.  rw

Until people question the existence, of the global environmental crisis, the population stabilization and reduction initiative will remain little more than a lobby largely ignored by politicians.

The US has been unable to serve as an example. Any way of life that is unlike our own, is a threat and must promptly be democratized, modernized and westernized.

The symptoms of a society that is straining under its own weight are all there, yet we've successfully managed to evade the issue by misdiagnosing, and offering temporary solutions to the problem. While the United States birth rate has decreased, our lenient immigration policies continue to increase our population. Experts predict that the United States population, if left unchecked, is expected to double in 70 years to a total of 540 million people.

We must begin our public discourse when consensus is met; sacrifices will have to be made, for democracy can only deal with the ever-changing present while relegating responsibility for the future to the few who care to take it upon themselves.

An average U.S. citizen consumes 50 times more goods and services than a Chinese citizen and approximately twice as many as a Western European.

Only recently, during spikes in gas prices, has the engineers' task turned to designing automobiles and engines which reduce consumption and emissions.

Our challenge is to stir the minds and hearts of our fellow Americans so that they may awaken to this reality, directing this change for the better before it is snatched from us.  rw

The Work Less Party is a growing initiative aimed at cutting work hours while tackling unemployment, environment, and boosting leisure time. Working less would produce less, consume less, pollute less and live more.

We work 250 hours, or five weeks, more than the Brits, and a whopping 500 hours, or 12 and a half weeks, more than the Germans. Longer hours plus labor-saving technology equals ever-increasing productivity. Without high annual growth to match productivity, there's unemployment. Maintaining growth means using more energy and resources, which results in increased waste and pollution.

The US is the world's largest polluter. When people work longer hours, they rely increasingly on fast food, disposable diapers, or bottled water. Earning more means spending money in ways that are environmentally detrimental. When people are time-starved they don't have enough time to be conscious consumers. If Europe moved towards a U.S. based economic model, it would consume 15-30% more energy by 2050.

The problem is, France has already begun following America's lead by increasing the workload. France's increased productivity would create even larger problems. In both the US and Europe, work hours declined from the beginning of the industrial revolution until World War II. After the war, the 40-hour workweek was legally in place. Since the 1970s, most European governments have continued shortening work hours whereas the United States has opted instead to let wages fall. The USA has declined relative to all other industrial countries in health, equality, savings, sustainability. What's happened in Europe is people have discovered it's nice to have some time in their lives, and they've wanted more. Here, business has kept that door completely shut.

Take Back Your Time has launched a campaign in the US calling for legislation guaranteeing a minimum of three weeks of paid vacation.

The average vacation in the United States is now only a long weekend, and 25% percent of American workers have no paid vacation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But we continue to suffer from overload, debt, and anxiety, and are stuck in a fatalistic rat race generated by heightened consumerism. Our society is focused on work that makes stuff that goes directly into landfills. Essential work such as art, music, creativity, community, the kind necessary to create a healthy society and planet, is being negated in favor of that.

If you want to protect the environment, you have to consume less, which means you have to produce less, and you have to work less. Our standard of living will improve hugely.  rw

But American regulators have also been aware for several weeks that cyanuric acid may have played a role in causing sickness or death in pets.

China said that it had found two companies guilty of intentionally exporting pet food ingredients containing melamine.

China's watchdog for quality control said officials at the two companies were detained for their roles in shipping tainted goods. In China, chemical producers say it is common knowledge that for years feed producers have secretly used cyanuric acid to cheat buyers of animal feed.

The FDA said that farmed fish had been fed meal contaminated with melamine and other contaminants but that the level was probably too low to harm anyone who ate the fish. Two of the Chinese chemical makers say that cyanuric acid is used because it is even cheaper than melamine and high in nitrogen, enabling feed producers to artificially increase protein readings. They also produce a chemical which is a combination of melamine and cyanuric acid, and that feed producers have often sought to purchase scrap material from this product.

Scientists studying the pet food deaths say the combination of the two chemicals may have created a toxic punch that formed crystals in the kidneys of pets and led to kidney failure.

A joint assessment by FDA and other federal agencies said there was a very low risk of danger to humans who consume meat from animals that were accidentally fed melamine-tainted feed.

China acknowledged Tuesday that two companies had cheated pet food companies by adding a fake protein. Chemical producers of cyanuric acid say the substance is nontoxic, it's legal to add it to animal feed. The practice has been around for many years.  rw   Karen Gaia says: what a small world this has become, now that Americans must depend on China for so many of its goods. How can anyone say the American life style is sustainable?

We've had virtually free energy in the form of fossil fuels. Climate change is a sign that we are exceeding the number of people Earth can sustain. Some, however, point to increased agricultural production and medical advances that fend off disease.

Earth's carrying capacity is thought to be four to five billion people. We have 6.6 billion today and grow by 240,000 every 24 hours. Half of the world's population has little access to medicine, electricity, safe water and reliable food supplies.

You might have 50 billion, but the quality of life might not be pleasing. The US possesses resources to sustain less than half of its current population of 300 million. Americans who make up 5% of the world's population, use 25% of its resources and cast a large footprint.

If all 6 billion people were to share the world's resources equally, Americans would have to reduce consumption by 80% for each of us. Carrying capacity and footprint are tied to the global economy, which has quadrupled since the world's population doubled.

That leads to a fear that slowing population growth might not ultimately curb greenhouse gas production if more people achieve Western lifestyles. China is opening an average of one coal-fired power plant a week to meet electricity demand. Everyone in China wants their own apartment and their own car. People ask how many people the Earth can sustain. That depends on whether you want to live like an Indian or an American.

Farmers worldwide grow about two billion tons of grain a year. Each American consumes 1,760 pounds annually, mainly because of the grains used to feed farm animals. If everyone on the planet consumed that much grain, earth would support about 2.5 billion people. But in India, people consume about 440 pounds each. If everyone else in the world did likewise, the world's grain would support about 10 billion people.

Growing one ton of grain requires 1,000 tons of water which is short in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As water flows from agriculture to support growing urban populations, more grain must be imported.

Soybeans are increasingly in demand for biodiesel. And ethanol production now vies with food for corn. By 2008, half of the U.S. corn crop will go to ethanol.

70% of all corn comes from the U.S. If we grow fuel plants that would require setting aside lots of land to produce ethanol. We don't have enough land worldwide to meet those demands. Humans are drawing on capital rather than interest, and once that is exhausted, they will find Mother Nature reluctant to make a loan.

We must take action and prevent a horrible overpopulation future for our children by taking action today. We can bring about population stabilization gracefully or nature will do it brutally.  rw

To turn southern desert into productive farmland, a monumental system of dams and pipelines were built, leaving less water for trout, salmon, sturgeon and other fish.

With the state in its third year of drought, and climate change and a growing population, the fate of some salmon runs looks untenable without change.

If water conservation, recycling and groundwater use do not offset the cuts, the state may be more tempted to build more dams and canals to capture the last trickles that bypass the system.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regional director said the mounting restrictions on water "just cannot be offset in any given year and maybe over time." State and federal water projects this year have slashed deliveries to about 40 percent of most requests, due to drought, and agricultural losses are expected near $1 billion.

The fisheries agency plans to keep more water behind big dams during the year to ensure a supply of cold water in which salmon spawn, restrict some pumping, and find ways for fish to get to historical spawning grounds upriver from dams.

This order disrupts the Navy's war-game exercises. U.S. Solicitor Gen. Gregory Garre disputed claims that the sonar causes harm to the whales.

But lawyer Richard B. Kendall said beaked whales dive deeply to escape the sound, and sometimes suffer bleeding and death when they try to resurface. He also said the order has had a minimal impact on the Navy. Only on a few occasions have ships been forced to turn off their sonar.

The case has turned into a major dispute over whether judges have the power to stop the government from conducting a crucial exercise because it had not carried out an environmental impact statement.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wondered "Why couldn't you work this out?" rather than having a court resolve the dispute.  rw   Karen Gaia says: the more people you have to defend, the more animals stand in the way of "human supremacy" and have to be sacrificed.

Genetically modified seeds are produced by biotech conglomerates who manipulate government agricultural policy with a view to dominance in the agricultural industry. American conglomerates have created seeds that reproduce only under certain conditions, often linked to the use of their own brands of fertilizer and/or insecticide.

The genetic modification leads to the concurrent genetic modification of the flower pollen. When the pollen becomes genetically modified or sterile, the bees will become malnourished and die of illness due to the lack of nutrients and the interruption of the digestive capacity of what they feed on.

There are arguments that the blame be placed on mites, pesticides, or cell phone radiation, but digestive shutdown due to hard material in the digestive tract that compromises the immune system points to GMO flower pollen.

This increased epidemic of the bee colony collapse has risen significantly since the use of GMO in our foods. It is also suspect in the rise of new cases of medical ailments in humans such as colon cancer, obesity, heart disease, etc.

The Ecological Impact of horizontal gene transfer and increase of rampant disease is not fully examined and if so, is kept silent by these Conglomerates. Organic farming is relatively untouched as the bee crisis. The economic impact that the scarcity of bees will potentially have on our society is very worrisome.  rw   Karen Gaia says: another factor mentioned elsewhere is the gathering together of a large portion of a country's bees to pollinate large mono crops such as almonds. When the bees comingle with many other bees, this exposes them to any disease than may be present - similar to the global spread of epidemics among humans. The more people there are, the more corporations profit by economy of scale, and this makes GMO research and large scale food production even more profitable. Of course, the risks are often ignored until disaster strikes.

Canada lynx were first released into the southern San Juan Mountains in 1999; today, about 150 radio-collared lynx roam throughout Colorado.

The Fish and Wildlife Services' concerns are valid, in Colorado, it's still an experiment whether lynx are going to survive or not.

The majority live on U.S. Forest Service land outside Durango. Their territory stretches from Durango north to Silverton and from Dolores east to Pagosa Springs.

At Durango Mountain Resort, lynx are commonly spotted passing through the ski area. It seems to be an area that's very important for lynx.

State biologists report they are in excellent health, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned about a recent dip in litter numbers.

Nearly 100 kittens were born in the wild in 2004 and 2005. Litter totals dropped to 11 in 2006 and hit zero in 2007. That was a surprise and the division will be watching litter sizes closely in the next few years. Biologists believe lynx can survive three years of low reproduction rates.

Colorado has the habitat to allow lynx to survive well into the future.

Environmentalists disagree, arguing that one of the best ways to protect lynx is to protect their habitat.

On the one hand, the US Fish and Wildlife is going to designate critical habitat. On the other hand, they're saying we're not sure about the viability of lynx. Environmental groups will probably bring a lawsuit against Fish and Wildlife over the exclusion of Colorado and other areas from the proposal. Reintroduction efforts in Colorado will continue.

We believe we can reach a sustainable population in Colorado. It can be 10, 20 years before we can really know. Our program won't change.  rw

The major cause of bird species loss is habitat destruction, caused by a myriad of human activities, including logging, crop farming, livestock grazing, mining, industrial and residential development, urban sprawl, road building, dam building, and pesticide use.

Of 1,173 threatened bird species, habitat loss affected 83% of the species. Across the US, little land is left untouched by human development. Human activities have led to the extinction of 10% of the world's bird species, while in some locales, that number rises to 90%. Today more than a thousand bird species are listed as threatened, and between 500 and 600 of those will go extinct in the next 50 years.

In the US, much of the impact is a result of growing population and faster-growing development of land. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. population grew by 33 million people, the greatest increase the country has ever seen. Future growth is predicted to add 27 million people each decade for the next 30 years.

An analysis reveals that urbanized land increased by 47% between 1982 and 1997 and population in suburbs, increased twice as fast as in cities. By 2030, half of the buildings will have been built after the year 2000. With this level of growth, the loss of bird species - due to habitat destruction, pollution, and fragmentation - will continue for decades to come.

The real danger to birds is humans.  rw   Karen Gaia says: we SHOULD care about the birds: after they go, humans will follow.

A biologist and special assistant to the Department of Fish and Game, questioned whether polar bears really need sea ice to survive. She said they are adaptable to use land for hunting, and are adapting to alternative food sources.

She testified that a listing in the US ultimately could harm bears in Canada because Inuit villagers would no longer have an incentive to preserve them. An ESA listing would ban importation of polar bear trophy hides.

The fear of restrictions on development from the Endangered Species Act may outweigh the desire to add more protections.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has been vague about what a recovery plan might entail if polar bears are listed as threatened. The law requires federal agencies to evaluate their actions with respect to habitat, in this case, sea ice.

Supporters want the government to declare global warming as the cause of harm to polar bear habitat, and consider limits on utilities and industry producing greenhouse gasses, throughout the country.

The idea that polar bears can adapt to living on land or can thrive on something other than seals flies in the face of the opinion of most researchers.

There's not a credible polar bear biologist in the world who would make that statement. The driving force in the concern over polar bears is the decline in sea ice. When a species' habitat is declining due to climate change, but there are no discrete human activities that can be regulated or modified to effect change, what do you do?

Critics say polar bears already are closely managed under international agreements. The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed, with one exception: There is no effective mechanism in place to address the recession of sea ice.

The proposed listing is based on the presumption that sea ice will be significantly diminished and that sea ice is the most important factor for their survival. Preferred food sources such as some ice seal populations may be declining, but data indicate that the bears are adapting to use alternative food sources. But most of those food sources are not enough to maintain a viable population in the long term.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is collecting public testimony until April 9. Its decision on listing polar bears is due next January.  rw   Karen Gaia says: the more people, by overconsumption and overpopulation, use fossil fuels, the more likely humanity is contributing to climate change and the demise of plant and animal species whose habitat is threatened.

The University of Maryland offered a river-by-river report card for water clarity, dissolved oxygen levels and quality of life for small clams and worms. The results were equally dismal. The flush tax, which former Gov. Ehrlich Jr. signed into law in 2004, is expected to raise about $65 million a year to upgrade sewage treatment plants to reduce pollution.

Dozens of scientists in the region are studying the bay's creatures and looking at ways to help them thrive in an increasingly toxic environment.

Many said they have grown weary of hearing the same gloomy assessments of the bay's health.

The VP of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said state and federal officials have long known what to do but have not the political will to do it.

State leaders should be working to secure federal aid for the bay. Agriculture is the 800-pound gorilla when you're looking at nutrient pollution, but population growth is the 8,000-pound gorilla waiting in the wings.  rw

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed seven bills that his office said would "extend the state's leadership" on ocean protection.

Our Western states have started to work together to fight global warming and protect our air, and we now join forces to make sure we are doing everything to maintain clean water and beachess, Schwarzenegger said. Members said their efforts would bolster economies by protecting coastal tourism and enhancing fisheries.

Key concerns include pollution from urban runoff and the environmental effects of off-shore oil drilling.

The U.S. Geological Survey announced a report that shows 66% of California's beaches have eroded over the past few decades. The states want more money to deal with the problems.

Protecting the oceans isn't likely to leapfrog to the top of the national agenda.

The agreement was crafted during the past six months. Similar collaboration goes back to 2004, when the three states started trading ideas for slashing air pollution. In coming months, experts from the participating states plan to meet with environmental and business leaders to develop initial recommendations.

The governors intend to send a series of statements to the president and Congress, urging them to:

Provide money for programs aimed at curbing urban runoff. Expand funding for key regional research efforts.

Request that federal agencies, including the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, are directed to provide technical assistance.

The governors intend to oppose expansion of offshore oil and natural gas exploration.

Similar agreements have been negotiated among Great Lakes, Gulf Coast and New England states.

California's marine problems have been building for years as people cram the coast with development and pollutants endanger sea life.  rw

Any move can spook the animals to flee into the ocean and abandon their newborn babies, violating federal marine mammal protection laws.

Seals need adequate sun and sand time in order to maintain good health. The city was urged to act after receiving an increase in complaints that angry residents were harassing the marine mammals.The council voted to erect the barrier each year from January 1 through May 1. Federal officials have installed 24-hour surveillance cameras to watch for people deliberately swimming, kayaking or sunbathing in the area.

Many residents said they were undeterred as it's the only place around with a lifeguard station and bathrooms. A steady stream of tourists and environmental activists clusters around the roped area, unfazed by the stench. The cove has been a popular La Jolla spot since the early 1930s. Nobody knows why the animals began flocking to the shore in the late 1990s but about 200 seals live there. The rope barrier is also meant as a warning to stay away from seal fecal matter and birth byproducts.

A California judge ordered the city to dredge and clean up the beach but the decision has been tied up in litigation and a foul fishy stench remains.

San Diego Council president Scott Peters said he did not feel there was evidence of seal harassment. "The issue isn't so much that people can't get along with seals, it's that people can't get along with people," Peters said.  rw

The Center has won protection for more than 350 species and hundreds of millions of acres of habitat. But that could be overwhelmed as too many people compete for too few resources and create too many burdens for ecosystems. The correlation between human population growth and species extinction has been clearly documented.

Humans use up to 40% of the world's Net Primary Productivity, a measure of energy from the sun that is converted into life-sustaining resources by photosynthesis. A range of extinctions can be tied directly to the energy, housing, food, and other resource demands of our population. The extinction crisis threatens to grow exponentially with climate change, and energy demands of a rapidly growing global populace.  rw

They prompt us to ask: "What does a sustainable Chesapeake really mean?"

My vision is built upon a balanced, vibrant ecosystem teeming with fish, shellfish, underwater grasses and clear, healthy waters. But to be truly sustainable, the Chesapeake ecosystem needs to exist while also supporting the region's human population.

Creating a sustainable Chesapeake will not be easy. But as we look around the state, we're seeing more and more positive steps being taken.

Recently, the Maryland Commission on Climate Change made recommendations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving energy throughout the state. These actions will require that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25% within the next 12 years.

An initiative was introduced that will seek to instill a sense of environmental stewardship among the 28,000 students graduating each year. It will also foster research and prepare the new "green" workforce.

By changing our own actions, each of us has the ability to reduce our impact on the bay and the planet.

As long as the region's population continues to grow, and we develop lands faster than needed to accommodate that growth, we make it more difficult to maintain the sustainability equation.

We have struggled more than 20 years to reduce the amount of pollution flowing into the bay and we are still far from where we need to be. Another 10, 20 or 30 years of pollution-fighting efforts will still not be enough. Bay restoration efforts will be needed in perpetuity.

We need to manage for sustainability by remaining aware of what will cross our path in the future.  rw   Karen Gaia says: The way things are going, we will be forced to reduce our greenhouse gases because we have passed peak oil, meaning our consumption of oil will be reduced.

The Conservation Fund is banking on transforming the sustainable production and sale of timber that has grown back on previously logged land into dollars that can be used to permanently shield the property from development while improving wildlife habitat and providing jobs.

After buying 24,000 acres along the Garcia for $18 million in 2004, the Conservation Fund is purchasing an additional 16,000 acres in two nearby watersheds for $48.5 million, mostly with state financing. And the group hopes to buy 165,000 acres more, which would make it one of the biggest timber concerns on the North Coast.

Private forest ownership is held by half a dozen companies and families, but is struggling, with land values rising. We are talking about very low density…development but it alters the ecosystem. Lots of animals do not like dogs, cats, horses and cars coming in and out all the time and the land still provides valuable habitat for wildlife.

Financially stretched government agencies often cannot afford to make large-scale acquisitions to create parkland.

Two years ago, the organization bought the Garcia lands for $18 million in partnership with the state Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board and the nonprofit Nature Conservancy.

Now the Conservation Fund has designated 35% of the property as forest reserve. On the rest, it plans to continue commercial timber production. Foresters say this would promote sustainable forestry, but it is hard to get society to accept this notion. The land has been logged repeatedly, and most trees are less than 2 feet in diameter. The key, said forester Craig Blencowe, is "cut less than you grow and leave good trees."

The problem is the strategy might not produce enough timber to cover annual operating costs.

When a plan was submitted to the state for logging a few hundred acres, local environmentalists questioned the proposed use of herbicides to kill tan oaks that have taken over previously logged areas.

The proposal was withdrawn for revisions and herbicides will not be used.

But forest activists applaud the Conservation Fund's responsiveness and its decision to run a working forest rather than a park, partly because the region needs the jobs.

The Conservation Fund hopes to close a $48.5-million deal with Hawthorne Timber Co to acquire 11,600 acres in the Big River watershed and 4,345 acres in the Salmon Creek watershed.

The state water board recently approved a $25-million loan for the project.

The Conservation Fund wants the property because it provides habitat for endangered species and is vulnerable to development.  rw   Karen Gaia says: There is no good indicator that growing trees for lumber can be sustainable with the U.S.'s growing population. Perhaps we need to find other ways to conserve forests.

He argued that building roads in areas that have escaped development would undermine the water quality and wildlife. Kulongoski, a Democrat, joined with the attorneys general of California and New Mexico in the lawsuit. It asks a federal court to reinstate safeguards the Clinton administration had applied to roadless acres nationally. The lawsuit is a blow to the administration, which had billed its approach as friendly to the states and wants governors to submit petitions specifying which lands in their states should be protected. Kulongoski said the government created a frustrating and uncertain procedure, forcing him to repeat work done by the U.S. Forest Service. He said it keeps us from addressing larger issues of forest policy and he would not submit a petition as called for. Instead, he will ask officials to provide states a simpler and more certain way of returning protection to the roadless lands. Also, he said he would work through the Oregon Department of Forestry to make the state a partner in the revision of national forest management plans. The governor wants addressed the unpredictable logging levels on federal lands and the buildup of flammable tinder. Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire did not join the lawsuit but would be pleased to see it succeed. She is trying an approach with the Forest Service to protect most of the forest land. Under the Bush plan, states electing not to file petitions for protections leave roadless areas open to some development. The administration is providing temporary protection for roadless areas while working with states to address lands in each state. An earlier lawsuit had overturned the Clinton protections. Oregon loggers suggested Kulongoski was motivated by politics and national forest decisions should be made locally. There is no drive to develop roadless lands, and about 24 million acres would remain undeveloped under local forest blueprints. The debate has grown into a symbolic choice over the last pristine places. The lawsuit contends the Bush administration illegally reversed the 2001 roadless safeguards without considering the environmental consequences. The Clinton administration justified the forest protections by saying they were needed to stop activities that pose risks to the social and ecological values of roadless lands. The Forest Service held public meetings and received over 1 million comments, most in favor of the protection. Environmental groups said they agreed with Kulongoski, but were disappointed he will not petition the administration to protect all roadless lands in Oregon.  rw   

The recession is good for the environment. It must be because the California Air Resources Board said so at a seven-hour hearing on diesel emissions standards in early December.

Air quality has improved because of the recession, a stagnant housing market sharply reduces the noxious fumes being belched into the atmosphere by cement mixers, heavy trucks and earth-moving equipment.

The closure of several major retailers, as well as numerous smaller businesses, reduces carbon-dioxide emissions. Empty, darkened retail space also reduces energy consumption and costs.

The recession has also been a boon for natural resources. If no houses are built, the land stays dirt and grass, nurturing a vast, circle-of-life ecosystem in which flora and fauna thrive.

Here's an air-quality-habitat conservation two-fer: demand is now reduced for a slew of products whose creation harms the environment. Consider this: If fewer houses are being built, there's less need for wood framing. Ergo, fewer trees are felled and continue to proudly stand, sequestering carbon dioxide. Where's the banner headline?

So when the naysayers prattle about the recession's horrors, recognize they are simply looking through the wrong end of the telescope.  rw   Karen Gaia says: another upside: people are having fewer children and immigrants are returning to their homeland. But there are environmental downsides overlooked: I can see people cutting down trees and poaching wildlife to survive. And degradation of the soil and overpumping of wells will continue until the population declines. Pesticides may be up if soil is poorer - to continue to feed the many mouths.

But notions that population growth is a boon for prosperity are "Ponzi demography," says Joseph Chamie, former director of the population division of the UN.

By 2050, countries as diverse as Cuba, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, and Russia will lose at least 10% of their people, the UN estimates.

In the rich, developed nations, the average age is rising at the fastest pace. Today they have 264 million aged 60 or over. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 416 million.

By that time, the world's population should stabilize. Some nations are fighting back for families to have more children. The US is bucking the trend with its relatively high immigration rate.

Growth, for business, means a boost in the demand for products and also a surge in low- and high-skilled workers, which keep a lid on wages. Religious and ethnic groups want more immigrants of their own faith and ethnicity to raise their political and social clout. The military regards young immigrants as potential recruits.

But the public pays for a bigger population with more congestion on highways, more farmland turned into housing developments, more environmental damage, including the output of pollutants associated with climate change.

In the US, one costly question is whether insurance covers some 11 million illegal immigrants.

There are also costs for countries with stable or declining populations.

They will need to spend more looking after older citizens and, some industries, like housing, will shrink.

Raising the average retirement age does far more to increase the working population than increasing immigration levels. Industrial nations with large service industries have plenty of employment opportunities for seniors, as opposed to poor countries where many jobs, say planting crops, are hard work.

The costs of an aging but stable population would be more manageable than those of a population boom.

Does America need more than its current 309 million people? A stable or falling population, is a success.  rw

Between 1974 and 2007 legal immigration accounted for 31.5% of the U.S. population increase; adding illegal immigration and the children born

to the immigrants after their arrival, the share of population growth attributable to immigration is still higher. During this period, the entire 44.7% increase in residential energy use was entirely a factor of population growth.   Karen Gaia says: Why does the author overlook the large numbers of unintended pregnancies in the U.S.? If these were prevented or aborted, population growth would slow considerably, as it has in European countries where fertility rates are around 1.2 - 1.8. The article could just as well be named: "Energy Use, CO2 Emission and Immigration."

In the central North Pacific Ocean gyre, swirling plastic fragments now outweigh plankton 46 to one. CO2 in the atmosphere is higher today than anytime in the past 650,000 years. Nearly one in four mammals is threatened with extinction, and worse - one in three amphibians and a quarter of all conifers. In many parts of the world, including the High Plains of North America, human water use exceeds annual average water replenishment; by 2025 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity, according to the UN. Unsustainable farming practices cause the destruction and abandonment of almost 30 million acres of arable land each year.

The number of humans is still increasing by 1.18% per year, or 80 million annually, the equivalent of nearly two Sudans, or three and a half Taiwans. Even though China is only growing by 0.5% annually, it is still growing by eight million people each year. The US, with a 1% population grow rate, increases by more than 2.9 million people annually,

the equivalent of almost four new San Franciscos.

Many argue that a decrease in human numbers would lead to a fiscal catastrophe, seeing that, in the last 200 years,

unprecedented economic growth has been accompanied by an equally unprecedented increase in world population. During the 1800s and 1900s, up to half of world economic growth was likely due to population growth; Georgetown University environmental historian John McNeill explains: "A big part of economic growth to date consists of population growth.

More hands, more work, more things produced."

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of economic success or failure, is the number of people multiplied by per capita income. Slow population growth, and economic growth will likely slow as well unless advances in productivity and spending increase at rates high enough to make up the difference. This perhaps explains why population policy is not a popular issue.

Instead We should be looking at per capita GDP, which corrects for population growth. While Japan's economy has been touted as 'bad', based on its national GDP it has actually enjoyed the biggest gain in average income among the big three rich economies. GDP is 'bad' only because its population is shrinking. Population decline may slow economic growth on a nationwide basis, "but it would not necessarily reduce per capita wealth or, indeed, per capita growth."

Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, suggests "an orderly and relatively slow reduction in population, and not a chaotic plunge in our numbers as a result of war, disease, a breakdown in healthcare systems, or natural catastrophe." What is necessary is to match low death rates with low birthrates.

Daniel O'Neill of the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy says: "t this point in history, having too many people, or too high a level of consumption, is much more likely to result in the end of economic progress, via ecological collapse, than having too few." The costs of economic growth in the U.S. began to exceed the benefits sometime in the late 1970s.

An economic "slowdown" that results from slowing and eliminating population growth is distinctly different from that caused by a credit crunch or the messy bursting of a speculative bubble. While it's true there will be fewer mouths to feed, there will also be fewer pairs of hands needing employment. In many poorer nations, having more children means increasing the supply of labor, and lowering wages.

Unfortunately,'GDP' does not differentiate between costs and benefits and we end up spending more money to fix the problems caused by population growth. The costs of mitigating the stress imposed by a ballooning population on roads, schools, parks, agricultural land, air and water quality, government services, and ecosystems add to the total pool of a country's economic transactions.

“Sure, population decline will slow down aggregate demand. On the other hand, it's going to increase the amount of resources per capita," Daly says.

While reducing population growth in an orderly fashion promises more economic good than ill, it will bring about social and economic challenges that even proponents of shrinking the population do not dismiss lightly. Of particular concern are the challenges associated with reducing the number of working age people relative to retirees.

If we have fewer people, we will be spared the problems caused by overpopulation, save on natural resources, and in the long run be more able to provide for the social security of our aging population.

The business of promoters, builders and architects is promoting growth. But growth doesn't pay for itself, not at the community level or national level. The more you grow the greater your debt load. Colorado has had decades of wild and largely uncontrolled growth and is now practically bankrupt.

People don't like the constant increases in taxes needed to pay the costs of growth and they vote for tax limitation measures. Then the growth promoters to find ways around these limitations, so the growth continues and the consequent problems escalate rapidly. This happens in California as well as in Colorado.

From a book "Better Not Bigger", Eben Fodor wrote that every new house built in Oregon costs the Oregon taxpayer something in the order of $25,000 in costs not paid by taxes on the construction of the home itself.

Utilities are now fighting for the right to tax customers for the costs of planning and construction. The investors should be required to bear these responsibilities, and when the plant was finished you could figure the cost into the rate system- so that the people that built it would be reimbursed. State regulators are allowing utilities to charge payers for planning costs- even if it isn't clear that the plants need to be built. This is a perpetual growth promoting situation.

Investors need to realize that there's a time to grow, but as some point, any further growth is detrimental.

In Bartlett's book titled, "The Essential Exponential for the Future of our Planet," overpopulation raises the number of constituents per elected official, making it harder for individuals to gain access to representatives and have a voice in politics. Also, overpopulation breeds more government regulation to cope with problems caused by population pressure.

In the 1990's the US population grew by 13.1%, while the number of members in the House of Representatives didn't grow at all; another way of saying that democracy declined by 13.1%.

With the number of constituents per representatives multipling, it's much easier as a politician to take your ideas from the lobbyist who has plenty of money.

The terms "sustainable" and "sustainability" are popularly used to describe "activities that are ecologically laudable," but unsustainable. How can the reader decide whether publications are seeking to illuminate or obfuscate?

Both smart growth and dumb growth destroy the environment. The only difference is that smart growth destroys the environment with good taste.

In Al Gore's book & film, "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore never mentions curbing population growth. This is a silent lie, very discouraging.

Those who profit from (uneconomic)growth will use their considerable resources to convince the community that the community should pay the costs of growth.

The Tragedy of the Commons relates to things like the world's fisheries a type of "commons". This is tragic for local fishermen who have lived off the oceans for centuries.

The economist, Kenneth Boulding, is known for saying "Anyone who thinks that steady growth can continue indefinitely, is either a madman or an economist."

Boulding's Three Laws are "The Dismal Theorem" : If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth; "The Utterly Dismal Theorem" : any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery; "The moderately cheerful form of the Dismal Theorem" : If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can be stably prosperous.

The last US president that worried about population was Richard Nixon. He charted a major study called "The Rockefeller Commission Report." The conclusion was that they couldn't see any benefit to further population growth in the US. The study was put on the shelf and forgotten.

Bartlett says that Malthus presents population problems very clearly. Translated to today's problems, Malthus would read something like this: "Population growth has the potential to outstrip the growth in production of any of the resources that are necessary to sustain our population."

The notion of many is that science and technology will save us, so why worry about it? A state senator once said to Bartlett, "I'm not worried about running out of petroleum, you (pointing to me) scientists will figure out what ever we need." When asked what was the last new source of energy scientists found, he didn't have an answer. Innovation on the large scale required by our overpopulated society will take time and costs billions of dollars.

Newly created jobs in a community temporarily lowers the unemployment rate, but then people move into the community to restore the unemployment rate to its earlier higher value. For years, we have promoted an insane policy of exporting jobs and importing people. Any country that has to import people to do the work of the country is unsustainable.

Carrying capacity is a measure of how many people can be supported indefinitely. Sustainability requires that the size of the population be less than or equal to the carrying capacity of the ecosystem for the desired standard of living.

Social Security and such projects are Ponzi schemes. They depend on having more and more people paying every year or they collapse.

If you change fertility rates it can take 50-70 years before you see the full effects of a change in fertility. This is called population momentum which is a mismatch to our democracy. Politicians implement changes that benefit us in the short term over the long term.

David Pimentel, a global agricultural scientist at Cornell University says that a sustainable world population living at current US dietary level would consist of two billion people. Also, he suggests that a sustainable US population at current dietary levels would have to be around 130-150 million people, which is the population of the US around World War II.

The key is to make family planning available widely throughout the US and the world - with the goal that every child is a wanted child.

With increased growth you have to provide police, fire, schools, waste removal, clean water, and a variety of other infrastructure projects. These services aren't paid for by growth. Schools, for example, get their operating expenses from the taxes and to get capital expenses they have to issue bonds. Thus, all tax payers have to pay higher taxes to accommodate schools for new kids.

The solution is to tax growth, put a tax on real estate transactions and use this tax to fund new projects.

Economists think of infinite substitutability. They cite the shifting out of whale oil to petroleum or from wood to coal. We already know the substitutes that exist are very costly to access.

Growth never pays for itself. Now the federal government is paying for state schools, highways, sewage systems, bridges. This has happened because the local economy can't support local population growth.

But inflation is a tax on everyone; if the federal government issues bonds to pay for the consequences of growth (infrastructure, etc) this is likely to result in inflation. Looking at our national debt levels, the inflation could be very severe.

The US population growth rate is the highest of any industrial nation.   Karen Gaia says: Prof Bartlett is very good at stating the problem, but needs to expand on the solutions since many people are queasy about the China solution. Bartlett needs to tell how the U.S. lowered its fertility rate from 4.0 in the 1960s, to around 2 in the 1980s - all voluntarily, once modern contraception became available.

This ratio between the higher wage earner and spender (35-49) relative to the lower wage earner and spender (20-34) relating to aggregate consumption and stock prices has also played out in the U.S. . Peaks in the relative population demographic coinciding with peaks in real stock prices (S&P 500). Rising real stock prices are associated with rising relative population ratios of the higher wage earner relative to the lower wage earner.

While there is a positive relationship between productivity and relative population demographics, there is a negative relationship between productivity and inflation. We can infer that there is a negative relationship between inflation trends and relative demographic trends with productivity trends providing the associating link. We can look at what the future may hold. The relative demographic ratio peaked in 2000 and was coincident with the real S&P 500 peak, and does not bottom until 2015. The conclusion is that the secular bear market we entered back in 2000 will not likely end until roughly 2015, and the secular inflationary trend that began in 2003 will be in place until 2015 as well.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Unfortunately this time we have peak oil and depletion of resources to deal with. After the initial tightening of belts by consumers, population numbers will again catch up and resource depletion will continue. It is foolish to think that there is no end to resources and that throwing money at the problem will help.

This has given rise to a "food vs. fuel" debate. You either support cheap corn, and a food supply that serves the poor, or you support the ethanol boom, whose goal is to "break our dependence on foreign oil."

A report by The Wall Street Journal outlines the growing rift within the agribiz lobby.

When corn was cheap and overproduced the entire agribusiness lobby rallied around the ethanol cause. But now that ethanol is taking food from feedlots, the community has grown less friendly. Tyson has been complaining about corn prices. Its CEO told the Wall Street Journal that elevated grain prices, linked to ethanol, would add $300 million to the company's costs this year.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association is raising its voice as well. It finds government intervention and the group has demanded an end to government tax credits for ethanol and a cut to the import tariff on foreign ethanol. They are demanding free markets and free trade. The growing rift in the agribiz lobby is concerning the politicians who cater to it. Presidential hopefuls feel compelled to favor the allegedly fuel that's going to free us from Middle East oil, but support for corn-based ethanol is starting to wane.

Legislators continue to aid ever-increasing ethanol use, but more of them are capping the amount of corn that can be used. The shine is off corn ethanol, and its explosive growth appears to have peaked.

The corn-based ethanol never had a shot at significantly reducing petroleum use. Its energy-saving potential is thin, if not imaginary. The backlash plays into Tyson and its peers, who hate ethanol because it interferes with feeding cheap corn to confined animals.

Last fall, U.S. farmers scrambled to plant corn anywhere they could and will likely harvest the largest corn crop in U.S. history.

If Congress pulls back support for ethanol, the corn price will tumble and will mean a windfall for feedlot operators, and will likely spur government commodity payments to corn growers under the farm bill.

In essence, we're being asked to choose between low-quality food and low-quality fuel. We should reject both.  rw   Karen Gaia says: if we hadn't produced so many people, there would be enough food and fuel for all.

At a presentation three areas were said to become the focal points for future development. The most important was population density and building up is a great way to minimize land waste.

Studies show walkable cities are the goal, so developing the city around pedestrian traffic is another way to gain more density. Mass transit is vital; Detroit is without a system.

Mass transit means that residents without cars could have a reliable ride to work, there would be fewer cars, and a reduced need for parking and a turnaround in air quality. Light-rail stations may help attract investors and mixed-use buildings that house both businesses and people. With people come density, more transit options and a boom for economic development.

Mixed-use buildings are efficient and have proved to be places people want to be. Parking lots are are seldom full, they absorb money and resources. Traditional development leads to lower density and greater infrastructure costs. These practices are not economically feasible. Population density is the key to a sustainable city.

The third aspect to sustaining a green city is reuse and preservation of buildings. The carbon footprint of demolition, waste transportation, and rebuilding is enormous. Building preservation and adaptive reuse are the best ways to employ sustainability.

The recent emphasis on being environmentally responsible and the financial benefits may spark investors to build green.

There is increasing evidence that green buildings cost less in the long run, mainly through better energy and water efficiency, but also by reducing waste, improving indoor air quality and through lower operation and maintenance costs. A change in lifestyle is necessary for green urbanism.  rw

The USA trails only China and India in population. Space itself isn't the issue. But people want water in the desert, plentiful fuel to power long commutes, energy to cool and heat bigger houses and clean air and water. How and where they live could determine how well the nation and the environment will handle the added population.

People who work on smart growth development issues say there's no way we can continue over the next 40-odd years without severe consequences to the environment. We have to find different ways to reside on the land. Each American occupies almost 20% more developed land (housing, schools, stores, roads) than 20 years ago. The rate of land consumption is twice the rate of population growth.

The major growth patterns of the past 50 years are being challenged by changing demographics.

Americans are reconsidering traditional retirement paths. More are eyeing downtown condos, households are smaller and townhouses more appealing.

More immigrants are arriving, increasing mass transit ridership and carpooling in a country where driving alone still dominates.

The next 100 million people will create 73 million new jobs, about 70 million new homes and 100 billion square feet of non-residential space. Urban town centers that combine condos, shops and offices in pedestrian-friendly settings are sprouting in suburbia. Residential construction in downtown districts is on the rise. Areas are are investing billions in light-rail lines. It takes more money to heat and cool a big house, when you factor in the true cost including transportation and energy, Americans will change how they live.

Growth issues are manifesting themselves in traffic congestion, loss of open space and more water and air pollution.

The paper then goes on to describe in great detail some of the transit and building changes already under way.  rw   Ralph says: The article does not consider in any way the suply of water, power and food to the millions of new residents.

People tend to focus on the price of a closer-in house compared to one in the outer suburbs, but they don't realize how much they're spending on commuting costs

The average cost of owning a Toyota Camry and driving it 15,000 miles a year works out to $7,967 according to AAA.

The study found that a lack of affordable housing in the Washington area and elsewhere forces low- to moderate-income families to live in outer suburbs where transportation costs are high.

Of the 20 fastest-growing counties in the US, 15 are located 30 miles or more from urban centers. Many communities have identified a lack of affordable housing as critical. We need to have regional solutions about both housing and transportation. Most people in the outer suburbs pay so much for transportation because they have to use their cars for nearly every errand.

The study noted that 62.1% of the U.S. metropolitan population lived in the suburbs in 1996, up from 55.1% in 1970.

The median national household income has been outpaced by housing and transportation costs. The data highlight a disconnect between where people live and work. A three-car family puts a lot of money into depreciating assets, instead of into mortgages and college educations.  rw

Glaciers are melting and oceans are rising, which means water will be more plentiful. But it is the location of the water that matters. Shortages in the wrong places could lead to food shortages, famine, and starvation in those regions, and effect the economic future of nations.

Many politicians have ignored resource issues for the last 30 years of debt- financed good times with relatively low prices for all natural resources and commodities.

Investment manager Jeremy Grantham says "We must prepare ourselves for waves of higher resource prices and periods of shortages unlike anything we have faced outside of wartime conditions."

Comparing peak oil to peak water:

While oil is non-renewable and limited, it is replaceable by other more costly alternatives; water is renewable and relatively unlimited, but there is no substitute and it is only useful in the precise places.

Oil is finite, while water is literally finite, but nearly unlimited at a cost.

Long-distance transport of oil is economically viable while with water it is not.

If the world's population grows from 6.7 billion people to 7.5 billion by 2020 - a possible projection by the U.N., water use would increase by 40% to support the food requirements of the additional people. 1.8 billion people would be living in regions with extreme water scarcity.

Since the U.S. is an exporter of wheat, soybeans, rice and corn ($80 billion worth in 2008), drought or additional consumption in the areas where these crops are grown would have worldwide implications.

70% of the globe is covered by water, but most of it is saltwater. Desalinization can convert saltwater into freshwater, but it is only useful on coastlines and is 15 times more expensive than natural freshwater.

2% of the earth's water is considered freshwater, most of which is locked up in glaciers, permanent snow cover and in deep groundwater.

Challenges of freshwater:

* Uneven distribution on the planet

* Economic and physical constraints of tapping glacial water

* Contamination of supplies

* High distribution costs

Regional scarcity solutions are not easy:

* Reduce demand

* Move the demand to where water is available.

* Shift to costly sources, such as desalinization.

In the Southwest U.S., much of it desert, solutions are difficult. Lake Mead, the country's largest artificial body of water, which provides water to Arizona, California, Nevada and northern Mexico is dangerously depleted. Housing developments in this region have been stopped by lack of water.

On the Colorado River there is more water allocated than there is water, which is not a problem as long as some people are willing to sell their water. For example, Chevron leases water from its shale oil project to the city of Las Vegas for drinking water. The day may come when Chevron won't extend the lease.

Many areas are using ground water that will be used up entirely in just a few decades.

In the U.S., suburban sprawl, with its lawns and ponds, has put intense pressure on local water supplies. In drought years Maryland, Virginia and the District fight over the Potomac water - lawns sucking up 85% of the river's flow. 67 million more people are expected to inhabit the United States by 2030, making water shortages even more severe.

In the midwest, parts of the Ogallala Aquifer - the great underground reservoir stretching from Texas to South Dakota - has started to run dry. "When you go to your house and turn the shower on and there is no water, it's a serious situation'" a farmer says.

In the last 10 years there has been a steady erosion in the amount of grain grown per capita. With developing countries growing rapidly, the need for imports of grain could drive up the cost of food everywhere.

The Chinese are converting farmland to industrial uses, while at the same time demanding more meat and grains in their diet. The price spike in 2007 and 2008 is a sign of a costly future for consumers. According to the U.N. in 2008, global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years

We should call them peak cheap oil and peak cheap water, instead of just peak oil and peak water, because the cost of producing or supplying them will continue to rise.

Food shortages and skyrocketing commodity prices are inevitable, with peak water playing significant role. The evidence is before our eyes:

* Droughts in key farming belt areas

* Less snow pack in the mountains

* Contamination of freshwater sources by industrial waste

* Soil erosion

* Depletion of underground aquifers

* Higher oil prices, fertilizer costs, food transportion

* Bio-fuels as an energy source.

* Worldwide population growth

* Middle class enrichment of diets worldwide.

We know that peak oil is the more likely trigger for armed conflict. For example, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because the U.S. was cutting off its oil supply. The Middle East, Russia, Brazil, Canada have the oil, while the United States, China, Europe, Japan need the oil. The struggle resulting from peak water is not yet on the radar screen, but is coming up.

In 2008, the nearly 5 million people in metro Atlanta came close to its principal water supply drying up. The lake may no longer be used as a municipal supply since Alabama and Florida are contending the use of the water.

Over 30 states are fighting with neighboring states over water.

In Florida lakes are drying up due to groundwater depletion from overpumping. Low river flows in the Catawba River in South Carolina prevented a paper company from discharging its wastewater, resulting workers being furloughed. North Carolina is fighting with South Caroline over the water in that river.

Fully loaded freighters cannot float in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes. The Ipswich River near Boston was without water in five of the last eight years. In 2007, Orme, Tennessee, ran out of water altogether; it trucks in water from Alabama.

The amount of water is not the problem. It's population growth. California had a major drought in 1992, that hasn't stopped the state from adding 7 million people. Atlatnta Georgia sees 100,000 people added each year. The U.S. is expected to add 120 million people in the next four decades.

Suprisingly, some forms of renewable energy also present water problems. Refining one gallon of ethanol requires four gallons of water. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to grow enough corn to refine one gallon of ethanol.

Water shortages have been alleviated in the U.S. by diverting more from rivers, building dams or drilling groundwater wells, but now many of these rivers dry up each year. And we're pumping so much water from wells that the levels in aquifers are plummeting. We're running out of technological fixes.

Some dreamers are planning to get water from British Columbia or tow icebergs from Alaska, but they overlook the immense costs and significant environmental impacts of such grandiose proposals.

Solutions include desalination of ocean water, reuse of municipal waste and aggressive conservation strategies. Desalination and reclaiming waste water are both expensive, but aggressive conservation programs have reduced consumption dramatically.

But it's not enough. We need to pay for our water.

Georgia's population represents a constantly growing demand on water supply and quality. During extreme droughts, the conflict between an ever-growing population and a finite water supply becomes obvious.

It should be obvious, at least to those caught up in the belief that a viable economy demands constant growth, even though rational thought, should logically lead to a contrary opinion.

Ecologists use the term "carrying capacity" to describe how many plants or animals a given piece of real estate might support. Farmers recognize the concept, knowing that the number of cows their pastures will support depends on the type and quality of the forage, availability of water, the acceptable growth rate and other factors.

The concept of carrying capacity is just as applicable to humans as to cows. In the US, mankind has artificially extended human carrying capacity while maintaining a high living standard by using stored energy reserves from eons past and perpetual growth and improved living standards have become basic expectations.

Georgia has long used state resources to promote economic growth, fueled by population growth, without considering the ultimate outcome.

Even while announcing a lawsuit aimed at forcing the more of a finite regional water supply to Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue was on a mission to attract more industry to the state.

The sole reason when we already have full employment is to attract more people. More people equal a larger GDP, for which groupthink demands a favorable view, regardless of the effect on quality of life.

Georgia's population is about 9.5 million. If growth rates of the past dozen years are maintained, population will double to about 19 million in just 26 years (2033) and double again to 38 million by 2059.

From an ecological perspective, it is imperative that we stop and determine what an optimum population might be. Instead, we continually ask ourselves to use less water, go further into debt, sit in longer traffic snarls and lower our living standard in various other ways so we can accommodate more people.

The ultimate irony was when Gov. Perdue asked everyone to pray for rain. Does he expect God to increase our water supply while the Governor does his best to increase demand?  rw

California's economy and population exploded, fueled in large part by abundant water supplies. Snowmelt which historically has filled the state's major reservoirs has been shrinking steadily. California's rights to Colorado River water have been scaled back. Court orders aimed at protecting endangered fish have slashed water deliveries from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Reduced rainfall has made it difficult to replenish groundwater basins.

Now, the situation is that the water agencies are beginning to give the public a taste of what lies ahead.

The largest water agency in the region and the principal supplier to the cities announced a 30% reduction in deliveries to agricultural customers. The agency adopted a plan that could result in similar cutbacks to urban consumers and rate hikes of up to 20%. Such steps alone will probably not make enough of a difference to avert a water-supply crisis. There is a finite amount of water in Southern California, and it has not increased since 1990. Major sectors of the state's economy such as agriculture and real estate development will soon face unimagined restrictions.

Environmental groups contending that many water-use practices violate the state's constitutional mandate that water be put to beneficial use to the maximum possible extent and that waste or unreasonable use be prevented.They object to pumping water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to irrigate cotton and alfalfa, as well as lawns. These environmentalists plan to petition to permanently reduce Delta pumping that would affect every aspect of water use.

State laws require water agencies to document sufficient long-term supplies to support large developments. The Eastern Municipal Water District, the largest water agency in Riverside County, recently delayed approval of a huge industrial development because it couldn't guarantee water supplies. The state Supreme Court overturned approval of a major new planned community in the Sacramento area because the project's environmental impact report did not adequately address long-term water supplies.

Don't expect new homes to be built along a new golf course or the shores of a man-made lake. The appliances in the new homes will be low-flow, and the pavement outside permeable to help replenish groundwater. The Legislature is considering a requirement that all urban water agencies reduce their consumption by 20% within 12 years.

Agriculture is also feeling the sting of dwindling water supplies. Agencies throughout the state are pressing farmers to cut their water consumption by not growing water-intensive crops, investing in more efficient irrigation systems and even taking land out of agricultural use altogether.

Yet it is unrealistic to expect that California's population will stop growing.

The current shortage of water is largely the product of global warming. The easiest way to increase water supplies is conservation.

California is approaching the limits of growth. Those areas with limited local water supplies already are off-limits for development, and big users of water, such as agriculture, are cutting back.  rw   Ralph says: Natures resources are limited and it is time we limited the number of people using them.

Two recent studies show that ammonia disrupts the food chain in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The discovery, if it holds up to further scientific review, illustrates how fixing the Delta will be a costly task. The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District estimates it needs as much as $1 billion to remove ammonia from the metro area's wastewater. It seems to interrupt a natural food production line that would otherwise yield abundant blooms of tiny aquatic animals to feed salmon, smelt and bass, but those species have been in steady decline.

The ammonia threat was illustrated when dozens of chinook salmon showed up dead in the San Joaquin River near Stockton's sewage outfall. Sacramento's effluent problem is slightly different, the threat is the enormous volume of ammonia-laced wastewater. The plant near Freeport each day releases about 146 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Sacramento River. The Sacramento River is traditionally considered the Delta's lifeblood, because it provides the vast majority of fresh water entering the estuary.

But Sacramento has been growing like gangbusters, and so the water's perhaps not quite clean as we thought.

The ammonia load in Sacramento's wastewater has more than doubled since 1985 due to rapid urbanization and the regional sewer agency is planning a major expansion that includes no ammonia controls.

Sewage officials estimate upgrading to filter out ammonia would cost $740 million. To remove excessive nitrates produced as a byproduct of that treatment would raise the cost to $1 billion.

District engineers estimate these steps would boost sewage rates in the region from $19.75 per month to $62.17.

Growth in Sacramento's ammonia output has coincided with a decline in diatoms, an important phytoplankton at the base of the food chain.

The volume of human wastewater may be starving Delta fish by shutting down food production.

Young fish eat small animals called zooplankton that in turn, feed on diatoms and other phytoplankton.

Phytoplankton require nutrients and enough sunlight to bloom in sufficient numbers. Nitrates are the favored nutrient. Ammonia is another.

Phytoplankton can't feed on nitrates when there is too much ammonia in the water. A toxic type of algae, has begun to replace more nutritious phytoplankton. So ammonia may also encourage the rise of harmful foods.

New studies are under way to confirm whether Sacramento's sewage is the true cause.

"If it's part of the problem, the river just could never handle that amount and reduce it. Sacramento's regional sewage plant uses a so-called "secondary" treatment process that has become outdated. Most other urban areas have upgraded to "tertiary" systems that add rigorous filtration steps.

Sacramento has been able to avoid this expense so far, Snyder said, because its wastewater is quickly diluted to legally acceptable levels by the strong flow of the Sacramento River.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled against the district on a number of points filed by many of the water agencies that divert drinking water from the Delta to serve more than 20 million people throughout California.

The court ruled that the Sacramento district "ignored a significant component of the environment" by failing to fully assess the additional nutrients pumped into the Delta in the region's wastewater.

The ammonia threat can be fixed if further research confirms it to be a danger.

But there is no fix for the predicted sea level rise that could overwhelm Delta levees, nor any practical way to remove foreign species invading the estuary.  rw   Karen Gaia says: how can people be so short-sighted! Duh! If you add more people, you have more impacts of varying sorts. Better to stabilize population by preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place. You can't put people back once they are born (or conceived according to some religions).

The changes differed significantly from trends due to natural fluctuations between wet and dry periods. The picture is quite grim and suggests the need for conservation, more water storage, and a slowdown on development in the desert Southwest.

The research "foretells of water shortages, lack of storage capability, transfers of water from agricultural to urban uses and other critical impacts."  rw

Yet there is a growing sense that the metropolis itself is the problem. Atlanta's rapid growth, and its disregard for conservation, is straining the region's ecosystem.

The governors of Florida, Alabama and Georgia agreed to reduce by 16% the amount of water released from Lake Lanier, which would give some relief. But experts say the Southeast's struggles over water resources are far from over.

What has got to be on the table is Atlanta's unrestricted growth and cavalier attitude to water use. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist wrote in a letter to President Bush that Florida's $134 million commercial seafood industry depended on the water and added that his state had acted responsibly in enacting water legislation. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley argued that downstream communities and a nuclear-power plant in his state required water, too.

Within Georgia the drought has brought to the fore long-simmering resentment against the booming capital of the New South. There is concern that Atlanta could slake its thirst on Augusta's water supplies. Atlanta is a greedy, poorly designed behemoth of a city incapable of hearing the word 'no' and dealing with it. They cannot bring themselves to tell their constituents that perhaps if they didn't have six bathrooms, it might ease the situation a bit.

While other cities have water-conservation measures, Atlanta, one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions, has been particularly shortsighted.

Atlanta's population climbed to 4.1 million from 2.9 million. Its draw on the water increased to 420 million gallons a day from 320 million. For its drinking water, Atlanta relies almost entirely on Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre man-made reservoir in northern Georgia built in the 1950s.

Not surprisingly, developers and members of the business community rankle at suggestion that the state should introduce legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available.  rw   Karen Gaia says: several states do have legislation to prohibit developers from building if no water is available. However, counties often play a shell game with the water to make developers happy. If states where water is a problem were take a careful look at their water supply and were to act responsibly, there would be litttle or no more development allowed.

Concerns include any possible effect on the drinking water at Chattanooga.TVA officials have not yet responded to the situation. The Kingston spill is 40 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Approximately 525 million gallons of coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River, the water supply for Chattanooga and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Coal contains huge amounts of heavy metals, and when coal is burned, the nasty chemicals stick around, in higher concentrations. Coal slurry is toxic.

There has been a campaign for many years against coal sludge impoundment in Sundial, W.Va., which sits 150 feet above the Marsh Fork Elementary School, and holds 2.8 billion gallons. This disaster clearly demonstrates coal is not clean. There is no clean way to burn coal.

The toxic sludge destroyed 12 homes and has already resulted in a fish kill. This catastrophe has released toxins directly into tributaries of the Tennessee River.  rw

The purchase could show that photovoltaic power can be affordably produced on a large, centralized scale and makes large-scale solar an increasingly large part of the energy in the West. California's utilities are under a state mandate to generate 20% of their energy from renewable sources.

PG&E received just 11.4% of its energy from renewable sources in 2007, while Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric got 15.7% and 5.2% of their power from renewables.

Together with the 800-megawatt deal, solar contracts would increase renewable energy to 24% of PG&E's portfolio by 2013. Solar power until now has been too expensive for utilities, costing about 40 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 10 cents for natural gas and 12 cents for wind power. The contracts would not affect electricity rates paid by consumers.

OptiSolar and SunPower said they are able to offer a lower rate than traditional photovoltaic projects for a variety of reasons. Some experts cautioned that there are hurdles to cross before those 800 megawatts of power become a reality.

The plants will need approval from state and local government. Environmentalists will complain because of the amount of land involved. PG&E will have to develop transmission lines to move the power to its customers. And OptiSolar and SunPower will need to finance construction of all those solar cells.

PG&E has said the deals are contingent on Congress reauthorizing tax credits for renewable energy that are due to expire at the end of this year.  rw

The law calls for reduced carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. That's the equivalent of taking nearly 30 million cars off California's roads. The draft envisions achieving less than 2% of the goal through policies that would encourage people to walk or take alternative forms of transportation.

Silicon Valley residents urge a more aggressive strategy.

San Jose's land-use policies aim to create more neighborhoods that offer alternatives to the car, whether walking, biking or taking buses or trains. But reshaping communities that grew through sprawl takes years. The state needs to encourage this transformation. To make a difference in 10, 20 or 30 years, the air board needs to set aggressive goals now.  rw   Ralph says: As a boy I lived for years in a rural community with only bicycles for transport. It was a happy place to live. Karen Gaia says: if we don't want disaster, we must start getting people out of their cars now. Save the oil for critical things, because it will be some time before there are viable options.

He toured the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant, a 1,100-megawatt boiling water reactor on the shores of Lake Erie.

A nearby reactor was decommissioned in 1975 after a partial fuel meltdown that caused no injuries.

But soaring prices have pushed energy to the top of voters' concerns, and the Arizona senator has focused his campaign efforts at highlighting his policies -- and criticizing Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama has said that expanding our nuclear power plants doesn't make sense for America. He also says no to nuclear storage and no to nuclear processing. "I could not disagree more." said McCain.

Obama's campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "supports safe and secure nuclear energy. . . . However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, Obama thinks key issues must be addressed, including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation."

McCain supports entombing spent fuel at Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert, while Obama opposes using the mountain facility.

McCain also has called for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, as is widely done in France and other countries. Obama says experts must first solve safety and security concerns.

The Energy Department on Tuesday released a report that concluded it would cost $96.2 billion to research, build and operate Yucca Mountain until it closes in 2133, a 38% increase from a 2001 estimate. Part of that increase is based on a projection that it would need to store 30% more nuclear waste, requiring a major expansion of the planned facility.

In his remarks to reporters, McCain again pledged to build 45 new nuclear plants by 2030, a sharp increase over the nation's 104 operating commercial reactors.

McCain has not explained how he would achieve that goal. Although the federal government already provides generous tax incentives and loan guarantees, no utility has begun construction on a new nuclear plant since the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in western Pennsylvania in 1979 led to more federal regulations and local opposition.

Polls show the anti-nuclear fervor of the 1980s and 1990s has cooled considerably. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received 10 new license applications since September 2007, and officials said they expected to have 18 by the end of the year.

Detroit Edison, the owner and operator here, has made tentative plans to construct a third reactor nearby. But licensing and construction of a new nuclear power plant "could take as many as 11 years to complete."

A reporter asked McCain how he would build the new plants in only 22 years. "It can take five years to build a nuclear power plant. You can ask our folks here."  rw

But many of the untapped offshore areas would likely remain off-limits. GOP leaders all say that states should decide whether to open their shorelines to drilling. But many governors in coastal states are saying, "No, thanks!"

Some 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico were opened up to drilling two years ago, so Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi don't matter in this debate.

What's at stake is an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil off the coasts of other states.

Some 10 billion is in Californian waters, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants it left alone. Chances are slim that Arnie and other state lawmakers would permit drilling near their shores. Gov. Gregoire (D) and Oregon Gov. Kulongoski (D) want to fight for more offshore drilling.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) and North Carolina Gov. Easley (D) spoke against offshore drilling, citing the damage it could do to their states' tourism, real estate, and natural resources.

Maine Gov. Baldacci (D) and other political leaders say "no way," fearing for their state's fishing industry and environment. Massachusetts tried offshore drilling and found there wasn't much oil plus opposition to drilling is "fierce." Maryland's governor is opposed.

It's proved politically unpopular in Virginia. Florida Republicans have backed McCain's drilling call, and a number of Florida voters are shifting in the same direction. Public support for drilling has jumped from 50% to 60%. Most Democratic leaders in the state remain bitterly opposed.

About 57% of Americans would support drilling in places currently off limits if it would bring down gas prices.

Economists and energy experts say drilling wouldn't do a dang thing for prices in the short term, and very little in the long term.  rw

The disappointment from investors put pressure on Exxon Mobil's chief executive to search for new fields. The sell-off in Exxon stock continued a trend as oil and natural gas prices have fallen sharply from record levels. But problems surfaced in the company's report, a 10% drop in oil production and a 3% decline in natural gas production from the second quarter of 2007.

The production decrease was viewed with concern by energy analysts. "High commodity prices are driving the record earnings, not growth in production.

Crude oil prices in the second quarter averaged 91% higher than the same quarter in 2007. Natural gas prices averaged $10.80 for every thousand cubic feet, up 43% from a year ago. Exxon earned $10 billion in the quarter from exploration and production, up from $6 billion a year ago. But the company's $1.6 billion in profit from refining was less than half that in last year's quarter. Earnings from its chemical business of $687 million were down $326 million from last year.

The company intendeds to disburse $125 billion in capital spending over the next five years to produce more oil and natural gas.

Royal Dutch Shell, Eni and Repsol, three of Europe's largest oil companies, also reported strong profits. Shell reported its output had declined by 1.6%. Repsol's by nearly 20% percent. Shell, reported a 33% increase to $11.56 billion, from $8.67 billion in the period a year ago.

Oil companies are under pressure to find new reserves.

Adding together the output of all the major oil companies, this appears to be the fourth straight quarter of production declines. The total decline might exceed 600,000 barrels a day, reflecting the difficulties the oil companies had in gaining access to make up for the decline of mature fields.

Exxon's production tumbled because of Venezuela's expropriation of Exxon's assets last year, and declining production in many fields around the world.

Democrats in Congress were quick to criticize Exxon's profit. "Big Oil is plowing profits into stock buybacks instead of increasing production.

Exxon said oil companies needed the profits to search for more oil and gas and that Congress needs to give us access to those areas that are currently off limits to the industry.  rw

Surging costs for construction materials already are straining state and local transportation budgets and make it more expensive to maintain roads, bridges and rail networks.

About 25% of bridges in the U.S. are either "functionally obsolete" or "structurally deficient."

Moreover, the pavement is rated "not acceptable" on one of every seven miles of the nation's roads. About $225 billion a year is needed to meet the country's transportation infrastructure needs. Current spending is about 40% of that level.

On top of the gasoline tax, at 18.4 cents a gallon, the states charge their own gasoline taxes, which are typically slightly above the federal rate.

The administration is expected to project a deficit of $5 billion or more in the Highway Trust Fund for next year. The trust historically has run a surplus.

A memo estimates that the states will lose about $14 billion and 380,000 jobs if Congress doesn't act soon.

The House passed a bill targeting $8 billion for highway and mass-transit projects and it has a good chance of clearing the Senate. The House designated an additional $1 billion for bridge repair.

A debate is expected next year as Congress considers a six-year transportation bill that could authorize more than $400 billion in spending.

The goal would give states flexibility to set transportation spending, while making it easier for them to tap private-sector dollars. Also it asks Congress to loosen restrictions on new tolls on interstate highways.

A big question will be what to do about the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for the promises in each transportation bill and should a greater share of transportation dollars go to other nonhighway options.

An Oregon Democrat who is leading efforts to solve the "transportation funding crisis," is hoping the presidential candidates will offer their views.

Sen. Barack Obama, proposed a $60 billion national infrastructure bank that would fund projects that could improve transportation.

With driving down, the number of people riding Amtrak has risen 11% and mass-transit systems in many areas are experiencing ridership increases of 30% or more.

Mississippi is diverting money from new road improvement projects toward simple maintenance of existing roads.

Many consumers are altering their travel patterns, forcing auto makers to overhaul their plans and straining the capacity of many transit systems.  rw   Karen Gaia says: if we don't step up transportation alternatives, we are going to be caught in a transportation shortage when the demand grows again with population growth. Americans can cut back to some degree, but there will be a time in the near future when alternatives will be needed.

In the U.S., the runoff from farms along the Mississippi river of waste water and fertilizer, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus, pour billions of pounds of excess nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a dead zone, where waters rich in mineral and organic nutrients promote the growth of algae, reducing the dissolved oxygen content and causing the extinction of fish and other marine life starting from the mouth of the Mississippi River and spanning sometimes all the way to the Texas border.

The Dead Zone was first recorded in the early 1970's. It originally occurred every two to three years, but now occurs annually, and over the past five years has covered 6,000 square miles.

The Gulf of Mexico dead zone threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries that generate about $2.8 billion per year. Commercial fishermen are forced to fish elsewhere or stop altogether. Some species of HABs have been proven to cause negative health effects on humans. Advancements in science and management have been made, yet no real difference has been made to the size of the dead zones.

While the state of Oregon and the city of Portland have goals to reduce emissions believed to cause global warming, Portland General Electric says it needs to increase greenhouse gas emissions from its power plants to meet customer demand for additional energy during the next 20 years.

Environmentalists complain that PGE and the council are not trying hard enough to fight global warming, but the projections are consistent with what governments and utilities have experienced as they�ve tried to reduce greenhouse gases.

Portland was supposed to reduce emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2010. Emissions have fallen approximately 17% per capita since 2001, but due to population growth, the net reduction is likely to be 1 to 3% below 1990 levels � and some of that will be the result of the recession that curtailed driving, construction and employment.

Japan ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, promising to cut its emissions by 6% below 1990 levels. But Japan�s emissions are at a 16% above its reduction goals.

In its Draft Integrated Resource Plan, PGE predicted that population and job growth will increase electricity demand within its service district by 2.3% a year � or 20% by 2020. Some of the increases can be met by conservation, energy efficiency and new renewable energy resources, including wind and solar power.

To meet demand on peak days, PGE must increase its share of the power produced by the coal-burning plant in Boardman and build two new natural gas-powered plants.

The Sierra Club denounced the draft, but PGE must have reliable power sources to meet peak demands.

The population in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana is predicted to increase around 1% a year, driving up energy demand.

The draft estimates that conservation measures can meet only 85% of future demand growth.

The 2007 Legislature approved emission reduction goals 10% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 75% below 1990 levels by 2050. But the 2009 Legislature did not approve a cap-and-trade policy to help meet those goals.

The Portland City Council and Multnomah County commissioners want to cut emissions in the county 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. As currently written, it predicts that in the future, conservation and energy efficiency measures can more than overcome the effects of population growth.

Mining companies have frequently disregarded the law. The revised rule calls on companies to avoid the 100-foot stream buffer zone "or show why avoidance is not possible."

The agency said the change would have a "slightly positive" effect on the environment "because it requires coal mining operations to minimize certain impacts. But the implications of this ruling are devastating.

Mountaintop-removal mining is used widely in West Virginia and Kentucky, and provides access to low-sulfur coal seams but generates large amounts of waste. President Clinton pushed to restrict dumping of mining waste but left office before enacting changes. The Bush administration has been seeking to rewrite the law.

EPA administrator Johnson must certify that the environmental impact statement is adequate. Environmental groups will fight the regulation in court.  rw   Karen Gaia says: when we were rich, we could afford to mitigate the impacts of population. Now that our economy is failing, we are even having trouble funding family planning. But there is a perceived need the coal because we are depleting oil and we haven't acted fast enough on renewables.

The upper Texas coast is under stress because of development, rising seas and sinking land. This has led to the erosion of the shoreline, by as much as 10 feet each year. The dunes and marshes reduce the strength of wind and waves and without the buffer, storms can do more damage.

The recent development boom along the coast won't help because dams and levees are stealing much of the sediment that once replenished marshes and barrier beaches.

As a general rule, every mile or two of wetlands, or any other kind of land, will reduce a storm surge by a foot. The surge destroyed grasses for grazing cattle and other vegetation.

Up to 20 miles inland, post-Ike samples showed salt levels 25 parts per thousand in water that usually has no salinity. There is concern over the plight of a variety of birds that stop for a meal of fish along the upper Texas coast on their way south for the winter.

Among the rookeries on the Bolivar Peninsula, the Houston Audubon Society's sanctuaries are covered with debris from destroyed houses and boats.

Debris and untreated sewage in Galveston Bay and the bayous around Greater Houston are sucking the oxygen out of the water, leaving little or none for marine life.

The city of Houston estimated that as much as 5 million gallons, or 2 percent, of the sewage processed daily flowed into the bayous because of Ike-related power outages. While state and federal authorities have reported 2,221 spills of oil and other hazardous materials from Houston to Lake Charles, La., none of them is considered major.  rw

RGGI's supporters say the program will generate millions of dollars that the states have pledged to use to boost energy efficiency. And set a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

The program's western counterpart led by California and embracing seven states and four Canadian provinces, the initiative will require power plants and industries to cut emissions by 15% by 2020. In 2015, it will cover emissions from transportation, residential, and commercial fuel use.

An initial blueprint requires industry to start measuring their greenhouse-gas emissions in about two years. A program in the Midwest last year started planning a cap-and-trade program for six more states and Manitoba. These initiatives will bring pressure on the next U.S. president to create a uniform national cap-and-trade program.

RGGI say a chief achievement was the decision to auction off 100% of the allowances that power plants will need. Under the RGGI program, 223 power plants in the Northeast will have to buy allowances for all their C02 emissions. Power plants will have six years to stabilize emissions. The program applies to Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland.

Plants that do not meet the goals may be able to purchase "offsets" from projects that create carbon dioxide reductions. But the use of offsets will be restricted to 3.3 percent of a power plant's emissions. Energy consumption remained roughly flat in the Northeast, and carbon emissions from the power plants are expected to be about 9 percent below 2009.

The program requires $1.86 per ton for power plant emissions, which will encourage power producers and their larger customers to consider alternative power sources.

Customers will see their electricity bills rise by an amount that depends on the final price of the allowances.

Energy efficiency programs will be funded by the auctions and help consumers reduce their bills.

After the RGGI states have stabilized power sector carbon emissions, the cap will be reduced each year from 2015 through 2018.  rw

The population of illegal immigrants is larger than the population of many states. In 1980, the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy proposed a cap on immigrants of 425,000 per year. Some conservative senators thought the numbers were too high and opposed an amnesty for illegal immigrants. In 1986, an amnesty was passed without a cap on legal immigrants. Legal immigration is over twice the level called for in the above-cited amendment. Population growth makes other environmental problems harder to solve. 33 million more people requires over 12 million housing units, 15.8 million more passenger cars that will consume about 825 million barrels of oil a year, all of the recoverable oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in less than four years. Over 75 million acres of forest will be needed to supply 33 million people with paper and wood, an area larger than that protected under the forest conservation rule.  rw   

The Delta is in crisis. The levees providing flood protection and secure water supplies are crumbling. The complex system by which water is moved through the Delta is over-subscribed and under the jurisdiction of federal and state court judges.

Seismologists predict a one-in-three chance of a catastrophic earthquake in the next 50 years that would damage or destroy major portions of the levee system and revert the Delta to an inland salt sea. Federal experts warn that Sacramento is now the most flood-prone city in the nation, exceeding New Orleans.

There is agreement that the Delta is unsustainable and unacceptable. Political gridlock has prevented California's leaders from fashioning a solution, and those problems have mushroomed into a crisis as government leaders have failed to act.

Governor Schwarzenegger appointed a Delta Vision Task Force to develop an independent vision for the Delta. The seven-member group began its work last March, advised by expert scientists and a group of stakeholders reflecting every conceivable interest. The resulting Delta Vision, recommends state actions approved unanimously. but will not be universally popular. It speaks some harsh truths, notably, that each day brings California closer to a major disaster. Task Force members noted that "what the nation learned from New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina is the terrible price of waiting."

Protection of the Delta's ecosystem and a reliable water supply for California should be primary goals. Among recommendations sure to spark controversy:

Repairing the Delta is likely to require reduced water diversions -- or changes in the pattern and timing of diversions; New, coordinated water conveyance and storage facilities are needed. Conservation and water system efficiency are the cornerstones of better water management; Urbanization must be halted, and the landscape should be dominated by agricultural, environmental and recreational uses. The locally-dominated governing structure must be changed, in favor of a single authority.

The Task Force is embarking on fashioning a plan it has presented to California's political leaders. That promises to be equally daunting. But the future of the Delta, and those who depend on it, will require equally bold thinking and actions in 2008.  rw

"I believe the climate crisis can only be solved by addressing the democracy crisis," he said. The event raised over $300,000 for Planned Parenthood.

Gore asserted that the opposition Planned Parenthood encounters comes because its foes set aside science, reason and logic.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life contends its positions are supported by science. It's a scientific fact that a unique human being begins life at conception, we believe life needs to be protected.

Planned Parenthood operates 23 clinics in Minnesota and two in South Dakota that serve nearly 60,000 patients per year.  rw

diseases cause more damage in the U.S. than forest fires, tornadoes,

flooding, earthquakes and mudslides. 2,000 alien plant species have been

introduced. Non-native animal species cause an annual $123 billion worth of

damage to crops, range land and waterways. Weeds consume 4,600 acres of

wildlife habitat on public lands a day. The main mode of transport is by

ships: 40,000 gallons of foreign ballast water are dumped into U.S. harbors

each minute

parking lots, city streets and lawns.

VANISHED OPEN SPACE = Population X per capita Developed Land. 63% of the 47% increase of the greater Washington (D.C.) area between 1982 and 1997 was due to population growth. Reducing per capita land use alone will not accomodate the increase of the 1.6 million people expected in the Washington area in the next 25 years.

TRAFFIC CONGESTION = Population X per capita VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled). The Washington area Metrorail sees 650,000 Metrorail trips per day while the number of vehicle trips per day is 15.6 million - which will grow by 5.5 million over the next twenty years. Congested lane miles are projected to increase from 7.1% in 1998 to 10-12% in 2025.

WATER DEMAND = Population X per capita Water Consumption. South Florida's Everglades is buckling under pressure from pollution and water diversions to meet the demands of a rapidly growing population. According to a spokesperson for Everglades National Park, the stressed out system "could ecologically fail within the next 20 years."

SEWAGE: Plant and animal-killing nitrogen discharged from municipal sewage treatment plants has declined with nitrogen reduction techonology (NRT), but population growth will soon reverse the NRT gains. In the Chesapeake Bay, "If no further actions are taken, we anticipate increased discharges after 2010 due to population growth."

While the national population grows rapidly, curbing sprawl in one region pushes sprawl into other regions. The Census Bureau says we may reach 571 million by 2100. A stable U.S. population can be achieved through a modest reduction in U.S. fertility - by attaining fertility rates of other industrialized countries. (I.e. Norway-1.85 Spain-1.15). Even keeping current immigration levels!

ECONOMIC GROWTH . Comparing 13 faster growing areas to 13 slower growing areas showed a big difference in the rate of job growth, but a negligible difference in the unemployment rate. The more jobs lured into an urban area, the more people will move in to fill them, increasing congestion, and decreasing quality of life for those that live there. Population growth increases total economic growth but not per capita economic growth. In a study of 15 western European countries with relatively low population growth, compared to the U.S., with high population growth, the per capita Gross Domestic Product was not shown to significantly correlate to population growth.

Restraining the Growth Machine. Metropolitan area population growth can be slowed by ending subsidies that promote local population growth. Unfortunately the land speculators, developers, and real estate brokers profit from local growth are rich and powerful.

� .Restrain new business recruitment � .Make development pay its way � .Elect public officials whose campaign funding is not dominated by Growth Machine money

Slowing National Population Growth: � .Decrease the number of dropouts � .Reduce poverty � .Family planning services for low-income women � .Educating and influencing attitudes of teens and young women

I sometimes feel that I must be rather stupid as I cannot agree with, or understand, the reasons usually given for this continuous development. It is certainly not the wishes of the majority of the residents.

The facts as I see them are simple. ---

a.. We are told that we need development in Putnam County to provide employment for our people and to help reduce the taxes. b.. For this reason we offer every inducement to companies to locate in our county. c.. We then need more people to work in the new factories, stores and other businesses. d.. We then have to provide more homes to house these families. e.. But almost every family has at least one child of school age and every new student in our schools increases the property taxes. f.. We also have to pay to rebuild roads and other facilities to serve the growing population. g.. Therefore we need more development in Putnam County to help reduce the taxes. In the 20 years that I have lived in Southeast there has been almost continuous development and still the taxes have increased around 300%, largely because of the increasing population of school students. So development increases our taxes, adds to our pollution, increases the traffic and takes away our natural open spaces. The residents pay for all of this via the loss of their rural environment and their taxes both present and future.

The developers gain most and should reward the public for loosing much of their way of life. I propose that one third of the property involved in every development, or the equivalent, should be handed over to the people as public open spaces.

Thank you for contacting me regarding your concern for the high cost of birth control. I appreciate hearing from you regarding this important issue.

You will be pleased to know we are in complete agreement. I am a proud co-sponsor of the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act (H.R. 4054) which would allow drug companies to again offer college clinics and safety net healthcare providers a significantly discounted rate on birth control purchases. As you know, this reduced price allowed providers to offer low cost birth control to their patients who often cannot afford to pay full price for contraceptives.

H.R. 4054 corrects a provision in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that went into effect this year that mistakenly prevented drug companies from continuing to offer discounted birth control.

As a result, many college clinics can no longer afford to provide birth control to their students. For student health centers and other clinics that still offer birth control, the prices have increased astronomically from an average of $5 to nearly $50 per month. I am very concerned the increased costs have made it more difficult for many women to obtain safe and effective birth control.

I firmly believe that students should NOT (edited) have to pay such a steep price for a bureaucratic oversight. Women who can't afford birth control should not be made to suffer the consequences of an unintended pregnancy. I hope this bill moves quickly through the legislative process so we restore access to safe, effective and affordable birth control for women across the country.

California's biological diversity arises from the varied landscapes and climates found on the geologically active western edge of the North American continent. California is also the state with the most imperiled wildlife.

When overpopulation and biodiversity collide, biodiversity invariably suffers. More than 800 species in the state are now at risk. The major stresses impacting California's wildlife and habitats, include water management, invasive species, overgrazing, recreational pressures and climate change. Increasing housing, services, transportation, and other infrastructure place ever-greater demands on the state's land, water, and other natural resources.

California's population will swell to 60 million by 2050.

The spread of Homo sapiens is riding roughshod over hundreds of other life forms that have made California their home for eons.

On the Central Coast, urbanized acreage expanded about 20%. Crowded and costly coastal areas have forced development inland, in areas once dominated by agriculture and large ranches.

You don't have a conservation policy unless you have a population policy.

Successive bipartisan commissions all recommended that the US needs to stabilize its population and control immigration or forfeit its environment, including landscape and wildlife.

Even with conservation planning, growth and development will eliminate important habitats.

If Californians allow the state's population to hit 60 million in 2050, a large number of endangered species will have vanished forever.  rw

They prompt us to ask: "What does a sustainable Chesapeake really mean?"

My vision is built upon a balanced, vibrant ecosystem teeming with fish, shellfish, underwater grasses and clear, healthy waters. But to be truly sustainable, the Chesapeake ecosystem needs to exist while also supporting the region's human population.

Creating a sustainable Chesapeake will not be easy. But as we look around the state, we're seeing more and more positive steps being taken.

Recently, the Maryland Commission on Climate Change made recommendations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving energy throughout the state. These actions will require that we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25% within the next 12 years.

An initiative was introduced that will seek to instill a sense of environmental stewardship among the 28,000 students graduating each year. It will also foster research and prepare the new "green" workforce.

By changing our own actions, each of us has the ability to reduce our impact on the bay and the planet.

As long as the region's population continues to grow, and we develop lands faster than needed to accommodate that growth, we make it more difficult to maintain the sustainability equation.

We have struggled more than 20 years to reduce the amount of pollution flowing into the bay and we are still far from where we need to be. Another 10, 20 or 30 years of pollution-fighting efforts will still not be enough. Bay restoration efforts will be needed in perpetuity.

We need to manage for sustainability by remaining aware of what will cross our path in the future.  rw   Karen Gaia says: The way things are going, we will be forced to reduce our greenhouse gases because we have passed peak oil, meaning our consumption of oil will be reduced.

Despite the decline in home values, the rise in gas prices, the weak dollar, visitors are coming to Southwest Florida. Construction boomed from 2003 to 2006, and home prices in Florida rose 60%. Now there's a glut of unoccupied dwellings.

It is anybody's guess when that industry will recover and help other sectors of an economy tied to population growth.

Tourism has long been a mainstay of the state's economy. Why are people coming?

At the top of the list is the weak dollar, which tends to draw Canadians and Europeans.

Florida is transitioning from being a low-cost state to a higher-cost state, the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation Inc. said. The cost of living in Southwest Florida is comparable to the cost of living in Toronto. That explains why so many local residents are heading for points north.

Florida's population increased by about 320,000 residents in 2006, down from the pace of 2004 and 2005. Most of the decrease was in domestic migration. Florida continued to attract residents from the Northeast and the Midwest, but Florida became a net exporter of residents to other Southern states."

The state's population, increased by 2.1 million people between 2000 and 2006.

Factors causing some people to leave include high housing costs, rising property tax bills, difficulty obtaining insurance, the threat of hurricanes and recent job losses caused by the downturn in the construction industry.

Good progress has been made in the past three years to strengthen the state's economy. At stake are the State's most vital current and future interests and the livability and sustainability of its communities.

Floridians value the environment. The business community and politicians must do the same.

Florida must continue to develop a diversified economic base. Local business and political leaders should draw research and development companies or, in some other form, companies that can diversify the local and state economies.  rw

The Gov asked for President Bush's help in easing regulations that require the state to send water to Alabama and Florida and to declare 85 counties as federal disaster areas.

He blasted rules governing the water supplies, noting that if the state got rains, it could not by law conserve those, but must release 3.2 billion gallons a day downstream.

The Army Corps of Engineers said if there were nine months without rain, water supplies still would be adequate. The corps, releases 5,000 feet of water per second from the dam between Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River.

The figure was based on a Florida hydroelectric power plant's needs, as well as concern for endangered species in the river. Georgia filed a motion to require the Army Corps of Engineers to restrict water flows from the lake and other Georgia reservoirs. The corps said it needs 120 days to review its water policies, according to Perdue.

Rainfall is far below normal for this time of year.

Lake Lanier levels have dropped to a historically low and is hurting businesses and scaring away tourists.

A new biological review of endangered species needs will end in November to see if water requirements can be reduced. Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been wrangling over how to allocate water from the Chattahoochee watershed as metro Atlanta's population has doubled since 1980. Georgia has imposed a ban on outdoor water use by homeowners in the region.  rw

The goal is to provide a safe and dependable water supply for all Oklahomans, while improving the economy and protecting the environment.

The water plan is expected to consider population growth, future water needs, competing water interests, vulnerability to drought and flooding, environmental protection and economic development.

Surface water is considered to be publicly owned and subject to appropriation by the OWRB for “beneficial use.”

Groundwater is considered private property that belongs to the overlying surface owner.

Since 1973, water wells have increased tenfold. Laws were written to encourage Oklahoma to use water to thrive and grow.

Public water supplies are the primary user of surface water or reservoirs, with irrigation for agricultural uses the biggest user of groundwater.

All of Oklahoma's aquifers dropped several feet from 2001 to 2006, as a result of drought.

The Arbuckle-Simpson and Blaine aquifers dropped more than 21 feet and almost 10 feet, respectively, during that period, but respond very quickly to drought or to rain. Oklahoma had a population of about 3.5 million in 2000. That's projected by to increase by 38% by 2060.

Current Oklahoma law allows the OWRB to issue groundwater use permits based on an assumed 20-year lifetime for the aquifer, which is unsustainable. It was recommended to transfer water from the Kiamichi River in southeastern Oklahoma.

Mayor Cindy Rosenthal said the state water plan has to emphasize conservation. Destructive competition will happen if there is not funding assistance.

Norman environmental specialist Debbie Smith said she would like the state to require communities that receive financial assistance to develop a water conservation plan. Everybody knows that water conservation is the cheapest way to get more water.

But if there is no sustainability, it's not going to work, There should be no ownership of water.

Americans as a whole do not have any idea of the value of water.  rw

The federal government offers $13 million for abstinence-only programs but no money for teaching teenagers how to have safe sex. In New York, HIV education is mandatory, but sex education is not.

There are scattered schools that do a reasonable job. New York could spend $10 to $20 million a year without wasting a nickel. Eligible programs would not be allowed to promote a religious view, although moral, ethical and religious beliefs could be discussed.

The programs would teach that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but would not ignore the fact that teenagers have sex.

The bill supports sex education about abstinence, but understands that you need to address the needs of teenagers who are not abstaining. Comprehensive sex education delays teenagers from becoming sexually active. Giving kids complete information about contraception, STDs, and pregnancy risk, helps them protect themselves.

Federally funded abstinence programs don't do the job. For example, when talking about condoms, the abstinence programs are only allowed to talk about their failure rates.

Teenagers need to know how to use birth control, and how to make responsible decisions.  rw