In Lathrop, Manteca and Tracy, California, among some of the world's most productive farmland, you can find streets of foreclosed home, looking like a 21st century ghost town, with rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions.

Here population nearly doubled in 10 years, and home prices tripled and urban planning circles hailed the boom as the new America at the far exurban fringe. But others saw it as the residential embodiment of the Edward Abbey line that "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Now median home prices have fallen from $500,000 to $150,000, one in eight houses are in some stage of foreclosure and the crime rate has spiked well above the national average, and unemployment hovers around 1%.

Nationwide, foreclosure increase 119% from two years ago. Owners of 1 in 10 mortgages owe more than their houses are worth, and many just walk away. Without vested owners, vandalism runs rampant and the place becomes a slum. Only 11% of the people in this valley could afford the median home price.

Through immigration and high birth rates, the United States is expected to add another 100 million people by 2050. We've already added 105 million people since 1970; we have a net gain of one person every 13 seconds.

This housing boom was spurred by the state's broken tax system where cities were hampered by by property tax limitations and increased revenue by the easiest route: expanding urban boundaries. Developers plowed up walnut groves and vineyards to pay for services demanded by new school parents and park users.

A lesson can be learned from cities like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and San Diego, which have stable and recovering home markets, have fairly strict development codes, trying to hem in their excess sprawl. Developers said these cities would eventually price the middle class out, and start to empty, but this hasn't happened. Instead, the free-for-all cities like Las Vegas, the Phoenix metro area, South Florida, this valley - are the most troubled, the suburban slums.   Karen Gaia says: Population growth feeds these 'booms'. Build it and they will come, say the developers, confident that growth is always the answer. They have no idea about carrying capacity. And most people still do not realize that economic hard times are related to carrying capacity.

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.

It appears The New York Times is attempting to separate the population issue from US immigration and make them into two unrelated issues.

Any discussion of immigration into the US already the world's third most populous nation, is incomplete without addressing its impact on domestic population growth and sustainability.

On average, over 1 million foreign born people are granted permanent residence status each year. By adding 133 million people, the US is set to add into its borders the equivalent of all the current citizens of Mexico and Canada combined by 2050. This will result in:

US population sky-rocketing by over 130 million people.

Demand for the ground-water, open-space and farm-land dramatically surging.

Wages for lower-skilled, less-educated Americans plummeting as excess service labor swamps the market.

Roads, schools, subways and grocery stores becoming even more crowded.

Representative democracy weakening as each elected official serves a drastically inflated constituency.

If Congress were to set immigration policy to allow for 300,000 people to be invited into the nation per year US population would be 80 million less than is it currently projected to be at mid-century.  rw   Karen Gaia says: just as every family should be able to set its size according to its social and economic limitations, so should a nation be able to limit its size by governing its borders. Up to now the US has been a rich nation, but the strain on its resources (and that on other countries it takes from) is beginning to show. Its footprint is far larger than the country's size itself.

People were buying smaller cars. 161,535 vehicles were registered in Lake Macquarie, a 2.25% increase on the previous year.

The rate of native vegetation clearing had been "substantially reduced" to 58 hectares.

But Lake Macquarie's population is expected to grow by 60,000 to 70,000 people in the next 25 years and will create demand for 36,500 new dwellings.

An expanding population means an increase in the consumption of resources. Residential electricity use in the city had decreased by 3.9% in 2007-08 compared with the previous year, but business electricity use had increased by 1.8%.  rw

Global population could increase to 12 billion by 2050. Most growth is in developing countries. The closest thing to population reform coming from the right is, "If the world's brown people would stop having so many babies, there'd be no crisis." On the left, if we ease poverty and increase education in developing countries, the global population will even itself out.

The growing number of people inhabiting the Earth is everybody's problem. Based on solid evidence, there is a direct relationship between lower standards of living and larger family size. Yet there is no guarantee that addressing quality-of-living issues will solve the population problem.

We are faced with a crisis because we are using up more resources than the planet can produce. The most basic resources are growing scarce, food, potable water, wood. A population that keeps growing will eventually overwhelm the planet. As impoverished nations achieve prosperity, their consumption grows. A two-pronged solution is needed: reduced consumption and staved population growth.

Once again, the birth-to-death ratio in this country has reached replacement level. A child born in a first-world country uses more resources and emits more carbon than a child born in a developing country.

One of the obstacles to enacting international policies to curtail the population explosion is that, until recently, there is no consensus that the present global population is a problem. Many countries encourage family growth through tax incentives and other policies. Population control is met with vehement opposition. They are the human desire to live the way we wish, consequences be damned. The only way to counteract this desire is to make it less profitable to have children.

If food, healthcare, and education are provided, subsidizing procreation won't be necessary. This will increase the quality of life for families without punishing parents or promoting family growth.

We need to make birth control more widely available worldwide.

The association between the tyrannical and the humanitarian motivations of limiting population bolsters the need for transparent and public worldwide policies. We may still be allowed a weaning period. Energy costs will rise. The poor will bear the burden, But innovation will balloon, and the dividends of increased innovation will grow.

A lack of forethought in energy policy almost destroyed the planet, and still might. How much more difficult will it be, to make the argument that the choice to have a child is no longer a decision that can be made freely?  rw   Karen Gaia says: the author does not seem to understand the value of voluntary family planning. U.S. women voluntarily limited their family size to replacement level, from 4 to 2 children in 20 years. With reproductive health care, women's education and self esteem, and available contraception, it can easily be done.

*For seven of the last eight years, the world has consumed more grain than it produced. One fifth of the U.S. grain is being turned into fuel ethanol.

*One third of reptile, amphibian, and fish species are threatened with extinction.

*Grain yields increased half as fast in the 1990s as in the 1960s.

*Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa today is lower than in the late 1980s.

*Today's reserves of lead, tin, and copper could be depleted within the next 25 years if their extraction expands at current rates.

*Nearly half of the global military budget of $1.2 trillion is spent by the US.

*South Korea recycles 77% of its paper products.

*Conservation agriculture is practiced on more than 100 million hectares around the world

*Four years after London introduced a fee on motor vehicles entering the city center, car traffic had fallen by 36% while bicycle trips increased by 49%.

*The world produces 110 million bicycles a year, but an annual production of 49 million cars.

*Fish farming is the fastest growing source of animal protein worldwide, increasing 7% each year since 1995.

*World soybean production has quadrupled since 1977.

*Coal use in Germany has dropped 37% since 1990; in the UK it has fallen by 43%.

*Solar cell production is doubling every two years.

*Electricity used for lighting can be cut by 65% through switching to compact fluorescents.

Follow the link to more fascinating data and charts on global trends.  rw

We thought we had the right to use all the resources of the earth to serve our human growth. We possessed the right to equality, free speech, to work for pay and so on. We believed we had the right to expand our material possessions, our property and the number of children we brought into the world.

Our ethics held that the earth's resources were infinite and our ability to grow and increase was also infinite. But now we see a shift. Environmental ethics moves us away from the human-centered ethics of limitlessness and realizes that, in fact, our planet is finite. This scarcity of the earth's resources limits the rights and privileges of its human inhabitants. Protecting the environment must come before the limitless rights and needs of the human population. When humans act to protect and renew the resources of the Earth, they act in the most morally and ethically responsible way possible. When they act for their own growth and expansion, they tend to deplete and destroy the environment. The victims of planetary degradation will be our species - or at least the major civilizations, which will collapse from the loss of clean water, air and fertile land.

The environment has veto power over a human-centered ethics of expansion, growth and consumption. Making the environmental principle the centerpiece of our cultural ethics will face resistance from the human rights-and-freedom ethics we have embraced for so long. We cannot expand and grow forever. And a scarce Earth will place limits on our freedom, rights and needs.

Our civic leaders must assess the benefits and costs to humans and to the environment when they consider expanding freeways, public transportation systems, building coal-burning power plants, putting wind turbines on farm land. The environmental principle must be considered first.  rw

Anyone interested in any of these subjects should click on the headline link and read the full article.  rw

Our environmental impact is the product of population size and the average person's consumption.

Today's climate change, mass extinction, deforestation, collapsing fisheries and more is evidence our total consumption has gone too far. We are destroying our life-support system. To avert catastrophe, we need to reduce our numbers and per person consumption.

An common assertion: If everyone on Earth consumed less, we wouldn't have exceeded carrying capacity. It's a simple notion: reduce per person consumption and end our environmental problems. And it sidesteps population size and growth, a subject of much concern in the 1960s and 1970s but taboo today.

Why taboo? Pressure from social justice activists who insist in recent decades that any focus on numbers violates the right of women to manage their fertility.

Humane, successful population programmes in countries as varied as Thailand, Iran, and Mexico contradict that assumption.

Nevertheless, the criticism has cowed environmentalists and NGOs which once championed the population cause, influencing policy, pushing the subject off the agenda, or shifting the emphasis solely to "reproductive health" without the numbers.

Most environmentalists now suggest a reduction in individual consumption is all we need to solve our ecological problems.

Measuring consumption as the use of biologically productive land and sea, data shows a global maximum sustainable footprint, at today's population, of just under 1.8 global hectares per person. Currently, we're a bit over 2.2gha, overshooting Earth's limits by about 25%.

What if we converged on Mexico's level of per capita consumption? Resource use would plummet in developed countries while rising in many of the poorest. But it wouldn't get us to 1.8gha. At 2.6gha, Mexico's footprint is 32% too high. A drop to the level of Botswana or Uzbekistan would put us in the right range.

But that's not low enough. We'd next have to compensate for UN projections of 40% more humans by the middle of the century. That would mean shrinking the global footprint to under 1.3gha, roughly the level of Guatemala or Nigeria.

The GFN authors point out their data is conservative, underestimating problems such as aquifer depletion and our impacts on other species. In response, the Redefining Progress group publishes an alternative footprint measure which has humanity not at 25%, but at 39% overshoot. But that too, the authors concede, is an underestimate.

While in overshoot, moreover, we erode carrying capacity. There are limits to how much we can reduce per-person use of land, water, and other resources. A purposeful drop on the part of industrialised countries to consumption levels comparable to those of the poorest areas in the world is not only wholly unrealistic but, at today's population size, would not end our environmental woes. Our sheer numbers prevent it.

We have no alternative but to return our attention to population, the other factor in the equation. We must aim for population stabilisation followed by a decline in human numbers worldwide.

We have to provide easy access to family planning options while educating parents in the benefits of smaller families and family planning. We should educate and empower girls and women to give them options and help free them to make decisions concerning family size. And we should end government incentives for larger families. We must do these things internationally and vigorously, with a keen eye toward numbers, monitoring results and making adjustments accordingly.

The stakes are too high to waste time evading the issue. Doing so is intellectually dishonest and a setup for global tragedy. It's time environmentalists ended the silence on population.  rw   Ralph says: At last someone has the courage to say what should be on every politician's blotter tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, warnings have not slowed the pace at which croplands and soils are being eaten up by development. The state's farmlands are shrinking because the millions added to our population are competing with farmers for water and for the land that is best at producing food. California has long been America's leading agricultural state, generating over $30 billion a year in revenues. California cultivates more than 350 crops. The cash value of crops grown in the great Central Valley is probably unrivalled by any other comparably-sized area on earth. Unfortunately, the urbanization is accelerating. In California, productive farmlands are succumbing and are being split up into unproductive rural ranchettes or hobby farms.

Between 1990 and 2004, rapid population growth has been driving this trend.

More than 60% of the 538,000 acres developed in California was agricultural land. In the most important agricultural areas like the Central Valley, a higher portion, nearly three-quarters of the area, developed was farmland. By 2050, if the state's population projections come to pass, and if current trends continue, an additional 2.1 million acres would be urbanized. These are the lands that with the proper stewardship could produce food virtually in perpetuity. Like the non-renewable energy resources we have squandered in recent decades, this loss will come back to haunt us in a future.

Food prices are mounting globally with the addition of 70-80 million more mouths to feed every year, diversion of food crops into biofuels production, increasing consumption of meat (which uses far more land to grow the crops fed to livestock), and rising energy prices.

If California is to be part of the solution, unsustainable population growth must be checked. Since virtually all present and projected growth is from immigration and higher average immigrant fertility, these must be reduced.

If we don't, then one day California will struggle just to feed its own citizens, no less the nation and the world.  rw

When oil prices rose in the 1970s, this created incentives to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles, for most of the 1980s and 1990s, energy and food became more abundant. Technological progress stayed ahead of population growth and resource depletion. However, economic incentives cannot keep the wolf at bay indefinitely.

Resource prices have surpassed record levels and per-capita food availability has started to decline. Despite demographic transition to low fertility in East Asia, Europe, and North America, current population growth rates would still triple world population to over 20 billion in about 90 years. The question is whether population growth will fall due to declines in fertility or whether epidemics, malnutrition, and violent conflict will carry out the adjustment, aided by global warming.

Residents of China and India are unlikely to buy many SUVs, and economic incentives will push them in more environmentally friendly directions. If China were the model, I would be optimistic about the future. Fertility there has declined to about replacement level. China is poised to move where people demand better environmental quality as incomes rise.

The dismal picture is in Africa. Per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa fell between 1980 and 2005, despite improvements in technology made available in that period. Population growth remains very high and infectious disease, malnutrition, and violent conflict have become more entrenched and could spill over into other regions. Water provides an important example of resource scarcity. If the people of Los Angeles faced higher water prices, we would see households switch away from green grass.

A second set of issues concerns population growth in poor nations. Population growth helps to create new markets. Unfortunately, population growth in the developing world is unlikely to trigger such an innovation.

Market-based prices cannot do everything, largely because of non-priced third party effects. An electric utility using coal to produce electricity contributes to global warming and other pollution problems. This effect is not priced.

Decisions to have large numbers of children may also impose negative externalities on others. Some would like to limit growth in order to mitigate the production of greenhouse gases. But they are vague about the details. Which people should not be born? Whose income should decline in order to achieve their noble goal?

California is likely to implement a cap and trade program which will effectively create a new market in the "right to pollute." Effective regulation has helped to offset the quantity of economic activity. But in general, I wonder whether government is up to the task of limiting the costs of growth on a global scale.

Major resources such as forests and agricultural land are under threat, as are the air and water. Possibly the biggest threat is a catastrophic rise in sea level caused by global warming.

Fertility reduction is the biggest challenge. Chinese-style state-imposed fertility control will not be acceptable elsewhere, but female education and female control over reproductive decisions are very positive forces.

If natural resources grow scarce, we will adjust and in the long run, new substitutes will be introduced.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Instead of a population of 20 billion in 90 years, the U.N. predicts a leveling-off of 9-11 billion in 50 years. As for sufficient, timely substitutes for natural resources, that takes a lot of faith. Take water or soil for example.

Today, global demands on natural systems exceed their sustainable yield by an estimated 25%. We are setting the stage for decline and collapse.

With some exceptions, policy makers have been guilty of allowing sustainability to be cast as a peculiarly environmental issue. Sustainability is the ultimate whole of government - indeed, whole of society - issue.

Sustainability must be the foundation upon which we build economic strength and natural resilience.

It must be central to our planning, thinking and acting as we seek to live in harmony with the planet.

Global warming is a symptom of the problem of living unsustainably. Consuming fossil fuels without considering the waste is a sustainability issue.

The rate of increase in greenhouse concentrations is unprecedented in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. Human induced global catastrophe as it should be known, might be the clarion call that heralds another threat caused by our careless consumption of fossil fuels.

A growing group of voices predict that between 2006 and 2020 the world will pass a point after which we will never have as much oil at our disposal as we did the day before.

November 2006 is the possible peak of production, with the world's daily average in that month of 85.5 million barrels per day (mbpd) of oil and condensates not having been exceeded in the 14 months since.

Crude has been consistently trading between US$100 and US$102 a barrel and we now stand on the threshold of an upswing in global oil prices that will have a significant impact on the economy of the world and for which we are seriously unprepared.

What both peak oil and climate change will impose upon us is a requirement to use less energy. We will need to live closer to work, schools and shops and public transport.

We have the capacity with existing technology and intellect to adopt more sustainable policies and practices to bring greenhouse gas emissions under control through greater use of renewable energy sources and to reduce our reliance on oil.

The challenge is to build a new economy, one that is powered largely by renewable sources of energy, that has a highly diversified transport system, and that reuses and recycles everything. And to do it with unprecedented speed.

In an energy-constrained world dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it's time we spoke of population.

The rampaging monster is over-population. In its presence, sustainability is a fragile theoretical thing.

People are ready to grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet. Population maldistribution increases the stress on available resources and heightens the need for more stringent sustainable living practices, such as water restrictions.

Developed countries have the double whammy of increasing populations and rampant consumerism.

It's one thing to provide the necessities of life… quite another to provide the trimmings demanded by affluence.

In the 21st century, the human race must confront the reality that in the closed system that is planet earth, there are limits to growth.

No matter how clever we are, there is no escaping the physical limits of the world's resources.

What we need above all is smart growth. .. Growth that is low carbon. .. Growth that is low pollution. .. Growth that is resource neutral.

We need growth that adds to the natural capital, instead of destroying it.  rw

Why are we so passive in the face of such profound changes for the worse in our environment?

By the year 2100, those changes will include a sea level rise of 5 to 10 feet; a 30% drop in crop yields; hundreds of millions of climate refugees; erratic and more severe weather; frequent forest fires; potable water shortages; a roughly 30% rate of global species extinction, and a hostile world.

With a better understanding of our reluctance to act, we'll be motivated to undertake the changes required for sustainability.

Global warming's harm is in the future, and we tend to ignore future harm. Warming is in evidence today, but so far only amounts to one degree C. Now we must insure ourselves against the very high likelihood that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions will be massively disruptive.

We have to stop polluting. Dilution is not the solution, because it fails when the volume or toxicity of pollutants increase.

The huge volume of carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but it's ignored because it's invisible and odorless. Now, it is our single most serious problem.

Rising carbon dioxide correlates with rising temperature, and rising temperatures will cause a multitude of problems. The science has some uncertainty, but so does all science.

By the time we have precise knowledge of the rate and consequences of warming, it will be too late. If we wait, significant warming will be inevitable and irreversible.

So far, if drought reduces some food we want, we simply pay more to bring some in from elsewhere. But more than 1 billion people in the world live on $2 a day or less, and have no cushion against the ill effects of warming. Soon, even our wealth will prove inadequate. A 2003 Pentagon study predicted widespread chaos based on just one of the global warming consequences.

Our wealth temporarily insulates us from an urgent and chaotic reality.

We have to save ourselves — we have no effective leaders.

We have no assurance that alternative, non-polluting energy sources can replace our current energy use, or even large parts of it. It seems unlikely that we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions as much as needed.

No one knows how much non-emitting energy we can develop, because that depends mostly on new or improved technologies. But the reduction will change our lives, because we are highly dependent on cheap and plentiful fossil fuel energy.

At some point quite a while ago, growth became unsustainable. But our cultural worship of growth irrationally persisted.  rw

During the same period, the report shows a 40% decline in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species population. Ten years after the UN Rio conference in 1992, the Footprint in the 27 wealthiest countries increased by 8% per person, while in the middle and low income countries, it shrank by 8% per person.

Consumption of fossil fuels increased by almost 700% between 1961 and 2001. But the planet is unable to absorb the resulting carbon-dioxide emissions that degrade the earth's ozone layer.

We are spending nature's capital faster than it can regenerate.

The biggest culprit is the US. Although it has only 4.5% of the world's population, it consumes more than 29% of the world's annual output of renewable resources. The US has been urging developing countries to adopt sustainable development, but there is no sign of the US adopting such policies.

With more than 120 million vehicles on its roads the US is also the biggest culprit when it comes to generating carbon-dioxide emissions.

The global community has set targets for sustainability and biodiversity conservation. At the 2004 meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, governments agreed to set targets for creating networks of protected areas.

All 191 member states of the UN have signed up to support the MDGs, which not only address the root causes of environmental degradation but include a specific goal on environmental sustainability.

Some might argue that governments are wasting their time talking. The fact is that governments today are no further to achieving the MDGs than they were seven years ago.

Populations of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species fell on an average by 40% between 1970 and 2000. Destruction of natural habitats, pollution, overfishing and the introduction of non-native animals, often drive out indigenous species.

Trawlers and dredgers wreak destruction across the seabed, crushing entire ecosystems of corals, algae and crustaceans as they go. But will governments take heed? Or will they continue to look the other way? The forest species declined by about 15%, the marine species 35%, while the freshwater species dropped 55% over the 30-year period.

The earth has about 11.4 billion hectares of productive land and sea space, after all unproductive areas are discounted. Divided between the current estimated global population of 6.4 billion, this total equates to 1.78 hectares per person.

When the world's population was slightly less than 6 billion, the Ecological Footprint of the world's average consumer was 2.3 hectares, or 20% above the earth's capacity of 1.90 hectares per person versus 1.78 hectares per person today. In other words, humanity now exceeds the planet's capacity to sustain its consumption of renewable resources.  rw

First, we must accept the idea that sustainable means for a long time.

The Government of the UK defines it as: ‘Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.'

This means that the resources have to be renewable through natural processes and entirely recycled if they are not renewable. If the population exceeds the carrying capacity, the death rate will increase until the population numbers are stable. Using these criteria it is obvious that the current human population is not sustainable.

In the discussions taking place, population is a word we dare not speak. Population is the elephant in the room.

It is obvious that something has increased the world's carrying capacity in the last 150 years. That something is oil.

Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource and not sustainable. If oil is not sustainable, then the added carrying capacity the oil has provided is unsustainable. Carrying capacity has been added to the world in direct proportion to the use of oil, and if our oil supply declines, the carrying capacity of the world will automatically fall with it.

Our population today is at least five times what it was before oil came on the scene. Each of the global problems we face today is the result of too many people using too much of our planet's finite, non-renewable resources and filling its waste repositories of land, water and air to overflowing. We are in fantasy land if we think that we can continue to support the number of people that we do now without the full input of oil and its related products.

We have become so dependent on those fuels, that there is no way we can sustain ourselves at this population density and level of technology without them. Population redistribution provides no long-term solution to environmental sustainability, total population numbers need to decrease worldwide.

Extremes of temperature and climate, combined with weather-related disruptions, would severely reduce the size of the country's population carrying capacity.

With population continuing to grow, urbanisation eating up farmland, and more of our remaining agricultural land likely to be used for energy crops, food production will be squeezed.

The systems that produce the world's food supply are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. In addition, fossil fuels are essential in the construction and the repair of equipment and infrastructure needed to facilitate this industry. Almost every human endeavour from transportation, to manufacturing, to electricity to plastics, and especially food production is intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies. As each individual recycles more of his or her own waste, success is undermined by the constantly increasing numbers of people who create waste.

But how much land would be needed to provide all our electricity. It depends how much wind power can be constructed offshore. For wind power to supply all-electric homes at today's rates of consumption, for today's 60 million people, several counties would need to be covered with wind turbines.

The total amount of water used in UK is modest because agriculture can be carried on mostly without irrigation.

The UK Government attaches importance to lowering water use because of increasing water constraints: rivers reduced to a trickle for several months, reservoir levels dropping, water tables continuing to drop. The large increases in the UK population experienced during the last five years makes it even more important to try to push per person consumption downwards.

Half a million new homes are planned in the South East alone.

The UK is one of the most densely populated and built up countries in the EU and some English regions are already close to reaching the limits of their capacity to take further development without serious damage to the environment or quality of life.

Along with every measure for reducing per person use of water, we should address the problem of population.

All these problems are symptoms of the growth in the human population, currently surging through 6.6 billion people worldwide. The consequences are already clear without policies to reduce world population, efforts to save our environment cannot succeed.

The uncomfortable truth is that the impact on Earth's biosphere of a projected 9 billion people living at a desired higher standard of living in 2050 would be fatal for the planet in terms of greenhouse gas emissions alone.

Given the fact that our world's carrying capacity is supported by oil, and that the oil is about to start going away, it seems that a population decline is inevitable. Populations in serious overshoot always decline, though actually, it's a bit worse than that. The population may actually fall to a lower level than was sustainable before the overshoot.

We are getting obvious signals from our environment that all is not well. Because we are now a global species with a global civilization, continuing growth of our numbers depends on the continuing growth of our civilization. There must be a sufficient level of food, shelter, energy and medical care available. All these factors will be put at risk globally within the next two decades due to the loss of oil. Food production and distribution will be hampered or impossible, and local agriculture will prove very difficult in some places. Other countries like those at the bottom of the list of developing nations will simply be too poor to compete against the developed world for the resources needed for survival. Populations will fall as a result.

The facts remain: there aren't enough resources to bring the whole world up to the industrial level of the developed world and the developed world is unlikely to consent to their own voluntary impoverishment in favour of industrializing the less developed world, and attempting such an approach would increase rather than reduce global ecological devastation.

The human race has only one or perhaps two generations to rescue itself. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution can divert our attention. If the present growth in world population continues, the limits to growth will be reached within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

As for man, there is little reason to think that he can, in the long run, escape the fate of other creatures.  rw

Government targets to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 will have little impact on the UK's sustainability because of the rate of population growth.

The number of people living in the UK is expected to hit 65 million within 10 years, and top 70 million by 2031.

Even if Britain was carbon neutral, it could only sustainably support 40 million people. To live sustainably, British people would have to lead simpler lives, similar to people in China, Paraguay, Algeria and Botswana.

The world was living within its ecological means until the 1980s when populations began to grow rapidly.

By 2050, it will be using up the equivalent of nearly two Earths each year and the UK's overpopulation threatens the environment and people's quality of life.

We need a national population policy.  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.

It is now generating multiple crises across the world that threaten to converge unless we take drastic action now.

These crises have four key themes: Climate catastrophe, peak oil, food scarcity, and economic instability.

The C02 emissions from the industries are the main engine of global warming. Scientists have found no evidence that solar energy is correlated with rising temperatures. According to the IPCC's first report, by 2100 the average global temperature could rise by 6.4C, leading to ecological alterations that would make life throughout most of the Earth impossible.

Another crisis emerging is the energy crisis, primarily oil. The basic rules for the discovery, estimation and production of petroleum reserves were laid down by Dr. M. King Hubbert who pointed out that as petroleum is a finite resource, its production must inevitably pass through three key stages. Production reaches a peak which cannot be surpassed which occurs at the point when 50% of total reserves are depleted.

Production declines at an increasing rate, until the resource is completely depleted.

Rising oil prices and reports of declining oil production corroborate the conclusion that the peak has occurred, or will do, within the start of the 21st century. The convergence of climate change and peak oil threaten to undermine global food security over the next few years. The effects of this are already being felt.

A study predicted that if global warming continues, drought that already threatens the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth before 2100, and extreme drought will affect a third of the planet. The world-scale drought would undermine the ability to grow food, have a safe sanitation system, and the availability of water, pushing millions of people over the precipice.

We are already pushing the limits on world food production. The Earth is running out of fertile land, and food production will soon be unable to keep up with population growth.

Every year in the US, more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging.

Without oil, modern agriculture dies, and so then will our ability to mass-produce food.

Economic meltdown, the gap between rich and poor nations doubled between 1960 and 1989.

Of the 4 billion people who live in developing countries, about 1.3 billion have no access to clean drinking water. A fifth of all children receive an insufficient intake of calories and proteins. Around 2 billion people suffer from anaemia, 2.4 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. The CEPR conducted a study of economic growth for 1980 to 2005. The results are shocking. The majority of the world's economies have been retarded. These 25 years have exhibited a decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades in growth, life expectancy, infant mortality and education.

The global economic system is inherently unstable, and tends toward the generation of periodic crises. It is vulnerable to collapse.

In mid-2006, Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, warned that the world "has done little to prepare itself for what could well be the next crisis." A key trigger could be the housing market, the use of home loans to squeeze cash out of equity, permitting consumers to spend beyond their means.

This spending spree has to come to an end. If it comes to an end suddenly, then we have our recession. The US economy is close to the edge. We need a civilizational paradigm shift. A whole new vision of life itself to replace the dead, broken materialistic vision associated with the concurrent global imperial system. The good news is that the civilizational paradigm shift is not only happening its seeds have already been planted.

This system is now generating multiple crises across the world that over the next 20 years threaten to converge in an unprecedented and unimaginable way, unless we take drastic action now.

These crises can be categorized broadly into four key themes:

1. Climate Catastrophe

Industrial civilization derives all its energy from the burning of fossil fuels, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The C02 emissions from the industries that drive our economies, our societies, that sustain our infrastructures, are the main engine of global warming in the last few decades. This doesn't mean that all climate change ever is due to human-induced C02. Scientists know that there are many other factors involved in climate change, such as solar activity, as well as periodic changes in the Earth's orbit. But they have overwhelmingly confirmed that these are not the primary factors currently driving global warming. The primary factor is C02 emissions induced by human activities.

The origins of climate change are no longer a matter of serious scientific debate. Early in 2007, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported the findings of a three-year study projecting the rise in temperatures due to global warming, by 600 scientists from 40 countries, peer-reviewed by 600 more meteorologists. The report confirmed that human-induced global warming is "unequivocally" happening, and that the probability that climate change was due to human C02 emissions is over 90%.

The London Times reported on a study from Nature as follows:

"Scientists have examined various proxies of solar energy output over the past 1,000 years and have found no evidence that they are correlated with today's rising temperatures. Satellite observations over the past 30 years have also turned up nothing. ‘The solar contribution to warming . . . is negligible,' the researchers wrote in the journal Nature."

At 6c : "Life on Earth ends with apocalyptic storms, flash floods, hydrogen sulphide gas and methane fireballs racing across the globe with the power of atomic bombs; only fungi survive."

Growing evidence suggests that the IPCC projections are extremely conservative, and that the climate crisis is rapidly growing out of control. According to Dr David Wasdell, a climate expert and an accredited reviewer of the IPCC report, the final report was watered down by Western government officials before release to make its findings appear less catastrophic. Dr Wasdell told the New Scientist (8 March 2007) that early drafts of the report prepared by scientists in April 2006 contained "many references to the potential for climate to change faster than expected because of ‘positive feedbacks' in the climate system. Most of these references were absent from the final version."

The following IPCC report, however, distilling the research of 2,500 climate scientists, released in November 2007 only confirms that the original projection was too optimistic. To avoid heating the globe by the minimum possible, an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the world's spiraling growth in greenhouse gas emissions must end no later than 2015, and must start to drop quickly after that peak. By 2050, carbon dioxide and other atmospheric polluting gases must be reduced by 50 to 85%, according to the estimates. But even this is already too late. "We may have already overshot that target," said David Karoly, one member of the core team that wrote the report. Current emissions already are nearing the limit required in 2015 to limit the warming to 2 degrees Celsius, he added in a media interview from Valencia.

But Western governments have known about this danger for years. At the June 2005 UK government conference on "Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change" at the Met Office in Exeter, scientists reported an emerging consensus that global warming must remain "below an average increase of two degrees centigrade if catastrophe is to be avoided," which means ensuring that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stays below 400 parts per million. Beyond this level, dangerous and runaway climate change is likely to be irreversible.

About two weeks after the government conference warned of this minimum threshold, the Independent commissioned an investigation by Keith Shine, head of the meteorology department at the University of Reading. Using the latest available figures (for 2004), Professor Shine calculated that "the C02 equivalent concentration, largely unnoticed by the scientific and political communities, has now risen beyond this threshold." Accounting for the effects of methane and nitrous oxide, he found that the equivalent concentration of C02 is now 425ppm and fast rising, guaranteeing that the global mean temperature will rise by 2 degrees. Consequently, some of the worst predicted effects of global warming, such as the destruction of ecosystems and increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people in the South, may well be unavoidable.

When asked about the implications, Tom Burke, a former government environment adviser, told the Independent: "The passing of this threshold is of the most enormous significance. It means we have actually entered a new era -- the era of dangerous climate change. We have passed the point where we can be confident of staying below the 2 degree rise set as the threshold for danger. What this tells us is that we have already reached the point where our children can no longer count on a safe climate."

According to the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) the percentage of Earth's land area stricken by serious drought more than doubled from the 1970s to the early 2000s, from about 10-15% to 30%, largely due to rising temperatures. Widespread drying occurred over much of Europe and Asia, Canada, western and southern Africa, and eastern Australia. Global warming is not only melting the Arctic, it is melting the glaciers that feed Asia's largest rivers -- the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow. Because glaciers are a natural storage system, releasing water during hot arid periods, the shrinking ice sheets could aggravate water imbalances, causing flooding as the melting accelerates, followed by a reduction in river flows. This problem is only decades, possibly even years away, resulting in hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans who have water, being short of it, most likely in less than 20 years. By 2050, more than 1 billion people in Asia could face water shortages, and by 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people. Some climate models show sub-saharan Africa drying out by 2050.

2. Peak oil

There is yet another crisis emerging, which is also linked to our addiction to burning fossil fuels. That is the energy crisis. Today, the most prominent energy source is, of course, conventional oil. Here in the UK, from where I'm now writing, 90% of our energy comes from conventional oil, gas and coal, but primarily oil. Without these energy supplies, civilized life in the UK would simply collapse. Transportation, agriculture, modern medicine, national defence, water distribution, and the production of even basic technologies would be impossible. This formula applies across the board, throughout western industrial civilization.

One of the most authoritative studies so far on peak oil and its timing was conducted by Dr. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere, leading oil industry experts concluded in a report for the government that "the mid-point of ultimate conventional oil production would be reached by year 2000 and that decline would soon begin." They also projected that "production post-peak would halve about every 25 years, an exponential decline of 2.5 to 2.9% per annum."

This conclusion is based as it is on performance data from thousands of oil fields in 65 countries, including data on "virtually all discoveries, on production history by country, field, and company as well as key details of geology and geophysical surveys." A review of the research by senior industry geologists in Petroleum Review indicated, apart from minor disagreement over the scope of remaining reserves, "general acceptance of the substance of their arguments; that the bulk of remaining discovery will be in ever smaller fields within established provinces."

Rapidly rising oil prices and growing reports of declining oil production corroborate the conclusion that the peak has already occurred, or will do, well within the dawn of the 21st century. London's Petroleum Review published a study toward the end of 2004 concluding that in Indonesia, Gabon, and fifteen other oil-rich nations supplying about 30% of the world's daily crude, oil production is declining by 5% a year -- double the rate of decline a year prior to the report. Chris Skrebowski reported in early 2005 that production in conventional oil reserves are already declining at about 4-6% a year worldwide, including 18 large oil-producing countries, and 32 smaller ones. Denmark, Malaysia, Brunei, China, Mexico and India are due to peak in the next few years.

According to an official report published by British Petroleum late last year, we have about 30 years before we peak. This is supposed to be an ‘optimistic' assessment. Apart from the fact that this is hardly good news, it is a clearly politicized claim from an oil industry fighting to sustain its credibility as the Oil Age nears its demise. Colin Campbell, himself a former senior BP geologist, argues that the data shows we have less than 4 years; and in the meantime, former US government energy adviser Matt Simmons argues that we have most likely peaked years ago, but won't know for sure until we start feeling the crunch within a few years.

3. Food scarcity

The convergence of these two global crises, climate change and peak oil, threaten to undermine global food security over the next few years. The effects of this are already being felt.

At the British Association's Festival of Science in Dublin in September 2005, US and UK scientists working at the Hadley Centre described how shifts in rain patterns and temperatures due to global warming could lead to a further 50 million people going hungry by conservative estimates. "If we accept that broadly 500 million people are at risk today, we expect that to increase by about 10 percent by the middle part of this century."

Then toward the end of 2006, a study by Met Office's Hadley Centre funded by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, predicted that if global warming continues, drought that already threatens the lives of millions will spread across half the land surface of the Earth before 2100, and extreme drought making agriculture impossible will affect a third of the planet. The world-scale drought would undermine the ability to grow food, the ability to have a safe sanitation system, and the availability of water, pushing millions of people already struggling in conditions of dire deprivation over the precipice.

The grim truth is that we are already pushing the limits on world food production within the existing structure of modern corporate agriculture. According to new maps released in December 2005 by scientists at the Centre for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Navin Ramankutty, "Except for Latin America and Africa, all the places in the world where we could grow crops are already being cultivated. The remaining places are either too cold or too dry to grow crops." The maps thus show that the Earth is "rapidly running out of fertile land" and that "food production will soon be unable to keep up with global population growth."

World food prediction probably peaked shortly before the new millennium. Lester Brown, a former international agricultural policy advisor for the US government who went on to found the World Watch Institute and Earth Policy Institute, reports that since world grain consumption has exceeded production since 2000, such that 2003 saw a deficit of 105 million tones. On that basis, Brown predicts a global grain deficit within the next few years. In 2003 he noted that "World grain harvests have fallen for four consecutive years and world grain stocks are at the lowest level in 30 years." This is partly why world grain prices are steadily rising.

This is not centrally about population, but about modern intensive agricultural methods as practiced by the globalized corporate food industry, which are simply unsustainable. US structural geologist Dave Allen Pfeiffer points out that while it takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil, in soil made susceptible by modern agriculture, erosion is reducing productivity up to 65% each year. Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about 100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from US agricultural soils every year. Every year in the US, more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging.

Already, populations in the South are suffering from the grim reality of these crises. Near the end of last year, The Guardian reported:

"Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products. Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18% food price inflation in China, 13% in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10% or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50% higher than a year ago and rice is 20% more expensive, says the UN. Next week the FAO is expected to say that global food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and that prices will remain high for years."

Peak food will be exacerbated beyond all proportion in the context of peak oil. Modern intensive agriculture that produces most of our food, is industrialized, mechanized. It needs oil. Without oil, modern agriculture dies, and so then will our ability to mass-produce food.

4. Economic meltdown

According to the United Nations Development Programme, the gap between rich and poor nations doubled between 1960 and 1989. The rewards of globalization are increasingly "spread unequally and inequitably -- concentrating power and wealth in a select group of people, nations and corporations, marginalizing the others."

Successive UN Human Development reports give us the broad contours of the manner in which this system inflicts protracted death-by-deprivation on the majority of the world's population. Of the 4 billion people who live in developing countries, almost a third -- about 1.3 billion people -- have no access to clean drinking water. A fifth of all children in the world receive an insufficient intake of calories and proteins. Around 2 billion people -- a third of the human race -- suffer from anaemia. 2.4 billion lack access to adequate sanitation. Thirty million people die of hunger every year, half of whom, UNICEF estimates, are children. Over 840 million suffer from chronic malnutrition, almost a sixth of the population. Three billion people -- that is half the world population -- are forced to survive on less than two dollars a day. Of the 6 billion people in the world, only 500 million live in comfort -- that is approximately one-twelfth of the world population. This leaves a massive 5.5 billion people living in need -- over five-sixth of the population.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, DC found, in a comprehensive study of economic growth and other indicators for the period between 1980 and 2005, that the vast majority of the world's economies have been systematically retarded, exhibiting an empirically incontrovertible decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades in growth, life expectancy, infant mortality and education.

But the global economic system is not merely inherently unjust and unequal but also inherently unstable, and tends toward the generation of periodic crises, and as events of the last few months have shown, it is increasingly vulnerable to collapse. Financial institutions, corporate investors and even mainstream economists have been aware of the dangers for several years before the recent crisis that erupted from the depths of fault lines in the housing market. In March 2006, an unprecedented IMF report Safeguarding Financial Stability criticized the twin strategies of deregulation and liberalization, the staple policies of the global economy, as "the potential for fragility, instability, systemic risk, and adverse economic consequences." Deregulation has caused "national financial systems become increasingly vulnerable to increased systemic risk and to a growing number of financial crises."

In mid-2006, Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, warned that the world "has done little to prepare itself for what could well be the next crisis." UC Berkeley economist professor Brad DeLong in March 2007 argued that a global economic recession was in motion, principally due to three factors:

"1) A Federal Reserve that finds itself with less inflation-fighting credibility than it thought it had; 2) upward pressure on inflation from rising energy and, perhaps, import prices; and 3) millions of middle-class homeowners who for too long have treated their houses as gigantic ATMs, using home equity loans and refinancing to generate extra spending money."

A key trigger could be the housing market -- the unprecedented use of home loans to squeeze cash out of equity, permitting middle-class consumers to spend well beyond their means. "Someday this spending spree has to come to an end. If it comes to an end suddenly, at a time when the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates a little too much, then we have our recession . . . Make no mistake about it: The US economy is close to the edge . . . What can be done to head off the danger? Unfortunately, very little. The bag of macroeconomic tricks is empty." [

In July 2006 Dr. David Martin, in a speech at the Arlington Institute, warned his listeners that a collapse of the global banking system could be imminent as of January 2008, and that it would start with the housing crisis.

The war forward . . . ?

What we need now is a civilizational paradigm shift. Not just a new economics, or new politics, or new social vision. We need a whole new vision of life itself to replace the dead, broken materialistic vision associated with the concurrent global imperial system. The good news is that the civilizational paradigm shift is not only happening now as I write -- its seeds have already been planted.  rw

The average number of children per mother is 7.1. Women said they would like nine and men said 12, but some families said 40 or 50 children. It a society that encourages procreation.

Just 5% of Nigeriens use family planning and contraception. People aren't informed about the negative consequences of having so many children.

The 85% of Nigeriens who rely on rain-fed, subsistence agriculture to feed themselves are going to be hardest hit as millions more people compete for the same amount of farmland to grow food.

The Sahel has recently been identified as one of the regions most likely to be adversely affected by climate change.

The increase in the population will continue to accentuate the cereal production and wood-for-fuel deficits which started in the 1980s. Niger's population will quickly overtake the government's ability to provide health, education, jobs and even water points, tasks that it is already failing at today.

94% of Nigeriens live on 35% of the land. The most populated areas are along the southern border with Burkina Faso and Mali.

The Maradi region holds 20% of the population, 2,235,748 people, living on 3.3% of the country's land.

Niger's desert and mountain north accounts for 53% of Niger's territory but only 3 percent of the population, 321,639 people.

Niger plans this year to curb population growth which the INS says would reduce the population in 2050 to 33.3 million, still almost three times its current level.

The government wants the number practising family planning to increase from to 15% or 20% by 2015. The INS says 20% of women claim to want it.

The plan calls for information campaigns to educate religious leaders and women about the availability and importance of family planning.

Currently, every second girl is married and likely to be procreating before the age of 15. Raising the marriage age to 18 would take up to four years off a woman's reproductive life.

By 2015 population growth should have slowed to 2.5% and the average number of children per woman should be five.

Diadi Boureima, deputy representative of the UN Fund for Population Affairs (UNFPA) in Niger, said the task was a critical one.

If the demographics continue, Niger cannot develop. All the resources the country has will be going into social services and nothing will be left for investing in the economy. The government is acting accordingly.  rw

When you think of the world as a system, you understand that air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia, and that pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of Australia.

You start to realise that the decisions our grandparents made about how to farm the land continue to affect agricultural practice today.

We understand that quality of life is a system, too. What if you are poor and don't have access to education? It's good to have a secure income, but what if the air in your part of the world is unclean? And it's good to have freedom of religious expression, but what if you can't feed your family?

The concept of sustainable development helps us understand ourselves and our world. The problems we face are complex and serious, and we can't address them in the same way we created them.

Sustainable development highlights sustainability as the idea of environmental, economic and social progress and equity, all within the limits of the world's natural resources.

Sustainable development calls for improving the quality of life for all of the world's people without increasing the use of our natural resources beyond the Earth's carrying capacity. The efforts to build a truly sustainable way of life require the integration of action in three key areas:

Interlinked, global economic systems demand an integrated approach to foster responsible long-term growth while ensuring that no nation or community is left behind.

To conserve our environment and natural resources for future generations, economically viable solutions must be developed to reduce resource consumption, stop pollution and conserve natural habitats.

Throughout the world, people require jobs, food, education, energy, health care, water, and sanitation. The world community must ensure that the cultural and social diversity, and the rights of workers, are respected, and that all members of society are empowered to play a role in determining their futures.

The record on sustainability so far appears to have been quite poor. Sustainable development is an urgent issue, though political will has been slow-paced. There are 1.3 billion without access to clean water. About half of humanity lack access to adequate sanitation and living on less than 2 dollars a day.

In practicing sustainable development over the long-term one will:

-- Not diminish the quality of the present environment.

-- Not reduce the availability of renewable resources.

-- Take into consideration the value of non-renewable resources to future generations.

-- Not compromise the ability of other species or future generations to meet their needs.  rw

* The worldwide catch of fish is now 6 times what it was 50 years ago. Catches are beginning to decline as fish populations sink.

* 850 million humans go hungry; 220 million are children.

* 1 in 5 humans have no access to clean drinking water.

* By 2050, 85% of all humans will live in developing countries.

* One third of the world's visible land is affected by desertification, the degradation of productive but fragile lands which have insufficient rainfall and has been damaged by unsustainable development.

* During the next 100 years that global temperature averages will rise from 2 to 6 degrees C, resulting in coastal flooding and an increase in droughts. We are using resources 30% faster than the ability of those resources to renew themselves. Many people whose knowledge of the environmental challenges seems to date from 1960.  rw

Population growth is one of the factors which determines our impact on the Earth's ecosystem and therefore we should talk frankly about it. Population growth could wipe out any gains we make reducing the amount we consume. It has to be a part of the discussion and not ignored as some form of sacred taboo.

Friends of the Earth do not campaign on the matter of population, claiming the big issue is resource use. But Green Party Caroline Lucas MEP disagrees. "There's a direct relation between the emissions we produce and how many of us there are."

The idea of controlling the population may be distasteful but on a planet with finite resources and an exponentially growing number of people something, has to give. At present we are not able to feed the world's population adequately, yet we produce enough food to do so. That is a failure of our current structures. With the world's population set to rise significantly over the next century, if we can't cope now, how are we going to cope then?

By encouraging high levels of immigration we are fuelling the problem because when people come here they are, going to start living our unsustainable lifestyle, too."

The South East Plan proposes a further 11,000 homes should be built in Brighton and Hove by 2026, the result is likely to be severe pressure on our natural resources, such as water. Can a city hemmed in by the sea and South Downs accommodate any more without compromising quality of life and the future of the South Downs National Park?

According to the UN, there are 78 million people added to the world every year, yet there are 200 million women who want to control their fertility but have no safe and effective access to contraceptive services.

We need a major investment in family planning so women can choose their family size.

In the Sixties and Seventies, population was a key issue for all the major campaign groups. Oxfam published a paper entitled World Population: The Biggest Problem Of All. But in 2007, to call for such frank discussion runs too great a risk of upsetting the other values environmentalists identify with: human rights, gender equality, race, immigration and, above all, individual choice.

We've got to stop being paralysed by the sensitivities the population question naturally taps into and recognise there are actually valid ways to address it which could bring great benefits.

The decisions we make relating to family issues, must be left up to individuals, but devoting resources to reproductive health and family planning services brings genuine win-wins in terms of community development and women's rights, as well as smaller populations.

Scratch the surface of any environmental problem and it reveals population growth, and the way we live our lives, as the root cause. The need for a population policy has never been more urgent. While governments see big populations as an indicator of economic strength, the population problem will lead to environmental catastrophe.  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 opportunity to reduce the vulnerability of cities to the effects of climate change should be a priority alongside improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable populations. Policymakers, planners, must place cities and urban issues at the forefront of sustainable development.

Several speakers indicated that climate change had devastated the lives of millions and natural disasters had set back development efforts. There was need for the international community to support developing countries by providing them with the tools to cope with global warming effects and also to bolster their economies to build a sustainable future.

The Kyoto Protocol must be carried out to the needs of developing countries. Just as important was disaster preparedness and response. The 2004 Asian tsunami had proved that early warning systems were vital and in order to boost those efforts, Thailand had contributed $10 million to the Fund for Tsunami Early Warning Arrangements in the Indian Ocean and South-east Asia.

Thailand had taken steps towards sustainability, and the philosophy of a “sufficiency economy” had been integrated into its policies. That had already promoted sustainable agricultural practices to ensure food security for farmers, persuade locals to conserve forests, and promote sustainable energy development.

Ethiopia's delegate said a more concerted effort was needed in Africa to push developing countries towards sustainable development and to avert climate-change crises. Too many obstacles stood in the way of sustainability, including conflict, insufficient investment, limited market access opportunities, supply- side constraints and unsustainable debt burdens. Ecuador's representative pointed to the Hyogo Framework for Action and the work of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction as tools that could translate words into action.

Japan's representative stressed the importance of concerted action in support of vulnerable countries, particularly small island developing States and least developed countries.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Thailand has a good chance at sustainability because it did something about it's population growth many years ago. Africa has a long way to go before catching up with Thailand.

Environmental disasters are almost always human disasters. Satellite pictures of Burma over the past three years have recorded the extermination of over 3,000 villages displacing half a million people. The main culprit is the hunger for oil and gas, backed by the murderous local military junta.

The bottom line, is we're living beyond our means. Nearly two thirds of the services provided by nature are in decline worldwide. We can't count on the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations.

Change is not linear, and sudden shifts sometimes remake the world in the blink of an eye. We know we're approaching mysterious thresholds that mark the tipping points of ecological regime change, and we may have already crossed some. The closer we get to each threshold, the less it takes to push the system over the edge. Resilience does not mean just bouncing back to business-as-usual. It means assuring the very ability to get back.

Taking care of nature means taking care of people, and taking care of people means taking care of nature.

Think decentralized power grids, more localized food systems, and the Internet.

The heart of resilience is diversity. Damaged ecosystems rebound to health when they have sufficient diversity.

Resilience resides in enduring relationships and networks that hold cultural memory the same way seeds regenerate a forest after a fire. Empower local communities to solve their own problems.

The Dutch mobilized around total environmental quality recovery in 25 years. But the process kicked in only after business took the lead. They had a surprising proposal: Have government set the standards, and let business figure out how to achieve them. Together they developed a twenty-five-year plan, as well as annual plans that report on progress and challenges. If business fails to meet the specific voluntary goals, government will intervene with mandatory controls. To guarantee transparency and accountability, the government funded environmental NGOs as watchdogs to transmit their findings to the media and the public.

We have a golden opportunity to regenerate our waning economy and correct environmental degradation and rampant social injustices. Our declining public health and educational systems rank among the lowest in developed countries. The reinvention of a green economy can begin to solve our economic and social ills simultaneously. We can create abundant jobs, prosperity, equity and hope. Our new declaration of independence is from fossil fuels and imperial entanglements. In the absence of federal leadership, large numbers of cities and states are banding together to lead these kinds of changes. Political boundaries are also morphing. A historic convergence of the environmental and social justice movements is crystallizing in the shared recognition that taking care of nature means taking care of people, and taking care of people means taking care of nature.

Meanwhile, there are mounting numbers of conservatives, stepping up under the banner of conserving the Earth for their grandchildren.

We need to reclaim our government from the corporate shadow government. It will keep trying to hijack systemic changes that threaten its short-term profits, vested interests and power. We need the separation of corporations and the state.

A successful U.S. Green Plan depends on our doing all this--together, with respect, justice and dignity for all people and the circle of life.  rw

Resources that accumulated over eons of geological time are being consumed in a single human lifespan. We are violating deadlines that we do not recognize. These deadlines are not politically negotiable.

Nature has many thresholds that we discover only when it is too late. In our fast-forward world we learn that we have crossed them only after the fact, leaving little time to adjust. We know from earlier civilizations that the lead indicators of economic decline were environmental, not economic.

Our situation today is more challenging because we must deal with falling water tables, more frequent crop-withering heat waves, collapsing fisheries, expanding deserts, deteriorating rangelands, dying coral reefs, melting glaciers, rising seas, more-powerful storms, disappearing species, and, shrinking oil supplies. Although these destructive trends have been evident for some time, not one has been reversed at the global level.

The world is in what ecologists call an "overshoot-and-collapse" mode. Demand has exceeded the sustainable yield of natural systems at the local level countless times in the past. Now, for the first time, it is doing so at the global level. Humanity's collective demands first surpassed the earth's regenerative capacity around 1980. Demands in 1999 exceeded that capacity by 20%. The gap, growing by 1% or so a year, is now much wider. We are setting the stage for decline and collapse.

When agriculture began, humans, their livestock, and pets together accounted for less than 0.1% of the total. Today, this group accounts for 98% of the earth's total vertebrate biomass, leaving only 2% for the wild portion, including all the deer, wild beasts, elephants, birds, and so forth.

For example, as the environmental resources of Easter Island in the South Pacific deteriorated, its population declined from a peak of 20,000 several centuries ago to today's population of fewer than 4,000.

Even as the global population is climbing and the economy's environmental support systems are deteriorating, farmers will want to clear more and more of the remaining tropical forests to produce high-yielding biofuel crops. Countries heavily dependent on imported grain for food are beginning to worry that buyers for fuel distilleries may outbid them for supplies. As oil security deteriorates, so, too, will food security.

Now as the world turns to wind, solar cells, and geothermal energy, we are witnessing the localization of the world energy economy.

If recent environmental trends continue, the global economy eventually will come crashing down. At issue is whether national governments can stabilize population and restructure the economy before time runs out.  rw

As the century begins, natural resources are under increasing pressure, water shortages, soil exhaustion, loss of forests, air and water pollution, and degradation of coastlines afflict many areas. Developed economies consume resources faster than they can regenerate. Developing countries with rapid population growth face the need to improve living standards. As we exploit nature to meet present needs, are we destroying resources for the future?

There are so many issues involving global population growth. We may not feel the effects in the US yet, but if we look to developing countries and the natural resources available, it is easy to become alarmed. If we want a livable future, we must increase our sustainabilty, as well as stabilize the human population. We must slow this growth to enable us to address sustainability and preserve a high standard of living for all people. Voluntary family planning should be supported, including eliminating the Global Gag Rule. Even though the US population grows mostly due to immigration, there are families in this country with eight or nine children. However, 99% of population growth does occurs in developing countries. Family planning education that targets both men and women, as well as aid should be a priority as we look to stabilize population growth.  rw   Karen Gaia says: with the human population at 6.6 billion, it will be impossible to attain a high standard of living for all people. Let us settle for a standard of living more like that of Cuba, which is the most sustainable counry in the world. Cuba has free health care, free education, adequately feeds its people, and even sends doctors and nurses to help people in developing countries.

"It's important to start this discussion about choices for our future," said one of the researchers.

"We hope this will be a community discussion and that Utah will take a leadership role. The average Utahn's share of that consumption has grown along with the state's population. In 1990, the population was 1.7 million and the state's overall footprint was 15.2 million global hectares, compared with 23.8 in 2003, when the population had reached 2.4 million.

The population growth put such a great demand on resources that now we consume more than the land can supply on a sustainable basis. The state now has a deficit of about 2.4 million hectares.

Americans are resource hogs compared to the rest of the world. It would take five earths to sustain everyone if people worldwide had the same eco-footprint as Utahns.  rw

The criterion for determining whether a region is overpopulated is not land area, but carrying capacity.

That refers to the number of individuals who can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic environment for present and future generations.

The carrying capacity is not fixed. It can be altered by improved technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by population increase.

As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity shrinks, leaving the environment unable to support even the number of people who could formerly have lived in the area.

The average "ecological footprint" on the mainland is about 12 acres, an area far greater than that taken up by one's residence and place of school or work and the Hawaiian footprint is larger.  rw

The majority of the estimated costs of environmental degradation comes from forests, to represent 5% of GDP.

Ghana's natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate. More than 50% of the original forest has been converted to agricultural land by slash- and-burn. Despite cocoa land expansion, productivity has declined because of soil erosion.

Fish, timber, and non- timber forest product stocks are decreasing. As a result, coastal towns have begun to experience severe water shortages. Hydropower is dropping, and bilharzia has spread around the Volta Lake region.

Wildlife populations and biodiversity are in serous decline and many species face extinction. These depletions might lower Ghana's GDP growth in the near future.

Poor forest management and soil degradation result in huge economic losses. The degradation of Lake Volta increases the costs and reduces the quality of both water and power.

The prospects for economic development and poverty reduction in Ghana are dependent on natural resources.

Rural households rely on natural resources for their livelihoods, fisheries, and wildlife provide protein in Ghanaian diets. Urban economic activities depend on reliable hydroelectric power.

About half of Ghana's GDP derived from agriculture and livestock, forestry and wood processing and were related to the natural resources.

Ghana's natural resources are over exploited and continue to decline. Inappropriate crop production, mining and the wood industry are adversely affecting forests and savannah. Ongoing soil erosion and a decline in fertility undermine food and agricultural production.

A stronger policy dialogue must etablish a framework to provide sustainable management practices for Ghana's natural resources.

The government must improve local community involvement in natural resource and environmental management.

Also stimulate investments in wildlife, farming, ecotourism, tree plantations, and sustainable land management.  rw   Karen Gaia says: Another article that misses the link to overpopulation. Again, here is the unwritten assumption that women want to have a lot of children and risk dying in childbirth. Ralph says: Why not reduce the population? Oh!! Sorry, must not talk about that.

More frequent hurricanes traumatize the Gulf Coast. Climbing gas prices threaten our nation's mobility. Conversion of corn into ethanol causes the cost of foodstuffs to skyrocket. New diseases like bird flu spread across the globe.

The sustainability of our lifestyle suddenly seems at risk. Societies are confronted by limits that they did not worry about before.

In the spirit of optimism, Arizona organizations are working together to understand the challenges of sustainability and possible remedies.

The Global Institute of Sustainability, or GIOS, researches rapid urbanization, which uses Greater Phoenix as its main laboratory.

ASU receives millions of federal, state and industry dollars to study how cities grow. Among the major questions being addressed are:

How does the expansion of metro Phoenix affect the Sonoran Desert ecosystem?

How do commercial and government managers make decisions about water allocation?

How can changes in construction materials reduce the urban heat island effect?

How might information-sharing technology allow the police departments to more quickly identify criminals?

How can "green" energy technologies reduce a city's reliance on vulnerable, distant fuel sources?

Where does the Valley's air pollution come from?

These questions may seem diverse, but can be solved only through an interdisciplinary approach. Their solutions offer new business opportunities by creating "sustainable technologies."  rw

Global population is expected to soar 9 billion by 2050. Even though we crossed the point of sustainable use of natural resources in the mid-1980s, many of the 2.4 billion people living in China and India are striving to approach the materialistic lifestyle of the average North American.

Humanity needs a new approach to managing the assets upon which we all depend. Farming and forestry is about maximizing production, but has to start maximizing the ecological goods and service those ecosystems offer. Funds to pay for such services should come from taxes on polluters, including a carbon tax, cap and trade. In Ecuador, a Water Conservation Fund (FONAG) collects user fees from those who benefit from the water in the Condor Bioreserves and uses these funds to support watershed management projects. In Brazil, states allocate some revenues help support protected areas for forests and other resources. With deforestation threatening the Panama Canal, insurance and shipping companies are helping finance a major reforestation effort.

There is a vital need to create new institutions to protect natural capital at the local level.

On a larger scale Biomes are ecosystems with similar climate, soils, plants, and animals. The MA identifies 15 biomes and a stewardship council for each would maximize ecosystem protection and human welfare within a biome.

There is also a need to create a Commission that would communicate the fact that healthy ecosystem services are fundamental to reducing poverty and achieving economic development. A new forum has been recommended by the U.N. that would include heads of state from countries at different levels of economic development and cultures and deal with environmental and social as well as economic issues.

There are likely one to two million grassroots organizations around the world working toward ecological sustainability. It's unknown if people will rise to this enormous challenge. Voting and choosing environmentally-friendly products is not nearly enough. Only collective action will produce the substantial changes that are needed.  rw

Providing the 9.5 billion condoms needed to control the spread of HIV in the developing world and Eastern Europe requires $2 billion for condoms and $1.7 billion for AIDS prevention education and condom distribution. School lunch programs to the 44 poorest countries is $6 billion. $4 billion per year would cover the cost of assistance to preschool children and pregnant women. The cost of reaching basic goals comes to $68 billion a year.

A poverty eradication effort that is not accompanied by an earth restoration effort is doomed to fail. Reforesting the earth will cost $6 billion annually. Protecting and restoring rangeland will require $9 billion, restoring fisheries will cost $13 billion, and stabilizing water tables will require $10 billion annually. Protecting biological diversity and conserving soil on cropland, account for over half of the earth restoration annual outlay, $93 billion of additional expenditures per year.

We can decide to stay with business as usual and watch our modern economy collapse, or we can move onto a path, that will sustain economic progress.

It is hard to find the words to convey the gravity of our situation and the momentous nature of the decision we are about to make. No one can argue that we do not have the resources to eradicate poverty, stabilize population, and protect the earth's natural resource base. Shifting one sixth of the world military budget to the budget would be more than adequate to move the world onto a path that would sustain progress.

This economic restructuring depends on tax restructuring, on getting the market to be ecologically honest. The benchmark of political leadership will be whether or not leaders succeed in restructuring the tax system. This is the key to stabilize climate and to make the transition to the post-petroleum world.

The challenge is to build a global society that is environmentally sustainable.  rw   Karen Gaia says: I respect the Earth Policy institute, but do not share their confidence that there will be enough food to go around after all the restoration and stabilization of water tables. What is to prevent the continuous draw upon the world's resources from again depleting them? And how can this restoration be accomplished while we still rely on fossil fuels which are depleting?

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

Others are saying that they require the use of fertilizers, which increase CO2, replace other plant life, deplete the soil, and are water intensive.

The use of biofuels has led to horrific consequences for the people of the world and the environment.

89% of the world's resources are absorbed by the advanced countries. Imperialism has produced a wasteful and destructive pattern of economic activity and industrial development.

This will continue to mean that the growing of crops for fuel, mostly for export to Europe, Japan and the US, is being done on large-scale plantations in the third world. Ancient forests are being cut down, threatening extinction for many species. Reduction of greenhouse gases is lost when carbon-capturing forests are cut down. In Malaysia, the production of palm oil for biodiesel is a major industry. The development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87% of deforestation. In Sumatra and Borneo, 4 million hectares of forest have been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in Indonesia.

Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers.

Hundreds of thousands of small-scale peasant farmers are being displaced by soybeans expansion. Many more stand to lose their land under the biofuels stampede. The expanding cropland planted to yellow corn for ethanol has reduced the supply of white corn for tortillas in Mexico, sending prices up 400%.

For investors in alternatives to oil and gas, the driving force has been the belief that whoever develops the next great energy sources will enjoy the spoils that will make the gains from creating the next Amazon.com or Google seem puny.

In the development of biofuels this means that they do not pay attention to long-term effects. The economy is broken up into competing units of capitalist control and ownership over the means of production. And each unit is fundamentally concerned with itself and its expansion and its profit. The economy, the constructed and natural environment, and society cannot be dealt with as a social whole under capitalism.  rw   Ralph says: From practical experience in several countries including the old Soviet Union, I can assure our readers that socialism does not work either. Perhaps a benevolent universal dictatorsip is the only solution. In WW2 when food became scarce, rationing was willingly accepted. But will the citizens of the more advanced countries accept ethanol rationing so that more food can be sent to the poorer countries with continuing population growth??

In Mexico, the price of tortillas is up by 60% percent. Angry Mexicans have forced the government to institute price controls on tortillas.

Food prices are also rising in China, India, and the US, 40% of the world's people. Vast quantities of corn are consumed indirectly in meat, milk, and eggs in both China and the US.

In China, pork prices were up 20% above a year earlier, eggs were up 16%. In India, the food price index in 2007 was 10% higher than a year earlier. The price of wheat has jumped 11%.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that the wholesale price of chicken in 2007 will be 10% higher than in 2006, the price of eggs will be up 21%, and milk 14%, and this is only the beginning.

As more and more fuel ethanol distilleries are built, world grain prices are starting to move up toward their oil-equivalent value. In this new economy, if the fuel value of grain exceeds its food value, the market will move it into the energy economy. Some 16 of the 2006 U.S. harvest was used to produce ethanol. With 80 or so ethanol distilleries under construction, nearly a third of the 2008 grain harvest will be going to ethanol.

Since the United States is the leading exporter of grain, what happens to the U.S. grain crop affects the entire world. The world's breadbasket is fast becoming the U.S. fuel tank.

The UN lists 34 countries as needing emergency food assistance. Food aid programs have fixed budgets.

Protests in response to rising food prices could lead to political instability that would add to the list of failed and failing states. President Bush set a production goal for 2017 of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels. Given the difficulties in producing cellulosic ethanol at a competitive cost and the mounting public opposition to liquefied coal, most of the fuel to meet this goal might have to come from grain. This could leave little grain to meet U.S. needs, much less those of the countries that import grain.

The risk is that millions of those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder will start falling off as higher food prices drop their consumption below the survival level.

In 2007, 18,000 children are dying every day from hunger and malnutrition. There are alternatives. A rise in fuel efficiency standards of 20% over the next decade would save as much oil as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol.

One option is plug-in hybrids. Adding a second storage battery to a gas-electric hybrid car along with a plug-in capacity allows most short-distance driving to be done with electricity. If this was accompanied by thousands of wind farms that could feed cheap electricity into the grid, then cars could run largely on electricity for the equivalent cost of $1 per gallon gasoline.

Toyota, Nissan, and GM, have announced plans to bring plug-in hybrid cars to market. It is time to decide whether to continue with subsidizing more grain-based distilleries or to encourage a shift to more fuel-efficient cars. The choice is between a future of rising world food prices, spreading hunger, and growing political instability, or one of stable food prices, sharply reduced dependence on oil, and much lower carbon emissions.  rw   Karen Gaia says: No mention of there being too many people and too many people with large appetites for energy. Time to conserve energy. Move closer to your work and shopping. Move where you can walk or bicycle to whereever you need to go. Go from a multi-car family to a one car family and save money on gas, car insurance, and the car itself. And let's get away from globalization and back to bioregionlism. Take the farms away from the corporations and let the local people go back to farming. And give women access to ways to keep their family size small.

The population, with its ever increasing demands on the world's resources, is totally unsustainable. The developed world is only able to sustain its own use of resources by exploiting the less developed parts of the world, such as China, India and other parts of Asia. As they catch up, more and more resources will be consumed, particularly energy and water. Intensification of farming in the developed world has temporarily alleviated food shortages, but devastated wildlife, with millions of acres now barren of wild animals and plants, even migrant birds suffer.

Since the World Land Trust was created in 1989, more organizations are seeing the importance of preserving what little is left. It's not a huge amount, but by targeting key areas, perhaps something will survive for future generation when human populations are brought under control."

Meanwhile politicians try to convince us that a bit of recycling, and a more energy efficient light bulb will save the planet. They ignore the fact that every extra million human beings means huge amounts of oil, food and other resources are needed. Every Briton consumes more than a peasant farmer in Central Africa. In addition to wrecking the British countryside, Britons are also responsible for depleting the resources of many other parts of the world. In the past the problem has been resolved by war, famine and disease. All three loom close, and we are, still re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, with the iceberg in full view.  rw

There is air and water pollution, falling water tables, climate change and rampant extinction of wild plants and animals. Climate change is a sign that we are exceeding the number of people Earth can sustain.

Every year, 91 million humans are born in excess of those who die. That's 1 billion people every 11 years.

Right now, Earth's carrying capacity is in the range of 4 to 5 billion people. There are 6.5 billion of us.

Half of the world's population has little access to medicine, electricity, safe water and reliable food supplies.

If the 1.3 million residents of Franklin County had to live on the resources the county could provide, only about 100,000 would live here.

We're oblivious to that because we import the vast majority of our needs.

The US has the resources to sustain less than half of its current population of 300 million. Americans, who make up 5% of the world's population and use 25% of its resources. If all 6 billion people were to share the world's resources equally, Americans would have to reduce consumption by 80%.

There is a fear that slowing population growth might not curb greenhouse gas production if more people achieve Western lifestyles. China is opening 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. It depends on whether you want to live like an Indian or an American.

Each American consumes an average of 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.

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 1 ton of grain requires 1,000 tons of water.

There already are water shortages and, as water is diverted from agriculture to support growing urban populations, more grain must be imported.

Soybeans are increasingly in demand for biodiesel and ethanol now vies with food for corn. By 2008, half of the U.S. corn crop will go to ethanol. What happens to U.S. corn crops affects a lot of countries. This competition for energy and food will change the landscape.

If we replace our reliance on fossil fuels and instead grow fuel plants, that would require setting aside lots of land to produce ethanol and we don't have enough land worldwide to meet those demands.

Demand for food, fuel and materials already consumes more trees and crops than are being grown worldwide.  rw

There is pollution, falling water tables, climate change and extinction of wild plants and animals. We've created this problem because 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.

Every year, at least 91 million humans are born in excess of those who die.

Earth's carrying capacity is thought to be somewhere in the range of 4 billion to 5 billion people.

There are 6.5 billion of us. No one is sure what the magic number is. You might have 50 billion, but the quality of life might not be pleasing.

If the 1.3 million residents of Franklin County had to live on the resources the county could provide, only about 100,000 would live here.

We happily import the vast majority of our needs.

The US has the 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.

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 is 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 curb greenhouse gas production if more people achieve Western lifestyles. People ask how many people the Earth can sustain. It depends on whether you want to live like an Indian or an American.

For example, farmers worldwide grow about 2 billion tons of grain every year. Each American consumes an average of 1,760 pounds annually, mainly because of the grains used to feed farm animals. If everyone on the planet consumed that much grain, Brown said, Earth would support about 2.5 billion people.

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 1 ton of grain requires 1,000 tons of water.

There are water shortages in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As water is diverted from agriculture to support growing urban populations.

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

70% of all corn imports in the world come from the U.S. This competition for energy and food will change the landscape.

We don't have enough land worldwide to meet those demands for food, fuel and materials that already consumes more trees and crops than are being grown worldwide.

Humans are drawing on capital rather than interest, and once that is exhausted, they will find Mother Nature reluctant to make a loan.  rw

Increases in population and affluence will expand human impact on the environment by over one-third. To mitigate this impact, countries would need to increase their efficiency of use of about 2% per year. Most of the impact will result from growth of consumption in China and India.

China would need to improve its efficiency by about 2.9% per year, and India by about 2.2% to offset the projected growth. The projected increases for China and India are 37% of the total global increase in footprint. In contrast, Russia is expected to see a 25% drop by 2015. "The impact of the US alone constitutes 17.5% of global environmental impact in 2015, as opposed to just over 20% at present.

The US has an ecological footprint 1.4 times as large as would be expected, based on its population size, level of affluence, land area, and latitude alone.

It is estimated that Earth has some 11.4 billion productive hectares, the human footprint of 2015 will increase to 1.6 planets. It is unlikely that technological advancements will be able to offset this growth rate, though the authors concede that concerted international effort could make it possible; "energy efficiencies of national economies have improved by as much as 5% per year in some cases."  rw

But he said that 25% of all Indians, or more than 250 million people, were living in poverty, on less than $1 a day.

The rapid economic growth in India could have widened the gap between the richest and the poorest.

But those at the bottom of the pyramid have seen improvement in their lives. More should be done to combat low life expectancy and high mortality rates.

India has become a world economic power, with growth over the past three years averaging 8%. Based on purchasing power, it is now the world's fourth largest economy.

However, income per head in India is $720 a year.  rw   Karen Gaia says: oil-based economies are not sustainable. Over-pumping of water from aquifers to grow crops for an ever-growing population is not sustainable.

Many people think sustainability means only environmental regulation, but some leaders understand that sustainability increases efficiency and reduces waste and costs. It includes attention to product and package development, material sourcing, product formulation, material reuse, and efficient transportation networks. Multinational corporations must adopt sustainable practices to serve the 4 billion people worldwide who have per capita annual incomes of less than $1,500. This population has great needs and demand for products and services, but cannot afford expensive products. By participating in sustainability, corporations will be able to tap into this market with simple and affordable products. By using old methods, there are not enough materials in the world to serve everyone. This demand will be captured by companies that create innovative and efficient products. The green slogan 'reduce, reuse, recycle' is one method to stretch resources and reduce costs."

Sustainability includes financial, environmental and cultural components. The cultural component to sustainability is often overlooked. Technologically superior products may be rejected because they are too expensive or not packaged in a manner that is culturally sensitive.

The Indian subsidiary of Unilever developed an affordable detergent packaged in individual sachets that were less expensive and easier to use based on how Indian villagers wash clothes, resulting in a dramatic increase in revenues and profits. The villagers found value in the new packages.

A critical part of the sustainability means changing or improving products to reduce costs, increase safety or limit their effect on the environment. S.C. Johnson removed more than 1.8 million pounds of volatile compounds from Windex glass cleaner. The change gave the product 30%t more cleaning power and lowered its environmental impact.  rw   Karen Gaia says: consumers can help by exercising purchasing power: stay informed and make wise, sustainable choices when buying.

Data on energy use, transport, buildings, food habits, waste management and water use have been sent to the Stockholm Environment Institute's centre in York, which has provided a detailed picture of the North-east's environmental “footprint”.

Scientists have calculated that if everyone in the world were to live the North-east lifestyle, we would need three Planet Earths. People in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire are consuming more resources than the Scottish average.

The average Scot would need 5.37 hectares of land and sea but the average shire resident would need 5.64 hectares and the average Aberdonian 5.8 hectares.

If the Earth's resources were spread evenly each person would have just 1.8 hectares.

Ecological footprinting is an important tool that will allow us to measure our policies and plans against their potential environmental impact. Aberdeenshire Council made a commitment last year and a variety of work is being done which supports its aims. The results of the Global Footprint Project allow us to assess the region's effect.

The research data is now being developed into a computer software programme, which will be used to influence the decision-making of Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils. Items include: energy efficiency for existing homes and buildings; new construction to be the highest environmental standards; alternative, sustainable energy sources; provide affordable, accessible public transport; create communities where workplaces and shopping are nearby.

Aberdeen will ensure that building refurbishment and new development will be energy efficient and sustainable communities will be created.

Aberdeenshire is working on a carbon management programme to cut carbon emissions. Pupils and teachers at nine schools in the region have also been calculating how their activities affect the environment. This is a precursor to an overall Scotland Global Footprint Project, which will be launched by the rest of the country's 32 local authorities.  rw

Jared Diamond scrutinizes a large number of societies--past and present--to assess their sustainability. Examples of societies that have failed include Easter Island, the Anasazi, Societies facing environmental, population, and political problems are Rwanda, Australia, and China. Diamond makes controlled comparisons: contrasting two or more societies while holding constant as many variables as possible.

For example, the island of Hispaniola is composed of two societies: Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, while the Dominican Republic has a booming economy. Only 1% of Haiti is forested, in contrast to 28% of the Dominican Republic. Because its trees are gone, Haiti lacks building materials and has suffered extensive soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, sediment loads in rivers, loss of watershed protection, and decreased rainfall.

Factors contributing to societal collapse include deforestation and habitat destruction, soil erosion, salinization, soil fertility loss, poor water management, overhunting, overfishing, introduction of non-indigenous animal species, and human population growth. In addition we face world-wide pollution and global warming. Even though the US is successful, we are engaged in the same destructive processes that have contributed to the collapse of numerous societies in the past.

Diamond believes that these problems must be reversed in the next 50 years if our civilization is to survive. It will depend on governments moving beyond short-term political gains to successful long-term planning. It will also depend on people and businesses to to force responsible political action.  rw

The progress of countries toward sustainable development can be assessed using the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of well-being, and the ecological footprint as a measure of demand on the biosphere. As world population grows, less biocapacity is available per person. In 2003, Asia-Pacific and Africa regions were using less than world average per person, while the European Union countries and North America had crossed the threshold for high human development. Only Cuba qualified for sustainable development.

The Havana government has organized a socialist society with a high level of literacy, education, long life expectancy, low infant mortality and low energy consumption.

It is the world's leader in organic agriculture, and is making contributions to medical research, not to mention that Cuban doctors are serving the people in poor developing countries. Cuba has developed a considerable research capability.

Castro declared: Humanity is going through difficult times, plus a non-stop consumption process typical of the globalized imperialist system.  rw

Meanwhile polluting industries are growing more rapidly in developing countries, agro-industry is chemical, energy, and water-intensive and lifestyles are becoming increasingly waste and energy intensive.

Natural forests are retreating, water extraction rates are unsustainable in 16 countries and irrigation systems are inefficient and poorly maintained. The long term sustainability of the water supply is threatened by climate change, which may cause long-term reductions in water flows from glacier melt.

More economic growth is inevitable, and countries must meet the development challenges.

Countries in South Asia will face the toughest issues in coming decades as population growth, changing water regimes and climates, and rising demand for energy, water and other necessities all come to a head.

Pollution control is becoming more effective and market forces are pushing firms towards greater resource efficiency. As incomes increase consumption patterns become less environmentally sustainable.  rw

Worldwide there are only 1.8 hectares available per person, meaning the Swiss are using other people's resources. The current global average is 2.2 hectares.

Industrialised nations use on average three times more resources than they should be allowed to.

If you look at figures, there is no way you can say the Swiss are contributing to sustainable development.

The Swiss public and the authorities are slowly accepting the idea of sustainable development.

The problem is that they do not worry about the global environment and problems like CO2 levels or global warming.

While environmental conditions are no longer worsening in Switzerland, the Swiss are contributing to problems abroad when they travel or through investments in the global economy.

Energy efficiency has improved in the production of goods and services, but failed to slow increased consumption as workers become more mobile.

One of the biggest concerns is land use and the current construction boom.

We should freeze building zones at current levels and increase construction density to halt urban sprawl and reduce energy consumption for transport.

The state may have to intervene, balancing individual rights with the need to ensure the long-term viability of resources.  rw

For three decades China's economy has grown at 10% per year, based on low-cost labor and little regard for waste. China may be approaching a sudden stop: When you stress a system to a certain point, it just stops working.

China's leaders understand the crisis, but their response is complicated by so many Chinese flooding from the countryside to cities. Political stability depends on finding those people jobs, and jobs depend on growth.

But China can't grow now and clean up later. The China Daily reported that at least 24 million acres of cultivated land - one-tenth of the country's total arable land - is polluted, posing a "grave threat" to China's food safety. More than half its rivers are polluted, which is why less than 9% of "drinkable water" meets government standards. Many wells have excessive nitrates that can cause diabetes or kidney damage.

Chinese officials fear that if they move to environmental cleanup, "China will not be such a low-cost producer and that will affect jobs." But green companies are always more efficient, and China has a chance to become a major innovator of low-cost green solutions. Shanghai is trying to expand by building the first eco-metropolis in China, based on eco-tourism, farming, wind and solar power. But you see this massive bridge that is about to connect Chongming to central Shanghai, and one wonders what will happen to all the green plans when all the trucks and consumers start rushing in.  rw

Humans are consuming resources far beyond Earth's capacity to support them. If this continues, humanity will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050. One impact is evident: Total global populations of mammals, reptiles, fish and birds have dropped by nearly a third since 1970.

The footprint of a country includes cropland, grazing land, forest and fishing grounds to produce food, fibre and timber this consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted in generating the energy it uses, and to provide space for its infrastructure. On average, every person on Earth needs 2.2 hectares, but the planet has only 1.8 hectares of capacity per person. The American lifestyle requires 9.6 hectares and combined with its 294 million population it is the biggest drain on Earth's resources.

China's 1.3 billion people give it a massive total impact, and rapid economic development is swelling its footprint.

The average Canadian's lifestyle requires 7.6 hectares. Afghanistan, just 0.1 of a hectare. Blessed with a small population, and a wealth of resources, Canadians still consume less than their environment offers.

Canada has been headed in the wrong direction for quite a while. For example, over-fishing has decimated Atlantic cod. In southern Alberta, development is fueling demand for water while climate change shrinks the supply. The mountain pine beetle is destroying much of treed B.C. and threatens to invade central Canada's boreal forest.

Nearly half the human footprint globally, and even more in Canada, comes from burning coal, oil and natural gas.

Most wildlife population losses have been in the tropical and subtropical forests, grasslands and oceans.

The Earth has enough resources to sustain all species only if humans reduce their average footprint to one hectare.

Sustainability depends on action now, when even strong measures to curb emissions and slow population growth would take decades.  rw

All human activity has an impact on the planet. Ecological Footprint (EF) is one of the effective tools for measuring our impact on the resources of the Earth. It is the amount of productive land area required to sustain the human being. It is the bio-productive area required to produce the resources we consume and assimilate the wastes we generate. So, EF is a measure of the 'load' imposed by a given population. The value for this measure for London City is 120 times more than the area of the city. The largest EF belongs to the citizens of the US, at approximately 10 hectares. This means that 5 Earths are required if the consumption rate globally is that of the Americans. Currently, humanity's EF is more than the Earth's capacity. We are using about a third more than nature can regenerate. The challenge of sustainability is to find ways to create fulfilling lives while reducing our impact on the Earth. Dramatically more efficient use of resources and cyclical systems are necessary. EF is is useful for evaluating and comparing the total environmental impact of activities and can be calculated for countries, businesses, households, individuals, and most recently, educational institutions. The indicators for calculating EF include nature of food consumption and diet, expenses for transport, household goods, household energy, household services, and some other general issues. There are different equations and models developed to calculate the EF. Contributing to lessening the EF is the need of today's time. It is established that a person who walks or takes public transportation has a smaller EF than someone who commutes fifty miles in a sport utility vehicle that gets 15 miles to the gallon. A vegetarian has a smaller EF than someone who has steak every night. A family of 4 living in a 3000 square foot energy efficient house has a smaller EF than a family of two living in a 4000 square foot, poorly insulated house. Locally-grown food has a much smaller EF. EF can be reduced if someone becomes vegetarian, uses public transportation or cycles and walks, reduces air travel, lessens the consumptions of clothes and footwear, stationeries, computers, reduces the electricity and cooking gas expenses, reduces firewood use at home and replaces it with alternative and renewable energy sources.  rw

The maximum number that could legally enter would be almost 200 million over twenty years, over 180 million more than current law permits.

The three legal statuses that a legal immigrant might hold:

1. Temporary Status: Persons enter the U.S. temporarily and are required to leave after a period of time.

2. Near-Permanent, Convertible Status: Persons enter the U.S. are given the opportunity to convert to legal permanent residence after a few years.

3. Legal Permanent Residence (LPR): Persons have the right to remain in the United States for their entire lives. After five years, they have the right to become citizens. Immigrants in convertible or LPR status have the right to bring spouses and minor children into the country. They will be granted permanent residence with the primary immigrant and may become citizens. After naturalizing, an immigrant has the right to bring his parents into the U.S. as permanent residents. There are no limits on the number of spouses, dependent children, and parents of naturalized citizens that may be brought into the country. The siblings and adult children with their families of legal permanent residents are given preference in future admission. Four provisions would result in an explosive increase in legal immigration:

1) Amnesty and citizenship to 85% of the current 11.9 million illegal immigrants, 2) The New 'Temporary Guest Worker' Program, 3)Additional Permanent Visas for Siblings, Adult Children, and their Families, and 4) Additional Permanent Employment Visas.

Those in the U.S. for five years or more would be granted immediate amnesty. Those in the country between two and five years could travel to one of 16 ports of entry, where they would receive amnesty and lawful work permits. In total, the bill would grant amnesty to 85% of the illegal immigrant population, 10 million individuals.

After amnesty, illegal immigrants would spend six years before attaining LPR status. After five years in LPR status, they would have the opportunity to become naturalized citizens. There would be no numeric limit on the number of illegal immigrants, spouses, and dependents receiving LPR status. Under the New Temporary Guest Worker Program: nearly all guest workers would have the right to become permanent residents and citizens.

Foreign workers could enter the U.S. as guest workers if they have a job offer from a U.S. employer. Guest workers would be allowed to remain in the U.S. for six years. However, in the fourth year, the guest worker could ask for LPR status and would receive it if he or she has learned English or is enrolled in an English class. There are no numeric limits on the number of guest workers who could receive LPR status. Then the guest worker could remain in the country permanently and could become a U.S. citizen and vote in U.S. elections after just five years.

The spouses and minor children of guest workers would also be permitted to immigrate to the U.S. Five years after obtaining LPR status, these spouses could become naturalized citizens with no limit on the number of spouses and children who could immigrate under the guest worker program. In the first year, 325,000 visas would be given out, but if employer demand for guest workers is high, that number could be boosted by an extra 65,000 in the next year. If employer demand continues to be high, the number of visas could be raised by up to 20% in each year.

This allows the number of immigrants to climb steeply. If the H-2C cap were increased by 20% each year, within twenty years the annual inflow of workers would reach 12 million and 70 million guest workers would enter the U.S. over the next two decades and none would be required to leave. The guest worker program is an open door based on the demands of U.S. business. It is an open border provision.

The permanent entry of non-immediate relatives such as brothers, sisters, and adult children is currently subject to a cap of 480,000 per year minus the number of immediate relatives admitted in the prior year. This bill eliminates the deduction for immediate relatives from the cap and increases the number of non-immediate relatives who could attain LPR status by 254,000 per year.

The U.S. currently issues around 140,000 employment-based visas each year. Now the U.S. would issue 450,000 employment-based green cards per year between 2007 and 2016. After 2016, the number would fall to 290,000 per year. This means that some 990,000 persons per year would be granted LPR status until 2016 and, after that, 638,000 per year.

Assumptions made for the estimates in this paper include: *In the current employment-based visa program, 1.2 dependents enter for each incoming worker. The ratio of incoming spouses and children to amnesty recipients is assumed to be only 0.6.

* Parents of naturalized citizens make up 8% of all new legal immigrants. This paper assumes that half of all adult immigrants will naturalize after five years and 30% of the parents of these naturalized citizens will immigrate in the three years after their childrens naturalization.

* This paper assumes that the number of immigrants in the guest worker program would increase at a more moderate rate of 10% per year. Alternative estimates for 20% and 0% growth are also presented.

Today roughly 950,000 persons receive permanent residence visas each year. Over 20 years, the inflow of immigrants through this channel would be 19 million under existing law. The bill would grant amnesty to roughly 10 million illegal immigrants. The number of family-sponsored visas for secondary family members, such as adult brothers and sisters, is currently limited to 480,000 per year minus the number of visas given to immediate family members (spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens). The bill allows the total quota on secondary family members to be 480,000 without deductions for immediate family members. The net increase would be around 254,000 per year, or 5.1 million over 20 years. Total annual immigration under this provision is likely to be 450,000 workers plus 540,000 family members annually. The net increase above current law over 20 years would be around 13.5 million persons. The guest worker would allow 325,000 persons to participate in the first year. This number could rise by 65,000 in the next year and then by 20% per year. The total inflow of workers under this program would be 20 million over 20 years. Guest workers could bring their spouses and children to the U.S. as permanent residents; the added number would be 24 million over 20 years. Illegal immigrants who received amnesty could bring their spouses and children into the U.S. with the opportunity for full citizenship. The number would be at least six million. Naturalized citizens would have an unlimited right to bring their parents into the U.S. as legal permanent residents. Over twenty years, the number of parents would be around five million. Overall, the bill would allow some 103 million persons to legally immigrate over the next twenty years. The net inflow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. population is around 700,000 per year. Legal immigration would exceed five million per year, seven times the rate of the current illegal immigration flow.

The figure of 103 million new legal immigrants is based on the assumption that immigration under the guest worker program would grow at 10% per year. If guest-worker immigration grows at the maximum rate, 20% per year, the total number of new immigrants coming to the U.S. over the next twenty years would be 193 million. If immigration under the program did not increase at all for two decades but remained fixed at the initial level of 325,000 per year, total legal immigration under CIRA would be 72 million over twenty years, or more than three times the level that would occur under current law.

Between 1870 and 1920, the U.S. experienced a massive flow of immigration. During this period, foreign born persons hovered between 13% and 15% of the population. In 1924, Congress reduced future immigration. By 1970, foreign born persons had fallen to 5%.

The foreign born now comprise around 12% of the population. However, if this bill was enacted, and 100 million new immigrants entered the country over the next twenty years, foreign born persons would rise to over one quarter of the U.S. population. If enacted, this would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years. The bill would give amnesty to 10 million illegal immigrants and quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the U.S. Under the bill, the annual inflow of immigrants with the option of becoming legal permanent residents would rise from the current level of one million per year to more than five million per year. Within a few years, the annual inflow of new immigrants would exceed one percent of the current U.S. population. This would be the highest immigration rate in U.S. history.

Within 20 years, some 103 million new immigrants would enter the U.S. This number is about one-third of the current U.S. population. All of these immigrants would be permanent residents with the right to become citizens and vote in U.S. elections. CIRA would transform the United States socially, economically, and politically. Within two decades, the character of the nation would differ dramatically from what exists today.  rw   Karen Gaia says: The article does not even mention the impacts to the environment and what about the impact of a doubling of the U.S. population upon the carrying capacity of this planet? Ralph says: It is time that we arrived at a sensible limit to the number of people our country can support. Then limit the population to that figure.

Mauritania has improved its prospects through better management of fisheries, while Botswana has used diamond resources to finance schooling, health care, and infrastructure. In Botswana, the government makes provision to ensure that mineral revenues are invested rather than consumed through government expenditures. It maintains a mineral revenue fund which can finance future investments and buffer the government budget from swings in diamond prices. This has permitted Botswana to avoid the 'resource curse' that has afflicted many oil producers. Decision makers in developing countries are faced with difficult choices regarding the exploitation of natural resources and the environmental impacts of development, but they are leaving out the natural resources and intangible capital such as knowledge and skills. This publication challenges common assumptions about how nations generate their wealth. This snapshot of wealth for 120 countries aims to understand the links between the ability of a country to develop and the level and composition of wealth. The value of minerals, energy, forests, cropland, pastureland, and protected areas is a higher share of total wealth in low-income countries than produced capital, 26% to 16%. If we can't control the deconstruction of natural systems, then we will jeopardize our efforts to make lasting, progress on improving the standard of living of the world's poorest people. The indicators can guide countries toward a sustainable path.  rw   

The global population has grown from around 3.5 billion in 1972, to more than 6 billion today. Industrial production has gone from an index of about 180 in 1963 to more than 400. The index of world metals use has gone up more than 50%. The concentration of carbon dioxide has gone up increasing in 30 years by as much as in the previous 220. Mankind’s "global ecological footprint" has gone from a sustainability level of about 90% of the earth’s capacity, to 120%. We are beyond the sustainability point. We have not realised that we have crossed the sustainability limit because we are drawing down on nature’s bank balance and that cannot go on indefinitely. We have already used up half that grace period. The challenge now is the population must stop growing, and we must change our consumption, because we cannot continue to make today’s claims on the environment. India wants to get our income levels up from $600 per capita to at least $2,000, at which level there is no absolute poverty left. If you factor in what that will mean for energy and other non-renewable resources, it seems pretty obvious that what we have already seen in the markets for oil and iron ore are a foretaste of what is to come. Oil may already have reached the level of peak production, and what that means for the global economy is frightening. Does that mean that India and China should not aspire to what the developed economies have delivered by way of standards of living? It seems an unfair question when the west is unwilling to change its consumption habits. If neither happens, and even if some technological fixes can buy us some time, the message is straightforward. Things cannot go on as before.  rw   

The full article defines these and other relevant factors in great detail.  rw   

Biologist E.O. Wilson, "one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers," considers the Footprint to be one of the most significant recent ecological inventions because of its ability to communicate complex scientific information in relatively simple terms to explain the relationship between human consumption and the natural environment. The late sustainability futurist Donella Meadows listed the Ecological Footprint at her top indicator for measuring sustainability. In a similar vein, Dr.Mathis Wackernagel, co-creator of the Ecological Footprint considers Sustainable Sonoma County to be one of the most advanced groups in the nation for using the Ecological Footprint to create social change at the community level.

More at: http://www.sustainablesonoma.org/projects/scefootprint.html  rw   

believes that Britain should reduce its population from 59m to about 30m by 2130, the same as in 1870. It wants economic incentives for women to stay childless, free contraception, a balanced approach to immigration and a government population reduction policy. The campaign is supported by academics and environmentalists including the chairman of the government's Sustainable Development Commission. The National Statistics Office predicted the population would peak at 64m in 2040 and then fall. However the figures underestimated net immigration and the new figures mean Britain could have a population of 73m by 2050. British governments have reacted to growth by providing more homes, roads, schools and facilities but is commissioning studies to decide if it needs a population policy. Sir Crispin Tickell, who chairs the government panel on sustainable development said that population increase is one of the biggest global problems. Tickell and others believe countries such as Britain will make it tough for immigrants but this may not be enough and incentives for smaller families may be necessary. Native birth rates have fallen but immigration and the fact we are living longer means numbers will keep going up. Attenborough believes solving Britain's problems is trivial compared with reversing the global population boom. He said: "Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.  rw   

Bruce Sundquist, Carrying Capacity Committee,

Allegheny Group, Sierra Club

I once believed that energy was the key issue, but now I am totally

convinced that soil resources are the crucial issue. The reasoning behind

that conclusion is given below.

Those concerned about energy resources invariably point to the

exponential growth in energy consumption, but they rarely ponder the

reason why the growth is exponential, and therefore never foresee an end to

exponential growth until energy supplies are totally depleted. The reason

why energy consumption grows exponentially is because both

population and technological advances are growing exponentially. In

recent years, the rate of discovery of energy resources has outpaced

energy consumption, due largely to major technological advances in the

science of finding new energy resources. Both the quality of new

reserves and the amount of total reserves have thus not been falling.

Thus energy prices have fluctuated but have shown no clear trend. In an

environment such as this, energy consumption is bound to grow

exponentially. Such a process cannot continue, and eventually reserves and

reserve-quality must decline. Then prices must rise. People with large

cars will then buy small cars. People with small cars will ride the bus,

bus riders will walk or bicycle, and countless other conservation measures

will occur quite naturally--without any help from Audubon Society. Growth

will stop being exponential and later turn

negative. Rising prices will make thin seams of coal profitable to mine

and to convert to gas and liquid. Supply and demand will always remain

in balance; the total system will probably always show a high degree of

stability, though inequities in distribution will always be with us.

Exponential growth of energy consumption will be relegated to the history

books where it will join countless other phenomena that have defined the

course of human history, and that have shown exponential growth in their

early stages. New processes such as information generation and flow will

have their turn at exponential growth before they plateau and seek a

steady state.

There is one exception to the picture outlined above--soil-based systems.

If one examines the global data on various soil related issues

(croplands, forest lands, grazing lands, irrigated lands, fisheries) one

is struck by the huge number of positive feedback phenomena

(instabilities) that have historically never allowed a steady state to be

reached, but instead have produced an endless series of collapses of

soil-based systems. A few examples:

When irrigation production falls short of desire, people attempt to get

along with less water per unit of output. The result is salination and

less--not more--crop production. When timber production falls short of

desire, people harvest trees at younger ages. The result is less

productivity--not more. When livestock production falls short of desire,

more grazing animals are put on the same pasture. The result is

overgrazing, soil erosion, less grass and less--not more--cattle. When

cropland production falls below demand, fallow periods are decreased, the

result is massive wind erosion, chemical degradation of the soil, and

less--not more--crop production. All of this idiocy has always been

defended by the economists of the day using a process called discount

economics. Take the extra profits from not conserving soil and soil

quality and put these profits in a bank. Then, by the time the earth is

converted to a barren wasteland, you simply live off the interest-income

from your bank account. Is this imbecilic? Before you decide, ask any

forester whether he uses present-net-value analyses, and ask any

agricultural expert whether soil-conservation makes economic sense.

Soil-based systems are clearly not stable, equilibrium-seeking systems.

They have always been subject to massive positive-feedback processes.

The worse things get, the faster they get worse. This is why all those

ancient civilizations (all agriculture-based) have collapsed rather than

seeking a more soil-conservative mode of operation. I have seen nothing

that would make me believe that discount economics will ever fall out of

favor. Take a look at all the economic analyses of soil conservation

that have appeared in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation over the

past few decades. Virtually every such analysis will assure us that soil

conservation is simply not worth the effort, and anyone expressing doubts

about the discount economics involved is seen as a dunce, or worse.

Humankind cannot destroy its planetary host. The earth is stronger than humans will ever be. The advance of Homo rapiens has always gone with the destruction of other species and ecological devastation. Of the remaining outcomes, the second, in which over-numerous humans colonise the earth at the cost of weak-ening the biosphere, corresponds most closely to this bleak vision.

The increase in human population is unprecedented and unsustainable. More than likely, it will be cut short by the classical Malthusian forces, this may be a discomforting prospect; but it dispels the nightmare of an age of solitude.  rw

are fewer than 5 acres, including uninhabitable land."

1/2 billion ... Everyone at the same affluence level as in 1, but
with few restrictions on commerce, pollution, land
use, personal behavior (within current law), etc.
Basically a libertarian, laissez faire economy, with
few or no environmental restrictions. This points out
that there is a population price to pay for the current
American way of Commerce.

4 billion ... Everyone at the same affluence as indicated in 1, but
with many and onerous restrictions on freedoms
relative to behaviors leading to environmental
degradation. Including: Massive recycling. Driving restrictions.
Restrictions on the transport of food Prohibitions against cutting of trees
on one's property. Limitations on the burning of fossil fuels.

6 billion ... Only people in the U.S. and Europe at current U.S.,
France, Great Britain, German, and Scandinavian
levels of affluence. Everyone else at the current
prosperity level of Mexico

20? billion ... Everyone in the world at Mexico's current
prosperity level

40? billion ... Everyone in the world at the current prosperity level
of Northwest Africa

...Increasing population density is inextricably linked to loss of freedom
and losses of choice. In the worst of the above scenarios,
we can forget the Bill of Rights.

If the weather is good this year, prices might not be as high as expected, but if the harvest is cut by heat or drought, increases could be above the projections.

With carryover stocks at the lowest level in 34 years, the world could soon be facing high grain and high oil prices at the same time. The USDA estimates this year’s global grain harvest at 1,984 million tons, down 24 million tons from last year. It is 3% below the high of 2,044 million tons in 2004.

World grain consumption has risen every year in the last 45 years, except for 1974, 1988 and 1995, when sharp price hikes and tight supplies pushed consumption down. Demand for grain is driven by population growth and rising income. Now it is being pushed by the growing demand for grain-based ethanol for cars and trucks. Food versus Fuel.

About 60% of grain is used as food, 36% as feed, and 3% as fuel. The latter, however, is growing by more than 20% each year.

While population growth is expected to slow, the annual amount of increase is projected to be above 70 million individuals until 2020. The world’s farmers must try to feed another 70 million people each year, regardless of weather. Population growth is centered on Indian and sub-Saharan Africa.

In low-income countries, the population mostly eats starchy food. In more affluent countries, people eat more grain-intensive foods such as meat, milk and eggs. Improving incomes are allowing 3 to 4 billion consumers to eat more poultry, pork, beef, milk, eggs and farmed fish. Global meat production leaped from 44 million tons in 1950 to 265 million tons in 2005 and keeps climbing.

The U.S. is expected to use 20% of the projected harvest to produce corn ethanol. That consumption will match our export and exceed Canada’s total harvest.

Farmers are facing record growth in demand when technology to boost grain yields is lagging, aquifers are being depleted and rising temperatures threaten to reduce future harvests. Water tables are falling, and wells are going dry in countries where half the world’s people live. While farmers battle water shortages and global warming, it has not been widely reported, but globally farms are being affected by skyrocketing diesel fuel prices.

Diesel and gasoline thefts are increasing. Bulk fuel often is stored in unsecured buildings. Fuel theft is on the increase everywhere.

Rising diesel prices are hard on farmers but a nightmare for truckers. They must buy at the pump and pay the price, which is much above bulk rate.

The rising cost of pesticides and fertilizers is causing farmers to make some adjustments. "From the Wilderness" reported that farmers are putting more reliance on jobs away from the land just to survive. The economics of modern agriculture necessitates taxpayer subsidies to offset the losses farmers suffer as their incomes continue to drop. Net farm income is expected to be down 22.3% from last year.

Ralph says: Many years ago while working in India, on one of our later trips, I was asked to meet with a senior government official in New Delhi. I had no idea what he wanted, in fact I had only briefly met him once before. "You have been coming to India for several years" He said, "I would like to hear your comments, as an impartial observer, on the changes you see in our country". I told him that when we first came to India we were horrified at the conditions we saw. With the years things had dramatically changed, and we no longer saw the signs of starvation that had concerned us in the past. It appeared that the standard of living for the whole country had improved dramatically. I told him that in my opinion they should be congratulated for all that had been done for the people.

I will never forget his response. He smiled and thanked me, but then he shook his head and said, "We have worked very hard to improve our agriculture and now we can feed all our people, and even export a small amount of food. But next year we will have a million more mouths to feed, and the year following a further million and the next year it will be five millions more. We cannot keep up with the population growth and if it continues we face the worst famine the world has ever seen".  rw   

higher per capita production of grain. It takes about 7 pounds of grain to

yield 1 pound of beef. Poultry takes 2.7 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound

of meat, while swine eat 6 pounds of grain for every pound of pork. In the

U.S. and Canada, each person eats about a ton of grain annually, mostly as

meat. People in Developing countries consume about 200 pounds of grain per

capita each year. Between now and 2030, grain consumption, primarily as

animal feed, is expected to grow by about 2.5% annually in the developing

countries. Those millions of tons of grain represent, in turn, great

quantities of expended natural resources -- from water for irrigation to the

natural gas used to produce fertilizers.

Then there is the associated environmental impact: rivers polluted with

pesticides and nitrates, exhausted aquifers, and eroded soil. Unfortunately,

the quantity of arable land is all too finite

"Until we recognise that our environmental problems, from climate change to species loss, are driven by unsustainable habits, we will not be able to solve the ecological crises."

Humanity is burning through the planet's resources at a reckless rate. The world now digs up the equivalent of 112 Empire State buildings of material every day to meet surging global demand.

The consumer culture has spread from America across the globe, with excess now accepted as a symbol of success in developing countries.

China this week overtook the US as the world's top car market.

Such trend are the result of efforts by businesses to win over consumers.

The average Western family spends more on their pet than is spent by a human in Bangladesh.

Encouraging signs are that schools are trying to encourage healthier eating habits among children; a younger generation is also more aware of their environmental impact; and US corporations such as Wal-Mart were stocking organic produce and sustainably raised fish.

It said a wholesale transformation of values and attitudes was needed to end the world's obsession with conspicuous consumption.  rw   Karen Gaia says: of course the deep economic recession will force us to curtail our overconsumption. This may help, unless population growth overtakes our efforts.

The new concept sees the importance of public welfare, leading to happiness and well-being. It aims to enhance the quality of life by improving social security, housing, medical services, and pensions.

Market reform has gone too far. In the process toward a market economy, the government gave up its role, thus causing various problems in medical services,

housing, and education.

China has recognized the need to review the government's role and this has resulted in new policies focused on medical services, social welfare,

and housing.

In contrast, Beijing has progressed so much that China contains an advanced country as large as Japan. More people waste so many things, and a certain class is especially wasteful.

To change consumption behavior, we are considering a graduated system of utility rates for things such as electricity and water. We have not yet introduced inheritance and property taxes but are considering them. There are two challenges, create a transition in the public's awareness and promote environment and challenge how we can make innovations in the resource price mechanism. It is important to change the pricing mechanism to reduce resource consumption.

European countries and the US took 150 years to be industrialized, Japan half of that. China is expected to achieve the goal within half the years that Japan took. China is facing intensive and interrelated environmental problems, because of its unprecedented speed of industrialization.  rw

The timescale envisaged is around "30 to 40 years".

The assembly government report said there was a need to "travel less by car, and live and work in ways which have a stronger connection with our local economies and communities".

The Environment Minister said ministers would use their powers to lessen Wales' environmental impact.

"Wales' ecological footprint is currently 5.16 global hectares per person, compared to a global availability of 1.88 global hectares.

Unchecked, this could rise by 20% by 2020. Environment spokesman said: "The minister has yet to fulfill her pledges on the devolution of building regulations and new powers over large energy developments, environmental protection, and waste management.  rw   Karen Gaia says: why wait on technology, which will only go so far, and work on personal life styles, which has the capability to conserve so much more of the world's natural resources.

For those of us in the affluent societies, economic growth has now entered a period of diminishing returns.

This shift is most apparent on the environmental front. All we have to do to destroy the planet's climate and leave a ruined world to our children is to keep doing what we are doing today with no growth in the human population or the world economy. Just continue to impoverish ecosystems and release toxic chemicals at current rates, and the world in the latter part of this century won't be fit to live in.

But human activities are accelerating dramatically and constitute a severe indictment of the capitalism we have today.

The main features of today's capitalism include: an unquestioning commitment to economic growth at any cost; enormous investment in technologies with little or no regard for the environment; corporate interests whose objective is to grow by generating profit. Rampant consumerism spurred by sophisticated advertising and marketing on so large in scale that its impact alters the fundamental biophysical operations of the planet.

Capitalism as it operates today will grow in size and complexity and will generate ever-larger environmental consequences.

Market failure can be corrected by government, perverse subsidies can be eliminated, and environmentally honest prices can be forged. The affluent countries can shift to where jobs and economic security, the natural environment, our communities and the public sector are no longer sacrificed in order to sustain high rates of growth that is consuming natural and social capital.

There are many steps that can be taken, and include measures such as a shorter work week and longer vacations; greater labor protections, job security and benefits; restrictions on advertising; strong social and environmental provisions; rigorous environmental and consumer protection; greater economic and social equality, progressive taxation for the rich and greater income support for the poor; major spending on public-sector services and environmental amenities; a huge investment in education, skills and new technology; and programs to address population growth at home and abroad.

The economy might evolve to a steady state, where a declining labor force and shorter work hours are offset by rising productivity.

There would still be scope for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the art of living, and more likelihood of it being improved.  rw   Karen Gaia says: there are not enough resources to make everyone comfortable, we must start by redefining 'comfortable' and redistributing resources between rich and poor. We also must continue to practice voluntary family planning.

This year's competition is set to be its strongest in 18 years.

Corporations across the country will vie for the distinction of having the most sustainable commuter population while supporting their employees' healthier choices. Communities and companies with the highest participation rates in the

National Commuter Challenge win recognition. Individuals can win prizes donated by many sponsors.  rw

Humanity will have to adjust to unprecedented pressures. In 2007, higher pasta prices sparked street protests in Milan. Mexicans marched against the price of tortillas. Senegalese protested the price of rice, and Indians took up banners against the price of onions. We are all paying more for bread, milk, and chocolate, to name just a few items. The new consumers of the emerging global middle class are driving up food prices everywhere.

Prices are soaring because some grains are now being used as fuel and more people can afford to eat more. The average consumption of meat in China, has more than doubled since the mid-1980s.

Members of the middle class not only consume more meat and grains, but they also buy more clothes, refrigerators, toys, medicines, and, eventually, cars and homes. China and India, with 40% of the world's population, consume more than half of the global supply of coal, iron ore, and steel. In the past two years, the world price of tin, nickel, and zinc have roughly doubled, while aluminum is up 39% and plywood 27%. A middle-class lifestyle in these developing countries is more energy intensive. China accounts for one third of the growth in the world's oil consumption. The lifestyle of the existing middle class will probably have to change as the new middle class emerges.

Changes in migration, urbanization, and income distribution will be widespread. And growing demands for better housing, healthcare, education, and, inevitably, political participation.

Higher prices and new technologies always came to the rescue, boosting supplies and allowing the world to continue to grow. But the adjustment to a middle class greater than what the world has ever known is just beginning. As the Indonesian and Mexican protesters can attest, it won't be cheap. And it won't be quiet.  rw

Demand for new developments is ever increasing. In Dubai, hotel occupancy levels are at over 80% and rates are at record highs. Dubai's population is a measly 1.4 million people. And the entire UAE is home to 4.1 million, 80% of whom are foreigners.

Are Dubai's plans for 15 million visitors to contribute 20% of GDP are realistic? The strategy of Dubai authorities is "build it and they will come". But with neighbouring emirates also planning expansion, what happens if demand wanes?

What is most troubling is the damage they are causing the environment. Palm Islands has clouded Gulf waters with silt. Construction has buried coral reefs, oyster beds and subterranean sea grass, while the disruption of natural currents is leading to the erosion of beaches.  rw

The cost of a supermarket trolley containing 100 basic food items has risen by Ł13.63 to Ł183.28 over the past two years. The prices of chicken, fish, cheese, vegetables and fruit have also increased, along with sugar, coffee and wine. And the prices are forecast to keep on rising. The era of cheap food is coming to an end, and that has huge implications for those on fixed incomes. Global food production could be centred on the belt of fertile land that lies between Bordeaux and Caithness.

Land is going to have to be brought back into production to feed an ever-expanding world population. Scotland is well placed to play its part. Others point out that Scotland has its own problems. Meat is an inefficient way of delivering calories, with eight kilos of grain required for one kilo of beef. Much of the meat consumed in Scotland has been imported.

Eating more fresh and seasonal fruit and vegetables, and less processed and packaged food as well as less meat and dairy produce, will be as good for us as it is for the planet.  rw

The ban by India intensifies a worldwide rice shortage that drove up prices by nearly 40% last year. An additional 50 million tonnes of rice is needed each year up to 2015 to plug the demand-supply gap. Additional agricultural land for growing rice is extremely limited, while rice consumption is growing worldwide and wheat stocks are hitting record lows. Unregulated private cross-border trading makes exact figures hard to come by. India's rice export ban comes at a sensitive time ahead of the final annual budget. India's ban on rice exports follows a gradual limiting of exports over the past few months. The ban extends to all exports of rice except government-to-government trading, but excludes exports of basmati rice, a more fragrant, long-grained and expensive variety. Bangladesh, needs food grains after Cyclone Sidr in December destroyed $600 million worth of the country's rice crop. To cope with the crisis, the Bangladesh government floated global tender notices for 300,000 tonnes of various varieties of rice.

India's export ban caused 300 rice trucks to be stranded in India-Bangladesh border zones. A famine threatens remote areas of southeast Bangladesh after millions of rats devastated food crops. The animals turn to ravaging rice stalks and vegetables in the affected region. Higher incomes across Asia are leading to increased consumption of grains and vegetables and of meat, which leads to more grain being diverted for use as cattle fodder.

In the short term, prices can spike as natural disasters ranging from severe drought and floods cause havoc on agriculture. Vietnam suspended exports to protect domestic needs, while Thailand plans to auction an additional 500,000 tonnes of rice to cater to increasing international demand. Food scientists are developing sturdier varieties of rice that can withstand climate challenges as well as higher yielding seeds.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in January announced a grant of $19.9 million to help 400,000 small farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa access to improved rice varieties and better growing technology.  rw

Wetlands have reappeared, while water has returned to some of the dried-up lakes in the Sanjiangyuan, China's largest nature reserve that covers 318,000 sq km.

While desertification throughout Qinghai is still a problem, the annual rate at which the desert is spreading has dropped to 2,000 hectares from 13,000 hectares in the late 1990s.

It may take a while before the ecosystem is fully rehabilitated. The initial efforts in the two Tibetan autonomous prefectures, Yushu and Golok, is promising.

Qinghai's move signals a departure from the "GDP cult", which sees economic growth as the only yardstick for development. For years, this cult has dominated China's development. In the fervor to pursue GDP growth, we have seen mountains denuded, cropland devastated and air and water polluted.

We have double-digit growth in our GDP, which is envied by many. Yet the cost is dear.

Among the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 14 are in China. The worsening air quality has given rise to lung cancer, which has become a top killer in the country. Also on the rise are TB and other diseases.

Pollution has aggravated the country's water supply and caused the occasional drought. At 500 sections of China's nine major river systems that are monitored for water quality, only 28% have water suitable for drinking, 31% have water with no functional use. A sample survey of 118 cities revealed that 97% of their groundwater was polluted. Many polluters escape punishment because they are "local economic pillars". That is why Qinghai's decision to delete GDP growth when evaluating government accomplishments is admirable. The move compels local government to shift its outlook from a focus on GDP growth to one that is environmentally friendly and socially conscious.

Some might say it was not a big deal for Yushu and Golok to be exempted from GDP evaluations, since the secondary and tertiary industries are relatively small there. The two prefectures, are known as "China's water tower" and have traditionally been pastures for nomadic Tibetans.

The habits of the GDP cult have led to overgrazing and gold mining, which have damaged vegetation on the highlands, which sit at 4,000 m above sea level. If the livestock population and mining spree are not checked, ecological deterioration will choke further development.

GDP growth must be based on environmental sustainability and benefit people's welfare.

To sustain the vitality of China we need to continue to expand our GDP to meet the growing needs of the people. But if our rivers and lakes all run dry, the air and soil made toxic, then we will not be far from doom.

There have been warning signs. The water stopped flowing at the source area of the Yellow River, the sudden explosion that blanketed Taihu Lake in Jiangsu and cut the drinking water supply to more than 2 million people in Wuxi city.

Jiangsu has shut down more than 2,000 small chemical plants and built a 1 km wide green buffer zone around Taihu Lake. For the green belt, some 660 hectares of cropland will be returned to nature to reduce discharges of agricultural waste to the lake.

The move reflects Jiangsu's determination to repay its debt to nature.

We now have the Scientific Outlook on Development, which emphasizes putting people first and the pursuit of sustainable development. There is hope that old mindset will change.  rw

Households make a bigger impact than people realise but we can turn this around by making wise choices about what we consume, and in the case of waste, how we dispose of it.

Local Governments in New Zealand have been working to address household waste and consumption through recycling and the Packaging Accord, which aims to reduce the proportion of packaging in our total waste.  rw   Karen Gaia says: no mention in the article of the need to slow down population growth.

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

If we cannot contain our demand, we will face economic, political and environmental crises.

The Chinese see the high-tech lifestyle and want it for themselves. India, with a population of about 1 billion, is also expecting a place at the table.

Experts believe terrorism is a product of frustration with those that consume 32 times as much as they do.

With China's per capita consumption rates their rise to our rates of consumption would mean the world would double it's current consumption of oil and metal. If India followed as well, consumption rates would triple.

Recent efforts to unite the world's pollution standards failed when US leaders refused to cut greenhouse gas emissions. China backed out after Bush's filibuster. Australia threw their Bush-friendly President out and signed on to Kyoto, leaving the US as the biggest emitter, (although over 225 US cities including NY, LA and Chicago have voluntarily signed on anyway).

But present rates are unsustainable. China knows this, producing greener cars than us and forging alliances that acknowledge their consumption.

Much American consumption is the product of corporate consumerism. Office buildings burn their lights all night long because of their "architectural majesty".

Most SUV buyers prioritize their image, their safety, their comfort, their cargo room. This has proven fatal for the US auto industry. GM's workers union considered suing GM executives for making too many SUVs, resulting in years of losses, while Asian carmakers' profits soared.

SUVs are a metaphor for needless N. American waste, the least practical car design for the 21st Century. Low-mileage vehicles also helped replace the former glory of GM as the largest US employer.

The average American travels over 40 minutes one way to their place of work. Europeans have paid $7 per gallon gas for more then 12 years to diminish reliance on motor vehicles. Be green, work for solar and wind realities - there is enough wind and sun in just three states to power the whole country if only we build the collection apparatus.

Many fisheries have closed down and projections for over-fishing tuna may haunt us. During the McMansion boom, we built houses much larger then our practical needs.

We are swayed by TV ads more then any other form of information, and is proven true every time Super Bowl ad rates increase, and every time spending on political TV ads increases. China and India will be competing for our resources in a major way, with the rest of the world right behind them.  rw

Researchers concluded that in 2005, in the US alone, divorced households could have saved 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water compared to that of married households.

11 other countries were examined, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002. In these countries, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water. With the number of divorces rising, so is the number of households, outpacing population growth itself.  rw

Dragging our feet on climate change would pose an economic risk to New Zealand, devastating to our reputation.

The impact of greenhouse gases from transport, especially aviation, means New Zealand's environmental credentials are coming under new scrutiny.

Environmentally-conscious tourists are being asked if they can justify flying 20,000 kilometres for a holiday on the opposite side of the world.

They are also being asked why they are eating lamb, beef and butter from New Zealand when they could be buying from local farmers.

Tourism is New Zealand's single largest export, providing one in 10 jobs and 8.9% of GDP.

Of New Zealand's 2.42 million visitors last year, 54% were from Europe, the Americas and Asia. Aircraft emissions account for around 3% of global emissions, but have increased 87% since 1990.

Tourism New Zealand said there has been no impact on long haul visitor arrivals that we can attribute to concerns over sustainability. But it is a situation we are watching closely.

A former British cabinet minister claimed that a kilogram of kiwi fruit airfreighted from New Zealand to Europe caused five kilograms of carbon to be released. The New Zealand government said that kiwifruit is always transported by ship. Of New Zealand's exports in the year to June totalling 33.4 billion dollars, the US accounted for 4.5 billion and the EU 5.2 billion. Dairy products account for 21% of New Zealand's exports and meat 13.2%. Critics in Britain and Germany in particular have been saying it is irresponsible to import food and drinks from the other side of the world.

Trade minister Phil Goff said foreign consumers would realise the flaws of the argument and focus instead on the total carbon footprint of foods.

British dairy farmers produce 31% more greenhouse gases than their counterparts in New Zealand, including the impact of transport.

New Zealand's climate means cattle eat grass all year round. Those running the food miles campaigns often represent producers which have a far greater greenhouse gas footprint than do the products they are complaining about from New Zealand. New Zealand will gradually introduce an emissions trading scheme.

The tourism industry has a new strategy focussed on environmental sustainability. Air New Zealand announced it would trial bio-fuel in association with engine maker Rolls Royce and Boeing.  rw   Karen Gaia says: One of the things that we must do to compensate from overpopulation is to produce nearly all of our food locally.

When one considers the difficulty of persuading children to accept one's own goals in life, and especially when it is borne in mind that even if successful the net gain to the planet is nil, the advantages of not having babies becomes readily apparent.  rw   Karen Gaia says: I publish this example only to illustrate the relationship of population growth to consumption. Reducing consumption is NOT enough. We must address population!

The study divided the adult population of Europe according to people's buying patterns, product use and attitudes to sustainability, corporate responsibility and the use of environmentally friendly products and services.

The results showed that Europeans are 32% more likely to buy products that have organic or environmental stamps of authenticity on them, but 25% less likely than Americans to pay more for environmentally friendly products.

Environmental initiatives carried out by the European Union have played a large role in developing a "green consciousness" among European consumers. The rise in popularity of organic food and natural medicines and therapies, which are publicised frequently in the media, are also contributing to the growing green consciousness.  rw

It identifies seven key areas.

Food: At present 75% of all food eaten in Wales comes through supermarkets. The agenda sees an agricultural-environmental agenda on the producer side, and a healthy diet on the consumer side;

Buildings: Many towns in Wales are composed of buildings which are inefficient. Policies for new buildings are needed, with a future of low carbon sustainable buildings responsive to the sun and the elements, surrounded by townscapes which are green, clean and human scale.

The vision sees a future of low-impact, high-quality, IT-enabled, responsive public transport; a car fleet which has raised its efficiency by several times; and on the demand side, a coordination of activities and locations to reduce travel needs.

In a new economy, the average product will last longer and be designed for re-use and reconditioning, built from lower-impact materials with higher efficiency, sourced locally or with low-impact distribution. Services the agenda needs to focus on public sector procurement and corporate social responsibility. Wales' energy demand is tapered down and local renewable energy sources are accelerated.

Resource economy is based on re-circulation: recycled, re-manufactured and re-used materials and products. Our very future depends on our ability to live within the limits of the Earth's natural resources, yet since the 1980s human demand has been exceeding the Earth's ability to replenish and absorb.  rw   Ralph says: Easy to make words. now let us wee how easy it is to turn them into action. Karen Gaia says: no mention of stablizing population.

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

A reversal from a year ago, when "the green agenda was out on the lunatic fringe for most people."

British consumers are concerned and pessimistic about the state of the environment but not quite sure what to do about it. Climate change is seen as the most important environmental issue and more than 70% rate society's performance in addressing the issue as neutral or worse.

But consumers focus primarily on reducing their waste rather than reducing consumption. Rounding out the list of common green behaviors is recycling plastic bags, followed by the use of products that do not deplete the ozone layer.

There is widespread belief that we are all part of the problem. But most are still thinking in terms of throwing away less, rather than consuming less.

More than 20% of the population could not identify steps a company should take to make itself green.

The research shows that companies seeking rewards in the marketplace can do so by marketing themselves as environmentally concerned. Green brands are perceived as having higher quality and consumers are prepared to pay a premium. Six in ten, for instance, said they will spend more on energy saving household appliances.

Consumers want to do the right thing but need help from companies to lead them into action. Brands which align themselves with environmental concerns can expect to secure a competitive advantage.  rw

In 1950, the world population was 3 billion, now 6.5 billion people who produce an enormous output of waste and utilize an unbelievable amount of resources and energy. Most people having children have no idea why they are even having children other than that's what you do. Most don't really love their children because if they did they would be very much involved in trying to ensure that their children have a world to survive in.

Unless over-population is addressed, there is no way of slowing down greenhouse gas emissions. But corporations need workers, governments need taxpayers, bureaucrats and soldiers. More people means more money.

The solution to all of our problems is simple. We just need to live in accordance with the three basic laws of ecology.

Weaken diversity and the entire system will be weakened and will ultimately collapse. All of the species within an eco-system are interdependent. There is a limit to growth because there is a limit to carrying capacity.

Human populations are exceeding carrying capacity and diminishing resources and diversity of species.

Albert Einstein wrote that "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

And the honey bee is disappearing. Why? We don't know why. All around the world bees are disappearing and bees pollinate our plants. If the bees disappear, we will have only four years. We are cutting down the forest and plundering the oceans. We are polluting the soil, the air and the water and rapidly running out of fresh water to drink. Water is now being sold for more than the equivalent amount of gasoline.

Now for Al Gore's really inconvenient truth. In his film he does not mention once that the meat and dairy industry that produces the bacon, the steaks, the chicken wings and the milk is a larger contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than the automobile industry. Al may drive a Prius but he likes his burgers.

This is why the big organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club will not say a thing about the meat industry. Last year I saw Greenpeacers sitting down for a fish meal while engaged in a campaign to oppose over-fishing.

When we pointed out that our Sea Shepherd ships serve only vegan meals, the Greenpeace cook replied, "that's just silly."

The oceans have been plundered to the point that 90% of the fish have been removed. This is ecological insanity.

The largest marine predator is the cow. More than half the fish is rendered into fish meal and fed to domestic livestock. We are extracting some 50 to 60 fish from the sea to raise one farm raised salmon.  rw

Their size could lead to change in an area where Congress and the president, have mostly balked.

If these corporations use their power to go "green," the hope is that there will be a significant reduction in global warming.

If they can cut a deal now, they can get a better deal than they would get later. When Wal-Mart says 'Don't use excess packaging,' packing is reduced on products across the board. Such efforts were "both genuine and will make a difference."

Whether it is the world's growing population or global warming, we see the need for sustainable business practices" Wal-Mart chief executive said.

With 176 million weekly shoppers in 14 countries , Wal-Mart can have a major impact. If a supplier changes its packaging to comply with Wal-Mart's demand, other retailers will also see the effects.

Going green has expanded. Chairlifts at Vail, Heavenly and other Vail Resorts mountains are now powered by wind energy by purchasing 100% wind power offsets for all of its electric needs.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of companies and environmental groups is pushing a cap-and-trade system where limits are set on greenhouse-gas emissions. These people want a seat while policy is being shaped. They'd rather be there and help and make sure their concerns and sector issues are considered.

A lot of the companies are going to be making capital investments and have an interest in what the regulations will be. .

"There are a certain number of CEOs who feel it's time to give something back, and they're looking at the world they're going to leave behind."  rw   Karen Gaia says: I see two things wrong with this picture: 1) the major impact of big box stores is the large number of miles driven to get to the store, compared to the local neighborhood store. 2) Stores promote consumerism; much of it is stuff we don't need.

Vegetarians live longer than meat eaters.

The transition to a vegan diet can even be made without a change in daily menu since there are now so many vegetarian meat substitutes and soy milk products available.

The planet you save may be your own.  rw

One-third of the world's population live in areas where water scarcity must be reckoned with. Much of this cannot be avoided, but can be averted through better water management. As a rule of thumb, about one litre of liquid water gets converted to water vapor to produce one calorie of food. A heavy meat diet requires much more water than a vegetarian diet.

The relation between water and food is a struggle for over two thirds of world's 850 million under-nourished people. There is water scarcity in India and China, because of rapid economic growth in both countries. Diets are more dependent on animal products. In China, meat demand has quadrupled over the last 30 years, and in India milk and egg products are increasingly popular. Growing cities take more water, and environmental concerns are rising.

Water use in agriculture is one of the major drivers of ecosystem degradation. Flows of rivers in important food producing areas dry up because of the water needed for irrigated agriculture. More people require more water for more food; more water is essential in the fight against poverty; yet we should limit the amount of water taken from ecosystems.

In the worst case scenario where practices don't change, water use will double. Agricultural practices are changing, but not fast enough.

With wise policies and investments it is possible over the next 50 years to limit future growth in water withdrawals to 13% and cultivated land expansion to 9%. But complicating the situation are climate change and the increased use of biofuels. Water scarcity is with us to stay, and we have to learn to live with it.

Consider agriculture as an ecosystem producing multiple services for people and sustain biodiversity. We need to place the means of getting out of poverty into the hands of poor people by focusing on water as a means to raise their own food and gain more income.

Growing more food with less water can reduce future demand for water, thus easing competition for water and environmental degradation. A 35% increase in water productivity could reduce additional crop water needs from 80% to 20% by 2050.

Improving access to water, and using it better are essential in the fight against poverty.

Poverty, hunger, gender inequality, and environmental degradation continue to afflict developing countries because of political and institutional failings. While water scarcity is here to stay, many of the problems associated with water scarcity can be avoided. This will require that we deal with difficult choices and tradeoffs.  rw   Ralph says: Not a single suggestion that if we reduce the world population we cut the demand for water. I can remember only 70 or so years ago as a young boy walking through the British countryside and drinking from any stream Ii found. Water was universally available. It is the growth in population that is causing most of the problems we discuss in this web site, but no one wants to talk about it!!!! Karen Gaia says: the article ignores the problems of biofuels which will take over most of the water and the land used by poor people to grow food - just to keep the rich people of the planet in their cars and SUVs.

These issues have been repeatedly highlighted as major concerns with the state of our cities, and the need for action.

The common theme is the urgent need for a national approach. We can no longer consider our major population centres as isolated entities which do not impact on each other or the nation. Competing demands for natural and human resources, the impacts of growth and our reliance on the supply of goods and services between cities highlight this fact.

The Howard Government has remained mute on the issue. It has refused to discuss repeated calls for a coordinated approach to the challenges our cities face.

The Government has committed to a national agenda in other areas, water for example, yet does not see that sustainable growth of our major urban areas should compel as much attention.

All state and territory planning ministers are now proposing a way forward, currently being considered to establish a National Action Plan for Urban Australia.

The Plan would be established through an Australia-wide intergovernmental agreement, that would involve outlining measures to tackle the environmental, social or economic issues being faced.

States and territories would receive payments in accordance with their commitment to implement the plans and could be penalised for failure to implement the measures within agreed timeframes or outcomes by the cancellation of these payments.

An independent body would be created to recommend to the Commonwealth whether payments to the states and territories should be made. The Commonwealth would establish a fund to be used to leverage commitment to action plans. States and territories would be required to contribute.

An April 2005 report identified a $25 billion backlog in infrastructure investment. Failure to deal with traffic congestion in Sydney has a cost of $11 billion.

A report concluded that a "a substantial dividend" would result from improving sustainability in major urban areas".

It is time for consideration of a national agenda for our urban areas, with the Commonwealth taking a significant role.  rw

Some of the women have outlived their husbands. In 1960s and 1970s, the family was a focus of baby boomers' rebellion.

Forty years later, the growing independence of women has produced a generation of women who see choices other than marriage.

Men and women are waiting until they are well into their 30s to marry, or live together. In 1950, some 42% of women below the age of 24 were married; by 2000, the figure had fallen to 16%, the census data found.

The proportion of married women between 25 and 34 fell to 58% in 2000 from 82% in 1950.

Those women who do marry and go on to divorce take longer to remarry than men, or may choose to live with a partner without being legally married.

The declining incidence of marriage was pronounced among African-Americans, with only 30% of women living with a spouse.

About 60% of Asian woman are living in married households.

Social forces have created a society where women no longer need to rely on husbands for financial support. This has created a society where people spend half of their adult life alone. We will never go back to the 1950s. That dominant social norm is gone forever.  rw

We have been "fruitful and multiplied" to such an extent that Earth's human population, which was a mere 3 billion in 1959, will, by most estimates, top 9 billion by around 2042.

Our forests are being replaced with agriculture, our oceans are deserted, and deserts worldwide are spreading.

If you're among the majority of humans who care about the planet, then you probably sense that the status quo is a dead end. We cannot allow population to rise apace.

Increasingly the faithful are stepping into the arena of environmental activism. Only a fundamental change in how we view our planetary resources can prevent a global crisis.

Economics in the 20th century produced productive but also polluting and resource-intensive economies. That model is being pursued by developing economies seeking their shot at prosperity. But key elements of the approach cannot be sustained.

Adherents to the status quo still reassure us that new technologies, new resources, and human ingenuity will see us through. But scientists are not so optimistic. As long as you have exponential growth in population and industry, it doesn't make any difference what you assume about technology, resources, or productivity. Eventually you overshoot and collapse. We've got one planet, finite resources and more people consuming more resources, something has to give.

Ideally, development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the future generations.

This will require governments worldwide to recognize that all economic activity is dependent on the natural environment. Presently governments pursue rapid economic growth, then clean up the mess they've made.

Today's developed nations have used this approach, none has achieved sustainability. Other countries will have to get development right the first time. That's the case for China and India, with over a billion mouths to feed each and those people demanding clean water and shelter, as well as dishwashers, computers and cars. Over the next decades we have to move our environment from political and social concerns and restructure our economic system to reflect this priority.

We will have to adopt a new understanding of what "wealth" and "quality of life" mean. This is where faith-based communities can offer us guiding values.

A Buddhist movement in Sri Lanka embraces a vision of well-being based on 10 basic needs: A clean and beautiful environment; a clean and adequate supply of water; basic clothing; a balanced diet; a simple house to live in; basic health care; simple communications facilities; basic energy requirements; well-rounded education; and cultural and spiritual sustenance.

For the majority of our fellow human beings such a community would be a godsend.

It is critical, for the developed world to consume less so that the rest of the world can have a fairer share of the planet. No new doctrine is needed, every religion condemns the taking of life and stealing from future generations.

There is only one Earth, we are its custodians. Whatever our religion we share the same place of worship. Our neighbor's plight is our own, and their well-being is intertwined with ours.  rw

Solutions require that we take a global view and place our society and economy on a genuinely sustainable footing. It requires moving away from the individualism which has created so many of the problems, to a co-operative individualism, where managing the global and local is paramount.

We have a unique opportunity to set humanity on a new course, built around an ethical renaissance and sustainable societies. The tools and technologies to solve these problems are available, the cost is less than we have been led to believe, and the benefits greater. The missing ingredients are acceptance of the problem, the collective will for action and genuine long-term vision and leadership. The pressure for change must come from the community at large. Our choice is either to seize the opportunity to build a sustainable future, or try to muddle through in the time-honoured manner and increasingly lose the ability to control our own affairs.

For Australia, along with many other countries, water is the priority. Resolving the water crisis will be the first test of whether we can combine long-term vision and principled leadership with the need to take the hard decisions quickly enough to stave off impending disaster.  rw

Just like a company bound for bankruptcy plunging into the red, the world starts falling into ecological debt on 9 October. Problems range from carbon dioxide emissions to the destruction of rainforests.

Catching too many fish has left once-common fish struggling to survive. And eventually only small and juvenile fish are left, and stocks become unviable.

Climate change threatens to plunge the world into conflict. British military planners are preparing for conflicts arising from the scramble for resources in 20 to 30 years' time.

Flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure.

Each individual's share is the equivalent of 1.8 hectares of the Earth's surface, the area equivalent we use is 2.2 hectares per person. Humanity is living off its ecological credit card and is liquidating the planet's natural resources.

Globally we deny millions of people who lack access to land, food and clean water, and we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril."

Humanity started living beyond its means in 1987. Consumption is profligate in the West, where individuals consume air-freighted food, buy hard-wood furniture, enjoy foreign holidays and own cars.

The world would need five planet Earth's to sustain a materialistic society such as the US. By contrast, developing countries use a fraction of the resources.

We are using resources faster than they can be replaced, we are drawing natural capital, we know that collapse is a real possibility.

Degradation of the marine ecosystem is one of the world's biggest problems after climate change.

Oil reserves are fast running out; some 13 million hectares of forest are lost every year. Population growth, pollution and climate change are making water a scarce resource. Overfarming drains the soil of nutrients, while the chemicals used in the process pollute waterways.  rw

The genetically engineered grass is being developed by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and Monsanto for use on golf courses. It contains a gene that makes the grass resistant to the herbicide Roundup. The goal is to allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide to kill weeds without hurting the grass.

The Department of Agriculture is evaluating whether to approve the grass.

One concern is that genes that make crops resistant to herbicides or pests may escape to wild relatives, that would be harder to eradicate.

That is hardly a risk for the main types of genetically engineered crops, soybeans, corn and cotton, because they do not have wild, weedy relatives.

Some scientists have expressed concern that if the gene escapes, weedy grasses could be harder to control with the widely used herbicide.

In a new study, scientists sampled 20,400 plants up to three miles from the edge of an 11,000-acre zone surrounding the test plots. They found 9, or 0.04%, that were genetically engineered, the farthest being 2.4 miles from the control zone border.

Some of the plants had been created by seeds that had blown off the test plot and others by hybridization of wild grass with pollen from the genetically engineered grass.

Scientists in Canada have reported an instance in which herbicide resistance appears to have spread by pollination from genetically engineered canola.

In Japan, transgenic canola was found growing near ports and roadsides. Scientists hypothesized that imported seeds had escaped during transportation to oil-processing facilities.  rw   Karen Gaia says: As the population grows, so does the need to provide groomed outdoor recreation areas. People used to be able to go out into the woods or mountains or oceans to have a good time.

It was found that singles throw out 1600 kg of waste per head, compared with an average of 1000 kg waste per capita in a four-person household. They consume 38% more products, generate 42% more packaging waste, use 55% more electricity and guzzle 61% more gas than each member in the traditional family. In Germany single households hit 38% in 2005- up 4% from 1991.

Many living alone do so out of circumstances rather than choice. The study proposes expansion of living spaces designed for the single. The study encourages a little government sponsored education, because the single will dedicate extra money to the choice of sustainable products.  rw

Unless current patterns are disrupted by collective housing schemes or single occupancy taxes, the UK could face a "consumption crisis".

Males between 35 and 44 were the worst offenders, using 55% more electricity per capita compared to a traditional four-person household.

In 1971 only 18% of the population lived by themselves, most aged over 60, but now 30% are single occupants, predicted to rise to 38% by 2001.

Suggestions include shared housing initiatives as part of their planned housing development programmes, housing this group in ecological new builds that are prestigious, well-designed, state-of-the-art and environmentally sound.  rw

3. Design sustainable new homes. A growing number of architects and builders are taking steps to make our homes part of the energy solution.

4. Build smarter schools.

The debate over new schools has focused largely on how much to raise property taxes. Missing has been any consideration of the energy costs involved in powering conventional school buildings. A closer look reveals a roof-mounted solar hot water system supplying the cafeteria, photovoltaic panels that reduce the demand for outside power, and extensive classroom daylight.

5. Help transform energy policy.

We won't be free to choose clean energy if state rules drive the utilities to meet all future demand through more expensive and polluting coal and nuclear plants.

6. Drive cleaner.

Buy less processed food, shopping at local farmers' markets. Grow more food at home.

7. Get the fuel out of our food.

It takes about 10 fossil-fuel calories to produce and transport each food calorie in the average American diet. So if our daily food intake is 2,000 calories, it took 20,000 calories to grow that food and get it to us. About 15 percent of U.S. energy use goes toward supplying food, divided about evenly between producing crops and livestock, and food processing and packaging. If the whole world ate the way Americans eat, we would exhaust all known fossil fuel reserves in seven years, estimates David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University. We should buy less processed food and more local products, shop at local farmers' markets, or join a community-supported agriculture farm.

8. Connect energy and spirit

Many of our religious institutions engage in wasteful and environmentally harmful energy-use practices.

9. Educate yourself  rw   A big step would be to buy your home where driving will be less.

In the late 1800s, manufacturers began to realize the commercial potential of short-lived products. In the 1920s, as society became more urban and more women entered the workforce, manufacturers understood the potential of selling products that could be promoted as both hygienic and convenient. Marketing campaigns encouraged rapid automobile replacement and resulted in products designed not to last. Then, in the 1950s and '60s, the media began touting products whose novelty outweighed their necessity.

In recent years, our embrace of technology and appetite for the new converged with planned obsolescence. Americans own more than 2 billion digital devices with short life spans dictated by rapidly evolving semiconductors. Some have simply been cast aside in favor of a new model.

The result is a growing stream of hazardous waste. Millions of tons of e-waste end up in U.S. landfills each year, and millions more are exported to developing countries. Some are simply dumped there, while others are recycled. How do we undo this cycle of consumption?

In the US we equate progress and prosperity with the ability to jettison things, the notions of reuse and recycle have been slow to take hold. During the next few years, the problem of waste will compel American manufacturers to modify industrial practices. The age of obsolescence will go the way of the buffalo.  rw

They claimed the land used to raise and feed the world's 55 billion head of livestock could be put to better use supporting four billion humans. The waste of land and water used to raise animals was unacceptable.

The issues of food miles and the energy used to transport exotic crops to British markets were also touched upon.

The London Food Link encouraged people to buy locally-sourced food where possible. We should ask how is it grown, who is growing it and how is it transported."

Many crops for foreign cuisines could be grown in the UK and, as demand grows, agriculture will adapt. We must be aware that the everyday choices we make in the UK have an impact elsewhere in the world.

Those living in Africa, the Caribbean and other parts of the developing world, are paying the cost of the industrialised world's excesses, as climate change begins to hit them.

In London, and other urban centres, children don't understand agriculture and have little idea of where their food comes from.

We need to educate children about the environment, said and furnish them with practical skills such as farming.

The Muslim community also had its own particular concerns when it came to diet and the environment. The planet has always been important in Islam. But halal has its own environmental issues - you cannot get organic meat that is halal because the certification bodies do not approve of the way the animals are killed. it is difficult making inroads into the Muslim community and persuade people to make environmental concerns a priority.

Unfortunately there's a lot more to worry about as statistics show that London Muslims are disadvantaged in terms of education, unemployment, poor housing and poverty.  rw

When another drought visits the California water system will be stretched ever thinner by an unstoppable population swell.

The area is also infested with "non-natives, exotics, weeds.

Novy says it's very different now. Native plants have built a defense against invasive exotics. She's planting willows and California natives on the creek banks behind the house. The plants in the fenced nursery are either edible or native and she gathers many of the seeds on hikes in the hills. By the '90s, people were making the link between the environment at large and in their back yard. Novy now works as a consultant, focused on sustainability.

In the wilds, the landscape works as a "cradle to cradle" system, taking in only sunlight and water. The plants and insects process the waste, fertilize the ground and renew the cycle. No maintenance is required. Novy has worked with clients toward that end. She helped a Sonoma County company build a landscape plan that took the leaf blowers and herbicides out of the system. They reduced their waste, water and energy costs.  rw

He said that while we attempt to remove poverty, we should pay attention to the sustainability of environment. Growth of population and per capita income has tendency to lead to degradation of every ecosystem.

Though the growth rate of population has declined, increasing population still poses major challenge to the environment. There is a need to encourage family planning, girls' education, empowering women etc.

Economic growth leads to concentration of carbon and nitrogen, extinction of various birds and trees, stress on water etc. He noted that by 2050 India's GDP could be at par with China and by the end of this century could well surpass both US and China. However this poses challenges to the ecosystem and India is required to play a central role in the world for this cause. Eco degradation lead to increasing temperature, which affects food supply, health condition, habitats, sea level, ocean chemistry extreme weather conditions and water stress.

He expressed dissatisfaction over the sustainability of ecosystem in India as well as abroad. Some of the warning signals are reflected in terms of increasing diseases like AIDS and avian flu, more frequent happenings of Katrina-like storms, transformation of diseases from animals to human beings etc. With GDP growth, the problem is going to intensify.

He predicted that while population by 2050 will increase by one and half, the use of energy will increase by three times. In view of pressure on existing oil, there is increasing pressure on the use of coal. There is a need for controlling the increase of carbon emission by developing an appropriate technology.

Prof Sach said that growth and devolvement are necessary to help the poorest of the poor but even if we spend less than 1% of GDP on maintaining the eco system, this should be sufficient. He said that India is required to play a leadership role in: (a) scientific and technical development (b) developing a sustainable energy system (c) helping the poorest of the poor, and (d) raising its voice.  rw

Researchers have found that spending on luxury goods- items that we do not need- is rising four times faster than overall spending. Those of us who watch a lot of TV, are overworked and isolated from our neighbors, tend to take our social cues from the TV programs we watch. Whereas we used to emulate the people in our own backyard, our friends and neighbors, we now tend to copy the people we see on TV and we base our ideal on the clothing, furniture and way of life of sitcom characters rather than real people. Watching an average of 15 hours of TV a week results in approximately $3000 in extra spending every year.

While we sink ever deeper in debt, buying the SUV, big screen TV, leather sofa and iPod we do not need, the poor around the world are doing without AIDS medication, school books, running water and other basics of daily life.   

This press release has some important facts and figures

about consumption and solutions.

Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. For example:

reducing electricity use would have roughly 100 times greater impact on

common air pollution and global warming than reducing spending on telephone

bills

by an equal amount, as well as 55 times greater impact on common water

pollution and 5 times greater impact on toxic air pollution.

pet food, $4 billion more than the estimated yearly additional amount needed

to provide everyone in the world with basic health and nutrition. The

richest 20% of humanity consume 45% of all meat and fish, use 58% of all

energy produced and own 87% of the vehicles. Consumption of fossil fuels has

almost doubled since 1950 (and so has population)

.

Environmentalists are pointing fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.'s when they should be pointing at the dinner plate. PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming. PETA had written to more than 700 environmental groups, asking them to promote vegetarianism. The Humane Society has also highlighted that “switching to a plant-based diet does more to curb global warming than switching from an S.U.V. to a Camry. Vegan Outreach, a 14-year-old group in Tucson with just three full-time workers and a $500,000 annual budget, is spending about $800 this month to run ads to give more prominence to the global warming aspect of vegetarianism. Al Gore calls global warming a risk to humanity, yet hasn't changed or mentioned vegetarianism. Using global warming as a tactic for advancing the cause of vegetarianism feels a bit opportunistic. Environmental groups, concede that mobilizing against meat eaters is not their highest priority.

Lecturing people about personal consumption choices is not effective.  rw

In the 1960s, mining drove the infrastructure. The current administration has recognised the need to focus on coal, barytes, bitumen, gold, iron ore, lead/ zinc and limestone, as they are available in sufficient quantities and will contribute 5% to the GDP by 2015.

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the natural environment, it is in the most common form of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the future. Enviromental sustainability is the ability of the environment to continue to function properly indefinitely. The goal of environmental sustainability is to halt environmental degradation.

It is possible to consume less and have economic growth as is found in European economies. Between 2005 and 2006, the quantity of natural resources used by the UK economy, fell by 6 million tonnes 0.9%. Over the last decade, resource use remained unchanged, despite rising economic activity.

Th Malthus doctrine of resource scarcity and economic growth says that humanity is endowed with finite amount of material resources. If uncontrolled, the tendency of human population is to grow exponentially.

Technology should not be perceived as the ultimate escape from the problem of resource scarcity.

Economic activity cannot be expected to grow indefinitely unless the rates of population growth and resource utilisation are effectively controlled. Population + Resources = Scarcity.

In 1968, Paul R Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb (1968) that predicted disaster for humanity due to overpopulation and the "population explosion".

Population growth will outpace agricultural growth unless controlled. The failure on a global scale has not happened because of the flow of ideas, knowledge and capital, but there are failures where inequalities have accelerated the breaching of the limits of growth. The dependence on natural resources has to be understood within the conditions arising when the actions of some individuals have direct effects on the welfare of others who have direct control over that actions.  rw

The Tällberg Foundation proposes new frameworks for international negotiations, and changed institutions for global governance.

The initial objective is to develop recommendations for humanity's relationship with nature. We will use well-tested methods to develop global operations. Planning is missing in the international negotiations that should guarantee welfare and security for all. Responses today are based upon the spontaneous crises that erupt from changes in the balance of power.

Environmental issues are systems problems. No one nation can solve the climate problem or control water problem.

The world now relies on economic growth. To question the idea of growth is taboo. That growth should have limits is not politically or economically acceptable, but environmental crises say otherwise. Current trends of growth destabilize our future.

The political rhetoric is that continued high global economic growth is compatible with avoiding the effects of climate change. All serious research demonstrates that our planet does not meet the growth ambitions of everyone in the current technological infrastructure.

The American invasion of Iraq demonstrated that the institution does not have the authority to limit a superpower's ambition to maximize its own interests.

But all parties must be part of the process toward political agreement. Yet today we lack political debate about how to organize our global society.

Distrust among nations has grown for many years within multilateral organizations, with conflicts between poor and rich nations, between various religions, ethnic and cultural spheres.

There is mistrust over the ever-increasing gap between promises, agreements and results delivered. In the meantime, the sustainability of Earth's ecosystems continues to be undermined.

The technological infrastructure is not compatible with the growth that 6.6 billion people see as their vision of the future. Too many in too short a time strive after too high a material standard of living. We are caught between our ambitions and the Earth's capacity.

Within 30 years the world's population will grow to 9 billion and will place the ecosystem under an enormous stress.

Water is one example of a resource with imbalances throughout the world. In large areas of Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, China and western and southwestern US, water is approaching critical levels.

The shortages are greatest in the most densely populated areas. In many regions of the world groundwater levels are sinking and global warming will hasten this process.

The struggle for natural resources will harden geopolitical tensions, with resulting military conflicts and terror. There are no longer new worlds to which millions could emigrate. A fight for survival awaits us, as the international systems of economy, finances and logistics erode.

Management of global issues needs new principles and models to meet the fast-growing mutual dependencies.

The Tällberg Foundation will organize a series of workshops in seven national capitals in cooperation with diverse partners with a goal to develop global public opinion that does not stem from individual political, national or economic interests.

One Swedish tradition is a centuries-old practice protected by the Swedish Constitution: Everyone shall have the right of access to nature. You may go anywhere as long as you heed the common sense of freedom and responsibility concisely expressed in the phrase, "Do not disturb, do not destroy.”  rw

Biofuels are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. Those who can afford to drive are richer than those who are in danger of starvation and it will lead to the destruction of important habitats.

The price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows. There have been food riots in Mexico and the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. According to the UN the main reason is the demand for ethanol. Farmers will plant more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand. Biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. A UN report suggests that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be gone by 2022 with the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel.

Biodiesel from palm oil eventually causes 10 times as much climate change as ordinary diesel.

Indigenous people in South America, Asia and Africa are starting to complain about incursions onto their land by fuel planters. The environment secretary noted that palm oil plantations "are destroying 0.7% of the Malaysian rainforest each year, reducing a vital natural resource (and in the process, destroying the natural habitat of the orang-utan). It is all connected."

The European commission was faced with a choice between fuel efficiency and biofuels. After heavy lobbying on behalf of car manufacturers, it caved in and raised the limit to 130 grams. It announced that it would make up the shortfall by increasing the contribution from biofuel.

The British government says it "will require transport fuel suppliers to report on the carbon saving and sustainability of the biofuels they supply". But it will not require them to do anything. Biofuels occupy the space that other crops now fill, displacing them into new habitats. It promises that one day there will be biofuels made from straw or grass or wood. But there are still major technical obstacles. The author suggests a five-year freeze.

Encouraged by government policy, vast investments are now being made by farmers and chemical companies.  rw

Suggesting the possibility of a "sustainable" economy has changed the primary goal of environmentalism away from "protecting the environment" and toward the creation of a society that will simultaneously provide economic and social well-being for over 6 billion human beings and guarantee healthy habitats for millions of species that share the Earth with us.

Transportation, agriculture, energy, forestry, architecture, construction, mining, urban planning, financial institutions, and manufacturing are a few industries that are toying with new approaches aimed at "sustainability."

Environmental professionals have taken to heart the idea that it is our responsibility to take the lead in defining what a sustainable society and economy might look like.

Before the idea of sustainability caught hold, it seemed fair for environmental professionals to protect Nature against the destructiveness of the human economy.

The idea that we could be seen as a privileged elite who "care more about birds and bears than about people" was hard to grasp.

And yet, years of environmental and conservation work had taught us that most of the exclusively "environmental" approaches were pushing the boundaries of political support. Putting environmental regulatory, technical, and managerial fingers in the dike would not ultimately hold back the rising waters of population growth, economic desires, and social injustice.

The ideal of a "sustainable economy," then, was a new statement of goals, a political strategy for winning over economic development champions and social justice advocates, and a practical recognition that the existing tools for improving the planet's ecological health were ultimately no match for the forces arrayed against it.

We must all be honestly engaged in the work of inventing a truly new synthesis that seeks to accommodate the economic and social justice desires of people with the habitat requirements of the widest possible spectrum of species on the planet.

It's not outlandish to ask if we are all willing to "care about birds and bears as well as about people." As we struggle to become environmental professionals who understand the legitimate human requirement for economic security and social justice, we are within our rights to require other professions to take on the quest for global ecological health and habitat protection.

If we do, then the vision of a sustainable economy suggested may become Our Common Future. If we don't, we may be engaging in unilateral disarmament,

brilliantly disguised as an attempt at social innovation.  rw   Karen Gaia says: we should care about the birds and the bears - after they go, we are next. Those who attach little significance to the drowning of polar bears are extremely short-sighted.

These arguments do not withstand scrutiny.

Ehrlich wrote that, in the face of expanding populations, "the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death."

Instead, the availability of food has increased, even with growing population. Famine, has become a matter of fair distribution, not of inadequate supply.

Population increase fosters agricultural innovation, which, spurs leaps in production. Everywhere you go today, you find traffic jams and sprawl, but this is a problem of density, not population. There's plenty of land available out there.

Markets and human innovation stepped in to provide greater efficiency.

For instance, in 1850, you needed an average of 4.6 tons of petroleum equivalent to produce $1,000 of goods and services. By 1950, you needed only 1.8 tons, and, by 1978, 1.5 tons. More population means more creators and producers, both of goods along established production patterns and of new knowledge and inventions."

All things being equal, population increase leads to increased per capita production.

Between A.D. 200 and 600, population shrank from 257 million to 208 million. It took 400 more years for the population to recover. There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital.

There is good reason to believe population decline will be bad for us. Innovation will suffer and economies contract.

The supposed benefits of population decline are a mirage. The real question is whether falling populations will lead Western civilization to something like the fall of Rome.  rw   Ralph says: The author should open his eyes to the millions who are already dying for want of food. Karen Gaia says: The author seems totally unaware of the limits of the supply of resources, particularly water, soil, and oil.

More than half the 1.8 million farmworkers are here illegally, though in California the percentage is probably much higher.

One farmer has been forced to tear out nearly 30 acres of vegetables, and estimated his loss so far to be about $200,000. Growers check documents of prospective workers, knowing that fakes are easy to find and the industry couldn't make it without the labor of undocumented workers.

This has turned farmers into strong advocates of immigration reform. They're pushing hard for a program for guest worker. One farmer hired 320 workers for the harvest at his raspberry and blackberry farm. He could have used an extra 30 to 50 workers, but made do by paying workers to put in 12- or 14-hour days and postponing trellising, weeding and covering the plants.

The labor shortage is a serious problem, and getting worse as the government adds more law enforcement to the border. Some growers are moving parts of their operations to Mexico; others, are having to tough it out, he said.

"We need the workers; they need the work," one farmer said. "We just need to figure out some way to make this happen".  rw   Karen Gaia says: Hiring illegal aliens to keep food prices down is a false economy. The growing population of the U.S. puts a strain upon its resources, including water and soil; and a strain on the world's environment and resources, including oil and global warming. The whole world pays for this false economy. If we want to help poor foreigners, it is better to send our money to poor countries to improve health and education there and stop spending money on cars and big houses and airplane trips.

They were part of the Roman Empire, the most powerful empire on earth, one of the most desirable cities in the civilized world, with a population of at least 250,000.

Ephesus today is an amazing testament to the engineering and of its Greek and Roman former residents.

And yet, for the past 1,500 years, after river silt destroyed its harbor, Ephesus has remained a dead city. The lessons of the Ephesians, are very practical.

Two thousand years ago, its residents assumed that Ephesus would be teeming with children, merchants and politicians as long as there was a sunrise.

We have to wonder whether in 2,000 years, Venice, Italy, or New Orleans will be like Ephesus today.

Just as the colonists of Ephesus never imagined that their access to the Aegean would go the way of the Hittites, New Orleans' founders never conceived that their descendants would permit the destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands that provided a buffer against nature's wrath.

In many cases, we allow things to happen because of our reluctance to alter course. We could be doing a lot of things to save us from ourselves.

We can't assume, that we can continue to do things as we've always done and still go on forever. That nature won't eventually have her way.

We must consider not only how a product is made but how it is to be used. If we don't start to think more sustainably future generations will see us the way we moderns see Ephesus.  rw   Karen Gaia says - Ephesus was well-situated because it was both a port, close to the water, and had hills to protect it, but the city lost its vital access to the sea due to erosion from nearby farming that silted in the waterways. A growing population meant more food was needed, and therefore more farms, and thus the more the water channel was clogged.

Japanese cited the high cost of raising children and paying for their education as reasons not to have more kids. Japan and Korea have a cultural characteristic in common, they rely on the mother as the main caretaker, instead of viewing childrearing as a responsibility shared by both parents. About 68% of Japanese and Korean moms were the parent caring for a pre-K child, versus 36% of American moms.

In Japan, the practice of keeping workers late into the night is rampant. If you have a job that has limited responsibilities, you might get off at a reasonable hour. But if your career is going anywhere, you're stuck at the office.

Moms with careers keep their kids in day care for 12 hours at a stretch. Others let their careers take a back seat once they have kids. There's roughly 50% of mothers in Japan who are stay-at-home moms.

Japan expects its population to decline in the coming years. In turn, the high ratio of the elderly population is expected to rise.

If Japanese women stay on fertility strike, Japan won't have the workers to remain an economic powerhouse. Japanese companies need to wean themselves off their workaholic habits and create an atmosphere where it's not just acceptable but even macho for fathers to go home to their families at a reasonable hour.  rw   Ralph says: Has anyone thought that eventually it might be better for all if the population declined and society prepared for that eventuality? Karen says: But also better to prepare for the time when a population has declined sufficiently and people need to learn to live a quality life without having to always grow the economy and without having to be workaholics - by getting away from the super consumer pattern.

African leaders have blamed subsidized foreign fleets for helping to accelerate the downturn in the fish supply. EU subsidies artificially increase the profitability for EU ships to fish in African waters. Data was recorded by park rangers from 1970 to 1998 for 41 species of larger mammals at six savanna nature reserves in Ghana. The information was compared with the supply of fish in the region during the same time period. There was a 76% drop in the 41 species studied. At the same time, the supply of fish ranged from 230,000 to 480,000 tons in a year. Years with a lower-than-average supply of fish had higher-than-average declines in land-based wildlife.

Over the next four years they found that the monthly supply of fish was negatively linked to the price of fish and the volume of bushmeat sold. Estimates put the bushmeat trade at 400,000 tons per year but that the figure is almost certainly an underestimate.

Some of Ghana's problems date back to 1982, when the UN established Exclusion Zones that entitled countries to exclusive use of all marine resources 200 miles off their shorelines and Ghanaian fishing boats would have to pay other countries for access to fishing grounds while it is difficult to assess the level of illegal fishing by foreign fleets. Agreements are unusually generous to the foreign fleets. Ghana's fishing sector employs about 20% of the country's labor force, but is rapidly declining.

Ghanaian fishers are generally poorly educated and with few other options for income. Many unemployed fishers have been unable to improve their economic conditions.

Part of the decline could be attributed to overfishing to feed a growing population from 6 million in 1957 to nearly 18 million in 1996. Reforming EU policy will not resolve the problems of diminishing resources in West African nations, but is a solution that can be enacted quickly.

Without intervention, the collapse of resources would result in widespread human poverty and food insecurity.  rw   Ralph says: No mention of action to slow or stop the population growth.