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Though more than two-thirds of the planet is covered with water, only a small fraction'"around 0.3 percent'"is available for human use and reuse. And no more of this renewable fresh water is available today than existed at the dawn of human civilization.  

World population, currently 6.5 billion, is growing by another 76 million people per year. According to the UN the world will add another 2.6 billion people by 2050. Rapid population growth has placed incredible stress on Earth's resources. Global demand for water has tripled since the 1950s, but the supply of fresh drinking water has been declining because of over-pumping and contamination. Half a billion people live in water-stressed or water-scarce countries, and by 2025 that number will grow to three billion. In the last 50 years, cropland has been reduced by 13% and pasture by 4%.   June 2005   U.N.

The Critics – Deconstructed.   Some people point out that there are too many people on this planet and if we don't do something about it there will be big problems in our future. If unchecked, the harmful effects of the increasing human activity will cause sufficient resource depletion and damage to the global ecosystem to cause a dramatic and chaotic die-off of humans and many other species. The harmful effects generated by each individual cannot be expected to be reduced enough to overcome the consumption increases of the projected 50% increase in population, and reduce our harmful down to sustainable levels. The conclusion then is that the only solution is to reduce the number of human beings on the planet. The concept of reducing the number of human beings through population control is repugnant to almost everyone. But it's not how many people the Earth can contain; it's how many people the Earth can sustain. Many people on this planet will increase their average consumption during the coming years. Those in India and China along with the other developing countries - Brazil, Korea, South Africa, etc. If the people of the U.S. decide to reduce their consumption to that of the people of Bangladesh, with a 50% increase in world population, overall harmful impacts would still go up by 12.5%! Some European countries have projected population decreases. But Europe represents only 12% of the world's total population. Europe will actually continue to grow until 2030! There continues to be a population explosion. The United States population will actually end up somewhere north of 450 million by the year 2050. Overpopulation creates global problems. Every person eats, produces waste, uses energy to some degree. The argument for immigration could be meaningful if, for every person added to the U.S. population, a Latin American nation reduced its population correspondingly. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Central America and Mexico are growing at a comparable rate to that of the United States - even after the net effect of immigration. The world-wide population growth continues at an excessive rate. The increasing wealth of nations is accompanied by a fall in fertility, so that in many developed nations, fertility rates have dropped below the replacement value. But, based on new cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of the relationship between the total fertility rate and the human development index, above a certain degree of economic development, fertility once again begins to rise. In contrast to the current popular and scientific debates, it seems likely that countries at the most advanced development stages will face a relatively stable population size, if not an increase in total population. The U. N. makes no claim as to which projection is the most likely to occur. The high variant results in a population over 10 billion in 2050. Many people who have looked at this carefully feel that the actual world population in 2050 will most likely be over 10 billion, and more importantly, that worldwide total fertility rates will remain above replacement levels resulting in an ever increasing population for the remainder of the century. It is very likely that worldwide total fertility rates will not drop below replacement levels anytime in the foreseeable future. Population will likely reach 10 billion or more by mid-century, and it will continue to increase for decades after. Demand for electricity will increase somewhere between three to five times current levels by 2050 due to increasing demand from developing countries, the dramatically growing global population, and substitution of electric power (think automobiles) for dwindling fossil fuels. It is hard to imagine any equation where renewable energy will provide such a great percentage of this massive increase. We now have only 7% of our electricity demands met by the combination of wind, solar and geothermal energy. According to a recent National Geographic article world food production will need to double by 2030. If you consider the negatively trending vectors of water availability, top-soil depletion, fertilizer/fuel depletion, and climate change, it is very hard to see how this can be done. American politics is totally focused on immediate problems - a food crisis that will occur in the 2030's is too far down the road to pay any attention to now. Unfortunately, by the time this problem becomes so obvious that even government starts acting - it will be way, way too late. The brutal reality is this - politicians simply do not have the will to come to our rescue. The increased demand created by the projected 50% increase in worldwide population, cannot change our behaviors by an amount significant enough to forestall the looming catastrophe that is caused by our overconsumption -It can't be done. Just do the math. Therefore, the only solution to bringing the cumulative harmful effects of human activity on this planet into balance with our global ecosystem (and thereby avoiding the die-off) is to reduce the number of human beings on the planet. The concept of some kind of coerced population reduction is repugnant to almost everyone. Emotions run high, and logic is ignored. But the conclusion is true - whether we like it or not. Unfortunately, population-reduction activists are equated to murderers. But no serious scientist, population activist, or environmentalist proposes killing people. The lack of intelligent commentary on the part of The Wall Street Journal in this specific editorial is shameful. If we had far fewer people we will then have a far better educated populace. It is education that leads to innovation, not sheer numbers of people. Under the current circumstances, the millions that will be added to Sierra Leone in the next several decades are unlikely to create the next breakthrough in alternative energy. But if Sierra Leone's population could be stabilized, then they would be likely to experience higher levels of education, and more likely to contribute innovations. The Chinese have created a model for a policy that could solve all of the looming worldwide catastrophes. And if their policy is imperfect, we can work to perfect it. We could certainly use their experiences to create significant improvements that would eliminate most of the consequences that disturb us. The Chinese one-child policy is, in fact, a draconian success story.   Karen Gaia says: to ignore the successes of voluntary family planning is sheer ignorance. No one should push population control until the large unmet need is met, sufficient education has been provided, child marriage is ended, and women are treated more like equals.   May 2010   Population Elephant

More Earthquakes Or Just More People?.   Earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Turkey lead some to wonder if seismic activity is increasing, but seismologists say that improved monitoring and instantaneous news contribute to the sense of more earthquake activity. A bigger factor though is that more people in a more populated world are now living in areas along fault lines. There are 130 cities with populations greater than 1 million, and more than half of those cities are on fault lines. Haiti, with an estimated population of 9 million, has a fertility rate of 3.81, too high to be sustainable. It's estimated there are about 100,000 Haitians living in the United States illegally and another 30,000 who were awaiting deportation at the time of the quake.   May 18, 2010   Californians for Population Stabilization

Bill Berry: Population Bomb Puts Whole World at Risk.   On the epidemiological front, health authorities know the clock is ticking, and one of these days a big bomb is likely to go off. It's pretty clear that the world population of 6.8 billion is way beyond the globe's carrying capacity, and we're flirting with disaster. We've managed to concentrate most of those people in urban environments that are the rough equivalent of the concentrated animal feeding operations that science tells us are breeding grounds for rapidly mutating viruses like swine flu. The late Martin Hanson of Mellen, summed up his position: "There are too many people in the world. It's not sustainable." That was several years ago, when world population was only 6.5 billion. Nelson was one of the few who was quick to claim that world population growth was a crucial issue. He was roundly criticized, even by some friends and political allies, for making the point. Nelson took on immigration when he raised the issue of population. That got touchy for a progressive politician. Still, it's a fact that Mexico's population doubled between 1970 and 2000, which may account for why something like 9 million Mexican citizens today reside in other countries. On the one hand, world birth rates have leveled off somewhat. On the other hand, the Earth's population continues to grow at rates never before seen. About one-fifth of all humans who have lived at any time in the last 6,000 years are currently alive. And by some estimates, about one in three of living human beings is 20 or younger. Population control has been equated with sin by many major religious denominations. Sometimes it seems like the people who get the least amount of compassion in the arguments about life are those who are already living and breathing. Hanson used to maintain that religious leaders who trot about telling people in Third World countries to have more kids are committing heinous crimes. He held politicians who ignore the issue of world population and its strain on limited and finite resources in the same regard. The politicians run from this issue, he used to say, and environmental and conservation leaders dance around it. Hanson and Nelson are gone now, but it's not hard to imagine that in the wake of the swine flu scare, they'd be pointing out that a world with 6.8 billion people is a science experiment waiting to happen.   Karen Gaia says: It's basically true; but my only objection to this article is the reference to the term 'population control', when control is not what it is about; rather voluntarily spacing births and voluntarily limiting one's own family to a healthy (for the family's own well-being) size.   May 12, 2009   Capital Times

Unplanned Births on the Rise in Kenya.   A research by Pathfinder International indicates that more Kenyan families are having unplanned children. Up to one million children born every year in Kenya were accidental. The population has shot to 39 million. Kenya's population had remained low but there was an explosion in the 20th century, the figure is expected to hit 72 million by 2030. The increased birthrates are due to high unmet needs for family planning. With such a high population growth, Kenya's economic growth will worsen due to maternal deaths, lack of jobs, diseases, lack of proper education and infrastructure, linked to the country's incapability to handle the huge population.   April 8, 2010   Capital News Fm

Human Consumption Unsustainable.   Severn Susuki, environmental activist and daughter of Dr. David Susuki, environmentalist has some very important concerns. We consume about 40% percent of Earth's primary productivity. Every day we burn up an amount of energy the planet needed over 27 years to create. The U.S. population constitutes only 5% of world population, but consumes 24% of world's energy. The U.S. is losing 400,000 acres of rural land per year, while urbanized land area increased between 1969 and 1990 at twice the rate of population growth in the same time period. Cities lost 33-50% of their pre-1950 population density, as automobiles became the primary mode of transportation and families moved to the suburbs. The average suburban shopping center takes up as much land as the core center of the city of Florence, Italy. These are only a few of the statistics showing that our current levels of consumption are not sustainable. We cannot continue gobbling up our diminishing oil supplies and rural lands at the rate we have been doing. We need to bring our social, economic and environmental systems back into balance in a way that replenishes them for future generations. Is our city sprawling outward, or is it becoming more compact, walkable and transit oriented? Are we creating convenient transit systems, and mixed-use streetscapes that encourage walking and biking? What percentage of our land use is devoted to neighborhoods where people are within a 10-minute walk of basic necessities? Do city residents have greater access to public parks, plazas, community gardens and urban farms than to parking lots, strip malls and big-box stores? Are we encouraging the use of renewable energy, while reducing the use of carbon-based fuels? "I think this is the most exciting time to be alive in all of human history. In the following months and years, we're going to have to make some big decisions. Whether we make the right decisions or fail to make the decisions, will determine the fate, not only of all human kind, but of countless species of plants and animals. "This is the defining moment, when we will decide whether or not we're going to be a spectacular, flash- in-the-pan failure, or whether we can step up to the plate and show that we are capable of finding humility, compassion, patience and wisdom to truly find a sustainable path."   September 26, 2009   Nipomo Free Press / The Sustainability Project

US California: All This Talk About 'Green' - It's Enough to Turn Ye Puce.   Just about every industry with any exposure to the public is going Green. I like the idea that we should make as small an impact on our environment as we can. I was thinking about the topic of the upcoming meeting with that developer- Being Greener. The first phase had already taken place. They switched to "greener" office products. My eyes were drawn to the gutter where the exact composition of the decaying soggy mass was indiscernible, but I did notice that some of it was turning green. The only thing that will make any impact on reducing man's carbon foot print is more responsible reproductive choices. We cannot make any meaningful difference in the direction of a greener planet if we are unwilling to admit that there will soon be way too many of us for this little planet to support. We have, in fact, already exceeded the support threshold. You can debate global warming until you are blue in the face, but you cannot argue away overpopulation. Each person on earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply. The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged. Population reduction must become a global objective, and yet, birthrates are highest in the countries who can least afford to support them. If we really mean to return the planet to health, we must reduce the number of people dependent upon the resources of this planet to a number that is sustainable. The only humane way to achieve that is through birth control. Of course, we should all still work to reduce our consumption and our emissions. If you really want to make a difference, replace that light bulb, but wait until it burns out. It takes energy to make stuff in the first place, so once it's manufactured, we should do our best to wring every bit of usefulness out of it. Take the immediate savings and ship a box of condoms to India, China, or Latin America. By contributing to an effort to reduce population to sustainable levels, you will make a difference a hundred years from now. We'll talk about something else like bringing our own bags to the market, or composting our food waste, or trading in the SUV for a Hybrid. In the meantime, the worst of Mumbai will be creeping up on all of us. And, that turns me red with rage.   While all this is strictly opinion with no statistics to back it up, sometimes it needs to be said like this. Not everyone is swayed by statistics, but on a more emotional level. The only change I would make is that voluntary birth control, combined with women's empowerment, delaying marriage, and reproductive health care, works a lot better than just birth control.   March 16, 2009   RIS Media (Real Estate Information Systems)

Population: Enough of Us Now.   By 2050 there may be about 35% more people on Earth. We are already seeing shortages of food, water and other resources and growing numbers of hungry people. Yet to embark on any discussion about limiting our numbers is to enter sensitive and controversial territory. Nowadays the key population-related issue is the destructive pressure human activity is exerting on our life-support systems, posing a growing threat to the sustainability of civilisation. Of course, this is not all because of human numbers; it also has to do with how much each of us consumes. Yet many people assume that humanity will manage to support more than 9 billion people in 2050 and beyond. There are only two ways by which population can stop increasing: a falling birth rate or rising death rates. We have already seen a rise in death rates in southern Africa and Russia, and there may be further increases ahead, especially as disruption to the global climate destabilizes agricultural systems. We often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies, they will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even for now, for only one billion people. The environmental deterioration resulting from more people will place the burdens on those least able to cope, as they will be in the poorest nations, where poverty and high birth rates are linked. Yet the priority given to population issues has diminished, yet if population growth continues the problems of development will be "solved" by rises in death rates. Efforts to slow population growth should be treated as a human rights issue. The way to reduce fertility rates involves a shift towards improving the education and status of women, making family planning and safe abortion more widely available. This has to be linked to family health and welfare programmes, to education (especially for girls) and to the opening up of opportunities for women to participate in their nations' economies. Cultural attitudes toward large families need to be changed. It should be considered immoral to have excessive numbers of children. Nothing is more clearly a governmental responsibility than keeping a nation's population size sustainable by benevolent measures. We shouldn't forget the excessive consumption by the rich. Humanity needs to get behind a global discussion of these issues. How to end the growth of the total human population humanely and begin a slow decline in economic growth similar to the one that has so fortunately started in Europe and Japan. If that can be done, a sustainable future for civilisation might be possible.   September 25, 2009   New Scientist

Interview with Albert Bartlett: "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy" – Puzzling Growth Rates.   Albert Bartlet, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has given his lecture Arithmetic, Population, and Energy over 1,600 times since September, 1969. He says that people didn't understand the large numbers that result from steady growth rates. The business of promoters, builders and architects is promoting growth. But growth doesn't pay for itself, not at the community level or national level. The more you grow the greater your debt load. Colorado has had decades of wild and largely uncontrolled growth and is now practically bankrupt. People don't like the constant increases in taxes needed to pay the costs of growth and they vote for tax limitation measures. Then the growth promoters to find ways around these limitations, so the growth continues and the consequent problems escalate rapidly. This happens in California as well as in Colorado. From a book "Better Not Bigger", Eben Fodor wrote that every new house built in Oregon costs the Oregon taxpayer something in the order of $25,000 in costs not paid by taxes on the construction of the home itself. Utilities are now fighting for the right to tax customers for the costs of planning and construction. The investors should be required to bear these responsibilities, and when the plant was finished you could figure the cost into the rate system- so that the people that built it would be reimbursed. State regulators are allowing utilities to charge payers for planning costs- even if it isn't clear that the plants need to be built. This is a perpetual growth promoting situation. Investors need to realize that there's a time to grow, but as some point, any further growth is detrimental. In Bartlett's book titled, "The Essential Exponential for the Future of our Planet," overpopulation raises the number of constituents per elected official, making it harder for individuals to gain access to representatives and have a voice in politics. Also, overpopulation breeds more government regulation to cope with problems caused by population pressure. In the 1990's the US population grew by 13.1%, while the number of members in the House of Representatives didn't grow at all; another way of saying that democracy declined by 13.1%. With the number of constituents per representatives multipling, it's much easier as a politician to take your ideas from the lobbyist who has plenty of money. The terms "sustainable" and "sustainability" are popularly used to describe "activities that are ecologically laudable," but unsustainable. How can the reader decide whether publications are seeking to illuminate or obfuscate? Both smart growth and dumb growth destroy the environment. The only difference is that smart growth destroys the environment with good taste. In Al Gore's book & film, "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore never mentions curbing population growth. This is a silent lie, very discouraging. Those who profit from (uneconomic)growth will use their considerable resources to convince the community that the community should pay the costs of growth. The Tragedy of the Commons relates to things like the world's fisheries a type of "commons". This is tragic for local fishermen who have lived off the oceans for centuries. The economist, Kenneth Boulding, is known for saying "Anyone who thinks that steady growth can continue indefinitely, is either a madman or an economist." Boulding's Three Laws are "The Dismal Theorem" : If the only ultimate check on the growth of population is misery, then the population will grow until it is miserable enough to stop its growth; "The Utterly Dismal Theorem" : any technical improvement can only relieve misery for a while, for so long as misery is the only check on population, the improvement will enable population to grow, and will soon enable more people to live in misery than before. The final result of improvements, therefore, is to increase the equilibrium population which is to increase the total sum of human misery; "The moderately cheerful form of the Dismal Theorem" : If something else, other than misery and starvation, can be found which will keep a prosperous population in check, the population does not have to grow until it is miserable and starves, and it can be stably prosperous. The last US president that worried about population was Richard Nixon. He charted a major study called "The Rockefeller Commission Report." The conclusion was that they couldn't see any benefit to further population growth in the US. The study was put on the shelf and forgotten. Bartlett says that Malthus presents population problems very clearly. Translated to today's problems, Malthus would read something like this: "Population growth has the potential to outstrip the growth in production of any of the resources that are necessary to sustain our population." The notion of many is that science and technology will save us, so why worry about it? A state senator once said to Bartlett, "I'm not worried about running out of petroleum, you (pointing to me) scientists will figure out what ever we need." When asked what was the last new source of energy scientists found, he didn't have an answer. Innovation on the large scale required by our overpopulated society will take time and costs billions of dollars. Newly created jobs in a community temporarily lowers the unemployment rate, but then people move into the community to restore the unemployment rate to its earlier higher value. For years, we have promoted an insane policy of exporting jobs and importing people. Any country that has to import people to do the work of the country is unsustainable. Carrying capacity is a measure of how many people can be supported indefinitely. Sustainability requires that the size of the population be less than or equal to the carrying capacity of the ecosystem for the desired standard of living. Social Security and such projects are Ponzi schemes. They depend on having more and more people paying every year or they collapse. If you change fertility rates it can take 50-70 years before you see the full effects of a change in fertility. This is called population momentum which is a mismatch to our democracy. Politicians implement changes that benefit us in the short term over the long term. David Pimentel, a global agricultural scientist at Cornell University says that a sustainable world population living at current US dietary level would consist of two billion people. Also, he suggests that a sustainable US population at current dietary levels would have to be around 130-150 million people, which is the population of the US around World War II. The key is to make family planning available widely throughout the US and the world - with the goal that every child is a wanted child. With increased growth you have to provide police, fire, schools, waste removal, clean water, and a variety of other infrastructure projects. These services aren't paid for by growth. Schools, for example, get their operating expenses from the taxes and to get capital expenses they have to issue bonds. Thus, all tax payers have to pay higher taxes to accommodate schools for new kids. The solution is to tax growth, put a tax on real estate transactions and use this tax to fund new projects. Economists think of infinite substitutability. They cite the shifting out of whale oil to petroleum or from wood to coal. We already know the substitutes that exist are very costly to access. Growth never pays for itself. Now the federal government is paying for state schools, highways, sewage systems, bridges. This has happened because the local economy can't support local population growth. But inflation is a tax on everyone; if the federal government issues bonds to pay for the consequences of growth (infrastructure, etc) this is likely to result in inflation. Looking at our national debt levels, the inflation could be very severe. The US population growth rate is the highest of any industrial nation.   Karen Gaia says: Prof Bartlett is very good at stating the problem, but needs to expand on the solutions since many people are queasy about the China solution. Bartlett needs to tell how the U.S. lowered its fertility rate from 4.0 in the 1960s, to around 2 in the 1980s - all voluntarily, once modern contraception became available.   January 15, 2009   GuruFocus.com

Falling Fertility.   This article has left out a few important points. See comments below. ... Thomas Malthus forecast in 1798 that population growth would outstrip the world's food supply. But with industrialisation fertility fell sharply, first in France, then in Britain, then throughout Europe and America. When people got richer, families got smaller; and as families got smaller, people got richer. Now fertility is falling in developing countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and parts of India. The fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less - the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called replacement rate of fertility". Between 2020 and 2050 the world's fertility rate is expected to fall below the global replacement rate. From this the author concludes that "Worries about a population explosion are themselves being exploded." The transition from a rate of five to that of two, which took 130 years to happen in Britain - from 1800 to 1930 - took just 20 years - from 1965 to 1985 - in South Korea. Mothers in developing countries now have on average three children. Their mothers had six. In some countries the speed of decline in the fertility rate has been astonishing. In Iran, the fertility rate dropped from seven in 1984 to 1.9 in 2006 - and to just 1.5 in Tehran. For subsistence farmers, who risk falling victim to drought, a family of eight may be the only insurance against disaster. If you have a generation or two in which fertility is neither too high nor too low and in which there are few dependent children, few dependent grandparents - and a bulge of adults in the middle - you have the recipe for economic opportunity. Malthus's heirs say there are too many people for the Earth's fragile ecosystems. It is time to stop - and ideally reverse - the population increase. To celebrate falling fertility is like congratulating the captain of the Titanic on heading towards the iceberg more slowly. If the poor copy the pattern of wealth creation that made Europe and America rich, they will eat up as many resources as the Americans do, with grim consequences for the planet. In principle, there are three ways of limiting human environmental impacts: through population policy, technology and governance. The first of those does not offer much scope. Population growth is already slowing almost as fast as it naturally could. Only Chinese-style coercion would bring it down much below that. Mankind needs to develop more and cheaper technologies that can enable people to enjoy the fruits of economic growth without destroying the planet's natural capital.   Karen Gaia says: this is a very ignorant article. It ignores that many countries are 'stuck' at a fertility rate of 3 due to male preference, which in turn is due to lack of women's empowerment. Many of these countries still have child marriages which has a double whammy: women have no status, and the other factor of population growth comes into play: more generations alive at the same time. The article says nothing about unintended pregnancies, which shows that women are not getting enough in the way of family planning methods. Furthermore, if a farmer has 8 children who survive, 6 of them will be forced to leave the family farm, which cannot support so many. This is already happening in many poor countries in the world today. And finally, the fertility rate of the U.S. in the 1960s was a whopping 4.0, and then fell quickly due to the introduction of modern contraception.   October 29, 2009   Economist

U.S.: Southeast Drought Study Ties Water Shortage to Population, Not Global Warming.   Research from Columbia University shows that the 2005 - 2007 drought in the Southeast resulted from random weather events, not global warming, and its severe water shortages resulted from population growth more than rainfall patterns. The population of Georgia alone rose to 9.54 million in 2007 from 6.48 million in 1990. Richard Seager, a climate expert at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said "our conclusion was this drought was pretty normal and pretty typical by standards of what has happened in the region over the century". Similar weather patterns can be expected regularly in the future, with similar results. Although the 2005-7 drought was the worst in the region since the 1950s, there have been worse droughts before. Some climate models developed suggest that the Southeast will be wetter in a warming world. But it would be unwise to view climate change as a potential solution to future water shortages. As the region's temperature rises, there may be more rain, they wrote, but evaporation will increase, possibly leaving the area drier than ever. Creating greater water storage capacity could mitigate drought effects in areas where population was rising. "If you have more people and the same amount of water storage, you are going to increase the impact of droughts."   October 1, 2009   New York Times*

Population Debate in the Economist - Online .   John Seager of Population Connection and Michael Lind, Policy Director, Economic Growth/Next Social Contract Programme, New America Foundation, debate overpopulation. Readers join in with their own thoughts. Follow the link to sign up and vote on this issue.   August 2009  

Malaysia: What Happens When the Birth Rate Falls.   In Europe and in Asian countries like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Singapore there are more old people than babies being born. In Russia, birth rates are so low and death rates so high that the country could lose a third of its people in the next 40 years. In Malaysia the birth rate is 2.2 babies per couple compared with Hong Kong (0.9), Korea (1.08), Taiwan (1.1) and Japan (1.2). But if the replacement level is not kept at two children per family, the country could be heading the same way. With people living longer these days, there could soon be more people over 58 years of age in the population, who would not contribute economically to the nation's gross national product. And there is the healthcare of its senior citizens to pay for, which will cost the taxpayers a lot of money. Intervention programmes have not been fruitful - birth rates remain low in Singapore, Japan, France, Hungary and the Scandinavian countries where financial incentives for marriage and childbearing. Where you see an increase in education for women, the number of children goes down. "Women stay longer in schools, and when they work, they marry later and have less time for childbirth." On the other hand, it is economically beneficial to have a smaller family, especially if you want to educate them. A smaller family is easier to manage.   Karen Gaia says: the benefits of having smaller families far outweigh the disadvantages. The biggest benefit is that there are more resources, like water, arable land, and food, per person.   July 26, 2009   New Straits Times

Hey, You're Standing on My Foot! the U.S. Population is Projected to Reach 400 Million by 2043.   If the U.S. population, now approximately 300 million, were to keep increasing at the current rate, we'll reach 400 million by 2043. "Population growth is the ever expanding denominator that gives each person a shrinking share of the resource pie," Lester Brown of the Earth Policy says. "It contributes to water shortages, cropland conversion to non-farm uses, traffic congestion, more garbage, overfishing, a growing dependence on imported oil and other conditions that diminish the quality of our daily lives." In other developed countries, populations have either slightly dropped or stayed constant. "It may be time for the United States to establish a national population policy, one that would lead toward population stabilization sooner rather than later," Brown says. It may be important to switch the focus toward population stabilization and then decide how to stretch the resources among society.   June 2009   Mother Earth News

The Population Bomb Revisited.   by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich The Population Bomb was written over forty years ago and sold some 2 million copies, launching worldwide debate that continues today. Fundamental is the issue of the Earth's finite capacity to sustain human civilization. Despite its flaws, the book still provides a useful lens for viewing the environmental, energy, and food crisis of the present time. The Erlich's original title was Population, Resources, and Environment. It was listed by the Intercollegiate Review as one of the fifty worst books of the 20th century, along with John Kenneth Gailbraith's The Affluent Society, John Maynard Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, and John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. The book's main message - that it can be a very bad thing to have more than a certain number of people alive at the same time, that Earth has a finite carrying capacity - produced a negative response from both the far right and the far left. The far left saw the basic issue not as overpopulation but as maldistribution of resources and worried that the far right would use overpopulation as an excuse to promote births of only the "right kind" - as was demonstrated by the eugenics movement. Conservatives didn't like the idea that population size was a legitimate area for government intervention. The unwillingness of the vast majority of people to do simple math and take seriously the problems of exponential growth is perhaps the biggest barrier to acceptance of the central arguments of The Bomb. A professor of business administration, Julian Simon claimed in 1994: "We now have in our hands - in our libraries, really - the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years." At the 1.4% rate the world population was growing at that time, it would only take some 6000 years for the mass of the human population to equal the mass of the universe. Nicholas Eberstadt called people the "wealth of modern societies." Given the growing scarcity of natural resources, population growth normally reduces per capita genuine wealth, and can even shrink a nation's total wealth. If wealth were a function of population size, China and India each would be three to four times as rich as the United States and more affluent than all the nations of Europe combined, Africa's wealth would outstrip that of North America or Europe, and Yemen would be three times as well off as Israel. The world population has nearly doubled since The Bomb was first printed, from 3.5 billion to 6.7 billion today. Despite this growth, there have been some remarkable advances - birthrates have dropped in most of the world, partly in response to government- sponsored programs in education, giving women job opportunities, making contraceptive information and materials accessible - and to economic factors. While most developed nations have matched their high consumption rates with their low birth rates, the United States is both a center of overconsumption and has a relatively high birthrate (average family size about 2.1 children, compared with 1.4 in Italy and Spain and 1.3 in Germany and Japan) as well as a high immigration rate. The majority of developing countries have adopted family planning programs, and many have substantially reduced their birthrates as the perception of children as valued farm labor has changed with urbanization to one in which children do not join the labor force early and are expensive to educate. Thus the central goal of The Population Bomb, to encourage the adoption of policies that would gradually reduce birthrates and eventually start a global decline toward a human population size that is sustainable in the long run, has been partially achieved. Rather than doubling the population in 35 years, as continued growth at the 1968 rate would have done, we may not reach that level - 7 billion - until 2013, 45 years later. However, humanity may add some 2.5 billion people to the population before growth stops. In the meantime, the more arable soils have been eroded away or paved over, and societies are increasingly forced to turn to marginal land to grow more food. Instead of extracting rich ores on or near the surface, deeper and much poorer deposits must be mined and smelted today, at ever-greater environmental cost. Water and petroleum must come from lower quality sources, and must be transported over longer distances. This article is well worth reading. Please follow the link above to read the entire thing.   July 2009   Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development

Just Relax and Enjoy it.   Enjoy your favorite gas-guzzling car because there is no conceivable way that 6 billion people - soon growing to 12 billion and then who knows how many--are ever going to be able to drive BMWs and live in the fabulous stucco eyesores that we in the industrialized world now enjoy. So enjoy it while you can. We are all sitting on the poop deck of the Titanic, arguing about whether the deck chairs are made from sustainable hemp fibers or petroleum-based polyester. If you really want to make a difference, the only thing you can do--the only thing--is to dedicate the rest of your life to population control as if the earth depended on it. Population control is ultimately the only thing that's going to save us, our kids and our kids' kids.   Karen Gaia says: The good thing about this article is that the author recognizes that population is a problem. However ... 1) It is 9 billion, possibly 10 billion, but unlikely 12 billion, that is considered the max population to be reached in 2050 - as calculated by the U.N. .. 2) Population control?? Ouch!! The best success we have had is with voluntary family planning - people chose the size of the family they want, without pressure - like we did in the U.S. ... 3) We can make a difference in our per capita footprint on the earth. In fact, better to do it now, while we can make a difference for the future and our children's lives, than have nature do it for us, with a sadder future for our children. We can start by conserving oil for important things like fertilizer and plastics.   June 17, 2009   Autoweek

June 7th - Non-Mother's Day.   This special day was established in 1996 to call attention to the "population explosion"---it is celebrated between Mother's Day and Father's Day on the first Sunday in June. If you have not added to the "people glut" compliments---celebrate. It took over 2 million years for our species to reach it's first billion in 1830. It then took only 100 years to add the second billion in 1930. Since then we have "exploded" to 6.7 billion. All species which increase exponentially modify and contaminate their habitat which is followed by an exponential decrease (deaths) in numbers as their waste builds up. We are on the verge of a population collapse----read Jared Diamond's book entitled "Collapse". The Los Angeles megalopolis is in my opinion unfit for human habitation---if you disagree, move back there. Recent data indicates that life expectancy is decreasing for people living in L.A.. The air is often unfit to breathe, the ground water is becoming depleted and contaminated; food and water must be brought in from all over. Sewage pours out to contaminate the ocean. In biology it is called a 'sink'. One hundred Nobel Prize winners, along with 1,500 scientists world wide issued a paper called "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" that stated: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course." It listed ozone depletion, air pollution, lack of fresh water, contamination of ground water, damage to farmlands, global warming, deforestation, invasive exotics, wetland loss and population growth as the greatest dangers. "The earth is finite," the report said, "pressure from unrestrained population growth puts demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any effort to achieve a sustainable future." We must first put our own house in order. The US is the fastest growing industrialized nation in the world adding 3,000,000 each year. This figure is greater than all other developed nations in the world combined. Immigration accounts for 60% of our population growth and if present trends continue will account for 90% of future growth. A great deal of this immigration comes from Mexico where the birth rate is five times the death rate and where they are doing very little to reduce their high birth rate. Free vasectomies should be provided at the border and required for all illegal immigrants. Free condom vending machines should be placed in all rest rooms. Teenage pregnancy in the U.S. is the highest of all the developed countries---particularly in Santa Maria. We need more sex education including all methods of contraception. Sixty percent of pregnancies in the US are unplanned and unintended. Planned Parenthood is essentially the only source of contraception locally as all hospitals are Catholic controlled. Abortion should be available for as back up for contraception failure. Human life should not be the result of "accidents". Each day we read of child abuse, abandonment, assault and even murder----unwanted babies. Non-Mothers Day, June 7th, is to educate young women that motherhood is just one of many choices of what they do with their lives. Other potential choices are: firefighter, Senator, truck driver, lawyer, Supervisor, computer expert, doctor, road crew or corporate CEO. High schools have classes where girls carry a baby doll which act like a real baby (cry at 2 AM) which is very educational. Non-mothers make up over 20% of the American female population and even higher in Europe. Non-Mother's Day, June 7th, is a day set aside to honor these women, call attention to the 'population explosion', to encourage males to get a vasectomy, to add "reproduction" to the other "R's" and to encourage contraceptive use thus reducing "accidents". Every human has a basic right to be born planned, wanted and loved .   June 7, 2009   Bill Dennen

Family Planning and the Path to Progress.   Obama pledged to restore the money while signing an order reversing a move by Bush that banned American government aid for family-planning organizations that, promoted or conducted abortions. Sixty percent of people living in poverty are women. Two-thirds of the 960 million illiterate adults are women. Seventy percent of children out of school are girls. Women are the givers and keepers of life. A cofounder of Friends of the UNFPA, was elated to see the Global Gag Rule gone and to see President Obama's statement of support. As of 2009, our movement, (begun in 2002 when the Bush Administration refused to release $34 million) asking at least one dollar from 34 million Americans, has garnered $4,000,000. The money has permitted UNFPA to increase its support for family planning, to train doctors and midwives, save women's lives in childbirth, repair obstetric fistulas, discouraged forced early marriage, and to educate adolescents about AIDS. By 2050 the world's population is expected to rise to nine billion people, all of whom will be seeking food, water, and other resources. This growth in population will exacerbate every environmental and humanitarian crisis we face today. Gender inequality is at the base of population and environmental issues. Hillary Clinton stated: Of particular concern is the plight of women and girls who comprise the majority of the world's unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. UNFPA offers the family planning that allows women to choose if and when have children. In the world there is a vast unmet demand for family planning, that can mitigate the worst of humanitarian and environmental crises.   January 24, 2009   New York Times*

Worst Environmental Problem? Overpopulation, Experts Say.   Overpopulation is the world's top environmental issue, according to a survey of the faculty at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). "Overpopulation is the only problem," said Dr. Charles A. Hall, a systems ecologist. "If we had 100 million people on Earth - or better, 10 million - no others would be a problem." Current estimates put the planet's population at more than six billion. Other faculty at ESF said: "Overpopulation means that we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than we should, just because more people are doing it and this is related to overconsumption by people in general, especially in the 'developed' world." "But, whether developed or developing, everyone is encouraged to 'want' and perceive that they 'need' to consume beyond the planet's ability to provide." Climate change was cited as the second most-pressing issue, with the need to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels coming in third. Rounding out the top 10 issues on the ESF list are overconsumption, the need for more sustainable practices worldwide, the growing need for energy conservation, the need for humans to see themselves as part of the global ecosystem, overall carbon dioxide emissions, the need to develop ways to produce consumer products from renewable resources, and dwindling fresh water resources.   April 20, 2009   ScienceDaily

U.K.: Population Growth Not Climate Change is the Real Danger.   Britain hosts the G20, the annual get-together of the world's richest nations. Topics include the current economic crisis, international development and climate change. But the most serious problem facing the world today - overpopulation - will not be on the agenda. Overpopulation has been described as the "elephant in the room", the one issue world leaders refuse to discuss. But it's high time they did. Professor John Beddington, warns that a "perfect storm" will occur in 2030, with simultaneous shortages of energy, food and fresh water devastating an overpopulated planet. Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the world's population leaps to 8.3 billion. There will be those who argue that we've heard such doom-laden predictions before. But this time the warnings come from the World Bank, the International Energy Authority and the United Nations Environment Programme, which predicts widespread water shortages across Africa, Europe and Asia by 2025. Population is rising by six million a month and is totally unsustainable. Put simply, there won't be enough food, water and energy to go round. But instead of getting to grips with the most serious environmental problem we face, politicians prefer to concentrate on climate change. This gives them an excuse to introduce new "green" taxes and the chance to fine us for putting the wrong sort of rubbish out on the wrong day of the week. But to tackle global warming without addressing the underlying problem of overpopulation is like prescribing Alka-Selzter to a patient with a serious drink problem. Political correctness plays its part in politicians' reluctance to discuss overpopulation. Population growth is fastest in developing countries. In developed countries it is immigrant groups and ethnic minorities whose numbers are growing fastest. Seeking to control population growth is construed by some as racist. But if we really cared about the Third World we would be championing internationally agreed controls [I would substitute the word 'programs' for 'controls'. It is all voluntary ..Karen Gaia] as overpopulation is the root cause of many of the problems affecting poorer countries. The UK population, fuelled by immigration, has risen by over two million since Labour came to power in 1997 to about 61 million. The surge in population has led to transport and public services coming under increasing strain while the Green Belt is under serious threat due to this Government's commitment to build three million new houses to cater for the rising head count. The Government seems perfectly relaxed for the numbers to carry on rising. The UK population is projected to rise by 10 million by 2030 and 77 million in 2050. It will reach 100 million before the end of the century, passing 200 million soon after 2200. Yet anybody who calls for action to stabilise or reduce this trend runs the risk of being labelled a racist. Politicians, seem unwilling to state the simple truth that Britain, like the world in general, is overcrowded. Overpopulation is one of the gravest problems which confront us. Our basic problem is whether the human race, expanding as rapidly as it is doing now, can survive in any decent condition, commented Aldous Huxley 50 years ago. Wise words which the leaders meeting at the G20 summit would do well to heed.   Karen Gaia says: Using words like 'population control' gives the wrong impression. In 1994 the Cairo Convention agreed on voluntary family planning. This has worked well, like it has in the U.S. since the 1960s. There is no 'control' about it.   March 25, 2009   The Express

Population: the Elephant in the Room.   Uncontrolled population growth threatens to undermine efforts to save the planet, and the environmental movement must stop running scared of this controversial topic. The size and growth of the human population has a profound impact on all life on Earth, yet for decades it has been conspicuously absent from public debate. Most natural scientists agree the need to address population has become desperate. Yet many environmentalists avoid the subject, a few objecting strongly to any focus on our numbers. Some activists insist acting to influence population growth infringes on human rights. There have been past abuses in the name of "population control". We can learn from past abuses, reducing the likelihood of fresh problems arising in the future. Today, those working on population issues recognise that the methods with the best track records of reducing population growth are respectful and promoting human rights. They include educating girls and women in developing countries and using media strategies to make them aware of alternatives regarding family sizes and family planning. Those who oppose talking about the world's population are obstructing the further provision of such services and resources. We need to ask what is the greater threat to human welfare: the possibility that humane efforts to address population growth might be abused, or our ongoing failure to act to prevent hundreds of millions, even billions, dying as a result of global ecological collapse? We have overshot the Earth's carrying capacity. Our inability to live as we do, at our current numbers, without causing pervasive environmental degradation is the very definition of carrying capacity overshoot. Overshoot is followed by population decline. As we have learned this manifests itself initially with a crash. For humanity, this portends a potential cataclysm. Our chance to avert such an outcome depends on our ability to address our numbers before nature reduces them. There's no other way out, reducing per capita consumption, won't do it. We must bring population back to the centre of public discussion. We need to break through the taboo to encourage all those with relevant expertise to speak out on the subject loudly and often. Many recognise the urgency with which we need to halt the human-caused degradation of Earth's natural environment. Can we break down a taboo that has for years blocked the path toward that goal?   March 2009   BBC News

The Population Debate is Screwed Up.   According to the combatants, population growth is either the biggest problem facing humanity, or it is a non-issue. An argument that has raged for decades. At one extreme: "Overpopulation" is the root cause of environmental problems and calls for "vigorous population control." In 1968, for example, Paul Ehrlich warned that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s and over the years, that chorus has included a diverse array, including feminists, neoclassical economists, Marxists and the religious right. For some population denial springs from legitimate fears that the Malthusians will trample human rights in their pursuit of lower birthrates, or that a focus on population growth will distract us from bigger issues, like inequality and unsustainable consumption. The fact is, we now have a much more sophisticated understanding of population dynamics and their environmental impact than we did in 1968. While the rate of population growth has slowed in most parts of the world, rapid growth is hardly a thing of the past. Our numbers still increase by 75 million to 80 million every year, the equivalent of adding another U.S. to the world every four years or so. We know that a certain amount of future growth is inevitable. But choices made and services available today will determine whether human numbers climb to 8 to 11 billion by midcentury. Population growth has an impact on the environment, but that impact is shaped by technology, consumption patterns, economic policies and political choices. The industrialized countries use about 32 times the resources and emit 32 times as much waste as our counterparts in the developing world. Still, we all share an inalienable right to food, water, shelter and the makings of a good life. It becomes clear that it would be easier to provide a good life for 8 billion rather than 11 billion people. Slowing population growth is one of the things we must do to address the current environmental crisis. For example an analysis of climate studies shows that slower population growth could make a significant contribution to solving the climate problem. Stabilizing world population at 8 billion, rather than 9 billion or more, would reduce emissions. Continued reliance on fossil fuels could easily overwhelm the carbon reductions from slower growth. Changing our systems of production and consumption must be the top priority. Slowing population growth will require rethinking development, trade and economic policies. But slower population growth could help give us a fighting chance to meet these challenges. And it could give a chance to make investments in education, health care and sustainable economic development. We now know that the best way to slow population growth is by ensuring that all people are able to make real choices about sexuality and reproduction. That means access to voluntary family planning and other reproductive-health information and services. It means education and employment opportunities, especially for women. And it means tackling the deep inequities that prevent people from making meaningful choices about childbearing. The developed countries' share of the cost to provide reproductive health services for every woman on earth is $20 billion. It's time to have a new conversation about population and the environment, that is a shared commitment to environmental sustainability, human rights and social justice.   Karen Gaia says: it should be alarming to all that we are adding another U.S. to the world every four years or so. Common sense tells us that available resources cannot keep sustaining such a fast growing population.   March 28, 2009   Alternet

UK Population Must Fall to 30 Million, Says Porritt.   One of Gordon Brown's leading green advisers is to warn that Britain must reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society. Research suggests that UK population must be cut to 30 million if the country wants to feed itself sustainably. Population and economic growth is putting the world under terrible pressure. Each person in Britain has more impact on the environment than those in developing countries. Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems. The issues including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups. Humanity was emitting the equivalent of 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and we have to cut this by 80%, and population growth is going to make that much harder. Such views on population have split the green movement. A prominent writer on green issues has criticised population campaigners, arguing that economic growth is a greater threat. Many experts believe that Europeans and Americans have a lopsided impact on the environment, and the world would benefit more from reducing their populations rather than in developing countries. This is part of the thinking behind the call for Britain to cut population to 30m, roughly what it was in late Victorian times. Britain's population is expected to grow from 61 million now to 71 million by 2031. Some politicians support a reduction. Government and Conservative spokesmen this weekend both distanced themselves from any population policy.   Times Online

U.S.: Chesapeake Bay is Still Hurting.   There was little good news in the 2006 Assessment put out by the Chesapeake Bay Program. The report found degraded water quality, a decline in the blue crab population, contaminated rivers and huge losses in bay grasses. The University of Maryland offered a river-by-river report card for water clarity, dissolved oxygen levels and quality of life for small clams and worms. The results were equally dismal. The flush tax, which former Gov. Ehrlich Jr. signed into law in 2004, is expected to raise about $65 million a year to upgrade sewage treatment plants to reduce pollution. Dozens of scientists in the region are studying the bay's creatures and looking at ways to help them thrive in an increasingly toxic environment. Many said they have grown weary of hearing the same gloomy assessments of the bay's health. The VP of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said state and federal officials have long known what to do but have not the political will to do it. State leaders should be working to secure federal aid for the bay. Agriculture is the 800-pound gorilla when you're looking at nutrient pollution, but population growth is the 8,000-pound gorilla waiting in the wings.   April 20, 2007   Baltimore Sun

Malawi: Preserving Lake Chilwa Wetland for the Future.   Lake Chilwa Wetland is a land of wealth. Now it is challenging humans to learn to live in harmony with it for their own sustainable good. It has been owned, managed and mismanaged by the surrounding communities for hundreds of years. Now the wetland helps to elevate Malawi's environmental profile and challenges the surrounding communities to take a greater responsibility in managing the resource. Lake Chilwa Wetland joins 480 other biosphere reserves in over 100 countries in the world. The core objective is to promote the relationship between people and their environment. The wetlands support a rich variety of species of plants, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates. Wetlands contribute to the maintenance of the water cycle and reduce the risk of flooding and damage caused by flood erosion. A large percentage of the water in wetlands feed boreholes, wells, irrigation waterways and rivers during dry seasons. Sediments settle in the wetlands instead of being transported to rivers and oceans and form fertile grounds for crop production. Wetlands allow penetration of sunlight and seasonal warming, hence the high productivity because photosynthesis takes place. There are large amounts of carbons trapped in wetland ecosystems that help to regulate global climatic changes. This richness has demanded protection of wetlands, with a view to sustain man's livelihood. The people living in the Lake Chilwa basin and the wetland itself cannot survive without this resource. But communities have over-exploited and threatened the existence of plant and animal life in the wetland. The traditional leaders have been trying to control their subjects on the use of the wetland resources, fish and forest products in particular. But their efforts have been uncoordinated and ineffective and have not successfully checked some harmful activities by communities that rely on the wetland and the lake as source of food and livelihood. They have not been able to appreciate that natural resources need to be used economically to sustain the supplies. The Malawi Growth and Development Strategy sees conservation of natural resources as a crucial component in the achievement of sustained economic growth and development objectives for the country. The entire Lake Chilwa wetland is approximately 2,400 square kilometres and cover marshes, swamps, grasslands, floodplain, the lake itself, the island of Chisi and five main inlet rivers. The lake is about 5 metres deep on average and experiences irregular water salinity and levels. An estimated 1 million people live in the Lake Chilwa basin. About 80,000 are in the actual wetland. The lake is a deciduous forest region with a vibrant floral life. The forest has some of the oldest woodlands that are home to survivors of the primordial vegetation. Bird diversity has stimulated a significant bird hunting industry valued at US$ 64,285 in money returns annually. Lake Chilwa has over 25 species of fish. An annual fish harvest can amount to 25,000 tonnes, representing 20 percent of all the fish catch for the country in a year. The wetland is a prime animal and crop husbandry area. About 240 square kilometres of it is under rice, banana, maize, sugarcane and vegetable cultivation. Wetland forests are targeted for fuel wood that is used in fish smoking. About 6,500 tonnes of wood are reported to be disappearing from the forests every year. The growing population in the area has led to increased uncontrolled use of the forests for building materials and domestic consumption. Besides overgrazing, the communities have been setting fires on the bushes during hunting. This has scared away some birds and other animals. The degradation within the wetland and upland has caused depletion of soil fertility and accelerated heavy soil erosion. In 1995, the lake and its wetland also dried up completely and caused human suffering, which illustrates how important the resource is to people's lives. The declaration of Lake Chilwa Wetland as a biosphere reserve is to encourage the communities to appreciate the value and use of the resources responsibly for their own sustainable benefit.   December 27, 2007   Malawi's Daily Times

Center for Biological Diversity Announces Support for Global Population Speak Out.   The Center for Biological Diversity supports a collaborative effort to highlight overpopulation in efforts to restore the planet's ecological health. For many years human population size and growth has been the elephant in the room. Overpopulation is at the root of virtually all of the ecological threats facing our planet. Species extinction, pollution, resource depletion, and climate change can all be traced back to unsustainable population growth. The Center has won protection for more than 350 species and hundreds of millions of acres of habitat. But that could be overwhelmed as too many people compete for too few resources and create too many burdens for ecosystems. The correlation between human population growth and species extinction has been clearly documented. Humans use up to 40% of the world's Net Primary Productivity, a measure of energy from the sun that is converted into life-sustaining resources by photosynthesis. A range of extinctions can be tied directly to the energy, housing, food, and other resource demands of our population. The extinction crisis threatens to grow exponentially with climate change, and energy demands of a rapidly growing global populace.   February 26, 2009   Center for Biological Diversity

The Bottleneck.   The 20th century was a time of scientific and technical advance, and the spread of democracy and human rights throughout the world. It was also an age of world wars, genocide, and totalitarian ideologies. Humanity managed to decimate the natural environment and the nonrenewable resources of the planet. We may be ready to settle down before we wreck the planet. Our leading economists and philosophers have ignored the numbers that count. With the global population on its way to eight billion by midcentury, per capita freshwater and arable land are descending to risky levels. The average amount of productive land appropriated by each person is about one hectare (2.5 acres) in developing nations but about 9.6 hectares (24 acres) in the U.S. The footprint for the total human population is 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres). For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths. The five billion people of the developing countries in trying to achieve a decent standard of living, have joined the industrial world in erasing the last of the natural environments. Homo sapiens has become the first species to attain that distinction. We have driven atmospheric carbon dioxide to the highest levels in 200,000 years, unbalanced the nitrogen cycle, and contributed to global warming. Now science and technology must see us through the bottleneck. The cornucopian economist is focused on production and consumption. The economist's thinking is based on rational choice, and his parameters are the gross domestic product, trade balance, and competitive index. The planet, he insists, is perpetually fruitful and still underutilized. The ecologist is focused on unsustainable crop yields, overdrawn aquifers, and threatened ecosystems. His voice is also heard, albeit faintly. The planet, he insists, is exhausted and in trouble. The Economist admits there are environmental problems, but says they can be solved. Around the world, manufacture and the service economy are growing geometrically. Even though the world population has increased at 1.8% per year during the same period, cereal production has risen from 275 kilograms per head in the early 1950s to 370 kilograms by the 1980s. The forests of the developed countries are now regenerating as fast as they are being cleared, or nearly so. Literacy rates are climbing, and with them the liberation and empowerment of women. Democracy is spreading country by country. Human ingenuity has always found a way to accommodate rising populations and allow most to prosper. We have turned a wild and inhospitable world into a garden. Human dominance is Earth's destiny. The harmful perturbations we have caused can be moderated and reversed as we go along. The Environmentalist says the human condition has improved dramatically in many ways. But humanity has created an economy-driven paradise. It should be obvious that Earth is finite and its environment increasingly brittle. A new breed of analysts argues that we can no longer afford to ignore the dependency of the economy and social progress on the environmental resource base. A country that levels its forests, drains its aquifers, and washes its topsoil downriver is a country traveling blind. If natural resources, particularly freshwater and arable land, continue to diminish at their present rate, the economic boom will lose steam. The appropriation of productive land is too large for the planet to sustain, and it's growing larger. The human population exceeded Earth's sustainable capacity around the year 1978. By 2000 it had overshot by 1.4 times that capacity. Earth has lost its ability to regenerate--unless global consumption is reduced or global production is increased, or both. The environmentalist view is spreading. In a realistically reported and managed economy, the conventional gross national product (GNP) will be replaced by the more comprehensive genuine progress indicator (GPI), which includes estimates of environmental costs of economic activity. In 1999, the world population reached six billion and has climbed at an annual rate of 1.4%, adding 200,000 people each day or the equivalent of the population of a large city each week. This means that people born in 1950 were the first to see the human population double in their lifetime, from 2.5 billion to over six billion now. By the end of the century some relief was in sight. The worldwide average number of children per woman fell from 4.3 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000. The number required to attain zero population growth is 2.1 When the number of children per woman stays above 2.1 even slightly, the population still expands exponentially. Anything above zero population growth cannot be sustained. To breed in excess is to overload the planet. The decline in global population is attributable to three interlocking social forces: the globalization of an economy driven by science and technology, the implosion of rural populations into cities, and, the empowerment of women. The freeing of women results in fewer children. Reduced reproduction by female choice can be a miraculous gift of human nature to future generations. Social commentators often remark that humanity is endangered by its own instincts, such as tribalism, aggression, and personal greed. Demographers of the future will point out that humanity was saved by this one quirk in the maternal instinct. The global trend toward smaller families, if it continues, will eventually halt population growth and then reverse it. What will be the peak, and when will it occur? The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs released a spread of projections to the year 2050 that ranged from 7.3 billion to 14.4 billion, with the most likely scenario between 9 and 10 billion. Population control by developing countries comes not a moment too soon. The environmental fate of the world lies ultimately in their hands. They account for virtually all global population growth, and their drive toward higher per capita consumption will be relentless. The people of the developing countries are younger than those in the industrial countries. A country with largely young children and adolescents is strained to provide health services and education. Its cheap, unskilled labor can be turned to some economic advantage but also provides for ethnic strife and war. As the populations continue to explode and water and arable land grow scarcer, the industrial countries will feel their pressure in the form of many more desperate immigrants and the risk of spreading international terrorism. How many people can the planet support? Either the industrialized populations move to a more vegetarian diet, or the agricultural yield of productive land worldwide is increased by more than 50%. If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people. Petroleum reserves might be converted into food, until they are exhausted. Fusion energy could conceivably be used to create light, whose energy would power photosynthesis, ramp up plant growth and create more food. Surely these are not frontiers we will wish to explore in order simply to continue our reproductive folly. The People's Republic of China is thought likely to creep to 1.6 billion by 2030. The bulk of this increase is crammed into the basins of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, covering an area about equal to that of the eastern U.S. Today China and the U.S. are the two leading grain producers of the world. But China's huge population is on the verge of consuming more than it can produce. China will need to import 175 million tons of grain annually by 2025. By 2030, the annual level is 200 million tons--the entire amount of grain exported annually in the world at the present time. Any slack in China's production may be picked up by the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, and the European Union. With existing agricultural capacity this output does not seem likely to increase to any significant degree. China relies heavily on irrigation. Irrigation and withdrawals for domestic and industrial use have depleted the northern basins. The groundwater of the northern plains has dropped by an average rate of 1.5 meters (five feet) per year by the mid-1990s. Between 1965 and 1995 the water table fell 37 meters (121 feet) beneath Beijing itself. Faced with chronic water shortages the Chinese government has undertaken the building of the Xiaolangdi Dam. Plans include the construction of canals to siphon water from the Yangtze, which never grows dry, to the Yellow River and Beijing, respectively. These measures may or may not suffice to maintain Chinese agriculture and economic growth. The fundamental problem is that China has too many people. Their water requirements, are rising steeply. Of China's 617 cities, 300 face water shortages. As industrialization proceeds, per capita income rises, and the populace consumes more food. They also migrate up the energy pyramid to meat and dairy products. In theory, China can purchase from the Big Five grain-surplus nations. Unfortunately, its population is too large and the world surplus too restrictive for it to solve its problem without altering the world market. Over 80% of China's rivers no longer support fish. The Yellow River is dead along much of its course, so fouled with toxins as to be unfit for human consumption or irrigation. If China solves its problems, the lessons can be applied elsewhere, including the U.S. Earth, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on the conditions on which life is sustainable. The soil, water, and atmosphere have evolved to their present condition by the activity of a complex layer of living creatures whose activities are locked together in global cycles of energy and transformed organic matter. When we destroy ecosystems and extinguish species, we threaten our own existence. The natural environment was our cradle and nursery, our school, and remains our one and only home. To select values for the distant future of the whole planet also is relatively easy. To combine the two visions to create a universal environmental ethic is, on the other hand, very difficult. But combine them we must, because a universal environmental ethic is the only guide by which humanity and the rest of life can be safely conducted through the bottleneck into which our species has foolishly blundered.   February 2002   Scientific American

The Time to Act is Now.   Much has been said and written about the standards for the management of elephants in South Africa. Managers of these areas can manage elephant populations according to the approved management plan for the land. This has culling as a last resort in the management of elephant populations. Many see this as the only way to regulate elephant numbers. Many see culling as murder, based on emotions and lacks a thorough study of the implications of rapidly increasing elephant populations. Wildlife managers want to regulate numbers of animals to sustain biodiversity. This cannot happen in a system dominated by a species with the destructive potential of elephants when occurring at high density and contained within an area. Many maintain that elephants and man can co-exist harmoniously. Rural populations in many African countries who share their living space with elephants outside of protected areas plead to be rid of the elephants. Governments such as Mozambique have adopted a policy that all damage-causing animals and particularly elephants are to be destroyed and are training professional hunters to deal with damage- causing pachyderms. Elephants are seen as the number one enemy of rural communities. Arguments missing the point. Rapidly declining biodiversity is not as a result of growing elephant populations, but is a direct result of the exponential increase in the human population putting unprecedented strain on all the natural systems of our planet but goes unchecked and ignored as if it does not exist. Why do we not hear calls from conservationists and animal rightists to check the human population? Nobody wants to take the responsible but unpopular stance of proclaiming the negative effects of our burgeoning population. The extravagant use of natural resources by man is the direct cause of the threatened nature of the above species and thousands of others. I thiss a governmental task? A task involving educating the public and ensuring that through a process of education people will realise and come to accept that smaller families are the way to go for a better and longer life. Not in South Africa it isn't! Campaigns are being undertaken to combat HIV and Aids costing millions, the very same government is encouraging young women to fall pregnant because then they will receive state aid to the tune of R200 per child per month until the age of 15 years, maternity leave from school and free treatment at hospitals and clinics for the first few years of the child's life. Thus by falling pregnant a girl can receive sufficient money to support herself, her child and extended family. More young rural women are taking this option as it guarantees an income. But what is happening to the population growth and the effect this has on our nation as a whole and the plight of our planet? Greater populations lead to a greater demand for fuel - in rural terms we are talking trees. A greater demand for electricity and a fossil fuels, which results in an increase in carbon emissions and an increase in global warming and so the cycle escalates. Today most rivers carry dangerous contaminants including E.Coli and most rural boreholes are also contaminated. The main reason for this too is excessive human population. Our sewage reticulation systems are outdated and not properly maintained. Most of the rural population use open pit latrines and these contaminate subterranean water and leads back to a human population that has grown beyond the carrying capacity of the land. There are simply too many of us, it is time to cull. Harsh words aren't they? But what are we doing to try and check it? One doesn't hear Green Peace or IFAW, or WWF for that matter, mounting drives to educate people on the dangers of over-population. It is the human over-population that is threatening the elephants, rhinos, pandas, chimpanzees, gorillas and whales. One doesn't hear national debates where animal-rights groups take on government about encouraging teen pregnancies and increasing the spread of HIV and Aids. HIV and Aids are most probably seen as the world's number one disease, but prepare for something far worse. It is the function of disease to limit the population of any specific species beyond carrying capacity. The larger the population becomes, the greater the chance of some holocaustic disease incident. Man has been able to counteract most diseases, thus negating their effect and increasing longevity and the quality of life. The massive strides we have made in medical science do not need to be seen as bad, but we need to recognise that too many people is a bad thing and unless we do something about it ourselves, nature will do something more drastic than HIV/Aids. Many religions, the Roman Catholic Church being one of them, shun contraception and any form of birth control, maintaining it is forbidden by God. Many modern Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church quite happily ignore many other commands and exhortations in the Old and New Testaments. We still have the Roman Catholic Church urging their followers not to practice birth control; this in a world where millions are dying from disease and hunger and where the burgeoning human population threatens to annihilate the planet as we know it. It is too late to reduce populations as this would take a few decades to kick in and I don't think we have that much time. The time to act is now, tomorrow is too late!   2008   Kruger Park News

The Earth is Shrinking: Advancing Deserts and Rising Seas.   Our civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas. Mounting population densities, once generated by the addition of over 70 million people per year, are now also fueled by the advance of deserts and the rise in sea level. Expanding deserts are primarily the result of overstocking grasslands and overplowing land. Rising seas result from temperature increases from the burning of fossil fuels. China is losing productive land at an accelerating rate. From 1950 to 1975 China lost an average of 600 square miles to desert each year. By 2000, 1,400 square miles were going to desert annually. Satellite images show two deserts in north-central China expanding and merging to form a single, larger desert overlapping Inner Mongolia and Gansu provinces. To the west in Xinjiang Province, two even larger deserts--the Taklimakan and Kumtag--are also heading for a merger. Further east, the Gobi Desert is within 150 miles of Beijing. Chinese scientists report that over the last half-century, 24,000 villages in northern and western China were abandoned as they were overrun by drifting sand. Kazakhstan, site of the vast Soviet Virgin Lands Project, has abandoned nearly half of its cropland since 1980. In Afghanistan, with a population of 31 million, the Registan Desert is encroaching on agricultural areas. A UNEP team reports that up to 100 villages have been submerged by windblown dust and sand. In the northwest, sand dunes are moving onto agricultural land, from the loss of stabilizing vegetation due to firewood gathering and overgrazing. Iran, which has 70 million people and 80 million goats and sheep, is losing its battle with the desert. In 2002 sand storms buried 124 villages in the southeastern province forcing their abandonment. Drifting sands had covered grazing areas, starving livestock and depriving villagers of their livelihood. The Sahara Desert is pushing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria northward toward the Mediterranean. In countries from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia in the east, the demands of growing human and livestock numbers are converting land into desert. Nigeria is losing 1,355 square miles to desertification each year. While Nigeria's human population grew from 33 million in 1950 to 134 million in 2006, its livestock population grew from 6 million to 66 million. The food needs forced the plowing of marginal land and the forage needs of livestock exceeded the carrying capacity of its grasslands. Nigeria's population is being squeezed into an ever-smaller area. In Mexico, the degradation of cropland forces some 700,000 Mexicans off the land each year in search of jobs in nearby cities or in the United States. Rising seas promise to displace greater numbers in the future. During the twentieth century, sea level rose by 6 inches. During this century seas may rise by 4 to 35 inches. Since 2001, record-high temperatures have accelerated ice melting making it likely that the future rise in sea level will be even greater. If the Greenland ice sheet, a mile thick in some places, were to melt entirely it would raise sea level by 23 feet, or 7 meters. A one-meter rise would inundate many of the rice-growing river deltas and floodplains of India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and China. A one-meter rise in sea level would cause some 30 million Bangladeshis to migrate, internally or to other countries. Hundreds of cities would be at least partly inundated, including London, Alexandria, and Bangkok. More than a third of Shanghai, would be under water. A one-meter rise combined with a 50-year storm surge would leave large portions of Lower Manhattan and the National Mall in Washington, D.C., flooded. If the Greenland ice sheet should melt, it would force the abandonment of thousands of coastal cities and communities. Rising seas and desertification will present the world with an unprecedented flow of environmental refugees and the potential for civil strife. We must deal with rapid population growth, advancing deserts, and rising seas. Growth in the human population is accompanied by a growth of livestock populations of more than 35 million per year. The rising concentrations of carbon dioxide that are destabilizing the earth's climate are driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Reverse these trends or risk being overwhelmed by them.   November 15, 2006   Earth Policy Institute

Population Increase Traps Africa in Cycle of Poverty.   The Population Reference Bureau's latest projections show that by 2025, Uganda's population will almost double to 56 million, and in 44 years its numbers will grow by nearly as many as China's. In Uganda more than a third of all women say they would like to stop or delay having children, but reproductive health experts say a lack of information and female contraceptives plays a major role. Donors must share in the blame, said the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Donors have shifted their focus to HIV and nobody is talking about it any more. Population is off the development agenda and that's a tragedy for Africa.   September 2006   Population Reference Bureau

How to Slow the Population Clock.   The population of the US is projected to reach 300 million by October - a population growth rate comparable to that of China. Because of immigration, the number of people in the US could reach 400 million by 2050. About 76 million people are being added annually. This year's world grain harvest will fall short of consumption by 61 million tons. That's the sixth time in the past seven years that production has failed to satisfy demand. The world carry-over stocks of grain will fall to 57 days of consumption by the end of this year, the shortest buffer since a 56-day-low in 1956 doubled grain prices. Despite continued growth in world food output, the developing world had 815 million hungry people in 2002, 9 million less than in 1990. Population pressure in Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere has encouraged the flood of illegal immigrants in the US. Warren Buffett recognized population-related problems in announcing last week plans to donate $37.4 billion of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock to several foundations including some he's created that emphasize family planning, abortion rights, environmental and conservation issues, and education for low-income children. Human beings are similar to other animals. As food availability increases, the population will grow. And some animals regulate their fertility if food gets scarce. In the case of humans, there must be recognition that population growth is a function of increases in food availability. Otherwise, increased disease and death rates may ultimately control population growth. Other factors will brake population growth, including environmental changes, resource restraints, and a decline in the quality of life. World oil output is predicted to peak within 15 years. Fresh water in some areas is in short supply. Farmland is being chewed up by suburbia. Global warming will force hundreds of millions of people out of coastal regions in the next century or so. One way to boost the world's food supply would be if people ate more grains and vegetables and less meat, the world could then feed another billion people. The average American consumes 20 times as much in natural resources as the average African and if all the people consumed at the level of high-income countries, the planet could support only 1.8 billion people, not the actual 6.5 billion. It is doubtful if measures to encourage family planning will restrain the world's population. Leaders must come up with intelligent, creative, inventive measures to discourage births. Every 11 seconds another person is added to the US population.   Ralph says: Many of the figures mentioned depend on the level of life of the people. Do we want a high level of society and fewer people or flood the world with people all living a barely sustainable life style? Karen Gaia says: No one wants families so large that children suffer from malnutrion. Better for all if we go for quality, not quantity. But there must be a middle ground for consumption - somewhere between that of the high-income countries and that of the poorest countries. Also, I do not believe that an increase in food supply results in an increase in population if you educate women.   July 03, 2006   Christian Science Monitor

Recordview: Legacy for World.   As many as 400 million people are at risk of starvation because of drought and crop failure. Britain will face flooding through increased rainfall and parts of the coastline could be washed away by rising seas. Saving the environment is a top priority. The US has 5% of the world's population but accounts for nearly a quarter of global emissions. Blair and Bush must act now to save the planet for future generations.   April 15, 2006   Daily Record (UK)

Earth Needs Renewed Attention to Human Population Growth.   The trend is to reduce personal resource consumption. But it's only half the solution and the other half has faded from prominence - that is the need to end population growth. This received a good deal of press in the 1970s, but since then, it's become a taboo subject. Pressure from groups who saw the population issue as a distraction from their preferred causes saw to that. Over a decade ago an article by John Holdren shows us precisely what determines our total energy consumption. It says total energy consumption, equals population size times the average per capita energy use. So if E * total energy use, P * population size, and e * energy use per capita, we can say E * P x e. It means we have little chance of tackling our energy and environmental challenges if we ignore both per capita consumption and population. Today's "ecological footprint" measure is an elaboration of Holdren's equation. The equation above shows comparing population growth to the growth in total energy or resource use is to compare one factor in the equation to the product. In the US, per capita consumption is higher than in developing countries. Holdren's equation tells us it's never wise to ignore either population or per person consumption. With regard to oil use, for example, adding one person to the US population is like adding about 15 in China. Ignoring population growth in the US is perilous. Solutions include programs to reduce unplanned pregnancies, lowering fertility rates to the sub-replacement levels and assistance to Mexico to improve economic opportunities so they're not forced to come to the U.S. to earn a subsistence wage. Consumption levels in the developing world are growing fast, in line with economic growth. Without attention to population, rising per capita consumption multiplied by large and growing populations puts the Third World on a course toward disaster. We can assist with humane programs to hasten lowering fertility rates. Developing countries need to increase girls' educational opportunities and women's economic and health care options. They must increase family planning services and improve child survival rates. Having overshot the earth's capacity to sustain our current numbers, we must act now to avert catastrophe. If we fail to reduce both per capita consumption and to halt the growth of our population no new technology will prevent an unimaginable loss of life.   Karen Gaia says: since we have already overshot the earth's capacity, we need to reduce the population. We can do that by addressing unmet need for contraception here in the U.S., as well as helping other countries by the means mentioned in the article. We have room to get our own fertility rates down to 1.4. If we make sure illegal immigrants get education and reproductive health care, we can help reduce their birth rates. In addition, since every added American magnifies the American overconsumption, it is best to not have so many Americans. Americans should lower their own standard of living, find quality of life in non-consumer ways, and send some of their money to to people in other countries: make micro-loans, provide contraception, soap operas, and health care. We can reduce the flow of immigration by fighting global trade practices that drive farmers off their lands, making micro-loans, paying more for goods (thus raising wages) that come from countries that send immigrants, and prosecuting U.S. employers who hire illegals (which is basically a way to pay them slave wages).   October 10, 2007   Foot Print Network

10 Million Or 45% of Brazil's Amazon Population Live on Less Than US$ 2 a day.   Brazil may not achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals because parts of the country bordering the Amazon river are lagging behind. Researchers found that Amazon states are behind the national average, including education, poverty, sanitation, malaria cases, and child and maternal mortality. One reason for the region's slow progress is low investment in infrastructure, science and technology. The IMAZON report shows that HIV/AIDS incidence has increased from 1.2 to 12.4 cases per 100 thousand over the period measured. Although 42% of Amazonian territory is now protected - up from 8.5% in 1990 - deforestation in the Amazon increased from 10% of the total area to 17% by 2005. Nearly all of Brazil's malaria cases are also in the Amazon region, and although the incidence has dropped from 3,000 to 2,000 per 100,000 people, these rates are still high. About 45% of people live on less than US$ 2 a day. But in absolute numbers, the number of people has increased from 7.4 million to 10.1 million. The proportion with access to safe drinking water increased from 48% to 68%. To reduce the proportion without access to safe drinking water by half - will only be reached in 2018. At present, the only goal the researchers believe will be achieved by 2015 is to reduce the mortality rate of under-fives by two-thirds.   May 01, 2007   Brazzil Magazine

Why Have Scientists Succumbed to Political Correctness?.   Scientists are involved in seeking solutions to the major global problems but, with a few exceptions, on one point they replace objectivity with "political correctness." Their recommendations for solving the problems caused by population growth almost never advocate stopping population growth. Political Correctness dictates that we do not address the current problem of overpopulation. If any fraction of the observed global warming can be attributed to the actions of humans, then this constitutes compelling evidence that the human population, has exceeded the Carrying Capacity of the Earth. Efforts to solve the problems of global warming are intellectual frauds if they fail to address the fundamental cause of global warming namely overpopulation. We can demonstrate that the U.S. is overpopulated by noting that we import 60% of the petroleum that we consume, 15% of the natural gas and about 20% of the food. Because the U.S. population increases by something over 3 million per year, all of these fractions are increasing. The U.S. in 2008 is unsustainable. Al Gore writes; "The fundamental relationship between our civilization and the ecological system of the Earth has been utterly and radically transformed by the powerful convergence of three factors. The first is the population explosion..." In the Clearinghouse Newsletter2 we read "Human Impacts on Climate", The title recognizes the human component of climate change which is roughly proportional to the number of people and their average consumption. The last paragraph suggests what must be done, and it's all the standard boilerplate. There is no mention of addressing the overpopulation which the statement recognizes is the cause of the problems. Scientists won't talk about overpopulation, so the journalists and the reading public can easily conclude that overpopulation is not a problem.   March 2008   Prof. Albert Bartlett - Teachers Clearinghouse for Science & Society Education Newsletter

U.K.: Think-Tank Urges Population Inquiry by Government.   The Government should hold an inquiry into the number of people the UK can support and enjoy a good quality of life without damaging the environment. Overpopulation puts Britain's security at risk and calls for a Royal Commission to establish an environmentally sustainable level of population. The UK supplies only 30% per cent of its economic needs from within its boundaries. Most people think Britain is overcrowded and record numbers have been emigrating. The UK's population is projected to increase to 70 million over the next 20 years and 85 million by 2081, with immigration responsible for at least two thirds of projected growth. Immigration feeds rising greenhouse gas emissions; more crowding, congestion and development; and increased pressure on water and energy supplies, farmland and green space. At least 10 million more flats and houses will be needed for new immigrants and their descendants. A policy of zero net migration, matching incoming to outgoing numbers, could cut the UK's forecast population in 2081 from 85 to 57 million. Rapid population growth, and in particular immigration on the scale we have witnessed in recent years, raises questions about environmental sustainability that the Government had barely begun to think about until recently. The most recent high-level inquiry into population policy in Britain was in 1973,when a panel appointed by the government reported that there were no arguments for continuing population growth.   Optimum Population Trust

Stand up for sustainability.   Sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." How can we not compromise the needs of future generations? Our runaway population growth and carbon-emitting practices have put a strain on the natural resources. We are living in an era of extreme unpredictability coupled by our refusal to acknowledge the troubling signs. Climate change reminds us that we are living beyond what the ecosystem can absorb. We are living beyond the capacity to generate for humanity's unlimited needs. We pretend that nature is inexhaustible and will continue to nourish and sustain us. The urgent call for action is reported almost daily. Yet there is no sense of urgency. This attitude is a contrast to the swift response of the federal government of the in the current financial meltdown. It is crucial to integrate sustainability and environmental impact in the corporations. Is sustainability doable? Yes, if we understand our role in its realization. Business leaders realize that responsible practices are beneficial to the survival of the corporation. In 2000, 189 countries adopted the UNM Declaration and committed to attain goals by 2015 that spur development by improving the social and economic conditions and the environment. These include "to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources." But we are bereft of data on carbon emission and energy use. Government's policy of double-speak on sustainability should awaken the citizenry and the business community to stand up for a more ecologically sustainable way of life.   October 06, 2008   Cebu Daily News

Birth Dearth Worries Pale in Comparison to Overpopulation.   Lately, "baby gap,", "birth dearth," and "population bust" have been popular topics for Western Europe and Japan, where women don't have enough babies to maintain population. Russia, with widespread health problems and alcoholism, and relatively low life expectancy, finds its population shrinking by 700,000 each year. Germany's is falling about 100,000 a year. Around the world, birthrates have plunged from 6 per mother in 1972 to about 2.9 today. Some suggest a declining population can lead to other problems Such problems are less serious than those from the current population "bomb." A world's population drop to about 2 billion, a number that is sustainable, would allow people to live in cities or with nature, as they prefer. Today, with 2 million copies of his book sold, Ehrlich remains puzzled why some conservatives see his book as damaging. At the time of publication of the "Bomb," the number of people on Earth was 3.5 billion, now around, 6.7 billion, and 9 billion by 2050. We have passed the earth's long-term carrying capacity. About 1 billion people don't have a proper supply of food. Famine threatens, and the world continues to add 75 million a year to its total population. Last Friday, more than 140 countries highlighted the role of family planning in reducing poverty and saving the lives of mothers and newborns. Reagan and Bush imposed a policy that bars US family planning aid to private organizations that support legal abortion. Family planning leads to fewer abortions and deaths of mothers lacking access to relatively safe abortions. People are creating a world that threatens "our own species."   July 14, 2008   Christian Science Monitor

Yemen: Government Planning to Curb Population Growth.   Over 80% of Yemenis know about family planning, but the problem lies in practice. The National Population Council (NPC) has approved a plan to reduce the fertility rate - one of the highest in the world. The NPC plan will run until 2010, with the help of 22 governmental and non-governmental bodies. The strategy needs US$8 million, half of contributed by donors and the other half by the government. The plan involves raising awareness about population issues by training religious and community leaders, TV and radio programmes, and adding population studies to curriculums at academic institutions. The NPC aims to reduce the current fertility rate from 6.1% to 4.0% by 2015. This depends on getting funds. Yemen's population is increasing by 700,000 every year. Efforts would be made to offer free family planning services. Some thought family planning would lead to health problems and was not allowed in Islam. According to UNFPA, Yemen's population may reach 60 million in 2050 if the high annual growth rate continues at 3.01%. About 2.2 million new jobs would be needed, and 14.7 million children in primary school, requiring 490,000 teachers. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and population growth poses challenges in a country which, imports 75% of its food and suffers acute water shortages.   July 14, 2008   IRIN News (UN)

Paul R. Ehrlich's New Book the Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment.   Exactly 40 years since the publication of The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich has a new book, The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment. The story is of world food prices at record levels, increasing conflict over scarce resources, the immediate threat of global climate change, the spread of toxic chemicals into drinking water and food, and more. In The Dominant Animal, Paul joins with his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich,, a prize-winning scientist herself, to examine this growing crisis. It is a powerful examination of how the humans today are creating the world of tomorrow-and what it will take for our civilization to survive.   July 2008   unknown

Gasoline, Oil Prices Focus of Michigan Sustainability Conference.   Rising gas prices, was a central theme at "The International Conference on Peak Oil and Climate Change: Paths to Sustainability", at the Calvin College Fine Arts Center, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Educators lead a cadre of experts addressing peak oil, which is the moment in time when global oil extraction reaches its maximum. Estimates of the year vary, from as early as 2005, to several years in the future. Current flat oil production coupled with growing demand appears to be the primary force behind rising oil prices. Four years ago, global oil production began leveling off to about 85 million barrels per day. Since then, gasoline prices have doubled. Oil prices have also doubled, twice. One effect will be steep inflation, because gasoline, along with everything made from petrochemicals, will suddenly cost more. The conference addresses concerns including the economy, species loss, population growth, and climate change. Forty seminars were organized into ten tracks which include: transportation fuel, electricity, housing, food production, animal husbandry, communication, water, money, consumerism, and peak oil in depth.   Karen Gaia says: I was sad to see that population growth was not one of the ten tracks. The solution is easy: facilitate voluntary family planning and women's empowerment/education.   May 20, 2008   Energy Bulletin

World Bank Still Not Lending with Environment in Mind.   In the Western Amazon, I learned about the power of loans to propel either environmental and social progress or trouble. Road-paving projects were spreading ranching and logging into areas inhabited by rubber tappers and Indians. Since that era, the World Bank and its sister institutions, have been talking the sustainability talk. But a fresh examination of more than $400 billion in development loans since 1990 by the bank's monitoring group finds gaps all along the chain from Washington offices to oversight of construction in poor countries. As the world heads toward nine billion people, with most growth in the poorest places, how can prosperity be spurred without erasing the planet's natural assets? Nearly 40% of the roughly $10 billion in annual investment is handled by private banks in developing countries. The I.F.C. has limited leverage on the approach of these local banks. Some officials say there is a lack of focus on investments that can limit losses in inevitable natural disasters. A recent report on the Bank's work on disasters found the same problem, the preventive side gets neglected for political reasons. Things appear to be improving, partly because analysts for the bank and its partners are running the numbers on the economic benefits of resilience. One example is maintaining coastal mangrove forests as a buffer against flooding. Communities bounded by mangroves persist while those exposed to the waves vanish. There's no need to crunch numbers to figure that out.   July 22, 2008   New York Times*

Bangladesh: Environment Pollution Deepens Poverty.   The rural poor depend on natural resources. Poverty faces them to degrade their environment, which provides their livelihood. As a result of the sea level rise, low lying coastal land, agriculturally productive, but densely poor populated and they also depend on fishing which would be threatened. Weather related extremes create the serious problem for the poor. Slum dwelling people do not get safe drinking water, so they suffer water borne diseases. Environmental degradation results in large scale migration and become poorer. People migrate to slum areas, and disturb the management of urban areas and face serious health problem. The government is trying to involve poor people in environmental management but need to take steps to remove poverty and to develop sustainable environment. These are, to control population, increase awareness about environment, meeting the needs for jobs, food, energy, water, sanitation, conserving the resource base, providing low cost technology.   August 16, 2008   The New Nation

New Zealand: Environment Report: Key Findings.   The report, Environment New Zealand 2007, provides the basis for future action on the environment. It confirms New Zealand has an enviable environment compared to many countries, but is facing environmental pressures and some trends are going in the wrong direction. Consumption of goods and services by New Zealand households has grown with the "ecological footprint". On average, New Zealanders own more older and larger cars, and we are driving them further. Use of public transport is increasing. An increasing proportion of our energy comes from fossil fuels but it is not increasing as fast as our economy is growing. Households are the largest users of energy. Waste management has improved through better controls on landfills. We have reduced the amount of waste we throw away, but potentially useful materials continue to be disposed of in landfills. About 30 locations can experience poor air quality, affecting about 53% of the population. Particulates from home heating or road transport appear to be falling in the main centres. Other air pollutants appear to have improved or stabilised. Since 1990, greenhouse gas emissions have increased, but emissions removed from the atmosphere by forestry have increased as exotic forest cover has increased, although rates of new planting are the lowest in many decades and replanting rates have tailed off. Ozone levels have stabilised and the levels of ultraviolet radiation have dropped over recent years. The area in dairy pasture and the national dairy herd have both increased, leading to increases in fertiliser, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions. Horticultural and agricultural soils are generally in poorer condition than soils under other land uses. Demand for water is increasing, particularly in drier parts of the country, where surface waters already have high levels of water allocated for use. Water quality is poorest in rivers, streams and lakes in urban areas, followed by farmed areas. Levels of nutrients have increased in our rivers. Pollution from a single facility at a known location, have decreased. Fishing activity has reduced as the allowable catch for some species has reduced. Fifteen percent have been overfished and are now recovering. Bacterial levels at monitored beaches appear to be improving. A high proportion of New Zealand's land and sea is protected for conservation purposes. The seven monitored native bird and plant species have all decreased in range since the 1970s. Many other native species remain threatened. The key pressures on our environment are growing as our population increases, our economy grows and evolves, and our lifestyles change. Some pressures appear to be reducing or are being avoided because of increased rates of recycling, better pest management and an increase in areas of protected land. Some aspects of the environment appear to be getting worse over time or have been over-exploited. Some aspects appear to be improving.   January 31, 2008   TVNZ

Environmentalists Are Failing Sustainability 101.   The fact that China and the USA together are responsible for half of the increasing atmospheric carbon is partially a result of the large population increases engendered by these high fertilities. Unfortunately, fertility is a forgotten player in today's agenda being advocated in so many countries, including our own. If your environmental guru is a global warming guide from Al Gore, Sierra Club, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Defense, Outside Magazine's Green Issue, Time Magazine's Global Warming Survival Guide, or indeed the entire mainstream U.S. environmental movement, then you will find that the number of children a couple has is not a component of anybody's sustainability equations. This omission introduces dramatic errors into a major new international poll. A total of 14,000 people in 14 countries were queried to determine their environmental footprint and "to promote environmentally sustainable consumption". The survey was constructed with the help of 27 experts. National Geographic intends to repeat it year after year to determine how the world and how each country are faring. It is important that the survey be error-free. After I answered the questions, the website calculated my "Greendex" score. The higher the score, the smaller is one's environmental impact. The last of the 12 questions asked about the number of adults (18 and older) and children (younger than 18,in my household. My wife and I have no children, so I put "two" for the number of adults and "zero" for the number of children. Out of curiosity, I increased the number of children first to "one", then to "two" up to "six", but leaving other answers exactly the same. Surely a couple who has, say, 4 non-adopted children, has a much larger environmental impact than a couple who has none. Imagine my surprise, when my Greendex score went up substantially as the number of children living with my wife and me increased. When applied to the 14 countries surveyed, a country like India is rewarded for its high fertility of about 2.8 children per woman, while a country like Japan is penalized for its low fertility of about 1.2 children per woman. Taking this formula to its logical and absurd conclusion, the best environmentalist would be one who produced dozens of children over his/her lifetime. Ultimately, the fault must be attributed to the U.S. environmental movement that, for decades, has abrogated its responsibility to address in a politically meaningful way the environmental harm caused by population growth. As mentioned above, one could never tell from anyone's list of "50 simple things you can do to save the Earth", that arguably the environmentally most important life decision a couple can make is to limit their number of non-adopted children to two, at most.   Karen Gaia says: while this article is accurate in most points, it is not true that the Sierra Club does nothing about U.S. population growth. It is sad that this former member of the Sierra Club Board of Directors should make this claim.   2007   ElyNews

Africa: The Population Emergency.   The report of a demographic study was published recently, the work performed by a joint team from the IRD and academics from Belgium, Cameroon, France and the Ivory Coast. They examined the population trends in Sub-Saharan Africa and the relationships between these and the development of the region. This review demolished some accepted ideas, in particular that Sub-Saharan Africa is underpopulated. Today, 2 of 3 inhabitants are under 25 and, with 32 inhabitants per km2, Sub-Saharan Africa is more densely populated than Latin America (28 inhabitants/km2). Two-thirds still live in rural areas, but migration to the towns and cities is under way. In 1960, only Johannesburg had a population of over one million; Africa now has 40 of them. At the present rate of rural exodus, half of Sub-Saharan Africa's population would be urban dwellers by 2030. This should be met by investments in wastewater drainage and treatment and refuse reprocessing, whose management threatens to become more and more problematic. Intra-regional migration is disrupted by the conflicts and crises affecting several host countries. The possibilities for emigration to industrialized countries are increasingly subject to control. The risks of population decrease linked to AIDS appear to be receding, due to more effective prevention campaigns and improved access to health care. The latest assessments brought the proportion of the African population infected by HIV to about 5%. No country will see its population decrease owing to the AIDS epidemic. Fecundity is two to three times higher than the rest of the world, as four out of five African women live in countries where there is little access to contraception. Less than 20% of women use contraception, as against 60% or more in Latin America and Asia. The use of contraception is progressing very slowly, yet the control by women over their fecundity remains the essential lever by which Sub-Saharan Africa might achieve its demographic transition. The overall trend points towards a stabilization of world population, with Africa continuing on a substantial rise. The area is behind in the development process. In 2004 only six countries out of 48 obtained a growth rate equal to or greater than 7%, the threshold essential for halving of poverty between now and 2015. This population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major handicap to economic and social development. If the African nations want to take up the challenge of demographic transition and reduction of poverty, development policies must be completely rethought. It is by the implementation of policies education, prevention of mortality, equitable access to health care and to family planning that bring advances and improved living standards. This makes it imperative to place the population question at the core of their development policies.   January 19, 2008   Centre Population et Developpement (CEPED)

Australia: What Kind of Future Will Our Kids Inherit?.   Respondents to the Sunshine Coast Daily's recent survey expressed concern about the rate of growth and the impact on their quality of life. A study pointing out the appropriate population distribution for Australia, including impacts of climate change and peak oil, must now become a priority. There is no escaping the limits of the world's resources. The laws of physics trump the laws of economics every time. Global demands on natural systems exceeded their sustainable yield by an estimated 25%. With some exceptions, policy makers have allowed sustainability to be an environmental issue away economic development. Yet we have drawn upon the Earth's non-renewable resources as if they were limitless, and create an economy that demands cheap energy to sustain the movement of food and goods and water and people in ever greater numbers. Queensland government Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation Andrew McNamara called for the building of a new economy powered by renewable energy, backed by a transport system, and that uses and re-uses everything. And he warned of the dangers of exponential population growth. "The rampaging monster loose upon the land is over-population. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct." Let's throw away the notion that Australia is an empty space waiting to be filled up. Our rivers, our soils, our vegetation won't allow that to happen without an enormous cost to those who come after us. The conservation of soil, forests, stream flows and natural biological is one of the most important and urgent tasks which faces us today.   March 11, 2008   Sunshine Coast Daily

US Oregon: Treading on a Taboo.   The greenest of the green, my city styles itself. The sad fact is that unless we do something drastic, out-of-control population growth will wipe out the gains made by the most ambitious recycling and conservation programs, across the planet. Portland's efforts to stave off global warming by reducing carbon dioxide began more than two decades ago. And how much progress have we made? None. Why? Because at the same time Portland's population has grown by 42%. Projections say the metro population will grow by another million by 2030, even double to 3.85 million by 2060. A strange taboo keeps us from talking about the actual cause of global warming and a deadly smorgasbord of other environmental problems. In this supposedly plain-talking era, a former presidential candidate will tell us how Viagra cured his ED, but hardly anybody will talk about what's trashing the Earth. The taboo afflicts most media, including this newspaper. The Oregonian's Earth Day editorial urged support for politicians who back energy -efficient buildings, wind power, public transportation and so on. Everything but population control. Portlanders may have reduced their per-capita driving by 5% over five years, but the metro area's population grew by 8% over the same period. When it comes to global warming, we're ignoring one simple truth: The Earth doesn't care about per-capita greenhouse-gas production. It's the total amount of CO2 in the air that matters. When my grade-school teacher quizzed me about the world population total, the correct answer was 2 billion. Now the world's cities are growing by 1 million people a week. A century from now we'll clog the planet's pores with something between 9 and 14 billion human beings. 1 billion bodies and increased the average amount each one pollutes. China's now pouring out more than 2 tons of CO2 per person annually, and the United States cooks along at nearly 20. Experts predict that by 2050 global energy use could increase fourfold. We fixate on global warming, while our rampaging population mows down the rest of the planet's inhabitants behind our backs. The World Wildlife Fund just issued a report announcing that "human activities are causing the most rapid decline in species since the extinction of the dinosaurs." The impact of population growth reaches way beyond obvious environmental problems. Half the items in today's newspaper are population related. The paper that arrived the morning led with a battle over Willamette Valley development but neglected to mention that population growth fuels 94% of Portland's suburban sprawl. The front-page story on soaring gas prices overlooked the soaring population that drives up demand. A political story focused on health care, which has become a problem in part because population growth is overwhelming the existing system. Nearly 40 years ago, Richard Nixon asked, "How will we house the next hundred million Americans? Will we educate and employ such a large number of people? Will our transportation systems move them about as quickly and economically as necessary? How will we provide adequate health care when our population reaches 300 million?" Population threatens political stability, too. Countries that grow too fast just can't get ahead of their problems, and eventually everything comes crashing down. Mexico, quadrupled in population between 1933 and 1980. The only way it could avoid collapse was by flooding the United States with the excess. Projections call for countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to double their populations every 20 years, and many of those people will inevitably find their way to the United States. Ninety -one percent of our population growth over the next 40 years will come from post-2000 immigrants and their descendants. The quality of American life will be forever damaged by the arrival of 100 million immigrants, whether they're Mexican or English. Let's quit deluding ourselves by thinking that technology alone can save the world. Five ways to help the planet: Eliminate the taboo that keeps us from talking about the overpopulation that is not racist, communist, sexist or biased against the Third World. We all have a stake in this. Quit mistaking per-capita pollution numbers as a sign of progress. Reward politicians who support population control with your votes. Keep your own family small. Stop treating growth as not only inevitable, but also positive.   Karen Gaia says: We can take 'control' out of the phrase 'population control' and accomplish more. Freedom to choose one's family size results in a lower fertility rate.   June 15, 2008   Oregon Live

Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy.   An ad from 1975 asks "Could America run out of electricity?" Our need for electricity doubles every 10 or 12 years. That's an accurate reflection of a long history of steady growth of the electric industry in this country, growth at a rate of around 7% per year, which gives you doubling every 10 years. Did you realise that 7% growth per year could give an incredible consequence? That in ten years you'd use more than the total of all that had been used in all the proceeding growth? In the summer of 1986, the world population had reached five billion growing at the rate of 1.7% per year. More recently in 1999, we read that the world population had grown from five billion to six billion The world population today is increasing by about 75 million additional people every year. If this current modest 1.3% per year could continue, the world population would grow to one person per square meter on the dry land surface of the earth in just 780 years, and the mass of people would equal the mass of the earth in just 2400 years. Well, we know this couldn't happen. Zero population growth is going to happen. Today's high birth rates will drop; today's low death rates will rise till they have exactly the same numerical value. So maybe you're wondering then, what options are available. Some of those things that we should encourage if we want to raise the rate of growth of population and in so doing, make the problem worse. Everything in the list is as sacred as motherhood. There's immigration, medicine, public health, sanitation. These are all devoted to the humane goals of lowering the death rate and that's very important to me, if it's my death they're lowering. But then I've got to realise that anything that just lowers the death rate makes the population problem worse. Then there are some of the things we should encourage if we want to help solve the population problem. Abstention, contraception, abortion, small families, stop immigration, disease, war, murder, famine, accidents. It's obvious nature is going to choose and we don't have to do anything—except be prepared to live with whatever nature chooses. Or we can exercise the one option that's open to us, and that is to choose first from the last list. How long can growth continue? You don't need arithmetic to evaluate the contradictory statements that we've all heard and read from experts who tell us in one breath we can go on increasing our rates of consumption of fossil fuels, in the next breath they say "Don't worry, we will always be able to make the discoveries of new resources that we need to meet the requirements of that growth." Bill Moyers asked Isaac Asimov, "What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if this population growth continues?" and Asimov says, "It'll be completely destroyed. In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. Convenience and decency cannot survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies, the more people there are, the less one individual matters." We must recognise that population growth is the immediate cause of all our resource and environmental crises. Can you think of anything that can get better if we crowd more people into our cities, our towns, into our state, our nation, or on this earth? The late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr said, "Unlike the plagues of the dark ages, or contemporary diseases which we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable with means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions who are its victims."   April 27, 2008   Global Public Media

UK Unable to Sustain Population, Says Study.   If global population growth continues the world could be at war over resources in less than 50 years and calls on governments to advocate increased use of contraception. UK government targets to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050 will have little impact on the UK's sustainability. The number of people living in the UK is expected to hit 65 million within 10 years, and top 70 million by 2031. Britain could only sustainably support 40 million people with the same standard of living. If the world consumed as much and generated the same waste as the UK, it would need three and a half planets to sustain the human race. The world was living within its ecological means until the 1980s when populations began to grow rapidly. By 2050, when the global population is expected to hit 9.2 billion, it will be using up the equivalent of nearly two Earths each year, according to the study. This shows how desperately we need a national population policy. Even if the made a 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 UK "overpopulation" would grow from 43 to 50 million. How many people can live on Earth? Evidence suggests that, in 2003, total world population was 6.3 billion but the sustainable figure was 5.1 billion. Global overpopulation was 1.2 billion. As standards of living rise the number of people the planet can support will diminish. Although the UN forecasts a world population rising to 9.2 billion by 2050, the Earth's long-term sustainable population is in the 2-3 billion range. For the UK, a sustainable population is between 17 and 27 million, less than half the current total and between a third and a fifth of the 85 million who will be in the country in the last quarter of this century The size is a result of its affluence combined with a high population density. The ecological footprint is 3.5 times greater than its capacity. To live sustainably, the current UK population of 60 million would have to live similar to citizens of countries such as China, and the Dominican Republic. A zero-carbon Britain would have a maximum sustainable population of 40 million if it refused to change its lifestyle. In reality, a ‘zero-carbon' UK could never reach sustainability without population reduction. Resource wars and starvation "threaten the worst population crash in the history of humankind." There is an urgent need for national strategies on sustainable population in all countries. Politicians must persuade their nations to accept the necessity of smaller families and provide the means for people to reduce their family size. This study shows how far the UK is from sustainability and what a fundamental role human numbers play. This also shows how desperately we need a national population policy.   February 18, 2008   Telegraph

New Population Explosion.   About 100 years ago Thomas Robert Malthus predicted that world population growth would soon outstrip the ability of the planet to produce food to feed everyone. He did not foresee the rise in agricultural productivity and his theories are still debated among academics some of whom believe that his prediction was correct but his timing wrong. It is a fact that over the last 200 years food production technology has outpaced population growth. We are now at the biggest global baby boom in history and most of that growth is in the world's poorest countries. The London's Financial Times noted that, "There are 1.5 billion people between the ages of 12 and 24 in the world, and 87% are in developing countries." The growth rates in Uganda and Kenya alone are almost 4% per year. Most women of childbearing age in those two countries have an average of seven children. Most of the economically advanced countries have the lowest birthrates. It would appear that the more prosperous a country becomes, the fewer babies there are but the poorer a country is, the higher the birthrate. The median age for males in Uganda is 14 years 9 months, and over half the population is under 18. Most of these young people will soon begin having a lot of babies. It is happening over much of the globe and especially in Africa, Latin America and South Asia. We would do well to focus on these statistics. One might become educated over whether the US should or should not make foreign aid dependent on whether that country does or does not have family planning services. There are countries which deliberately try to export labor - partly because most then send money home and that props up many a sagging economy. There are going to be millions of unemployed young people. Who is going to take on that problem? These are issues that are not going to go away no matter who wins the White House.   March 10, 2008   Vermont Public Radio

The Folly of Shortchanging Family Planning.   Is the world heading toward the moment when people will outstrip the resources needed to sustain life. The optimists look at declining fertility and foresee population growth coming naturally in poor countries and industrial societies. Others struggling to raise awareness of the need for a new family planning push, say that population growth, mostly in the poorest countries, will continue for generations before there can be hope of a global decline. At the end of last year, the UN estimated that the world's population stood at about 6.7 billion, including about 136 million new babies. How could that be if fertility is declining? The Worldwatch Institute explains cautions against too-positive predictions of global population growth. The number of women of childbearing age keeps growing and global life expectancy continues to rise. At the end of 2007 there were 1.7 billion women in the childbearing ages. In 1970 there were 856 million. The UN Population Fund has watched money for family planning decline, yet women around the world ask for more help in limiting births. They know it is key to improving a family's living standards and raising healthier, better-educated children. UNFPA estimates that at least 200 million women do not have access to family planning. Of the 190 million women who become pregnant annually, 50 million have abortions. What UNFPA calls the unmet need for contraception is expected to grow at about 40% for the next 15 years. In Africa, some countries average six or seven or more children for each woman. And in Asia, in a country such as India, even with fertility levels falling below three children per woman, the huge population base of at least 1.2 billion people means a significant annual increase. The US, which pioneered global family planning in the 1960s continues to deprive UNFPA of tens of millions of dollars annually, largely on the spurious claim that the agency aids or abets abortion in China. If a new administration hopes to make a contribution to the development of the poorest countries, family planning will have to be back on the agenda, and the boycott of UNFPA will have to end.   Wordwatch

U.S.: The Human Population Explosion and the Future of Life.   After the end of WW2, scientists began to warn that human population growth would cause all kinds of problems. In the late 1960s, population growth moved to the front burner with the Sierra Club's publication of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. During the next decade those who were worried studied, wrote, and warned about human population growth and its consequences. Human impact is a production of population, consumption and technology. At the time, P (population size) was seen as the underlying and key factor. During the last two decades, it has become fashionable to discount P and stress A (affluence or consumption). Some social engineers now argue that population size or continued growth is relatively unimportant; they say it is the level of consumption that is key for calculating how much damage an individual or population causes. Such activists argue that reducing consumption is more important than stabilizing population. Consumption vs. population may be an intractable debate since it is grounded in worldview as much as in evidence. I would argue that biologists deal with a more fundamental world than do culturalists. Let me offer two examples to show how population is the key. China's economic explosion has thrust it into the lead of nations cranking out greenhouse gases. However, were it not for the population policies of China, their population would be closer to two billion instead of a billion and a half. How much more greenhouse pollution would China be pumping out? Had the US instituted reasonable immigration policies in the 1960s our population would have stabilized around 250 million. Because we didn't deal with immigration, our population is over 300 million headed toward 400 million. How much less sprawl, greenhouse gas production, resource consumption, etc. would the U.S. boast today, had we stabilized our population then? As a conservationist and nature lover, I believe the impact of the population explosion on the rest of Nature is paramount. We can show how the spread and population growth of humans is harming Nature. To more accurately understand ecological wounds, we need to shake out how global and local populations have differing effects. An average American is responsible for more greenhouse gas production, but a poor Bangladeshi farmer may be more dangerous to the survival of tigers. Someone with a million dollar castle certainly consumes more than someone living in an old shack. But the rural dweller might contribute more to the extinction of the Mexican wolf in the wild. Collapsing fisheries around the world, die-off of coral reefs, and the functional extinction of once abundant species --- as hungry rural populations swell and spread, they vacuum the rainforest and other semiwild ecosystems of larger animals for food. The growth of numbers of Americans contributes to the destruction of wildlife habitat by new home developments. In the US, immigration plays the big role in increasing our population. Even if people come here poor, their goal is to increase their standard of living—which they do. If the U.S. had fifty or sixty million fewer residents, there would be fewer home developments in the California coastal chaparral, the Sonoran Desert around Phoenix, woods and forests surrounding Atlanta, and so on. In India, rapid growth of very poor peasants and tribal peoples is putting irresistible pressure on tiger reserves. Humans create barriers and fracture zones in wildlife habitats that isolate animal and plant populations into smaller and smaller areas and that will prevent migration. Increased numbers of people are a key cause of our spread into once unpopulated regions where wild critters could range as they needed before the human invasion. High population densities and the spread of humans lead to disruption of vital ecological and evolutionary processes, such as wildfire, river flooding and drying, predation, and pollination. Humans, whether Denver suburbanites or Indian peasants are intolerant of big cats, wolves, and other carnivores, leading to their extermination. For the global community, the resource in most short supply has turned out to be the ability of the atmosphere and the seas to handle industrial carbon dioxide and methane, among other gases. Also a speedy increase in Brazil's greenhouse gas production and loss of forests that could continue to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and sea. China passed the US as the number one greenhouse gas emitting country in the world because of its massive population charging after greater affluence and technology. The one-child policy in China may be giving us a few more years to deal with the staggering greenhouse problem. We cannot allow that obvious reality to overshadow the even-greater role of high population numbers and population growth rates in driving ecological wounds, from direct killing of threatened species to production of carbon dioxide. Should conservationists find the wisdom and courage to come back to calling for population stabilization, we must stress how the population explosion causes the ecological wounds that result in mass extinction and destruction of the biosphere.   Karen Gaia says: the author mentions little about sustainability and resource depletion.   March 11, 2008   Uncle Dave Foreman's Around the Campfire

Kenya: Exploding Population.   Corruption, ethnic rivalry and voting irregularities, are as old as Kenyan independence in 1963. One reason Kenyans have been able to cope with these troubles is because they've been enjoying greater political freedom and prosperity. Between 1975 and 2006, per capita income grew at least threefold. And since 1997, the number of political parties competing in national elections has grown from 11 to 26. The recent massacres took Kenyans by surprise. Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, told an interviewer she was stunned "that it could happen in Kenya", as if this pearl of East Africa was not to be compared with other African countries afflicted by bloodshed and chaos. As in so many other African countries, Kenya's violence can be traced to an exploding population that often goes unnoted. In only 80 years, Kenya's population has jumped from 2.9 million to 37 million. Had America grown at the same rate it would now have 1.56 billion citizens. Kenya belongs to a group of some 40 countries that have extremely high population growth rates. Between 1950 and 1985, Kenya's total fertility rate, children per woman's lifetime, hovered around eight. In 2007, each Kenyan woman still gave birth to an average of 5 children, compared to 2 in the US and 1.6 in Britain, and there were 40 newborn babies for every 10 deaths. The corresponding figures for the US is 14 births for every 8 deaths; for Britain, it's 10 for 10. As a result, Kenyan men have a median age of 18 years, compared to 35 in the US, 39 in Britain. Because of higher living standards, these younger Kenyans are much more vital and ambitious than their predecessors. Thus Kenya provides a textbook example of domestic violence that is driven by what I call a "youth bulge". With so many superfluous, frustrated young men, who are better fed and educated than ever before but have few prospects of finding a good job, nations with a youth bulge are likely to experience social upheaval. In countries where large birth rates are combined with abject poverty and hunger, young men are much more likely to sink into lethargy. What may be more surprising in Kenya is not the violence, but the long periods of relative calm partly due to the availability of uncultivated land for young men coming of age. Over the next 15 years, some 8.1 million young Kenyan males will reach "fighting age" (15 to 29 years), compared to the 5.7 million in that bracket today. With its unused land running out, Kenya may be overwhelmed by a wave of violence that matches those of its neighbors.   January 17, 2008   International Herald Tribune

Did You Know?.   *The 8 warmest years have occurred in the last decade. *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.   June 14, 2008   Earth Policy Institute, Plan B 3.0

Population, Overshoot, Crash, Grandchildren.   The root cause of global warming, deforestation, starvation, pollution, and related issues, is human overpopulation. At the first Earth Day, 1970, the population was not yet 4 billion. It hit 5 billion in 1988 with barely a mention. There's a biological "overshoot" indicating that populations, if unchecked, grow beyond the carrying capacities of their environments. A ravaged environment then causes a population to crash. Governments have generally been failures at dealing with problems even when those problems have been carefully explained to governmental leaders. A good example is global warming. Ours is a system in which political success is measured by benefits from the standpoint of the earth's life support systems of relatively short term. It would be a kindness to take a moment to think of one's obligations toward one's descendents.   February 22, 2008   Op Ed News

The Common Future.   Humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet and will require new forms of global cooperation, states Jeffrey Sachs. In recent years cooperation was in the form of a series of "summits". At the meeting of the General Assembly of the UN in 2000, the leaders of the world adopted the Millennium Development Goals to improve the conditions of the poorest everywhere by 2015. The deliberations crystallised the objectives as environmental sustainability, population stabilisation, and ending extreme poverty. What Jeffrey Sachs does in this book is to spell out these objectives, their implications and suggest how they may be achieved. The analysis provides a rare synthesis as well as some strong warnings. For the first 18 centuries of the present era, the growth of population was slow and the use of resources limited. Up to the mid-19th century, population increased only four-fold, and the Earth's resources were adequate to cater to the limited needs of the population. But the Industrial Revolution rapid change of technology led to an increase in the use of resources and new medical facilities reduced the death rate. From 1830 to 2005, the global population reached 6.5 billion in 2005. This period of rapid growth of population also witnessed an increase in the material conditions of living, referred to as "economic growth." World income increased to $ 40,000 billion at its end. Per capita income increased from $ 2000 to $ 6000 during this period. Human exploitation has driven down other species. The future of human life on Earth is threatened. Global warming is increasing. Drinking water has become scarce. Droughts and floods are causing much damage. Ocean levels are rising and habitats destroyed. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached dangerous levels. The issue is whether nations have the determination and cooperation to deal with a problem that is trans-national in nature. Sachs concludes that a modest 2% or 3% of the annual income of the rich countries will address the challenges of environment, population and poverty.   June 02, 2008   The Hindu

Return of the Population Timebomb.   Only since 1800, has the human population shot into the billions. Now at nearly 6.7 billion, few environmentalists seem to care. Yet our environmental impact, as gauged by total resource consumption is the product of population size and the average person's consumption. Today's crumbling environment, is evidence our total consumption has gone too far. We are destroying our life-support system. Our demand exceeding the planet's absorptive and regenerative capacities. To avert catastrophe, we need to reduce our numbers and per person consumption. Ignoring that logic, most environmentalists today avoid half the equation. A typical assertion typical: "If everyone on Earth had consumed less, as they do in Mexico, we wouldn't have exceed carrying capacity." It's a simple notion that sidesteps the issue of 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've insisted that any focus on numbers violates the right of women to manage their own fertility. China's one-child policy notwithstanding, humane, successful population programmes in countries as varied as Thailand, Iran, and Mexico contradict that assertion. Nevertheless, the criticism has cowed environmentalists and NGOs which once championed the population cause. Most environmentalists suggest a reduction in individual consumption is all we need to solve our ecological problems. The work of the Global Footprint Network (GFN), points to the answer. Measuring consumption as the use of biologically productive land and sea, their data shows a global maximum sustainable footprint, at today's population, of just under 1.8 global hectares (gha) per person. Currently, by drawing down nonrenewable resources, we're a bit over 2.2gha, overshooting Earth's limits by about 25%. What if everyone converged on Mexico's level of per capita consumption? 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. While in overshoot, we erode carrying capacity. Once we'd got to some level of consumption on a par with countries living today in abject poverty, we'd find there were fewer natural resources on which to draw than there had been when we started. There are limits to how much we can reduce per-person use of resources it would not end our environmental woes. Our sheer numbers prevent it. We have no alternative but to return our attention to population. Already in overshoot, we must aim for population stabilisation followed by a decline in human numbers worldwide. Humane measures have documented records of success at reducing fertility rates. We have to provide easy access to family planning options while educating parents through the media in the benefits of smaller families and family planning. We must do these things internationally 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.   May 05, 2008   John Feeney

U.S.: Immigration Affects Environment, Too, Reports E -the Environmental Magazine; But Solutions go Deeper than Building Fences.   Immigration has become a hot issue, but often for the wrong reasons. What's missing is frank discussion of its impact on overall population growth, the environment and on how to address its fundamental causes. Largely because of immigration, the U.S. Census estimates that from 303 million today we'll grow to 400 million people as early as 2040, and 420 million by 2050. The U.S. is growing so fast it now has the third largest population in the world. America is a nation of immigrants. We absorbed 25 million people between 1860 and 1920, and most observers believe we are a stronger nation because of it. America's rapid population growth makes it nearly impossible to achieve sustainability. About 93% of U.S. increases in energy use since 1970 can be attributed to population growth. We pave over an area the size of Delaware every year, and every day we remove 3.2 billion gallons of water from aquifers that are not replenished by natural processes. The energy and climate effects are little understood. Any efficiency gains we make are being swamped by rapid population increases. With just 5% of the world's population, the U.S. is the top consumer of 11 of the world's top 20 traded commodities. The increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., which rose 13 between 1990 and 2000, mirrors the population increase. A huge percentage of climate emissions can be attributed to population growth. Many people want to come to America from the overpopulated developing world. The swelling numbers abroad create pressures leading to "increased poverty, hunger, land degradation, a lack of health services and limited social and economic mobility." How do we address these pressures without calling for the mandatory caps on U.S. immigration? The organization Population Connection wants to combine action at home (reducing teen pregnancy, ensuring contraceptive availability, defending reproductive rights) with foreign aid. If people see hope for better lives at home, they will feel less pressure to emigrate. Such views have many supporters. If we and the governments of the countries they are coming from were to devote as much to improving their standard of living at home, they might not feel the need to come to America. The obstacle is to get countries around the world to focus on eradicating hunger, infant mortality and poverty, and limiting births through universal access to family planning. A 20-year plan to address these issues has languished as donor countries, including the U.S., have fallen short of meeting their financial commitments. In addition, the reinstatement of the "Global Gag Rule" which mandates that no U.S. family planning assistance be provided to foreign organizations that use funding to make abortion available, has had a severe impact. Cultural and religious opposition have also combined to thwart efforts. Nevertheless, UNFPA, says that the process offers the best hope for reducing migration pressures. The growing poverty and demographic divide between rich and poor countries must be addressed.   May 07, 2008   NewsBlaze

Population and Climate Change.   A larger global population means a larger demand for everything. The climate problem suggests that overconsumption may still be inevitable. To avoid catastrophic climate change, we believe that the international community should reverse population growth and reduce resource consumption. Projections for the depletion of oil, gas, and coal reserves estimated that, by 2076, 90% of these reserves will be gone. This is a much shorter timescale than previously believed, especially for coal. Mainstream predictions had indicated up to a 250-year supply, but probably did not take into account the demands of increased population. Germany, the largest coal producer in the European Union, reduced its estimated black coal reserves by 99% and its brown coal reserves by 80%. In less than 70 years, humankind will number 9 billion and energy will be scarce and expensive. A stark challenge is facing humankind: Cut energy demand to 40% and reduce global population to around 5 billion. Because nearly one-half of the world's population is in the midst or ahead of their childbearing years, reversing population growth cannot be achieved before 2050. The alternative is to prioritize voluntary family planning, education, and media outreach now. Africa had a per-capita ecological footprint of 1.1 global hectares (gha) against an available biocapacity of 1.3 gha per person. More than a 17.6% increase in Africa's population will make it impossible to sustain their current populations due to space, energy, and water constraints. Once the environmental carrying capacity is grossly exceeded, the only outcomes are starvation, disease, inter ethnic violence and genocide, migration, and/or aid from the international community. Fertility surveys have found that most couples worldwide want at least two children, in less-developed countries, people tend to want at least three children Even with family planning in place, reducing "unintended fertility"-- will not necessarily lead to replacement level fertility in less-developed regions, nor reduce average family size in more developed regions. The average global net growth is about 78 million people per year. If all nations instantly reached replacement-level fertility, the total global number of births would fall to about 120 million annually, about a 12-percent reduction. Nearly all of the more-developed nations have below replacement fertility levels. If all more-developed, industrialized countries reach replacement-level fertility, their total number of annual births would increase by 30%, about 4 million births. In the U.S. and in Europe, where fertility is well below replacement, immigration is the primary driving force behind most of the projected population growth. In the unlikely event that immigration were to cease, U.S. population by mid-century would be 80% smaller than projected, a greater demographic impact than reducing unintended fertility. If current trends continue, experts believe that China's greenhouse gas emissions will exceed that of all industrialized countries combined due to increasing local consumption and massive exports of commodities like steel and concrete. But reducing unintended fertility in China would have little effect on the country's production of greenhouse gasses. If China were to relax its one-child policy and fertility increased to replacement level, the country's annual number of births would increase by nearly 30%, or 5 million additional births. Annual births in India would drop by about 4 million if it were to reach replacement-level fertility, and the birth rates in the populous nations of Brazil and Indonesia would also drop by 5 and 2%, respectively, as their fertility levels are already near replacement level. Focusing on reducing unintended fertility to address climate change is a delay tactic. The focus should be on reducing damaging patterns of production and consumption. Reducing unintended fertility should be a top international climate priority Stopping emissions growth and climate change will be unattainable without universal, effective family planning programs and population stabilization. The international community should restore the goal of universal access to family planning as a top-tier priority. About 200 million women in developing countries would like to prevent or delay pregnancy but lack access to contraception. The most effective international family planning program in history was pioneered by USAID in the 1960s. The U.S. continues to be the largest donor to international family planning efforts. Curbing population must contribute to solving the climate crisis The world's population is living beyond its environmental means. Because of the long lag times associated with human demographic change, we need to act immediately. The global population growth rate has decreased from 2.1 percent in 1970 to 1.2 percent today, as a result of family planning programs and improved education. If we could reduce global unintended pregnancy rates to the levels that already exist in many European countries, population growth would slow further. We should act quickly to address the fact that almost 50 percent of U.S. pregnancies are unintended, through improved education and services. However, in a front-page story USA Today reported that the fertility rates in the United Stated rose above 2.1 children per woman for the first time since 1971, partly as a result of unintended pregnancies in all age groups. "Be fruitful and multiply" also plays well in churches and corporate boardrooms. Many groups believe that any discussion of population policy leads to coercion and racism. They all want to suppress dialogue and policies that relate to reducing population growth.   Karen Gaia sas: We must continue to educate, educate, and educate.   February 01, 2008   Population and climate change

Population Growth and the Environment.   The rate of human population growth peaked around 1963, but the number of people living on Earth, and sharing finite resources has topped out at over 6.6 billion today. Human population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050. Many if not all of the environmental problems are either caused or exacerbated by population growth. Trends such as the loss of the planet's forests, the depletion of fisheries, and the alteration of atmosphere and climate are related to the fact that human population expanded from millions in prehistoric times to over six billion today. Population growth is behind the clearing of 80% of rainforests, the loss of plant and wildlife species, an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and the development of about half of the Earth's land surface. Half of the world's population will be exposed to water-scarce conditions and difficulties in meeting…consumption levels. In less developed countries, lack of access to birth control, as well as cultural traditions encourage women to have babies, and lead to rapid population growth. The result is an increasing number of poor people suffering from malnourishment, lack of clean water, overcrowding and inadequate shelter, and AIDS and other diseases. While population numbers in developed nations are leveling off or diminishing, high levels of consumption make for a huge drain on resources. As more residents of developing countries get access to Western media, or immigrate to the U.S., they want to emulate the consumption-heavy lifestyles. Environmentalists consider the support of the Global Gag Rule to be shortsighted, and that support for family planning is the most effective way to check population growth and relieve pressure on the planet's environment.   January 08, 2008   www.HealthNewsDigest.com

India Heading for 2 Billion Population.   India's population will almost certainly be near 1.8 billion by 2050 and could top 2 billion by the end of this century unless fertility rates decline more rapidly in India's largest and poorest states. The possibility of India becoming the only country ever to have 2 billion people depends on the course of events in each of India 35 states and Union territories. India passed the 1 billion population benchmark in 2000, and stood at 1.1 billion in 2007. The government has been concerned about population growth outpacing economic growth, and India was the first country to adopt a policy to slow population growth. Since the policy was first stated in 1952, the country's total fertility rate has declined from about six children per woman to about three, but fertility levels vary greatly throughout India. The decline has been greater in its southern states, which have much higher rates of literacy and education. The southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu now have TFRs below two children per woman. The large states of the north, the "Hindi Belt," are where about 40% of Indians live. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, with about 93 million and 188 million people, currently have a TFR of about 4.3 children per woman. The state and Union territory populations were projected under two scenarios. One assumed that states with a current TFR above "two children" would decrease to 2.1 and then remain constant. The other assumed the TFR decline would continue until it reached 1.85 children per woman. The first scenario results in a population that would reach two billion in 2066-2071. By 2101, four states, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh would account for almost half of the country's population. Scenario B does not reach two billion, growth peaks in 2081-2086, after which it decreases. This state-based projection series uses national fertility rates and age structures, and PRB (Population Reference Bureau) believes it provides a more realistic scenario. The population projected for Uttar Pradesh ranges from 353 million to 364 million by 2051, and between 414 million and 480 million by 2101. The projected 2101 total for India ranges from 1.9 billion to 2.2 billion, depending on the assumptions for each state.   January 02, 2008   People and Planet website

Cities, Megacities, and the Price of Oil.   An urban poor person needs one or two dollars to buy everything he or she needs: shelter, food, fuel, medicines, clothes, transport, even taxes. But a rural poor person with a piece of land may be much better off in that their land, which may provide food, perhaps fuel, and shelter. Their monetary income may be additional to their basic needs. This is why land reform is more important than aid to poor countries, why a standpipe or irrigation system is better than encouraging a move to the city. But people vote in cities, pay taxes, are easier to monitor and control. Its cheaper to provide healthcare and education, businesses have the critical mass to survive. One of the aims of taxation is to force workers into a society which produces surplus, rather than self-sufficiency which cannot support a ruling class. Poor city-societies are vulnerable and require imports of energy and food, which must be paid for with the profit from commerce. In poorer countries that means trading of the country's natural wealth. That is the 'profit' that pays for everything else. But the main activity of the city may be government administration, tax collecting and all the paraphernalia we are familiar with. As energy prices rise and food prices double, poorer cities suffer most, because energy and food are their unavoidable imports. Poor self-sufficient people with their own land are largely unaffected. If we want to aid the people of a poor country, then land reform, provision of basic tools, water supply, non-hybrid seeds and harvest storage are best for the people.   Karen Gaia says: This opinion piece ignores the impacts of overpopulation on agricultural land. When the number of children that survive childhood expands from 2 per family to 4 or 6 (due to better sanitation and health practices), the multiplication of people upon the land forces migration of the excess younger people to the cities.   February 15, 2008   Donal Seeking blog

Niger: Population Explosion Threatens Development Gains.   If Nigeriens remain uninformed about family planning and keep reproducing at the current rate the population will more than quadruple by 2050, imposing unmanageable demands on the economy, social services and the environment. The current rate of population growth is 3.3% every year. If that growth continues, there will be 56 million people in Niger by 2050, compared to 13.5 million today. In 1960, it was just 1.7 million. 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.   December 11, 2007   UN Integrated Regional Information Network

Australia: Do We Need a Population Policy?.   Australia experienced an annual population growth rate of 1.5% for the year ending September 2007. The increase of 318,500 people saw Australia's population rise to 21,097,000. People are ready to grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet and that Australia must begin to think of itself as a country with a population problem. Any Australian population policy must recognise that the Australian economy is strongly inter-linked with the global economy. We can feed 25 million people without irreparable damage to our resources. All population growth - or even stationary population - does something to change the environment. If Australia is to become purely pantheistic and turn its back on the achievements and arts of civilisation, we have much to lose. Population increases from immigration should, be limited to maintain social and political stability. The cost of housing is soaring and rents are predicted to rise by 50% in the next four years. There are water restrictions on many of our major cities and our rivers are running dry, but still we keep the immigrants pouring in. If we are to meet our green house gas commitments we cannot keep on growing our population. It is high time we decided just what is the optimum population level for Australia.   April 04, 2008   Webdiary

Australia: Biofuel Bill Should Not Proceed.   Australian population grew 1.5% for the year ending September 2007. The increase saw Australia's population rise to 21,097,000. People grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet and that Australia must begin to think of itself as a country with a population problem. The human population on the Earth cannot continue to grow without destroying our life-support systems. The Australian economy is inter-linked with the global economy. We export to many other countries. It is by no means certain that controlling the Australian population will preserve our environment. We can feed 25 million people without damage to our resources. All population growth, or even stationary population, does something to change the environment. If Australia is to turn its back on the achievements and arts of civilisation, we have much to lose. The shutting of the immigration gates would prevent enrichment of our society. Population increases from immigration should be limited to maintain stability. A large immigration from countries with different cultural backgrounds would risk divisiveness as seen in other countries. The cost of housing is soaring and rents are predicted to rise by 50% in the next four years largely due to the large number of migrants coming to Australia. There are water restrictions on many of our major cities and our rivers are running dry, but still we keep the immigrants pouring in. If we are to meet our green house gas commitments we cannot keep on growing our population.   April 03, 2008   Scoop.co.nz

U.S.: Numbers Count in the Immigration Debate.   Immigrants, like native-born Americans, are good people, hard-working and patriotic. Individual immigrants are not problematic; mass immigration, both legal and illegal, is. Mass immigration is ruining the quality of life for the children and grandchildren of immigrants already in the United States. It is chewing up what little open space remains, driving up air-and water-pollution, amplifying suburban sprawl and placing a larger burden on publicly financed institutions. Most public debate ignores that immigration, both legal and illegal, has ballooned to record levels since the early 1990s. The number of foreign-born people in the US has reached 37 million. The most recent mass immigration, takes place when US population levels belabor and deplete the nation's natural resources. At least half of the 10.3 million immigrants who have arrived since 2000 are illegal. About 47% of all immigrants and their young children are on Medicaid or are uninsured. Nearly 33% of immigrant-headed households use at least one welfare program compared with 19% for natives. It is food assistance and Medicaid that explain the numbers. On the plus side, 82% of immigrant households have at least one worker in the household, compared with just 73% of native households. In fact, 78% of immigrant households using the major welfare programs have at least one worker. The public debate over immigration ignores the huge bubble of immigration the United States is now experiencing. It also ignores, the environmental impact of mass immigration. The CIS describes its mission seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted. If we want the US to become one nonstop mass of urban sprawl, we should continue to allow record levels of legal and illegal immigration. If we care about the quality of our environment and the quality of life here, we should take note of the numbers.   Karen Gaia: My issue with this article is that it does not seem concerned with the future sustainability of the U.S. It mentions Medicaid, food assistance, and immigrants, but if the author were truly interested in sustainability due to population, it would advocate: 1) fewer children to native born and immigrant alike (we have a large number of unwanted pregnancies), 2) a big cut in consumption by native born and immigrant alike, and 3) public policies and planning that help (not coerce) people to achieve numbers 1 and 2.   November 30, 2007   SignOnSanDiego.com

Uganda: Doctors Demand More Midwives.   Uganda will need to reduce its maternal mortality rate from 435 to 131 deaths per 100,000 if it is to meet this MDG by 2015. A high fertility rate at 6.7 births per woman is given as a contributing factor. The high fertility rates cause challenges which make access to quality maternal care difficult besides straining the health facilities to manage various health complications. The levels of literacy are low and it takes more time for people to understand the benefits of family planning. The government has not been such an active partner in regard to population control matters and a small percentage of the health budget has been allocated to issues of reproductive health. The quality of education is poor. The high rate of UPE enrollment is mainly a result of Uganda's high population. As the country's population soars, there is more need to increase access to health care facilities and improve health service delivery. The failure to be on course towards the attainment of the MDGs has been blamed on the country's high population growth, inefficiency in the management of the social budget and inadequacy of resources which is related to the demands of a high population which makes it difficult to apportion resources out of a limited resource like that of Uganda. A population growth rate of about 3.5% per annum could make achievement of many MDGs impossible.   February 19, 2008   Africa News Service

Growth of UK Population is Unsustainable, Says Cameron.   In his first speech on immigration and population, the Conservative leader will attack Gordon Brown for failing to tackle the causes of Britain's growing demographic problems. He will call for a "grown-up conversation" about population growth. Britain's population is set to rise by nine million over the next 20 years, because of higher life expectancy and higher immigration. He will say that we need to reduce the level of net immigration and the pressure of household formation. He will call for an understanding of the challenge, as well as action to ensure that the population grows sustainably. We need to bring policy on housing, skills immigration control, the family, border control, into a coherent long-term population strategy. In the past 40 years, the population grew by about six million. Over the next 40 years it is expected to grow more than twice as fast. The country faces a choice. We have to get used to it or most importantly, we will also make clear how our approach joins up and fits together into a coherent long-term strategy.   October 29, 2007   The Times

Humanity is the Greatest Challenge.   The growth in human population and rising consumption has exceeded the planet's ability to support us. We face two problems of importance. The first is our global ecological plight. The second is our difficulty acknowledging the first. Environmental writers remain reluctant to discuss the severity of the global dilemma we've created. There is an alarm to sound and the time for reticence is over. We've outgrown the planet and need radical action to avert unspeakable consequences. From deforestation to collapsing fisheries, desertification, the global spread of chemical toxins, ocean dead zones, and the death of coral reefs, an array of interrelated declines is evidence of our impact. The depletion of resources such as oil and ground-water, shows the challenge upon us. Barring decisive action, we are marching toward global collapse. Humans are not exempt from the threats posed by ecological degradation. Climate change-induced drought and the depletion of oil and aquifers could trigger famine on an unprecedented scale. Billions could die. At the very least, we risk our children inheriting a world empty of the richness of life we take for granted. The most worrisome is the convergence in time of so many serious problems. Issues such as oil and aquifer depletion and climate change are set to reach crisis points within decades. As a result of their interdependence, the extinction of species can trigger cascade effects. We're out of our league, influencing systems we don't understand. Some conclude we've postponed action too long to avoid massive upheaval and the best we can do now is to soften the blow. One thing is certain: continued inaction will be of no help - we're at a turning point in human history. Though few seem willing to confront the facts, we simply went too far. The growth which once measured our species' success has inevitably turned deadly. Our numbers and levels of consumption having exceeded the Earth's capacity to sustain us for the long-term. Inevitably, our numbers will come down, whether voluntarily or through such natural means as famine or disease. It's imperative we reduce consumption. We need a transition to clean, renewable energy. But abundant clean energy alone will not end our problems. There remains population growth which increases consumption of resources. On a finite planet, the physical component of economic growth cannot continue forever. It has gone too far already. As a promising alternative, the field of ecological economics offers the "steady state economy". We must end world population growth, then reduce population size. But today's environmentalists avoid the subject more than any other ecological truth. Their motives range from the political to a misunderstanding of the issue. Neither justifies hiding the truth because total resource use is the product of population size and per capita consumption. Expert consensus tells us we can address population humanely by solving the social problems that fuel it. Let's make the effort for today's and tomorrow's children.   January 13, 2008   BBC Green Room

Economic Collapse and Global Ecology.   Given failure to pursue policies to reverse deterioration of the biosphere and avoid ecological collapse, the best we can hope for may be that the growth-based economic system crashes. The Earth is faced with a conundrum, climate policies enjoy support only in times of rapid economic growth. Yet this growth is the primary factor driving environmental ills. The growth machine has pushed the planet well beyond its ecological carrying capacity. With every economic downturn, it becomes less likely that policies to ensure global sustainability will be embraced. This explores the possibility that it would be better for the economic collapse to come now rather than later. Economic growth is a deadly disease with capitalism as its most virulent strain. Throw-away consumption and explosive population growth are made possible by using up fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Humanity has proved unwilling to address environmental threats with haste and ambition. Action could be taken now at net benefit to the economy. Yet, the losers primarily fossil fuel industries resist futures not dependent upon their deadly products. Perpetual economic growth, and necessary climate and other ecological policies, are incompatible. Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon establishing a steady state economy. Industries like coal and natural forest logging will be eliminated even as new opportunities emerge in solar energy and environmental restoration. This transition to economic and ecological sustainability is not happening. The challenge is how to carry out environmental policies even as economic growth ends and consumption plunges. The response is going to be liquidation of even more life-giving ecosystems, and jettisoning of climate policies, to vainly try to maintain high growth and personal consumption. If efforts to reduce emissions and move to a steady state economy fail; the collapse of ecological, economic and social systems is assured. Greens take the continued existence of a habitable Earth with viable, sustainable populations of all species including humans as the ultimate truth and the meaning of life. Whether this is possible in a time of economic collapse is crucially dependent upon whether enough ecosystems and resources remain post collapse to allow humanity to recover and reconstitute sustainable, relocalized societies. It may be better for humanity's future that economic collapse comes sooner rather than later, while more ecosystems and opportunities to return to nature's fold exist. Economic collapse will be deeply wrenching part Great Depression, part African famine. There will be starvation and civil strife, and a long period of suffering and turmoil. Many will be killed as balance returns to the Earth. Most people have forgotten how to grow food and that their identity is more than what they own. Yet those who have lived most lightly upon the land will have an easier time of it, even as those super-consumers living in massive cities finally learn where their food comes from and that ecology is the meaning of life. Economic collapse now means humanity and the Earth ultimately survive to prosper again. Human suffering is inevitable given the degree to which the planet's carrying capacity has been exceeded. Humanity can take the bitter medicine now, and recover while emerging better for it; or our total collapse can be a final, fatal death swoon. A successful response would focus upon bringing down the Earth's industrial economy now. Maybe the best strategy to achieve global ecological sustainability is economic sabotage to hasten the day. It is more fragile than it looks. It is not yet known whether humanity is able to adapt, to ensure survival. If she can, all futures of economic, social and ecological collapse can be avoided. If not it is better that the economic growth machine collapse now, offering hope for a planetary and human revival. I wish no harm to anyone, and want desperately to avoid these prophesies. I speak for the Earth, for despite being the giver of life, her natural voice remains largely unheard over the tumult of the end of being.   Ralph says: Another piece of compulsory reading!!   January 15, 2008   CounterCurrents.org

U.S.: Envisioning a Sustainable Chesapeake.   It's been most inspiring to see discussions begin to address the future of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. 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.   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.   February 17, 2008   Annapolis Capital

Let's Change Direction on Human Population: Next Added 100 Million Americans.   This planet ain't big enough for the 6,500,000,000 humans. If you visit www.populationmedia.org, you'll see how fast human numbers explode across the planet on a minute by minute basis. The human race stands nostril-deep in trouble. Behind the climate crisis lies a global issue that no one wants to tackle: do we need radical plans to reduce the world's population? Global birth rates versus death rates is governed by the difference between an inflow and an outflow, and even small imbalances can have large effects. But population growth is almost entirely ignored. Which is odd, since it is at the root of the environmental crisis, and it represents a danger to health and socioeconomic development. For most of the two million years of human history, the population was less than a quarter of a million. Agriculture led to a sustained increase, but it took until 1800 before the planet was host to a billion humans. Today's grand total is estimated to be 6.6 billion, with a growth rate of 80 million each year Impressive increases in the food supply have played a part, but the underlying driver has been the shift from a society, in which energy was drawn from the wind, water, beasts of burden and wood, to a fossil fuel-based world in which most of our energy is obtained by burning coal, oil and gas. This transition has fuelled the changes in quality of life associated with modern technology. Although unevenly distributed, these bounties have seen life expectancy double and a corresponding reduction in mortality rates. But has not been matched by a lowering of the birth rate and this has resulted in the dramatic increase in the human stock. Since every individual can produce many offspring, the process will only cease when something happens to bring birth rate and death rate into balance. The overall growth rate of the world's population hit a peak of about 2% per year in the late sixties and has since fallen to 1.3%. As living standards rise and health conditions improve, the mortality rate decreases. The resulting difference between the numbers of births and deaths causes the population to increase. Eventually, the birth rate decreases until a new balance is achieved and the population again stabilizes, but at a new and higher level. Worldwide, the birth rate is about six per second, and the death rate stands at three per second. UN figures foresee numbers leveling out at a point when we have between 8 and 10 billion humans by 2050 - that's roughly a 50% increase on today's figure. Even at current levels, the WHO reports that more than three billion people are malnourished. Food availability continues to grow, but per capita grain availability has been declining since the eighties. 50% of plants and animals are harvested for our use, creating a huge impact on the world's ecosystems. It is the airborne waste from our energy production that is driving climate change. Yet, population control is rarely discussed. Today, however, publication of a new report by the United Nations Environment Program could be the spur we need. "If debate is started, some will say that we need to stop the world's population booming, and to do so most urgently where the birth rates are highest - the developing world. Programs that seek to reduce birth rates find that three conditions must be met. Birth control must be within the scope of conscious choice, there must be advantages to having a smaller family, if no provision is made for peoples' old age, the incentive is to have more children. The means of control must be available and socially acceptable, combined with education and emancipation of girls and women." The human multitude could only be sustained on a planet 25% larger than our own. But by avoiding a fraction of the projected population increase, the emissions savings could be significant and would be at a cost that would be as little as one-thousandth of the technological fixes. If we believe that the size of the human footprint is a serious problem then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed. So controversial is the subject that it has become the Cinderella of the great sustainability debate. In meetings addressing how the planet functions as an integrated whole, demographers and population specialists are notable by their absence. As time passes, so our ability to leave the world in a better state is reduced. Today's report from the UN provides an opportunity to raise the debate once again. For the sake of future generations, I hope that others will this time take up the challenge. My best guess? The US continues on the same path as China, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Africa and the rest of them until our misery exceeds our ability to continue growing. Unfortunately, by that time, it will be awfully ugly.   February 09, 2008   OpEdNews

Global Over-Population is the Real Issue.   The fertility of the human race: we are getting to the point where you simply can't discuss it, and we are thereby refusing to say anything sensible about the biggest single challenge facing the Earth. The primary challenge facing our species is the reproduction of our species. The population of the planet is growing with every word you read. There are more than 211,000 people being added every day. I see this change, and I feel it. You can see it as you fly over Africa at night, and you see mile after mile of fires as the scrub is removed to make way for human beings. In the satellite pictures of nocturnal Europe, the whole place lit up. You can see it in the Shanghai skyline, where new skyscrapers are going up round the clock. You can see it as you fly over Mexico City, a vast checkerboard of smog-bound, low-rise dwellings stretching from one horizon to the other; and when you look down on what we are doing to the planet, you have a horrifying vision of habitations multiplying like bacilli in a Petri dish. The world's population is now 6.7 billion.. If I live to my mid-eighties, it will have trebled in my lifetime. The UN last year predicted that there will be 9.2 billion people by 2050, and I cannot understand why no one discusses this impending calamity, and no statesmen have the guts to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves. How can we discuss global warming, and reducing consumption, when we are continuing to add so relentlessly to the number of consumers? The answer is political cowardice. There was a time, in the 1960s and 1970s, when people were becoming interested in demography, and the UN would hold giant conferences on the subject. But over the years, certain words became taboo, and certain concepts became forbidden, and we have reached the stage where the very discussion of overall human fertility and global motherhood has become more or less banned. All sorts of explanations are offered for the surrender. Some say Indira Gandhi gave it all a bad name, by her demented plan to sterilise Indian men. Some attribute our complacency to the Green Revolution, it became the wisdom that the world's population could rise to umpteen billions, as mankind learned to make several ears of corn grow where one had grown before. In recent years, the idea of global population control has been stifled by a pincer movement from the Right and the Left. American right-wingers disapprove of anything that sounds like birth control, and George W. Bush withholds the contribution America makes to the UN Fund for Population Activities. The Left dislike suggestions of population control because they seem to smack of colonialism and imperialism. So we have reached the absurd position in which humanity bleats about the destruction of the environment, and yet there is not a peep about the population growth that is causing that destruction. The debate is now unavoidable. Look at food prices, driven ever higher by population growth in India and China. Look at the Chinese desire for meat, which has pushed the cost of feed so high that Vladimir Putin has been obliged to institute price controls. In Britain, chicken farmers are finding that the cost of chickenfeed is no longer exactly chickenfeed, and, though the food crisis may be solved by the wit of man, the damage to the environment may be irreversible. It is time we had a grown-up discussion about the optimum quantity of human beings in this country and on this planet. This is not, an argument about immigration per se, since in a sense it does not matter where people come from, and with their skill and their industry, immigrants add hugely to the economy. This is a question of population, and the eventual size of the human race. All the evidence shows that we can reduce population growth, and world poverty, by promoting literacy and female emancipation and access to birth control. Isn't it time politicians stopped being so timid, and started talking about the real number one issue?   Karen Gaia sayys: The article ignores what could be accomplished if enough money were spent on women's reproductive health, contraception, sex education, and girls education. The cost would be less than what we spend on pets in the U.S.   January 14, 2008   Telegraph

Closing the 'Baby Gap'.   In Japan, Russia, Germany and elsewhere in what gurus like to call "the global North," panic has set in about fertility declines, and couples are exhorted to have and are rewarded for producing more children. So fascinated are we in the developed world with this phenomenon that a misinterpretation of world population trends has taken hold. In a majority of nations, there is no shortage of babies. Women there are crying out for help in controlling their fertility. But when foreign aid priorities are set, family planning is no longer high on the list. The 1960s were the high point in family planning. Influential thinkers in richer countries came to accept that pushing family planning was a cultural or even political intrusion. President Bush has just barred for the fifth year U.S. government contributions to the U.N. Population Fund, which does more work in more countries than any other family-planning organization. His action is based on unsubstantiated claims, that the fund aids abortion in China. The U.S. is now $196 million in arrears. By 2025, the richer world will account for just over 1.25 billion of the projected global population of 7.9 billion; by 2050, 8 billion of the world's 9.2 billion people will be in poor nations. Almost all population growth will be among the people who already struggle hardest to survive. A large, young, productive workforce boosts an economy, through a higher birth rate and immigration, but when families and public services are overwhelmed by numbers, a terrible cycle of underachievement goes into motion. The exodus of desperate people from sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia is a symptom of the double burden of underdevelopment and overpopulation. Environmental damage is near- catastrophic. In India, nearly half the children are malnourished and no major city has running water 24 hours a day. Wouldn't the world's environment be better protected by offering more people a managed way to move to less-populated regions, perhaps through a new U.N. agency modeled on the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees? Wouldn't it be better to help developing nations achieve workable population levels through family planning, while filling current gaps in the working-age population of rich nations through immigration? Europe and Japan would rather have more babies. Does the world really need them?   Karen Gaia says: the trouble with moving people from poor countries to rich countries results in overextending the artificial sustainability of those countries whose economies are based on oil. All will collapse as is already happening in the US. The U.S. is already taking far more resources from other countires than it is providing in return.   September 26, 2007   New York Times*

Is the Planet Full Yet?.   Of the top 50 things to save the planet, to have fewer people is only Number 18. The current population of 6.6 billion people is predicted to rocket to 9.7 billion in the next 40 years. Yet there is a conspicuous silence about the topic of sustainable family planning. 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.   November 26, 2007   The Argus website

We Face Worldwide Drought with No Contingency Plan.   What happens when there is not enough water to go around? Atlanta is a city in trouble in a region in trouble. Sonny Perdue, Georgia's Baptist governor, led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. It seems, however, that the Almighty was otherwise occupied and the regional drought continued. Water rationing has hit the capital. Car washing and lawn watering are prohibited. Harvests in the region have dropped by 15 to 30%. By the end of summer, local reservoirs and dams were holding 5% of their capacity. But that compares Ankara, Turkey, hit by a fierce drought and high temperatures. Over the last decade, 15 to 20% decreases in precipitation have been recorded, accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. Or the drought that has swept huge parts of Australia, the worst in a century. Morocco has 50% less rainfall than normal. In Mexico's Tehuacán Valley, the drought conditions have made subsistence farming next to impossible. Four cities in Southern California, top the national drought ratings: Los Angeles, San Diego, Oxnard, and Riverside. We don't think of our country as water poor. But acording to the National Climate Data Center, federal officials have declared 43% of the contiguous US to be in "moderate to extreme drought." The Southwest is in the grips of a 'mega-drought,' even the 'worst in 500 years.' Such conditions may represent the region's new "normal weather." The water level of Lake Superior, has fallen to the lowest point on record for this time of year. In the Southeast, 26% of which, according to the National Weather Service, is in a state of "exceptional" drought, tt has been the driest year on record for North Carolina and Tennessee, while eighteen months of blue skies have led Georgia to break every historical record, whether measured by the percentage of moisture in the soil, the flow rate of rivers, inches of rain. Rock Spring, South Carolina, has been without water for a month. Farmers are hauling water by pickup truck to keep their cattle alive. Atlanta, its metropolitan area "watered" mainly by a 1950s man-made reservoir, Lake Lanier, which, is turning into baked mud. With a population of five million and known for its uncontrolled growth (as well as lack of water planning), the city is expected to house another two million inhabitants by 2030. And yet, Atlanta will essentially run out of water. The worst outcome would be mass migrations with bitter interstate court battles over the dwindling water supplies. But before that, if too much water is siphoned from agriculture, farm towns and ranch towns will wither. If drought becomes more widespread, more common in heavily populated parts of the globe already bursting at the seams (and with more people arriving daily), if whole regions no longer have the necessary water, How much burning and suffering and misery are we likely to experience?   November 26, 2007   Alternet

Pollution and Long-Term Environmental Degradation: Impediments to Pakistan’s Growth.   Leaders in the field of climate change and sustainable development provided an account of the threats that developing countries such as Pakistan faced in the wake of increasing pollution as well as long term weather & climate changes. Pakistan is in a quagmire in more ways than one. Our society is in a struggle to win freedom, this time from the corrupt politician-military alliance. At the same time, we face internal threats from religious extremism and suicide attacks, and external geo-political developments. In the middle is an ordinary Pakistani who is unable to earn decent wages, has to deal with rapid inflation and crunch on food supplies, and political-economic chaos around him continues to negatively impact his/her daily job. We are still an agrarian economy. In 2006 the agricultural sector accounted for 22% of the GDP and employs a significant percentage of the working population. Climate change can lead to increased incidences of flooding in Pakistan. According to the UN, this area has an agrarian economy with rice and wheat as the main crops. But all our fields have been destroyed and our livelihoods are in ruins. Two months after the deluge, the water is still running six to seven feet deep across vast tracts of farmland. In Sindh floodwater damaged about 71,806 acres out of a total of 140,000 acres sown for this year's harvest. Rice was hardest hit, with an estimated 3.05 million metric tonnes of produce damaged. The Pakistan Strategic Environmental Assessment by the World Bank, warns of environmental degradation as a threat that undermines Pakistan growth. It is costing Pakistan at least 6 percent of GDP or about Rs. 365 billion (US$ 6 billion) annually. Nearly 50% of the environmental damage cost is attributed to illness and premature mortality. Indoor air pollution alone is the reason for 30,000 child deaths per year. Around one-third of the cost is due to death and illness resulting from waterborne diseases. Reduced agricultural productivity due to soil salinity and erosion accounts for about 20% of the cost. The poor in our country will be the ones bearing the biggest burden of the climate and environment related degradation in health, ecology, and farmland. Environmental damage has severe impact in both rural and urban areas. Over 6% of Pakistan's population is rural and depend on natural resources such agricultural soils, water, rangelands and forests that are strained and degrading. The sustainability of agricultural production is under severe environmental threat. Nearly 40% of the country's irrigated land is water-logged, and 14% is saline. The estimated cost of deforestation is between Rs. 206 to 334 million (US$ 3.4 to 5.5 million) per annum, and up to 80% of the rangeland is degraded. Children are more susceptible to lung and throat diseases, including asthma, emphysema, chronic lung bronchitis and damage to lung's airways. A recent study has found that polyaromatic hydrocarbon compounds present in soot can lead to cancer, especially in children. Pakistan is the most urbanized country in South Asia, and exposure to urban and industrial pollution is a rapidly growing concern. Access to clean water is another burgeoning problem that will be more evident globally in the future. Future wars will be fought over water resources. The health costs associated with waterborne diseases amount to 1.8% GDP. The regulatory framework needs to be strengthened to include drinking water quality standards. Our actions must begin with a realization of how large the problem is and what is at stake if we fail to play our part in curtailing global climate change. We need a collective and systematic effort at the local, regional, national and international level to prevent pollution and large scale environmental degradation. The Government of Pakistan has made considerable progress in raising public awareness of environmental issues, and establishing a framework for environmental management. The main constraints to environmental performance include gaps in incentives and accountability, institutional design, the regulatory framework, and capacity limitations.   Ralph says: First and the most important is to halt the population growth   November 23, 2007   All Things Pakistan

Overshoot, Narcissus, and the Sirens' Song.   Overshoot is a major threat to the future of the human civilization. The danger is magnified by the misperception that much of our journey is "progress." Overshoot: is to increase in numbers so much that the habitat's carrying capacity is exceeded by the ecological load. In the past 10,000 years the human population has increased from 5-10 million to about 6.5 billion in 2005. At first, this growth was sustained by displacing other species, but in the past two hundred years, humanity has expanded based on a precarious practice of rapidly drawing down finite natural resources, many of which are becoming scarce. Overshoot can generate a surge of wealth, for example, as occurred with the discovery of oil in many parts of the world. The subsequent prosperity in the short-term reinforces the belief that this is the proper way to proceed over the longer-term. This is the illusion that currently bewitches the mass of humanity. This road leads inevitably to collapse and die-off. Humanity is in a state of overshoot, and this situation is rapidly worsening with the exponential growth of human numbers. The Union of Concerned Scientists, in 1992, delivered the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, in which 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, warned: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. If not checked, many of our practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. In March 20, 2006, the UN Environment Programme delivered a similar message that warns that humans have provoked the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out sixty-five million years ago. We humans are responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of Earth. A rising human population of six and a half billion is destroying the environment, the global demand for biological resources now exceeding the planet's capacity to renew them by 20%. The reference here is serious for the human future as is the rapid drawdown of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels and base metals. World fish stocks are down by 90% since the dawn of modern industrialized fishing about 1950. Some desperate fishers have taken to bombing coral reefs, turning them into underwater deserts. * A third of all amphibians, over a fifth of mammals, and a quarter of coniferous trees, are threatened with extinction. Human activity has caused between fifty and a thousand times more extinctions in the last one hundred years than would have happened due to natural processes. The UN World Water Development Report projects that, at worst, as many as seven billion people in sixty countries could face water scarcity by 2050. There is increasing agreement that the point at which the global production of petroleum will begin to decline, has already occurred. Inexpensive oil is the foundation of modern industrial civilization and declining supplies will have a devastating effect on most aspects of human life: Ninety percent of transportation is fuelled by oil. Oil is essential for construction, consumer products, heating, manufacturing, and electronics. It is critical for modern agriculture: fertilizers, farm machinery, pesticides, refrigeration, and transportation. Peak oil marks the end of the growth phase of global industrial society. With globalization in full swing, resource hungry corporations, hyperactive consumers and restless migrants threaten to pick the planet clean. The risks of overshoot are so overwhelming one is left in astonishment that humanity has not responded with a profound shift towards sustainability. The explosive growth of human population is at the core of overshoot. Human societies to press for the expansion of human numbers and consumption and to resist changes that are perceived as unpleasant in the short-term. In 1798 England was in the midst of rapid population growth and there were many poor. Malthus stated that in nature, plants and animals produce far more offspring than can survive, and that humans are capable of overproducing. Malthus maintained that actual population growth is kept in line with the growth of food supply by famine, pestilence, and disease, or by preventive checks, for example, the postponement of marriage. These days, we would include a whole range of contraceptives. Malthus was criticized when he concluded that the poor could not be helped except by an elevation of the death rate or a lowering of the birth rate. Social reformers from the early 1800s to the present day believe that with proper institutional structures, most human ills can be eradicated. Social reformers tend to overestimate what the living Earth can supply to meet human demands. Politicians like to deliver promises of a better life for all and have been inclined to side with the social reformers. This preference for growth receives support from most institutions, including corporations, which have been designed for growth, and the major religions. Scientific observers have a different perspective of time than social reformers. Social reformers say: "Provide more nurture for the species now." Scientific observers suggest: "Nurture the planet that nurtures the species." The demands of the social reformers are more immediate and direct; the warnings of the scientific observers are more long-term and the perceived benefits, indirect. The Brundtland Report set out the strategic imperatives for sustainable development, including: ensuring a sustainable level of population. An unfortunate coincidence of factors diminished the impetus to implement the strategic imperatives for sustainable development. Between 1980 and 2000, the prices of most commodities fell and the ramping up of production of petroleum from the North Sea created a sense of abundance. This reinforced the belief among some social reformers that the market forces would bring about more efficient production and increase the wealth for many. However, with the exception of economic growth, the market forces have not met the strategic imperatives for sustainable development. A study published in early 2005 and presented some sobering information. It states that humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the past fifty years than in any other period. Some 60% of ecosystem elements such as fresh water, clean air, and a relatively stable climate, are being used unsustainably and the situation could become worse during the first half of this century. The Study stated that "the overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the services of this planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all." It also said that "achieving this will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business, and civil society. The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands." The denial of overshoot is rooted in various emotions such as, greed, and the desire to continue the momentum of existing structures that are designed to promote the growth of human numbers and consumption. We humans are about to discover that the continuation of civilization will require that we address overshoot with the full strength of our reason and emotion. We face a dilemma. Population growth increases demand and helps to fuel economic growth. If human economic activity does not continue to grow, industrial societies will become unstable, and if human activities continue their current rate of growth, the life support system of the ecosphere will collapse. It is preferable to rein in growth and to learn how to adapt to the challenges of a shrinking economy before it is forced upon us by environmental catastrophes and chaos. We now have no alternative but to adopt actions that may be contrary to our nature. We need to back off, stop killing thousands of species of plants and animals, and curtail our own expansionary drives. If we cannot implement these and similar measures, Nature will most surely do it for us. Nature may control our numbers better than we can ourselves. Nature has removed the sick and the weak from the population indiscriminately thereby improving the overall health of our species and others. Population growth is at the root of human expansion but the subject of population is emotional and taboo. Powerful institutions continue to support population growth. The strength of the sexual impulse cannot be denied. The individual freedom of choice to have a child pits individual rights against the collective good. The first step is for world leaders to acknowledge that overshoot will lead to profound changes to all societies. It is possible to mitigate the effects of overshoot by early anticipation and wise choice. The alternative will be a series of crises, followed by collapse and die-off. All governments should calculate the carrying capacity of their respective countries. All governments must understand that national strategies to encourage falling birth rates have been a factor in improving human well-being in many countries, including South Korea, Thailand, and China. Appropriate means of contraception should be made available to the poor of all countries. Prosperous countries should make a determined effort to improve the level of education in poorer countries, especially the education of women and children. Countries that allow their populations to rise beyond carrying capacity must face the results of their actions. There is a huge unmet need for family planning. Ultimately, the various peoples of the world will have to assume the responsibility to restore their respective regions into lands of hope. A few generations of below replacement fertility could reduce the global population to sustainable levels. Below replacement fertility is already a reality in fifty-one countries including China. We need to recognize that the Earth is the only home we have.   May 2006   J. Anthony Cassils - Population Institute of Canada

Africa;: Population Growth Highest Around Lake Victoria.   The annual population growth rate of 7% around Lake Victoria is the highest in Africa. Africa's population was growing at 2.5% annually. This is because most urban centres are located around Lake Victoria and opportunities like fishing have attracted migrants. A report by state minister for environment said the soil around the lake was suitable for agriculture. The population growth presented a challenge because of the increased demand for food, leading to encroachment on protected areas. This rapid population growth and urbanisation has resulted in environmental degradation. The population growth rate was higher than the economic growth, which undermines development efforts aimed at improving livelihood and sustainable use of the environment. In the last two decades, fresh water resources have been exposed to severe pollution and that has encouraged growth of weeds like the water hyacinth. The population increase has also led to encroachment on the wetlands and the continued disappearance of forests on private land and gazetted forest reserves. The water level has dropped by more than a metre. The country's wetlands are threatened by pollution, unplanned development, and agriculture.   November 06, 2007   Africa News Service

The Road Well Travelled: Are We Already Shutting Our Minds to the Consequences of Climate Change?.   Cormac McCarthy's book The Road considers what would happen if the world lost its biosphere, and the only living creatures were humans, hunting for food. Years before the action begins, the protagonist hears the last birds passing over; McCarthy makes no claim that this is likely to occur, but speculates about the consequences. All social codes are replaced with organised butchery, then chaotic, blundering horror. What else are the survivors to do?: It is hard to see how this could happen during humanity's time on earth. But his thought experiment exposes the one terrible fact: our dependence on biological production remains absolute. So when I read the UN's new report on the state of the planet, my mind kept snagging on a handful of figures. There were some bright spots - lead has been removed from petrol almost everywhere, sulphur emissions have been reduced in most rich nations. But the issue that stopped me was production. Crop production has improved over the past 20 years (from 1.8 tonnes per hectare in the 1980s to 2.5 tonnes today), but it has not kept up with population. "World cereal production per person peaked in the 1980s, and has since slowly decreased ". There will be roughly 9 billion people by 2050: feeding them would require a doubling of world food production. Unless we cut waste, overeating, biofuels and the consumption of meat, total demand for cereal crops could rise to three times the current level. There are two limiting factors. One, is phosphate: it is not clear where future reserves might lie. The immediate problem is water. "Meeting the MDG on hunger will require doubling of water use. Water scarcity is acute in many regions, and farming takes the lion's share of water from streams and groundwater. "One-tenth of the world's major rivers no longer reach the sea all round the year. "If present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress." The biggest cause of the coming droughts is climate change. Last week we learnt that climate change could eliminate half the world's species); that 25 primate species are already slipping into extinction; that biological repositories of carbon are beginning to release it, decades ahead of schedule. But everyone is waiting for everyone else to move. In every major energy sector - aviation, transport, power generation, house building, coal mining, oil exploration - the government is promoting policies that will increase emissions. How will it make the 60% cut the bill enforces? The only certain means of preventing runaway climate change is to cut emissions here and now. The BBC schedules are crammed with shows urging us to travel further, drive faster, build bigger, buy more, yet are deemed to offend the rules, which really means that they don't offend the interests of business or the pampered sensibilities of the Aga class.   Ralph says: not a word about population.   October 30, 2007   Monbiot.com

Is Chicken Little Right?.   From a conversation between Paul Ehrlich who is Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University, and Gellerman of PBS -- GELERMAN: The UN panel warns that even "mass extinction" is possible. Among the most famous of pessimistic predictions is from biologist Paul Ehrlich. In 1968 Ehrlich wrote "The Population Bomb," a landmark book in which he predicted that as a result of an exploding population, by 1985, quote: 'the battle to feed all of humanity will be over,' And that, 'in the 1970s and 80s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.' EHRLICH: In 1993, 58 academies of science said - that is basically all the academies of science in the world - said if we don't change our ways, we're doomed. And 1500 of the world's leading scientists sent out a statement called "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," said exactly the same thing. The scientific community has been trying to warn society about the various things we're facing and it just hasn't penetrated the media or certainly governments. GELLERMAN: But back in 1968 when you wrote "The Population Bomb," you wrote that the battle to feed all of humanity is over. That was what - 40 years ago? EHRLICH: We still have about a billion people who don't get enough food to function properly. In 1968 in the same book I warned about the possibilities of global warming, and that's something the scientific community has known about since about 1898. None of this stuff is new. It's just a massive report happened to come out of the UN saying 'all the trends are in the wrong direction.' GELLERMAN: According to the UN report, by 2050 there will be about 9.7 billion people on the planet. Is that in excess of the carrying capacity of the planet? EHRLICH: Certainly in anything like today's lifestyle. If everyone has the absolute minimum to keep them alive - it might be possible. GELLERMAN: Did you say 'battery chicken?' EHRLICH: Battery chickens are these situations where you raise billions of chickens in one building, you know where every chicken as a square foot and just is in there and gets fed and uh, grows. That's the battery-chicken world, where everybody is living the absolutely minimum standard of living so you can maximize the number of people. If we want, for example, the United States to go on for thousands and thousands of years, the way to do it isn't to see how many people we can cram in in the next 20. You've got to remember we're at about 6.6 billion now, talking about adding about 2.5 billion more. The next two and a half billion are going to be a lot more expensive to take care of environmentally than the previous 2.5 billion because people are smart, they farm the best lands first. You know you can't get oil by sticking a pointed stick in the ground in Pennsylvania anymore. You got to drill down a couple of miles. And water has to be transported long distances. ... Ask them in Atlanta, where they're running out of water. Ask them in Southern California, where climate change is helping huge fires to devastate areas. GELERMAN: According to the UN report, each person on the planet needs about 22 hectares. But I'm thinking, you know, there's Hong Kong, there's New York, you know EHRLICH: Well, that's right but the thing you got to remember is that the people in New York don't live on New York. They import stuff from acres all over the rest of the world. It's a common fallacy - it's actually been named by the scientific community 'the Netherlands fallacy,' the idea that the whole planet can be as crowded as the Netherlands. And of course it's not people versus area, it's people versus the resources that support them. And those resources include things called 'sinks,' like the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb carbon dioxide. That's a very important resource for the planet. It's one we're overusing at the moment. Many things are not mentioned in the media. For instantce, many people feel that the number of toxic substances we're adding to the environment are an even bigger threat than global warming. In many villages in the Arctic and sub Arctic, there are only half as many male babies being born as female babies and it's likely a sign of the hormone-mimicking chemicals that we manufacture, release into the environment, and that are carried by the climate systems to the poles. The threat of emerging diseases - the first one of course, has been AIDS, the first really big one in recent decades - but the more people we have, the greater the threat - particularly to the ones that malnourished - of new plagues taking over, a new flu, and so on. GELLERMAN: So it has not reached the tipping point? EHRLICH: We don't know. But what other choice do we have but to try and change so that if we haven't reached the tipping point, we don't reach it, because the tipping point is going to be miserable and an awful lot of people will die and lifestyles will change very, very dramatically. What we can say is that societies can change very rapidly when the time is ripe. Look for instance how rapidly the Soviet Union disappeared when none of us expected it to.   Living on Earth

Passport to Sustainability - Chico State’s Annual Environmental Conference Boasts Big Names with Big Ideas.   From a sustainability conference in Chico California: Looking back at the 1960s and early '70s, environmental issues were of national interest leading to major legislation and the formulation of agencies such as the U.S. EPA. But the 30-some years later, replete with failed environmental protection in the political realm, has led to global temperature increases of 0.8 degrees centigrade with another 1.4-1.5 degrees in the pipeline. The figures are close to the 2-degree increase that a majority of climate scientists consider as the point of no return. We have to have the courage to stare down the barrel at these numbers we're not going to get a second chance. The estimate is of 150,000-180,000 annual deaths due to climate-driven events. Without intervention, future generations will be dealing with planetary destabilization; the result of heat waves, drought, shrinking crop patterns, increasing deserts and rises in sea levels, among other ill effects. The ecological issues facing mankind go beyond party lines. They are not about Republican versus Democrat or liberal versus conservative; they are about protecting the environment for those who come after us. The president of the Global Population Education acknowledged that the topic of population makes people feel uneasy, but said it shouldn't. Worldwide, 350 million women have told health surveys that they don't want more children, or they want to space the time between their pregnancies to protect the lives of their children. If the same women had the means and the knowledge to control their fertility, it would stabilize the world population at 8 billion, he said. What's hidden in the population statistics is that 99% of growth is in the world's poorest countries. Solving the problems of those people, will help create a sustainable planet. He cited four things we should all be concerned about: declining forests, topsoil erosion, expanding deserts and a changing global climate. Solutions to the global population problem are simple. The first is to ensure every girl in the world gets an eighth-grade education. Second, women need access to employment opportunities. Efforts need to be taken to reduce the infant mortality rate. Women in developing nations often choose to have many children to increase the chances that some of their babies will survive to childhood. And last, women need universal access to family-planning practices. Slowing down population growth becomes a requirement that all of us need to address because there are no acceptable alternatives.   Karen Gaia says: Women also need access to reproductive health care.   November 08, 2007   Chico News & Review

Population Explosion Threatens Development Gains.   If the people of Niger remain uninformed about family planning and keep reproducing at the current rate the country's population will quadruple by 2050. Niger's population is counted by the Institute for National Statistics (INS), which calculates the current rate of population growth is 3.3% every year. If that growth continues, there will be 56 million people living in Niger by 2050, compared to 13.5 million today. The average number of children per mother is 7.1. When asked how many they would like to have - women said nine and men said 12, but some families said they would like 40 or 50 children. This is a society that encourages procreation. Just 5% of Nigeriens use family planning and contraception. The 85% of Nigeriens who currently rely on rain-fed subsistence agriculture, are going to be hardest hit as millions more people compete for the same farmland. Niger's cultivatable land could be less because of soil degradation and the effects of climate change. It has been identified as one of the regions most likely to be adversely affected by climate change. The increase in population will accentuate the cereal production and wood-for-fuel deficits which started in the 1980s. Niger's population will also overtake the government's ability to provide adequate health, education, jobs and even water points. The capital Niamey remains small compared to most Sahelian capitals with a population of around 700,000. At least 85% of the Nigerien population relies on rainfed subsistence farming. 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, some 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 is inhabited by only 3% of the population - 321,639 people. Niger's government put in place a "national action plan" to curb population growth. The government wants the number practising family planning to increase from 5% to 15% or 20% by 2015. The plan also calls for information campaigns to educate religious leaders and especially women about the availability and importance of family planning. It proposes that early marriages be cut. 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 produced per woman should be five. If the demographics continue, Niger cannot develop. All the resources will be going into social services and nothing will be left for investing in the economy.   December 18, 2007   Africa News Service

Nepal;: Sustainable Development Needs More Actions, Less Rethoric.   Katmandu has changed. Trips in the city take at least two hours, we can no longer see the Himalayas, their snow caps have disappeared and the rivers have become open sewers. The population of Katmandu increased from around 200,000 about 20 or 30 years ago, to nearly two million. According to the GEO-4 report, the global population has grown by 34% to more than 6.7 billion. Trade is increased 3 times, and the average income per capita has gone up by about 40% from US$5,927 in 1987 to US$8,162 in 2004. Population and economic growth have increased demand on natural resources, and placed increasing pressure on the environment, representing serious and persistent barriers to sustainable development. The world as a whole is living far beyond its means. The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available. The well-being of billions of people in the developing world is at risk, because of failure to remedy relatively simple problems which have been successfully tackled elsewhere. In Asia and the Pacific, ecosystems and human health continue to deteriorate, while population growth and rapid economic development have caused significant environmental degradation and loss of natural resources. Among the serious environmental problems are urban air pollution, lack of fresh water, and increased waste. In the region, some 655 million people lack access to safe water. The growing energy needs and the growth in motor vehicles are causing serious damage. For Asia and the Pacific, climate change would cause severe droughts and floods, soil degradation, coastal inundation and salt water intrusion caused by sea level rise. Agricultural productivity is likely to decline substantially. Environmental and economic policies have not been fully integrated. The quality of economic growth was more important than its number or percentage. Economic growth has to be green. But unfortunately, many Asian countries have copied the US in appreciating economic growth. Bangkok has copied the US in developing its transportation infrastructure which has led to traffic jams. Sustainability could be achieved by integrating the environment into development. The environmental awareness of the world community and its leaders have improved a lot but their actions are not adequate. Our Common future depends on our actions today, not tomorrow or some time in the future.   November 05, 2007   Antara

Paper on Environment and Family Planning by Joe Speidel.   Population seems to have dropped off the environmental agenda, due to three factors: controversy around population, family planning, abortion, and reproductive health; the political dominance of an anti-environmental White House and Congress; and a shifting of priorities due to difficult fights over a variety of immediate threats to the environment. Less attention has been focused on the consequences of population programs and, their environmental implications. Family planning and reproductive health advocates in the US face opposition from ideological conservatives, who try to minimize the significance of population growth or to limit the medical options of those seeking to avoid pregnancy and disease. This paper seeks to refocus the attention of environmentalists on the importance of population trends to environmental sustainability and identifies prevention of unintended pregnancy as potential common ground for environmentalists and family planning advocates. Continued growth in the world's population will add to the environmental burden and, will undermine the prospects for socioeconomic development. The impact of humans is related to population size, per capita consumption, and the environmental impact of the technology used to produce what is consumed. Between 1950 and 2000, the world's population went from 2.5 to 6.1 billion. At the same time, the gross world product expanded from approximately $7 trillion to $46 trillion of annual output. Continued growth in per capita consumption, at a rate of just 2% annually, would result in a four-fold increase in per capita consumption by 2075. To achieve this without further degradation of important ecosystems presents a daunting challenge. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than during any other period, primarily to meet increasing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel. Global forest cover has declined by 50% since pre-agricultural times. Fisheries are endangered: with one billion people dependent on fish for protein, 75% have been over-fished. Cropland is shrinking because of soil erosion and desertification, and crop yields are threatened by rising temperatures and inadequate water supply. Water tables are falling as 15 countries containing half of the world's people, a total of 3.26 billion, are over pumping aquifers. If family planning efforts are not strengthened and current levels of fertility remain unchanged, then world population is projected to reach 11.9 billion by 2050. Previously high fertility rates have left many poor countries with large numbers of women of reproductive age; as they have children, population size will increase even as fertility rates decline. High-fertility persists in much of the world, ensuring that population growth will continue. Out of 210 million pregnancies worldwide - 80 million - 38% are unplanned, and 46 million (22 % of all pregnancies) end in abortion. Unintended pregnancy in the US accounts for roughly half of the current increase of 2.9 million people each year. Between 2000 and 2004, 4.3 million immigrants, including an estimated two million illegal immigrants, arrived in the country. Provision of family planning services is the most direct intervention to slow population growth. Access to safe abortion is necessary for women to fully control their fertility. Unintended pregnancy remains a major problem for the US and makes a significant contribution to population growth. Conservation planners generally understand the importance of population issues but have often given them a lower priority than deserved. Reasons include lack of scientific expertise, the belief that tackling population issues is too controversial or unlikely to yield success, and a perceived absence of moral standing given the disproportionately high rates of consumption in developed countries. The population field needs increased commitment, appropriate policies, and adequate human and financial resources. If these conditions are fulfilled, population growth will slow, reproductive health will be improved, and the environment protected. There is also an urgent need for Americans, in particular, to reduce consumption of critical natural resources and the resulting waste and pollution. The original article has a great deal of detailed information and should be read by anyone with keen interest in the subject.   September 03, 2007   Bixby Center for Reproductive Health Research & Policy

UN: Planet in Peril, Time to Act is Now.   Global warming, extinction of species and feeding an expanding world population are threatening the planet and putting "humanity at risk," according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The objective is an urgent call for action, as our future depends on our actions today. The Global Environment Outlook report (GEO-4) was prepared by nearly 400 scientists and more than 1,000 others worldwide. It was designed to assess issues climate change, water and biodiversity and identify priorities for action. Response has been slow and fails to recognize the magnitude of the challenges. Major problems discussed in the report included land use, water, pollution, climate change and population growth that exceeds the resources available for sustainability. Fundamental changes in social and economic structures, including lifestyle are crucial. The average temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as rapidly as in the rest of the world and in some cases, is having severe effects on human health, food production, security and resource availability. Contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human disease and death. In developing countries, 3 million people die annually from waterborne diseases. The escalating water demand will become intolerable in water-scarce countries. Of the world's major rivers, 10% fail to reach the sea due to irrigation demands. By 2025, water demands overall are predicted to rise by 50% in developing countries and by 18% in the developed world. There is a need for an integrated and sustainable approach to water resource management. Available supplies are under great duress as a result of high population growth, unsustainable consumption patterns, poor management practices, pollution, inadequate investment in infrastructure and low efficiency. Changes in biodiversity are the fastest in human history. Species are becoming extinct 100 times faster than the rate shown in the world's fossil record. Global pollution is projected to increase 85% over the next 20 years. Projections that the world's population will increase to more than 9 billion by 2050 will require a doubling of food production. With a shift from cereal to meat consumption combined with over-consumption and waste, food demand will increase 2.5 to 3.5 times the current level. By 2030, developing countries will need more than 296 million acres to feed themselves and our capacity to meet these demands is contested. We are living far beyond our means. The amount of resources needed to sustain the human population exceeds what is available. Humanity's demand is 54 acres per person while the Earth's capacity is only 39 acres per person. Total annual income of nearly 1 billion people who make up the population of the world's richest countries is 15 times that of the 2.3 billion people in the poorest countries. In particular, climate change and the loss of biodiversity may eventually cross critical thresholds in the Earth system. "Energy, climate change, industrial development and air pollution are critical items. The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged, and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay.   October 29, 2007   Disaster News Network

Fiscal Gains Under Threat From Population Growth in Kenya.   Over the last two decades, the rate at which the Kenyan population is growing remains a major impediment to steady economic growth. Population control is a key factor in building a sound economic growth. Kenya's economy has yet to reach the 8% required for at least 15 years before the country can claim an industrial nation status under the Vision 2030 initiative. The economy has picked up from negative 0.4% in 2002 to 2.8% in 2003 and 4.3% in 2004. 2005 had a 5.% growth, to 6.1% last year and a projected 6% this year. This is a reduction in poverty levels from 56% in 2002 to 46% in 2006, but this cannot be sustained if the population growth takes an upward trend. The government is preparing to spend Sh7 billion on a population census in 2 years since the last two censuses were bungled by political considerations. Experts project that Kenya's population will stand at 40 million up from the current 33 million, causing strains on families and individuals. The higher population will provide a reality check on the policies such as free education up to secondary level and free medical care at government hospitals for selected ailments. The pressure of such a population explosion would result in rising costs for education, health services, and food imports and an inability to generate resources to build housing in both urban and rural areas. Kenya's population pressure comes from the fact more than half is composed of individuals under 30 years. Accelerating population growth should be slowed as it cannot match the economic expansion. Kenya has none of the birth control measures like the number of children each family should bear and relies on voluntary family planning. The methods distort the structure of the population in favour of the poor who tend to bring forth more children. The relatively rich and well educated take up birth control measures. The poor will feel the pinch of the population growth. The country's explosive growth in population was caused by falls in mortality rates and the traditional preference for large families. Kenya was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to view runaway population growth as a serious impediment to economic prosperity. The country is experiencing a population surge despite an official population policy, which calls for matching population size with available resources yet leaves decisions on family size up to individual families. Promotion of family planning fall largely on the local health-care offices and NGO's. Kenya's population policy tends to frame the need for family planning around the overuse of land and scarcity of jobs. The policy also aims at demystifying contraceptive methods and providing assurance of their safety and utility.   September 03, 2007   Business Daily

Population and American Complacency.   In 1973, when the U.S. population was about 210 million, Professor Holdren judged that our nation was already overpopulated, and that, “given that population growth aggravates or impedes the solution of a wide variety of other problems, it should be obvious that the optimum rate of population growth is zero or negative until such time as the uncertainties have been removed and the problems solved. We have maintained that the optimum rate of population growth is negative until our U.S. population, after a period of gradual population decline, has been stabilized at a level that would be sustainable indefinitely. We judge that level to be no more than 150 million. With the urgent need for a far smaller U.S. population apparent, we have found no other major national population, immigration reform, or environmental organization willing to join with us in calling for a negative rate of population growth. Now, with our U.S. population 100 million larger and heading toward 420 million or more by mid-century, we hope to see these issues in an updated paper. We believe that this time his message would have much more resonance with our national opinion and business leaders, and policy makers.   September 04, 2007   NPG

Talk by Daniel Quinn.   During your lifetime, we are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet, or not. If we figure out how to, then humanity will extend into the future. If they don't then the human race is going to be among the species that we're driving into extinction every day. The human population is going to increase to nine billion by the middle of the century. Most who make this estimate seem think this is okay. It isn't. It costs a lot to produce the food to maintain six billion. But in order to maintain the six billion of us, we need the biomass of two hundred species and when we've used them up they're gone forever. Maintaining a population of six billion humans costs two hundred species a day. It's happening every day, day after day and that's what makes it unsustainable. The extraordinary thing is that a second renaissance is going to occur. During the first Renaissance, reason and authority were toppled by observation and experimentation. Science as we know it came into being and the Industrial Revolution. We all saw ourselves as individually valuable. Just like the people of the Middle Ages, we're sure that people will go on thinking the way we think forever, and go on living the way we live. We're like people living in the penthouse of a tall brick building. Every day we need two hundred bricks to maintain our walls, so we go downstairs, knock two hundred bricks out of the walls below, and bring them back upstairs for our own use. This in not a sustainable way to maintain a brick building. Making two hundred species extinct every day is similarly not a sustainable way to maintain a living community. Even if we're in some sense at the top of that community, one day, sooner or later, it's going to collapse, and when it does, our being at the top won't help us. We'll come down along with all the rest. We can't increase the amount of biomass on this planet. We can't increase the amount of land and water that supports life. We're shifting the biomass of species we don't care about into the biomass of species we do care about: into cows, chickens, corn, beans, tomatoes and so on. We're destroying the biodiversity of the living community to support ourselves.   March 07, 2002   The New Renaissance

Save the Planet? It's Now Or Never, Warns Landmark UN Report.   Humanity is changing Earth's fast and devouring resources voraciously. It is poised to bequeath a ravaged planet to future generations. The need couldn't be more urgent to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations. The destruction of the Earth's natural resources has reached a point where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay. There have been five mass extinctions in 450 million years, the latest of which occurred 65 million years ago. A sixth is under way, caused by human behaviour. Over the past two decades, growing prosperity has strengthened the capacity to confront the environmental challenges ahead. Global response has been woefully inadequate. Climate is changing faster than at any time in the past 500,000 years. Global average temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius over the past century and are forecast to rise by 1.8 to four C. by 2100. Earth's population is so big that the resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available. In Africa, land degradation and desertification are threats; per capita food production has declined by 12% since 1981. Fish consumption has more than tripled over the past 40 years but catches have declined for 20 years. Over 30% of amphibians, 23% of mammals and 12% of birds are threatened. Some of the progress in reducing pollution in developed countries has been at the expense of the developing world. For some of the persistent problems, the damage may already be irreversible. The only way to address these harder problems requires moving the environment from to the core of decision-making: environment for development, not development to the detriment of environment.   Ralph says: Hurrah. At last the UN have the guts to tell it like it is.. Needs to be repeated every month.   October 26, 2007   AFP

Sustainability and Social Well-being.   There is a relationship between environmental crises and social instability. Developing world communities with healthy environments and sound practices see faster gains in alleviating poverty. An atlas overlays information on population and household expenditures with data on water availability, wood supply, wildlife populations, and the like, to yield a picture of how land, people, and prosperity are related in Kenya. The principles discussed are pretty universal. As the world warms, states at risk face threats to their groundwater, agriculture, and ecosystems, factors that can rapidly undo political and economic gains. On the other hand, if the eco-decline/ poverty/ violence and corruption can cause social failures, working on all three elements at once offers the chance for radical improvements. To what degree is the environmental degradation the result of the failure of governance, and to what degree is the environmental degradation a contributor to the failure of governance? This is an important question. The acceleration of global warming will mean more than economic loss and climate refugees. Many of the worst problems we now face have very long lagtimes, and leaders today have been handed bombs whose fuses are just now running short. The desertification in the Sahel is at least partly climate-driven, and are fueling various forms of instability from Sudan to Mali. Some of the pressures result from decisions made recently, but many others, population growth, created by better public health practices under colonial rule and since. Climate change emissions fall squarely on the shoulder of the US and Western Europe. So if states in the Sahel begin failing, to what extent can we describe their environmentally-linked failures as their own?   June 20, 2007   World Changing

Heating Up.   Significant change can't happen without talking, educating and persuading. It's important that local citizens understand that many of the most meaningful responses must be accomplished in our backyard. It is crucial that policies be forged to reduce carbon emissions and slow the warming of the Earth. But if we are not aware on the local level that we all have a responsibility, the effort will be useless. Leadership must come not only from elected officials, but also average citizens who care about the future. Everyone has a stake in this struggle, for example, Leon County government is not required by law to have a landfill gas-collection system. But the county installed one at the Apalachee Parkway facility at a cost of $625,000. More gas can be collected if more wells were added. Meanwhile, discussions are being held with a private firm to increase landfill gas production. But government could and should be doing a lot more. Policies that promote sprawl and discourage alternative transportation options result in increased carbon emissions. With Florida's population expected to grow by 50% over the next 25 years, habitat fragmentation, and reduced agricultural and forest lands will be the inevitable result unless growth is managed wisely with attention to enhancing sustainability. Citizens have an important role by considering other ways to get around besides driving, insisting on more responsible land-use, and recycling more. The chairman of the Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce, is promoting public-private cooperation to improve recycling efforts among local businesses. Our air, water and climate don't respect political boundaries. As long as we consider environmental protection someone else's responsibility, we hasten its deterioration.   Karen Gaia says: nevermind addressing the root cause: population. It's a hush-hush topic. Let's just "manage" the growth. Apparently there is no limit as to how many people whose consumption and waste we can "manage"   October 03, 2007   Tallahassee Democrat

Saudi Arabia - Demographic Trends to Watch for.   Population growth in Saudi Arabia grew at 3.32% from 1950 to 1974, and has slowed to 2.75% in 2004. The dip is mainly due to a decreased influx in the expatriate workforce, but population growth amongst Saudis has declined from 3.87% in 1992 to 2.49% in 2004. The decline can be explained by: increased urbanisation, improved literacy amongst females, and openness to the modern world through satellites and the internet. This downward trend is likely to continue. Population is expected to grow at 2.07% over the next decade, after which it will decline to around 1.54% during 2015-2025. The growth in modernisation will push fertility down faster than these figures suggest. Saudi Arabia covers 2.1 million square miles, 80% of the Arabian Peninsula. Almost half is uninhabitable; hence there is a high concentration of population in some areas. Out of 119 cities in 2004, 80% of the population lives in 31 cities. More than half the population is concentrated in seven cities. The Saudi Arabian population currently contains more than six million expatriates. More than half live in the two main cities - Riyadh 28% and Jeddah 23%. Since 1992, the expatriate population has been stagnant at 26% and this is likely to reduce or remain static. The most pronounced feature of the Saudi national demography is its young population. More than 41% is under 14, another 18% is 15-24. It represents a fast expanding labour force. For Saudi Arabia, it is the big challenge. Unemployment is high 25% by the US Department of State. This is perplexing given the literacy rate amongst Saudis males 85% and females 75%. This is because companies shopped for the cheapest labour around the world. While unemployment amongst locals is the outcome, related job segmentation is perhaps even more harmful. The education system has not been designed to equip the youth with the skills or attitude required by a modern economy. Complacency on the part of many students, a very high proportion of university graduations being in the humanities, and the picture is stark. Saudi Arabia needs 200,000 new jobs every year. Fortunately there is scope to say that things seem to be moving in the right direction. With a decrease in the influx of expat workers, the job market will become competitive. The importance of a modern professional education will considerably increase, and modern educational plans better match employers' needs. The average household size in Saudi Arabia has seen a downward trend from 7.4 people in 1987 to 5.7 in 2004, and indications show a further reduction to around 4 by 2015. The overall decrease in household size can safely be attributed almost entirely to Saudis. A study found a trend towards smaller families. It revealed that Saudis realise the need for smaller families, mainly due to economic reasons. Marketers will have to align their products to smaller families. Currently, there are around four million households compared to around 1.9 million in 1987. This suggests an increase in nuclear families and demands for all kinds of household goods will increase. Around three million people are 45 or older and this can be expected to double by 2020, becoming a huge market having different needs. There will be an increase in the economically inactive population; currently at 1.25 million rising up to 3.5 million by 2020. In the long run, a real concern will be old age diseases. All need special and costly healthcare, hence there is an opportunity to educate and sell pension funds, old age benefit plans, healthcare plans, etc. Saudi society has opened up. The government encourages women to work. This will have a huge impact and will change the way females see themselves and their lifestyles, creating new needs.   June 26, 2007  

Trying Times Ahead: the Prospect of 60 Million Californians.   The California Department of Finance projected that there will be 60 million people living in the state by 2050. At present there are 36 million. There is the bland assumption that a two-thirds increase in population is inevitable. The main problem is how to keep them from showing up in the first place. A mid-21st-century Californian may look back in horror at the consumption footprint of someone living in the state right now. The trouble, of course, is that a population projection like this one more or less takes it for granted that not much will have changed by 2050. This population forecast is a reminder of the assumptions that make meaningful change so hard. We believe that the way to create change is simply to buy different stuff, so growth doesn't stop. And we refuse to think seriously about the number of human beings on this planet, a kind of growth that somehow seems "natural" to us. It makes no difference how little each of those 60 million Californians will consume in 2050. The number cannot be negative. It's nearly impossible to imagine how they could meet their water needs alone. In 2007, we remain blindly impervious to the life-claims of almost all other forms of life. If there are indeed 60 million people living in California in 2050, there will be nothing meaningful to be said on the matter, except as a subject of nostalgia. But faith in our enlightenment seems a little misplaced to me, when I remember a speech that James Madison gave nearly 190 years ago. Madison said, we have no reason to suppose that all of Earth's resources can be commandeered to support mankind alone. It's a principle that should move to the very center of our thinking. It should cause us to re-examine not just how we shop and what we drive and who we elect but also how our species reproduces. It should cause us to re-imagine that once and future California, which lies only 43 years away, and make sure that it isn't barren of all but us humans.   2007   New York Times*

China Says One-child Policy Helps Protect Climate.   China says its one-child policy has helped the fight global warming by avoiding 300 million births. But Some say birth control is unlikely to find favour partly because of opposition by the Catholic Church and some developing nations trying to increase their population. Some say that birth control measures are overlooked in the fight against climate change, when the world population is projected to soar to about 9 billion by 2050 from 6.6 billion now. China, says that its population is now 1.3 billion against 1.6 billion if it had not imposed tough birth control measures. Fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions from burning fossil fuels. Beijing was not arguing that its policy was a model for others to follow but avoiding 300 million births averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005. Beijing introduced its one-child policy in the late 1970s. The rules vary but usually limit families to one or, at most two, children. "Population has not been taken seriously enough in the climate debate," said the incoming head of the Science Museum in London. He favours a greater drive for education about family planning to avoid unwanted births and slow population growth. High immigration to the United States makes it harder to slow its rising emissions. By mid-century, Europe will be at 1990 levels of population while ours will be nearing 60 percent above 1990 levels.   August 30, 2007   Reuters

Worldwatch: State of the World 2009: ???.   A comment from the Worldwatch forum: The theme for 2009 should be world's population overpopulation. Resource depletion and pollution by themselves have the potential to destroy civilization but would not be so urgent if we had only one or two billion people in the world. None of these problems can be solved with the earth's population of 6.6 billion, going to 9.2 - 9.4 billion by 2050. Most geologists predict that oil demand will outstrip supply in the next 15 years, with an increasing number believing that peak oil may have actually already occurred. This doesn't get a lot of attention from the uninformed media but the the impacts of peak oil range from dire to catastrophic - at best, a crippling recession and widespread inflation. At worst, global food shortages that threaten wide-scale starvation and an overall breakdown of social and economic institutions. Coal extraction wreaks havoc upon ecosystems. If the earth's average temperature increases 5F, Moscow would have an average January low temperature of 14 degrees. To keep billions of people from freezing to death after all the oil and natural gas are gone, massive amounts of coal will continue to be burned. An analyses of coal reserves suggest the peak of world coal production may occur as early as 2030. World per capita cereal production has already passed its peak while, rising incomes in Asia are causing a worldwide surge in food demand. The IMF recorded a 23% rise in world food prices during the last 18 months. Ethanol for a transportation fuel will only make the looming food crisis far worse. Global warming is not the result of burning fossil fuels, but the result of 6.6 billion people burning fossil fuels. Overpopulation is rarely targeted by environmental groups or the media as being the underlying basis for all other negative environmental and ecological trends. It is apparent that the long-term sustainability of civilization will require a colossal reduction in population and consumption. The future global population estimates have all clustered in the range of 1 to 3 billion. Far less than the current 6.6 billion, not to mention the projected 9.4 billion by 2050. Why aren't environmental organizations doing more to alert the world to what is certain to be civilization's undoing? Why do we never see a call for action, except for promoting birth control access? It is surprising how little scientific and public attention has been directed toward establishing quantifiable, testable, and socioculturally agreed-upon parameters for what the Earth's long-term human carrying capacity might actually be. Given the issue's global nature and ramifications, perhaps the chief reason is simply that enervating sense of individual and collective powerlessness when confronted by problems whose magnitude seems overwhelming. When reducing population is suggested, even as absolutely necessary for the survival of civilization, the attacks can be relentless, even by some who accept the main overpopulation premise. The most common responses are, "Why do you want to kill people?" or "So you want to kill or abort baby girls like they did in China, huh?" Often there is the anti economic growth label that is attached to anyone even suggesting that overpopulation is a serious problem. There is also a religious opposition to any discussion of limiting population. Politicians are either unaware that overpopulation is a problem, or they don't think discussing it is beneficial to their career. Given the urgency to make rapid, changes to our way of life, someone needs to step up to the plate, and confront the inevitable. Governments need to take serious action to discourage large families, even if that means taxing births at greater amounts for each additional baby. Overpopulation must be elevated to the stature of global warming, and it should be seriously discussed and debated at the U.N. level. This can only happen if our brightest scientists can get courageous and inform world leaders, political institutions, and corporate stakeholders that natural resources and economic growth are indeed finite, and per capita prosperity is diminishing as world resources are depleted. If the population problem is not solved, then it really doesn't matter what other problems we attempt to solve. The deterioration is accelerating. Industrial fleets have fished out at least 90% of tuna, marlin, swordfish, cod, halibut, skate, and flounder in the past 50 years. Half the world's original forest cover is gone. Carbon dioxide levels today are 18% higher than in 1960. Everywhere in India, fresh-water aquifers are being pulled down by 1-3 meters per year. This could reduce India's harvest by 25%. An editorial in the Hindustan Times suggests that, "Only a bitter dose of compulsory family planning can save the coming generation from the fast-approaching Malthusian catastrophe." This comment appears to recognize the emerging conflict between the reproductive rights of the current generation and the survival rights of the next generation. Human activities such as over-cultivation, deforestation and poor irrigation practices combined with climate change are turning once fertile soils into barren patches of land. In Mexico, 47% of its land is affected by desertification, causing vast population movements. At current rates of consumption, the global ecological footprint requires an average of 5.4 acres' productivity per person - roughly 20% more than what can be sustained at today's levels. Finite resources are a one-time natural inheritance that should have been thoughtfully rationed. At some point in the future, we will look back on how we used the earth's 2 trillion barrels of oil. Population must be swiftly reduced to match the earth's rapidly diminishing resources. Worldwatch must boldly and forcefully alert the world to that fact. Either humans will act soon to create a sustainable world, or by mid-century, we will be looking forward to a bleak future, with 9 billion people trying to eke out a miserable existence on an empty shell of a planet. The data and facts demonstrate the overpopulation dilemma as never before, an increasing number of informed people are beginning to realize that fact. What is the evidence that the Earth can withstand, without irreparable damage, another two or more centuries during which global human numbers and per-capita consumption increasingly exceed the Earth's optimal carrying capacity?"   September 29, 2007   Worldwatch