Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this Reuters article.
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A new survey of California winter snows on Thursday showed the most populous state is facing one of the worst droughts in its history, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

The state, which produces about half the United States’ vegetables and fruit, is in its third year of drought and its main system supplying water to cities and farms may only be able to fulfill 15 percent of requests, scientists said.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE50S7NK20090130

Thanks to Eric Rimmer for sending me Colin Butler’s letter to Andrew Revkin’s blog at the New York Times:

Thanks Andrew for your work highlighting these immensely complex issues. I am certain these issues are important. I am equally confident that “mainstream” opinion, be it from (most) environmentalists, from almost all demographers and from most economists has been shamefully complacent in the last few decades. If this sounds too alarmist, consider the opinion held about Wall St 12 months ago, by most economists, stockbrokers and regulators. These financial “experts” proved hopelessly, culpably wrong. Similarly, I fear a form of naive groupthink has for several decades pervaded the demography and economic literature, and our descendants will lament the lack of insight of many of these “experts”.
Continue Reading »

Congratulations to John Feeney and thanks to Joel Marx for linking me to this article. You can add your comment at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7865332.stm.
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Uncontrolled population growth threatens to undermine efforts to save the planet, warns John Feeney. In this week’s Green Room, he calls on the environmental movement to stop running scared of this controversial topic.

It’s the great taboo of environmentalism: the size and growth of the human population.
It has a profound impact on all life on Earth, yet for decades it has been conspicuously absent from public debate.

For full article, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7865332.stm

This past week in Australia, I have distributed several articles by Mark O’Connor, whom I met in Canberra. His book, Overloading Australia : How governments and media dither and deny on population, is of interest to population-interested readers anywhere. There are also some short extracts from his book below.

Here is how you can obtain the book.

Overloading Australia – How governments and media dither and deny on population
by Mark O’Connor and William Lines

Ordering From Outside Australia
Copies are available by airmail from the publisher Envirobook. (Visa/Mastercard required.)
Cost (including postage) is A$32 (= about US$ 21.00, 14 pounds, or 17 euro).
(For current exchange rates, see http://www.xe.com/ucc/ )
To purchase, email the publisher:
“Patrick Thompson” pat@envirobook.com.au to request a copy.
Or fax Envirobook +61 2 9787‐1944.
For further information about Mark O’Connor and Overloading Australia see:
http://www.australianpoet.com/
Continue Reading »

Many thanks to Nola Stewart, a retired teacher in Sydney, Australia, for this delightful children’s book. It explains the global economy in a way Samuelson never did. Then it covers ecology and population. You may want to give this to a young person you know – and to a few adults as well.

You may want to visit Sustainable Population Australia’s website at http://www.population.org.au/. Nola’s booklet can be found under Student Resources.

Conservation through Having Smaller Families (PDF, 1MB)

Thanks to Mark O’Connor for this column.
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In Australia, Right-wing “growthists” demand endless growth of the economy backed by endless growth of population. Forced since late 2006 to accept a serious public debate about water supplies and about how to maintain “growth” without more greenhouse gases, they are nevertheless determined to scotch any discussion about limiting population.

Many on the Left also refuse to debate population matters. They confuse immigrants with refugees and make absurd claims that limiting immigration would tumble us into fascism.

For full article, visit:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story

Thanks to James Sinnamon for this editorial.
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Why is it that the Australian government, and other governments, principally in the anglophone world, deliberately encourage population growth when common sense and intuition, not to mention the hard evidence, tell us that a larger population cannot possibly be in the interests of the current inhabitants of this country or of the rest of the planet?

We have gone long past the point where adding extra numbers somehow increases the synergy of the inhabitants of this country. Consequently any additional population growth must necessarily make each and every one of us poorer on average as the per capita access to natural resources necessarily decreases in proportion to the increase of the numbers of people.

For full article, visit:
http://candobetter.org/GrowthLobby http://candobetter.org/node/1002

Thanks to Mark O’Connor for this article.
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Prominent Australians have thrown their support behind a controversial new book which argues that population growth is the biggest threat to environmental sustainability in this country.

In a provocative attack on water conservation schemes, such as Melbourne’s Target 155, the book Overloading Australia urges Australians to ignore water conservation, forcing politicians to rethink population and immigration policy.

For full article, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/population

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.
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A man sunbathes on the beach at Melbourne yesterday as temperatures broke records, staying above 43C for the third day in succession. More than 20 people have died from the heat.

Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.

For full article, visit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/parched