Asian countries urgently need to boost farmland productivity and use water more efficiently or the continent may not have enough water to support the agricultural needs of its growing populations, an Asian Development Bank-supported study found.

Dwindling groundwater supplies are already threatening drinking water and crop production across Asia. Undeveloped arable land, meanwhile, is in short supply. As a result, Asian countries will have to import more food or improve irrigation methods, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) concluded in a report [PDF] released today.

For full article, visit:
http://www.worldwatch.org

Thanks to Marianne Ward for this article from The New Yorker.
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In his “Essay on the Principle of Population,” of 1798, the English parson Thomas Malthus insisted that human populations would always be “checked” (a polite word for mass starvation) by the failure of food supplies to keep pace with population growth. For a long time, it looked as if what Malthus called the “dark tints” of his argument were unduly, even absurdly, pessimistic. As Paul Roberts writes in “The End of Food” (Houghton Mifflin; $26), “Until late in the twentieth century, the modern food system was celebrated as a monument to humanity’s greatest triumph. We were producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before, and with a degree of variety, safety, quality and convenience that preceding generations would have found bewildering.” The world seemed to have been liberated from a Malthusian “long night of hunger and drudgery.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/05/19/080519crat_atlarge_wilson

This was submitted to the Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera on January 18, 2010 and was published in the Camera on Sunday January 24, 2010, Page 9B. A few sentences were omitted in the Camera’s publication in order to make the text fit in one column.

Albert Bartlett The Last Sixty Years (Word doc., 33 KB)

Thanks to Joe Bish for sending me this article.
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I have to thank Jeremy Grantham for referencing Albert Bartlett’s talk, “Arithmetic, Population, & Energy”, in his semi annual letter to partners. It inspired me to track down Professor Bartlett and interview him for our readers.

Introduction/Background

Professor Albert Bartlett Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the public space Professor Bartlett is most well known for his lecture titled Arithmetic, Population, and Energy. A Lecture he has given over 1,600 times since September, 1969. Bartlett joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulder in September 1950. His B.A. degree in physics is from Colgate University (1944) and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics are from Harvard University (1948), (1951). In 1978 he was national president of the American Association of Physics Teachers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1969 and 1970 he served two terms as the elected Chair of the four-campus Faculty Council of the University of Colorado.

For full article, visit:
http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=81739

Thanks to Mark O’Connor for letting me know about this article by Sheila Newman.
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Yesterday (4 Feb, 2010) the Australian had Bernard Salt raising the alarm about the dependency ratio (again). But the man is hopelessly misinformed. Elderly people are not the big problem. And children (who are even more dependent and for longer and who outnumber elderly people) are not the problem either.

The sector in Australia that has the most costly dependency ratio must be the property sector, since it costs all Australians an enormous and unreasonable amount just to cover the cost of land for housing, business and agriculture. Most of the very high costs involved are completely unnecessary, except in the eyes of greedy developers and their hangers-on. The only reason that the costs are so high is that the industry wants it that way and our state and federal governments are in cahoots with it.

For full article, visit:
http://candobetter.org/node/1823

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article from the Sydney Morning Herald.
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When Kevin Rudd welcomed the idea of ”a big Australia” by openly praising forecasts the country’s population would boom from 22 million to 35 million by 2050, William Bourke decided it was time to act.

The Sydney small businessman believes the Prime Minister’s remarks were so out of keeping with the feelings of most voters, he decided to form a political party.

Although he has never been involved in politics, Mr Bourke, 39, said his instincts told him Mr Rudd had slipped up badly last year when he said:” ”I actually believe in a big Australia – I make no apology for that. I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing.”

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

Thanks to Mark O’Connor for this commentary by Ross Gittins.
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There’s something quite incongruous about the way our politicians respond to the ageing of the population, a huge gap between what they say and what they do. They keep putting out reports intended to exaggerate the effect of ageing on the budget and the economy, but they keep making changes that advantage the aged at the expense of the working generation.

If you ignore what the politicians say, and read what this week’s intergenerational report actually says, you find that, unlike most developed countries, Australia doesn’t have much of a problem with ageing.

For full article, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics

Thanks to Al Bartlett for this commentary on Australian Environmental Minister Penny Wong’s statements in favor of population growth.
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Let me thank Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center for circulating a set of several reports telling of the concern that a growing number of thoughtful people in Australia are having about Australia’s continuing explosive population growth and dwindling water and other natural resources.

In the first report, Penny Wong was listed as the Climate Change Minister in the government of Kevin Rudd. An interviewer asked the Minister, “Australia’s population is projected to increase by 65%… by 2050. During the same period, the government is committed to cutting our carbon emissions by 60%. Aren’t these goals or facts mutually exclusive?”
Continue Reading »

Europe’s beekeeping industry could be wiped out in less than a decade as bees fall victim to disease, insecticides and intensive farming, the international beekeeping body Apimondia said on Monday.
“With this level of mortality, European beekeepers can only survive another 8 to 10 years,” Gilles Ratia, the president of Apimondia, told Reuters.

“We have had big problems in southwest France for many years,” he said, but the problem had extended to Italy and Germany.

Last year, about 30 percent of Europe’s 13.6 million hives died, according to Apimondia figures. Losses reached 50 percent in Slovenia and as high as 80 percent in southwest Germany.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/europe/28bees.html

Thanks to David Poindexter for this article from the New York Times.
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When Irene Mendevil, a high school English teacher, shouts at her students, she said, she gets a sore throat. So she has begun to use an amplifier.

”I had the experience of losing my voice completely,” she said of her constant shouting. ”No sounds came out of my mouth. I had to write on paper to tell my students what to do.”

Ms. Mendevil, 33, shouts because her class is so big that just getting the students to listen is a challenge. There are 100 of them, more or less the same number as in the other classes here in Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma High School.

For full article, visit:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst