PMC Rwanda’s Radio Drama Umurage Urukwiye (“Rwanda’s Brighter Future”) Report on Impact (August 2010)

In Rwanda, the fertility rate is 5.5 children per woman, according to the 2008 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), a figure that has not changed appreciably since 1992. Knowledge of family planning is nearly universal in Rwanda: 97 percent of married women and 99 percent of currently married men have knowledge of at least one modern method of contraception. Only 27 percent of married women use modern methods of contraception, but this figure represents nearly a tripling from 2005, when the DHS showed only 10 percent of married women used modern methods of contraception. As of 2008, fully 71 percent of married women who were not currently using contraception intended to do so in the future, a 22 percent increase in less than three years.
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A giant glider-like aircraft has completed the first night flight propelled only by solar energy, organizers said on Thursday.

Solar Impulse, whose wingspan is the same as an Airbus A340, flew 26 hours and 9 minutes, powered only by solar energy stored during the day. It was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation, organizers said.

Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss president of the project, best known for completing the first round-the-world flight in a hot air balloon in 1999, said the success of the flight showed the potential of renewable energies and clean technology.

For full article, visit:
http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=3421

Congratulations to Bob Walker for his published responses to Fred Pearce’s claims that the population problem is over. The first item below was published by TriplePundit.com. In addition, Bob published a similar rebuttal to Pearce’s Grist article at http://www.grist.org/article/2010-07-12-earth-fred-pearce-population-growth-problem-world-fertility. This was also picked up by the Guardian.

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The following is an article from Capitol Weekly featuring Population Media Center and Bill Ryerson.

http://www.capitolweekly.net/features

Thursday, September 09, 2010

How serious is the population problem?
The growth in the world’s population is the equivalent of adding a new Sacramento every two days – or a new Ethiopia every year. Both domestic and global population growth is adding to conflicts over water, energy, food, open space and wilderness, transportation infrastructure, school rooms, and numerous other problems. In developing countries, large family size is a major cause of poverty and poor health. No country has graduated from “developing” status to “developed” status in the last sixty years without first reducing population growth. Yet projections for population growth through 2050 are being increased as funding for family planning has been reduced over the last 15 years by many governments.
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Thanks to Marianne Ward for this article.
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It is the starting point for our oceans’ food chain. But stocks of phytoplankton have decreased by 40 percent since 1950, potentially as a result of global warming. It is an astonishing collapse, say researchers, and may have dramatic consequences for both the oceans and for humans.

The forms that marine flora and fauna come in are varied and spectacular. From bizarre deep sea creatures to elegant predators and giant marine mammals, the diversity in our planet’s oceans is astounding.

But it is the microscopic organisms like diatoms, green algae, dinoflagellates and cayanobacteria that make it all possible. Phytoplankton is the first link in the oceanic food chain. It is eaten by zooplankton which is in turn eaten by other animals, which are then consumed by yet further sea creatures. Sometimes that chain can be quite short — the only thing that separates whales from phytoplankton in the food chain, for example, are the krill that come in between.

For full article, visit:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,709135,00.html

Thanks to Al Bartlett for the article that he posted on the Physics and Society website at the University of Arkansas. It reminds me of Garrett Hardin’s classic one-page paper in Science on 12 February, 1971, entitled “Nobody Ever Dies of Overpopulation.” If you have not read it, you can see it here: www.sciencemag.org/cgi/issue_pdf/edboard_pdf/171/3971.pdf
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Dear Friends,

In his recent communication, Art Hobson asked,

“Does anybody know what caused the huge floods on the Indus river? Sure, it’s monsoon season, but this year it’s a monster monsoon.”

Let’s look at six factors.
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The Woodrow Wilson Center has just published the edited volume, “Hunger Pains: Pakistan’s Food Insecurity.” This effort is the outgrowth of last year’s Wilson Center conference of the same name.

The book is edited by Asia Program associate Michael Kugelman and director Robert M. Hathaway, and features contributions by Michael Kugelman, Zafar Altaf, Sohail Jehangir Malik, Roshan Malik, Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Gautam Hazarika, Saadia Toor, Kaiser Bengali and Allan Jury, and Kenneth Iain MacDonald.

The book examines Pakistan’s food insecurity from a variety of angles, including supply challenges, access/distribution issues, governance constraints, social dimensions, structural dimensions, gender and regional disparities, and international responses. The book also makes a range of recommendations.

If you would like a complimentary copy, please email asia@wilsoncenter.org with your preferred mailing address, and they’ll be happy to send the copy along. A PDF version of the book can be accessed at

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ASIA_100412_PakistFood_rptL0713FINALVERSION.pdf

Thanks to Bob Walker for this blog posting on the Population Institute website.
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The recent flooding in Pakistan that has killed an estimated 1500 people and left more than a million people homeless has nothing to do with population. Or does it?

The flooding, of course, has been caused by torrential rains, but deforestation is often a major contributor to flooding in the developing world. Such is almost certainly the case with respect to the North West Frontier (recently renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) Province, which is one of the most densely populated and fastest growing regions in Pakistan. Deforestation is a critical problem in many parts of Pakistan, but particularly in the NWFP, where subsistence farmers are heavily dependent upon trees for fuel and lumber. A 2006 report on deforestation in Pakistan found that.

For full article, visit:
http://blog.populationinstitute.org/2010/08/02/pakistan-population-and-the-flooding/

Thanks to Bob Walker for this blog posting on the Population Institute website.
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After years of neglect, Pakistan this year adopted a new population policy that promises to boost support for family planning services and information. Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told a national convention on population that population growth is a bigger problem than the water and electricity crises that now grip the country.He said,”I take pride in sharing that the Pakistan Peoples Party is the only political party that includes population planning in its party manifesto.”

Current population projections indicate that Pakistan’s population will grow from an estimated 181 million in 2009 to 335 million by 2050 unless fertility rates drop faster than currently projected. At present, women in Pakistan have an average of four children.

For full article, visit:
http://blog.populationinstitute.org/

Thanks to Bob Walker for this article by Huma Yusuf, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s new Pakistan Scholar.
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The best news Pakistanis have received in the past week comes in the form of the National Population Policy 2010. The policy recognises that demographics are the key to promoting economic development and security in Pakistan. It also prioritises family planning – particularly in an effort to promote birth spacing – as the best strategy for achieving ambitious population targets (2.1 births per woman in 2025).

In many ways, the story of Pakistan is one of a failure of family planning. Although the Family Planning Association of Pakistan was set up as early as 1952, we have seen a five-fold increase in our population between 1951 and 2009, from 34 million to 171 million.

For full article, visit:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library