Thanks to Leta Finch for this article from the International Energy Agency. See http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959

Prospects of Limiting the Global Increase in Temperature to 2 degrees Celsius is Getting Bleaker.

30 May 11

CO2 Emissions Reach Record High in 2010; 80% of Projected 2020 Emissions from the Power Sector are already Locked-In.

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

After a dip in 2009 caused by the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt), a 5% jump from the previous record year in 2008, when levels reached 29.3 Gt.

In addition, the IEA has estimated that 80% of projected emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in, as they will come from power plants that are currently in place or under construction today.

“This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2ºC,” said Dr Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the IEA who oversees the annual World Energy Outlook, the Agency’s flagship publication.

Global leaders agreed a target of limiting temperature increase to 2°C at the UN climate change talks in Cancun in 2010. For this goal to be achieved, the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be limited to around 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent, only a 5% increase compared to an estimated 430 parts per million in 2000.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959

Greetings from Nairobi, where I will be working for two weeks on planning a PMC program for Kenya.  Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article from Wired Science.  See http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/legal-rights-nature-bolivia/

Nature to Get Legal Rights in Bolivia

By Brandon Keim

April 18, 2011

After decades of exile to environmentalism’s legal fringes, the notion that natural systems could have legal rights is receiving serious attention.

Bolivia’s Law of Mother Earth is set to pass. On Wednesday the United Nations will discuss a proposed treaty based on the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, which was drafted by environmentalists last year. Both mandate legal recognition of ecosystems’ right to exist.

It’s highly unlikely that the United Nations would pass any such treaty in the foreseeable future, and the discussion has been criticized as a time-wasting political maneuver. But the intellectual argument for nature’s rights isn’t necessarily a patchouli-soaked Gaia fantasy translated into legalese. Some say it’s a practical extension of ecological insight.

“It has to happen. We have to be able to give legal protection and consideration to the rest of the natural world,” said Patricia Siemen, executive director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence. “It’s in the human best interest, as well as the larger natural world’s.”

The first principle of Bolivia’s law calls for human activities to “achieve dynamic balance with the cycles and processes inherent in Mother Earth,” with Mother Earth defined as “a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings.” A ministry of Mother Earth will be established, and an ombudsman appointed to hear disputes.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/legal-rights-nature-bolivia/

Thanks to Rob Dietz for this article.  See http://steadystate.org/hooray-for-the-underdog/

Hooray for the Underdog

Posted By Rob Dietz On April 11, 2011 @ 8:00 pm In Economic Growth

by Rob Dietz

What’s more compelling than an astonishing upset?  We seem instinctively drawn to the underdog; we routinely root for the resilient scrapper who refuses to back down.  It’s why Team USA over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics has been memorialized as the Miracle on Ice.  It’s why we cheered when Rocky Balboa went toe to toe with Apollo Creed (and subsequently KO’d All the President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver at the Oscars).  It’s why Harry Truman’s defeat of Thomas Dewey in 1948 is one of the most famous U.S. Presidential elections.  And it’s why David and Goliath is one of the most beloved biblical stories.

There are some powerful think tanks promoting “green” ideas around the world, especially when it comes to green growth, green technology, and green jobs.  In a stunner, CASSE prevailed over them all as it was named the Best Green Think Tank of 2011 ^[1] by the sustainability gurus at TreeHugger.  Despite a miniscule budget and a skeletal staff that consists almost entirely of dedicated volunteers, the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy overcame odds almost as long as its name.

Perhaps it’s not all that shocking of an upset after all.  With each passing day, the public is becoming more skeptical of the status quo and more receptive to CASSE’s message.  Infinite economic growth on a finite planet makes no sense.  It’s a difficult message to hear and internalize, especially amidst the constant clamor for ever more growth.  But acceptance of this message is a prerequisite to making the transition to a steady state economy, and CASSE is the leading organization calling for this transition.

Continue Reading »

Greetings from Addis Ababa, where I am attending a meeting of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, of which Population Media Center has recently become a member.

The paper that follows was delivered by Bob Gillespie, founder of Population Communication, at the Partners in Population and Development meeting in Indonesia last year.  It shows what one individual – working in the population field for the last half century – can accomplish for the cause.

A Brief Summary

by Bob Gillespie, President

Population Communication

During the last 50 years, the governments that have established successful family planning, reproductive health and population stabilization policies and programs deliver services and the communication and education strategies using a human rights approach.  Women in villages have been actively engaged in the design and implementation of providing quality services. The first family planning programs to introduce the IUD and oral pill in Korea and Taiwan focused on training health providers in the public and private sector.  Using a fee-for-service contract system, women could obtain health and contraceptive services from private health providers.  Concurrent with the delivery of family planning and health services was improving the status of women, providing education and literacy programs and eventually access to credit.

The success stories are exciting, inspirational and can be replicated in many of the countries that have yet achieved replacement size families. Today the TFR of Taiwan is 1, Sri Lanka 2.4, South Korea 1.2, Vietnam 2.1 , Myanmar 2.4, Thailand 1.8, Morocco 2.4, Tunisia 2.1, Turkey 2.1,  Brazil 2.0, Mexico 2.2.  Similar results have occurred in the states of India with Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Tamil Nadu each having a TFR of 1.8, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala at 1.9, Punjab and Sikkim at 2, Karnataka and Maharashtra at 2.1, and West Bengal at 2.3. Close behind are the states of Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, and Orissa each with a TFR 2.4.

Because of the dynamic leadership of the family planning program in Indonesia and in Bangladesh, the TFRs are now 2.4.  Egypt, with a TFR of 3, is well on its way to population stabilization.  The major challenge now in India is in the states of Uttar Pradesh with a TFR of 3.8, Bihar at 4 and Rajasthan at 3.2.

The PPD meeting in Yogyakarta has as its focus a human rights approach to population stabilization. At the ICPD Conference in Cairo, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the UNFPA, accepted the Statement on Population Stabilization signed by 75 heads of government from Haryono Suyono, chairman of the BKKBN. President Suharto personally requested all 109 heads of government of the Non-Aligned Nations to sign and support the Statement. On October 25th, 1995, at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, Dr. Sadik presided over the ceremony in which President Suharto presented the Statement to the Secretary General of the UN. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. In Dr. Sadik’s comments, she emphasized, “The importance of population and development issues and the urgency of population stabilization must be recognized.” Each year Population Communication promotes the Statement with government, donor and NGOs on July 11th, World Population Day.

Continue Reading »

From BBC.  See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13158001 Incidentally, Mukhataran Mai’s book, In the Name of Honor, is very compelling reading.

Pakistan: Acquittals in Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case.

Date: Thursday, April 21, 2011
Source: BBC

Five of six men charged over a village council-sanctioned gang rape in Pakistan have been acquitted by the Supreme Court.

The court upheld the decision of a lower court, which included commuting the death penalty of the sixth man to life imprisonment.

The victim, Mukhataran Mai, hit world headlines after speaking out about her ordeal in 2002. She has since become an icon for women’s rights in Pakistan.

She said she now feared for her life.

Mukhtaran Mai was her clear and unambiguous self when she spoke minutes after the verdict, the BBC’s Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan said.

“The police never even recorded my own statements correctly,” she said.

“I don’t have any more faith in the courts. I have put my faith in God’s judgement now. I don’t know what the legal procedure is, but my faith [in the system] is gone.

“Yes, there is a threat to me and my family. There is a threat of death, and even of the same thing happening again. Anything can happen.”

Ali Dayan Hasan of the US-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict sent a “very bad signal” across Pakistani society.

“It suggests women can be abused and even raped with impunity and those perpetrating such crimes can walk,” he told the BBC.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13158001

Thanks to Don Collins for alerting me to this ridiculous OpEd in the Wall Street Journal.  You have to be a subscriber to read the entire piece online at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576383764019676614.html?mod=ITP_opinion_0.

Your letters of protest are urgently needed.  Send them to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com.  You can send a copy to MainStreet@wsj.com.  Here’s the author’s bio, followed by his OpEd on population.

BIO: “William McGurn is a Vice President at News Corporation who writes speeches  for CEO Rupert Murdoch. Previously he served as Chief Speechwriter for President  George W. Bush.

“Mr. McGurn has served as chief editorial writer for The Wall  Street Journal in New York. He spent more than a decade overseas — in Brussels  for The Wall Street Journal/Europe and in Hong Kong with both the Asian Wall  Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review. And in the mid-1990s, he was Washington Bureau Chief for National Review.

“Bill is author of a book on Hong  Kong (“Perfidious Albion”) and a monograph on terrorism (“Terrorist or Freedom  Fighter”). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds a BA in  philosophy from Notre Dame and an MS in Communications from Boston  University.”

June 14, 2011

THE RETURN OF THE POPULATION BOMB.

When The Experts Tell You There Is Too Many People, They Don’t Mean Too Many Swedes.

BY WILLIAM MCGURN

When Marx wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, he had it half correct. In our day, it comes back as the 1970s.

All around us we see its manifestation in the revival of floppy hats, platform shoes and maxi dresses. We can, however, also detect this same retro fashion sense on the op-ed page of the New York Times. There last week Tom Friedman’s column carried one of the sentiments most in vogue in the 1970s: “The Earth Is Full.”

Mr. Friedman invokes the usual grim specters so beloved of a certain kind of intellectual:  natural disasters (tornadoes, floods and droughts); rising prices (food and  energy); the threat to stability; and of course the kicker – that there are just  too many darn people around these days.

It’s a familiar meme, and it comes bearing the familiar scientific credentials. In this case the authority is, Mr.  Friedman tells us, “an alliance of scientists” called the Global Footprint  Network, “which calculates how many ‘planet Earths’ we need to sustain our  growth rates.” Right now they say it is 1.5. Which can mean only one thing  unless we cut way, way back: We’re doomed.

Back in the days of bad hair and  Jimmy Carter, this kind of report was a staple of enlightened thought. Here is but a tiny sampling:

. On the eve of that decade, Stanford University  biologist Paul Ehrlich opened his best-selling book “The Population Bomb” with  this sunny declaration: “The battle to feed all humanity is over. In the 1970s,  the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to  starve to death.” Of course, nothing of the kind happened.

. The Club of Rome, an international group of academics, scientists and global citizens,  commissioned a now-infamous 1972 report called “The Limits to Growth.” Like so  many others, these scientists informed us that we were running out of . . . well  . . . everything.

Or take Robert McNamara, the “whiz kid” president of Ford Motor Co. Later, as chief of the World Bank, he would throw tens of millions of development dollars into population control because he said – sounding much like Mr. Friedman – the alternative was a world no one would want. If voluntary methods failed, he warned, nations would resort to coercion.

All these things were  the received orthodoxies of their day, endorsed by the experts, sustained by the scientists, and challenged by only a few brave souls such as economist Julian  Simon. From these pet orthodoxies two clear implications flowed.

First, when  the experts tell you there are too many people, they don’t mean too many Swedes.  They mean too many poor people, mostly brown or black or yellow. In Hong Kong, I stumbled across a 1959 book written by an American entitled “Too Many Asians.”  Today the focus has shifted from Asia – but the theme remains. Early last month, the New York Times ran a page-one story citing United Nations warnings about the  growing population of Africa.

To read the full article, please click here (subscription required):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303714704576383764019676614.html?mod=ITP_opinion_0

Some people are clueless, especially economists.  Thanks to Anwarul Chowdhury for bringing this Foreign Policy article to my attention.  See http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/23/more_people_please

More People, Please.

Don’t Worry About the Booming Global Population — Celebrate It.

Charles Kenny

Acolytes of Thomas Malthus — the prudish 18th-century parson whose influence has considerably outlasted the accuracy of his predictions — are generally predisposed toward gloom-and-doom, but their hand-wringing has been especially intense the past several weeks. With its latest population forecasts predicting the world population may surpass 10 billion people by the end of the century, the United Nations has stoked age-old fears that the planet may not be able to sustain all of the human beings trying to live on it. As the number of souls on the planet ticks ever higher, the Malthusians lament, misery will flourish.

But for selfish and altruistic reasons alike, we should be delighted that there are more people on the planet than ever before — and billions more to come. Yes, there are problems to remedy as the world population continues to rise: Not least, many women still lack freedom to decide how many children to have and the lifestyles of rich people living in places like the United States, Europe, and Japan threaten global sustainability. Yet as we get ready to welcome the birth of the seven billionth person later this year, the mood should be celebratory, not dour.

Why is a growing population a good thing? For a start, most people seem to be pretty happy to be alive. The tragedy of suicide remains a comparatively rare cause of death worldwide, thankfully. And only in a very few countries across the globe do most respondents suggest in polls that they are unhappy: in Bangladesh, despite low incomes and poor health, 85 percent of the population suggests they are happy, and in Nigeria and China that number is nearly three quarters. Simply put, having the opportunity to be alive is a good thing, and the more such opportunity exists, the better. (Another bit of good news from the U.N. projections — average global life expectancy will rise from around 68 years today to 81 in 2100, so we’ll all have a little bit longer to enjoy it.)

To read the rest of the article, please click here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/23/more_people_please

Thanks to Eric Rimmer and Andrew Ferguson for this article, which is a preview of an article to be published in the October 2011 OPT Journal.

LIQUID FUEL, POPULATION, AND LIQUID ENERGY SUPPLY PER PERSON

by Eric Rimmer and Andrew Ferguson

Abstract.  Decline in liquid fuel supply must inevitably lead to decline in population.  The question is how that decline is to occur.

In 1956, oil geologist M King Hubbert predicted that US oil production would peak in the early 1970s.  At the time, he was derided both within and outside the oil industry.  Nevertheless in 1970 the peak of US oil production did occur.  In 1969, Hubbert made two estimates of the time when world oil production would peak.  The more optimistic one was based on an estimate that ultimate oil production would be 2.1 trillion barrels.  Using that figure he predicted that world oil production would peak around the year 2000.  Since Hubbert’s success in making a prediction for the US peak, several people have used his basic concepts to make similar predictions.  Moreover it has become clear that as the peak of production is approached, it is not necessary to guesstimate the total amount of a fuel that will be produced, because the changing pattern of production itself provides an indication of that figure (on just such a basis, David Rutledge (2010) made an analysis related to coal production covering all the important coal producing countries).

As recounted in Colin Campbell’s 1997 book, The Coming Oil Crisis, many geologists – as well as Campbell himself – have been warning that the peak of oil supply would be around 2005-10.  Until now, this assessment has been vehemently opposed by the international energy agencies and by the oil companies, many of whose spokesmen argued, at least until very recently, for a peak of oil supply in 2040 or later - obscurely implying, and not being challenged by interviewers, that therefore there was no problem !

The time for argument about the decade in which the peak will occur is now past, and our attention needs to turn to how to deal with declining supplies of liquid fuels, and soon thereafter a decline in the availability of all fossil fuels.  The situation is summed up by Figure 1, which shows the interaction between declining liquid fuel supply and a continuously increasing (until 2050) population.

Continue Reading »

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.  See http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2011/April/14/GH-041411-Population-meeting.aspx

U.N. Report Highlights Concerns About Population-Related Activities Funding

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Financial support for population-related activities worldwide has not significantly increased since 2008, according to a report  from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD), Inter Press Service reports. The CPD is meeting this week.

“The population package in need of funding consists of four components: family planning; reproductive health; preventing sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS; and basic research, data and population and development policy analysis,” according to the news service. In 2008, population funding reached $10.4 billion, which was an “historic high because it was the first time that population assistance by Western donors had surpassed 10 billion dollars,” according to the report. However funding “stalled in 2009,” reaching $10.39 billion and ”remaining virtually at the same level” as the year before. “The funding levels for 2010 have been estimated slightly higher, at 10.5 billion dollars, with a projected figure of 10.8 billion dollars in 2011,” IPS writes, noting that those numbers are considered large enough to fully implement the global population agenda (Deen, 4/13).

The report “states that family planning and demographic change alone reduced poverty by one seventh in developing countries between 1960 and 2000, and could produce another one-seventh drop in poverty levels by 2015. … [I]f existing requirements for modern contraceptives were met, nearly 100,000 maternal deaths could be averted and unintended pregnancies could be cut by 71 percent,” the U.N. News Centre writes (4/11).

“In his 18-page report … the secretary-general blames low funding on the global financial crisis” and predicts that funding for population-related activities in 2010 and 2011 could be even lower than the projections. “As a result, the Programme of Action adopted at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), held in Cairo, is in jeopardy, the secretary-general cautioned … At the same time, he said, even the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which incorporate the ICPD Programme of Action, may fall short of the targets - specifically in reducing maternal mortality and achieving universal access to reproductive health, including family planning.”

To read the full article, please click here: http://globalhealth.kff.org/Daily-Reports/2011/April/14/GH-041411-Population-meeting.aspx

From Roger and Roma Pereira in Mumbai.  See http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/features/climate-change-has-spurred-food-pricesstudy_541283.html

Climate Change Has Spurred Food Prices

Climate change cut global wheat and corn output by more than 3% over the past three decades compared to growth projections without a rise in temperatures, a study found on Friday.

The impacts translated into up to 20% higher average commodity prices, before accounting for other factors, according to the paper published in the journal Science.

Crop yields rose over the period for example as a result of improvements in practices and plant breeding, and the isolated, negative impact of climate change was equivalent to about one tenth of those advances.

But that varied widely between countries with Russia, Turkey and Mexico more affected for wheat, for example.

The isolated impact of climate change on wheat and corn was a warning of the future food supply and price impact from an expected acceleration in warming, the paper said.

“Climate changes are already exerting a considerable drag on yield growth,” said the study titled “Climate Trends and Global Crop Production Since 1980″.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/features/climate-change-has-spurred-food-pricesstudy_541283.html