From The Daily Caller.  See http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/gore-promoting-fewer-children-to-curb-pollution/ where you can see a video of Gore speaking on population.

Gore Promoting Fewer Children to Curb Pollution

Published: 7:42 PM 06/21/2011  Updated: 1:51 PM 06/25/2011

The global warming debate has always been a touchy one for both sides, and when the world’s top global warming activist is talking about the size of population and how that contributes to the choices societies make, it might be worth taking note.

In an appearance Monday in New York City, former Vice President Al Gore, prominently known for his climate change activism, took on the subject of population size and the role of society in controlling it to reduce pollution.

He offered some ideas about what might be done for females in the name of stabilizing population growth. (h/t Chris Horner via wattsupwiththat.com)

“One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principle ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women,” Gore said. “You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children have, the spacing of the children.

To read the full article, and watch the video, please click here: http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/21/gore-promoting-fewer-children-to-curb-pollution/

Thanks to Denis Garnier, Chair of Démographie Responsible in France, for this article by Al Gore.

See: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/06/al-gore-climate-change-population-contraception-fertility.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150349920018858_19677422_10150363746563858&ref=notif&notif_t=open_graph_comment#f19bbf48c1a4697

Al Gore: Stabilize population to combat global warming

June 22, 2011  10:52am

From the safety of the political sidelines, former Vice President Al Gore is venturing into a touchy topic, presenting his holistic view of how to curb the buildup of greenhouse gases warming the planet. Besides improving technology to reduce fossil fuel emissions, he is advocating “educating and empowering girls and women.”

“That’s the most powerful leveraging factor,” Gore said in a speech Monday in New York. “When that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices.”

Although not entirely spelled out in the speech, Gore’s thinking goes this way: If women are confident their children will survive, and if they have access to “fertility management,” and if they have the power to decide how many children they want and when to have them, the result would be stabilization of the global population.

To read the full article and watch a video, please click here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/06/al-gore-climate-change-population-contraception-fertility.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150349920018858_19677422_10150363746563858&ref=notif&notif_t=open_graph_comment#f385bb36f5b4f58

Thanks to Vicky Markham for alerting me to the new special Issue of Science magazine on “Population”.  Link to the table of contents at http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/population/index.xhtml.  You will need a subscription to see most of the full articles.  In the 29 July 2011 issue, Science examines the opportunities and challenges created by demographic changes around the world.

At http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6042/538, you can read the following introduction.

Science 29 July 2011:
Vol. 333 no. 6042 pp. 538-539
DOI: 10.1126/science.333.6042.538

Introduction to Special Issue

Doom or Vroom?

Gilbert Chin, Tara Marathe, Leslie Roberts

Social scientists can be a contentious lot. Since Thomas Malthus issued his dire warning in 1798-and probably before then-scholars have been arguing over how many people the planet can support. There are “doomsters” who continue to predict the worst, and there are “boomsters” who argue that population growth, while worrisome in many ways, can be an engine of economic growth.

In the 1960s, when there were half as many people as there are today, the doomsters had their day as fears of a “population bomb” gripped the world. And today’s rapid growth rate (7 billion people will occupy the planet this year, and that number is projected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050 and keep climbing) continues to spark alarm. But so far, the neo-Malthusian worries of global mass starvation and global calamitous environmental degradation and ensuing conflict have not materialized. The startling rate of population growth of the 1960s has actually slowed as families have chosen to have fewer children, freely in some countries and under pressure in others. Since 1950, the global fertility rate has dropped by half.

But at regional and local scales, the news is not good. In some parts of the world, most notably across sub-Saharan Africa, fertility and desired family size remain high, and conflict and famine are all too common. Almost all of the population growth between now and 2050 will be concentrated in the world’s poorest countries, which lack the resources to support their burgeoning citizenry. In contrast, in many developed countries and even in some still-developing ones, populations are projected to shrink, and worries center on how to support the higher costs of the aging population on the backs of fewer people of working age.

To read the rest of the introduction, please click here: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6042/538

Thanks to Joyce Johnson for this article. See: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/01/free.birth.control/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

HHS announces free birth control for women

By Sabriya Rice, CNN Medical Producer

August 1, 2011 9:59 a.m. EDT

(CNN) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new guidelines in Washington Monday requiring health insurance plans beginning on or after August 1, 2012 to cover several women’s preventive services, including birth control and voluntary sterilization.

According to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the decision is a part of the Affordable Care Act’s move to stop problems before they start. “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” she said in a news release.

In July, the Institute of Medicine issued the results of a scientific review of women’s health needs and provided recommendations on specific preventive measures to help them. Today HHS approved those recommendations.

Besides contraceptive use, the list includes free screenings for conditions such as gestational diabetes and the human papillomavirus (HPV), as well as breastfeeding support and counseling on sexually transmitted diseases. The full list is available on the Department of Health and Human Services website.

The decision to offer free contraception was not supported by all. For example, groups like the Family Research Council claims the decision “undermines the conscience rights of many Americans” and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, chairman of Committee on Pro-Life Activities with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says “pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible.” They feel the decision forces people to participate who may have moral or religious convictions that oppose contraception use.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/01/free.birth.control/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Thanks to Christian Parenti, author of the just published Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, (Nation Books), for this article by him.  See: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175419/

Reading the World In a Loaf of Bread
Soaring Food Prices, Wild Weather, Upheaval, and a Planetful of Trouble

By Christian Parenti

What can a humble loaf of bread tell us about the world?

The answer is: far more than you might imagine.  For one thing, that loaf can be “read” as if it were a core sample extracted from the heart of a grim global economy. Looked at another way, it reveals some of the crucial fault lines of world politics, including the origins of the Arab spring that has now become a summer of discontent.

Consider this: between June 2010 and June 2011, world grain prices almost doubled. In many places on this planet, that proved an unmitigated catastrophe.  In those same months, several governments fell, rioting broke out in cities from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to Nairobi, Kenya, and most disturbingly three new wars began in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Even on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Bedouin tribes are now in revolt against the country’s interim government and manning their own armed roadblocks.

And in each of these situations, the initial trouble was traceable, at least in part, to the price of that loaf of bread.  If these upheavals were not “resource conflicts” in the formal sense of the term, think of them at least as bread-triggered upheavals.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175419/

From the UN News Centre.  See: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38344&Cr=fao&Cr1=

More than 1 billion tons of food lost or wasted every year, UN-backed report finds

About one third of food produced for humans is lost or wasted

11 May 2011

About a third of all the food produced for human consumption each year – or roughly 1.3 billion tons – is lost or wasted, according to a new study commissioned by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The study, compiled by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and unveiled today, finds that food waste is more of a problem in rich countries and food loss during production is a bigger issue in poor countries because of poor infrastructure and technology.

Consumers and retailers in industrialized countries waste an estimated 222 million tons of food each year, mostly by throwing away perfectly edible food. Fruits and vegetables have the highest rates of wastage.

The average consumer in Europe and North America wastes 95 to 115 kilograms of food a year, while his or her counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia or South-East Asia wastes only six to 11 kilograms of food.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38344&Cr=fao&Cr1=

Thanks to Schuyler Null for letting me know about this publication by Elizabeth Madsen.

FAMILY PLANNING AS A STRATEGIC FOCUS OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Population Action International’s Elizabeth Leahy Madsen explores population-security links for CFR.  To download the report, visit http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/2011/05/family-planning-as-strategic-focus-of.html

Overview

Comprehensive policies that incorporate demography, family planning, and reproductive health can promote higher levels of stability and development, thereby improving the health and livelihood of people around the world while also benefiting overarching U.S. interests. U.S. foreign aid will be more effective if increased investments are made in high population-growth countries for reproductive health and family planning programs. Reproductive health and family planning initiatives are cost-effective because they help reduce the stress that rapid population growth places on a country’s economic, environmental, and social resources.

In this Working Paper, part of a series from CFR’s Women and Foreign Policy program, Elizabeth Leahy Madsen recommends that the U.S. government restore its technical leadership in providing and supportive contraceptive technology research, program innovation, and tools that monitor and evaluate service delivery of family planning.

Thanks to Lester Brown and Earth Policy Institute for this article.  See  www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13

Education Leads to Lower Fertility and Increased Prosperity

By Brigid Fitzgerald Reading

Earth Policy Release
Data Highlights
May 12, 2011

As the world continues to add close to 80 million people each year, high population growth is running up against the limits of our finite planet, threatening global economic and political stability. To stay within the bounds of the earth’s natural resources, the world’s population will have to stabilize.

The United Nations’ recently revised “medium” projection shows world population exceeding 9 billion by 2045. In the “high” projection, which assumes high levels of fertility, world population would top 10 billion by the same year. But spreading hunger and poverty, along with the conflict and disease that come with them, could forcibly curtail growth before we reach 9 billion. Alternatively, the “low” projection suggests it is possible for world population to peak at just over 8 billion around 2045 if we voluntarily make rapid reductions in family size.

For the rest of the article, please click here: www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13

Thanks to Ed Levering for this article.  See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13449792

19 May 2011

Brazil: Amazon rainforest deforestation rises sharply

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has increased almost sixfold, new data suggests.

Satellite images show deforestation increased from 103 sq km in March and April 2010 to 593 sq km (229 sq miles) in the same period of 2011, Brazil’s space research institute says.

Much of the destruction has been in Mato Grosso state, the centre of soya farming in Brazil.

The news comes shortly before a vote on new forest protection rules.

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said the figures were “alarming” and announced the setting up of a “crisis cabinet” in response to the news.

“Our objective is to reduce deforestation by July,” the minister told a news conference.

Analysts say the new figures have taken the government by surprise.

Last December, a government report said deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen to its lowest rate for 22 years.

However, the latest data shows a 27% jump in deforestation from August 2010 to April 2011.

For the rest of the article, please click here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13449792

Thanks to Ben Zuckerman for this article.  See http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/poor_nations_turn_to_dolphin_m.html

Poor nations turn to dolphin meat

May 17, 2011

Martin Robards and Randy Reeves have spent years gathering all the data they could get their hands on about the hunting of marine mammals, from dolphins to dugongs. Their resulting map, presented at the Society for Conservation Biology’s International Marine Conservation Congress in Victoria on 15 May, comes with some surprises. “It was a lot more common than we expected, and Randy has been looking at this for decades,” says Robards, who is a program director for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Alaska. Reeves is with Okapi Wildlife Associates in Hudson Quebec.

Unsurprisingly, Japan takes top place, thanks to its whale and dolphin hunts. And Arctic seal hunting means that marine mammal takes in the north are also high. “What you can do there to control the hunt is being done. But in other places it’s falling through the cracks,” says Robards.

In most places, there is a taboo against eating marine mammals because of their ‘cute’ factor, charisma and intelligence. But a decline in global fish stocks (in particular from the developing world to feed Europe) has driven many poor nation populations to eating bushmeat, including primates, and the ‘bushmeat of the sea’, including dolphins (which has a dark, gamey meat like venison). At the same time, fishermen in these nations have switched from using hemp-rope fishnets to nets made of modern fibres, often thanks to international aid efforts to help people get more food. While dolphins typically tear through rope nets, the modern nets are “efficient dolphin killing machines” says Robards. Accidental dolphin bycatch has created a market for their meat, either to eat or to use as shark bait.

For the rest of the article, please click here: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/poor_nations_turn_to_dolphin_m.html