On this day of 7 billion, I send greetings to all on this list and thanks to Kathleene Parker for this OpEd.  See: http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2011/10/02/day-of-seven-billion-by-kathleene-parker/

October 2, 2011

DAY of SEVEN BILLION

by Kathleene Parker

The United Nation’s choice of October 31, 2011, as the “Day of Seven Billion”-the day when Earth will attain a population of 7 billion-is spooky beyond just its falling on Halloween.

But the hallmark-on a planet with fewer than 2.5 billion when this baby boomer was born-is a chance to address the myth that the problem isn’t overpopulation, it is overconsumption. Actually, it is both. I’ll also talk about what I call the Population Religion, with its dogma and use of language.

If there is anything spookier than the Halloween date, it is that Big Media and big economic forces, by early summer, were already busy telling us that (1.) population growth is nothing to worry about, (2.) the real problem is a lack of babies, the absurdity-on a planet gaining 78 million people a year-of the “birth dearth”; and the absurdity (3.) that population will somehow magically stabilize mid-to-late century-sort of a demographic version of Gone With the Wind’s Scarlet O’Hara’s, “I can’t think about that right now. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

It’s a good delaying tactic, especially when there are so many “more urgent” priorities. But, many of those, such as a crumbling economy, are linked to increased competition for fixed resources, especially the critical underpinnings of every economy on the planet, energy.

And, most critical, tomorrow’s population is determined today. We can’t get out to 2049 and decide there are too many people. By then, it will be too late for what should have been done last century:

* global policies to stabilize population through strictly voluntary means contraceptives made available, free, to everyone of reproductive age who wants them, including in countries, such as the Philippines, where birth control is illegal, or Madagascar, a treasure trove of rare species being decimated by population growth, but where women who have not had a child are denied contraceptives.

Continue Reading »

Thanks to George Plumb for this article. Please see: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/what_if_experts_are_wrong_on_world_population_growth/2444/

19 Sep 2011: Analysis What If Experts Are Wrong On World Population Growth?

A central tenet of demography is that global population will peak at 9 to 10 billion this century and then gradually decline as poorer countries develop. But that assumption may be overly optimistic – and if it is, population will continue to rise, placing enormous strains on the environment.

by Carl Haub

In a mere half-century, the number of people on the planet has soared from 3 billion to 7 billion, placing us squarely in the midst of the most rapid expansion of world population in our 50,000-year history — and placing ever-growing pressure on the Earth and its resources.

But that is the past. What of the future? Leading demographers, including those at the United Nations and the U.S. Census Bureau, are projecting that world population will peak at 9.5 billion to 10 billion later this century and then gradually decline as poorer countries develop. But what if those projections are too optimistic? What if population continues to soar, as it has in recent decades, and the world becomes home to 12 billion or even 16 billion people by 2100, as a high-end UN estimate has projected? Such an outcome would clearly have enormous social and environmental implications, including placing enormous stress on the world’s food and water resources, spurring further loss of wild lands and biodiversity, and hastening the degradation of the natural systems that support life on Earth.

To read the full article, please click here: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/what_if_experts_are_wrong_on_world_population_growth/2444/

Thanks to Leon Kolankiewicz for this item from Jane Fonda’s blog, which you can see at http://janefonda.com/too-many-people/

TOO MANY PEOPLE

May 07.11

There’s lots to worry about these days but you know what worries me most: the news I read day before yesterday that by something like 2045 there will be 10 billion people on the planet-or more! This is profoundly bad news. There are already millions and millions of people that are starving in the world and even more without drinkable water. There simply won’t be enough of the things that human beings need to survive-much less thrive-not enough food, water, jobs, space. Then there’s the issue of our souls-what will the world be like when there’s no more wilderness, or wild animals or marine life because one species of animal-homo sapiens- has taken up all the space and resources? What happens when everything is even more crowded, crammed, angry? Where will we go to find peace and calm? What about empty lots? As a child, much of who I am was formed by exploring in nature and playing in overgrown empty lots. Where will discovery come from in 2045?

I am in New York City as I write this. I lived here in the 1950s when there were a little over 2 billion people in the world. My children (never mind my grandchildren) will never know what a city like New york [sic] was like with 5 billion fewer people in the world. Even now, with 7 billion people, it is hard to walk down Broadway or Fifth Avenue because of the almost solid mass of bodies jostling to find a space to walk through. Forget about walking a small dog down those streets. Forget about meditating in the courtyard of the Frick Museum which used to be a place of calm refuge for me.

I’m scared. I’ll be gone but I am scared for my grandchildren and for the wild animals and for the whole human race.

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article. Please see: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8271479/population-gain-will-offset-emissions-cuts

Population gain will offset emissions cuts

12:49 AEST Mon Jul 11 2011

Cuts in greenhouse gas emissions achieved through the carbon tax and other measures will be negated by Australia’s growing population, a sustainable population advocacy group says.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) says even if the federal government’s emissions targets are met, the benefits will be wiped out before 2020 based on current population growth.

A larger population would have to reduce emissions by 20 per cent, instead of the five per cent required in 2011, to bring the nation’s total emissions back to 2011 targets.

“Reining in population growth is essential if any impact is to be made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” SPA national president Sandra Kanck said.

“While the opponents of a carbon tax will make much of the fact that our electricity prices will rise by around 10 per cent, a much bigger contributor already to electricity prices is population increase.”

To read the full article, please click here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8271479/population-gain-will-offset-emissions-cuts

Since October 31 is the Day of Seven Billion, now would be an excellent time for you to submit a letter to the editor to your local paper, linking global growth to a local growth issue that is currently in the news.

Thanks to Fiona Heinrichs for this link to her new book, Sleepwalking to Catastrophe.  The book can be found at www.sleepwalking-to-catastrophe.com.  Following is a review of the book by Frosty Wooldridge, published at http://members.beforeitsnews.com/story/740/504/Australian_immigration:_unsustainable_on_a_desert_continent.html

Honors graduate Fiona Heinrichs understands Australia’s unsustainable future in her latest piece, “Collapseology: why this should be shaping Australian public policy.”

She is an honors graduate from Sydney who is very concerned about population growth and environmental sustainability.

She has recently authored a book titled, Sleepwalking to Catastrophe: ‘Big Australia’, Immigration, Population Expansion and the Impossibility of Endless Economic Growth in a Finite World. It can be found at Sleepwalking-to-Catastrophe.

Australia’s landmass equals America’s lower 48 states, but with one big exception. Australia features 96 percent desert.  It lacks water, arable land and resources to carry its current population load.  Yet, politicians remain bent on adding 10 million more people to Australia.  What does Australia face with the projected 10 million added humans?

To read the full article, please click here: http://beforeitsnews.com/story/740/504/Australian_immigration:_unsustainable_on_a_desert_continent.html

Thanks to the Post Carbon Institute for this article by Richard Heinberg.  For a PDF of this article, see http://www.postcarbon.org/Museletter/Museletter-232.pdf

MuseLetter #232 / September 2011 by Richard Heinberg

The September Museletter is comprised of two pieces related to my book ‘The End of Growth’. The first is the op-ed which the mainstream press seems reluctant to publish as they hang desperately on to idea that economic growth will continue. The second is a section from Chapter 6 of my book and looks at one piece of the puzzle in changing our economic model.

Welcome to the Post-Growth Economy

During recent weeks, evidence has piled up that U.S. and European economies, far from recovering, are swirling back into recession. Failure of American politicians to address the federal debt crisis, the U.S. credit rating downgrade, and increasing fragility of European economies have investors running for the hills.

Concern is being voiced that we may be at a fundamental economic turning point. Deutsche Bank’s strategist Jim Reid even suggests that the western world’s financial system might be “totally unsustainable.”

As it happens, I’ve just published a book, The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, that reaches the same conclusion, and that foresaw the economic relapse that’s playing out in headlines. The book’s content was finalized in March, when economic data appeared to show the nation in a recovery. I suppose I’m justified in saying “I told you so,” but others are as well. Herman Daly, former World Bank economist, has pointed out the absurdity of expecting continual economic growth on a planet with limited resources.

To read the full article (pdf), please click here: http://www.postcarbon.org/Museletter/Museletter-232.pdf

If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching a lecture by Bill Rees, inventor of the concept of the Ecological Footprint, you would find this talk of great interest.  See  http://home.comcast.net/~kurtzs/Bill_Rees_Video/Bill_Rees_Video.html.  Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this link.

Thank to Lester Brown for this article. See: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights18

Learning from China: Why the Existing Economic Model Will Fail
By Lester R. Brown, September 8 2011

For almost as long as I can remember we have been saying that the United States, with 5 percent of the world’s people, consumes a third or more of the earth’s resources. That was true. It is no longer true. Today China consumes more basic resources than the United States does.

Among the key commodities such as grain, meat, oil, coal, and steel, China consumes more of each than the United States except for oil, where the United States still has a wide (though narrowing) lead. China uses a quarter more grain than the United States. Its meat consumption is double that of the United States. It uses three times as much coal and four times as much steel.

These numbers reflect national consumption, but what would happen if consumption per person in China were to catch up to that of the United States? If we assume conservatively that China’s economy slows from the 11 percent annual growth of recent years to 8 percent, then in 2035 income per person in China will reach the current U.S. level.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights18

Thanks to Madeline Weld for this article from the Lancet by John Cleland, Stan Bernstein, Alex Ezeh, Anibal Faundes, Anna Glasier, and Jolene Innis that gets to the point quite directly about the problems of not paying enough attention to family planning.  Be sure to read the last section, “What needs to be done.”  You can download the article here: https://docs.google.com/a/necsp.org/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B-dZOjqE9J_jMDk4NDJkMTYtMDQ3NC00YzljLTkzNTMtYzIyOTE0Y2Y1MGFh&hl=en&pli=1

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article. See: http://www.nvaged.org/americas-crises-in-energy-landwateragriculture-spells-out-substantial-tribal-wealth.htm

America’s Crises in Energy\ Land\Water\Agriculture Spells out Substantial Tribal Wealth Development

By Terrance H. Booth, Sr. – Tsimshian Tribe

HIGHLIGHTS OF “FOOD, LAND, POPULATION, AND THE U.S. ECONOMY”

The following two pages are highlights of the study, “Food, Land, Population, and the U.S. Economy” by Drs. David Pimentel of Cornell University and Mario Giampietro of the Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, Rome. This comprehensive assessment of U.S. population growth and its impact on America’s agricultural productivity was commissioned by Carrying Capacity Network (CCN), a non-profit organization in Washington, DC which focuses on the interrelated nature of the economy, population growth, and environmental degradation.

KEY FINDINGS

“At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.

This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.

If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.

To read the full related article, please click here: http://www.nvaged.org/americas-crises-in-energy-landwateragriculture-spells-out-substantial-tribal-wealth.htm