From Population Media Center.  See http://www.populationmedia.org/who/job-openings/.

Title: Communications Manager
Reports to: Vice President of Communications and Programs
Beginning: Immediately
Send resume and references to (no phone calls): admin [at] populationmedia [dot] org

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The Communications Manager will work closely with the Vice President of Communications and Programs and other staff to carry out various communications activities for PMC. These will include overseeing PMC’s and affiliate websites, creating and/or developing promotional videos and materials on PMC’s work, assisting country directors with design and outreach materials related to PMC’s in country programs, working in coordination with staff on online outreach, writing and designing of all of PMC’s communications materials, assisting with media outreach, and working with PMC’s Director of Development to align our communications and fundraising strategies.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

* Research, write, and edit annual report, quarterly newsletters, monthly enewsletters, progress reports, brochures, promotional videos, and web site content (in collaboration with program staff and the Director of Communications). Coordinate and lead publication and distribution.

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From the Muslim Women’s Newsletter.

Pakistani girls defy Taliban school bombings

Instead of listening to lectures at their old wooden desks, the girls will be forced to sit on the grass in a courtyard until workers clean the rubble and shattered glass from classrooms pulverized by the bombs

SWABI: Seven-year-old Marwa cried and shook uncontrollably at the sight of the rubble and shattered glass remnants of her classroom. The Taliban had bombed yet another girls’ school in Pakistan.

“I had to pick her up and hold her close to my chest. My worry is that we will spend our time helping the girls deal with fear instead of teaching them math and science,” said head teacher Razia Begum.

“I hope the parents keep sending their children to school.”

Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which is close to al Qaeda, has bombed hundreds of schools since launching a campaign to topple the US-backed government in 2007.

Like Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban want girls barred from education.

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Thanks to Al Bartlett for this article.  See http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/dec/14/rush-for-land-gobal-south

Rush for land a wake-up call for poorer countries, report says

Increasing investor demand for land in the global south could spur small farmers to secure control over their land, says a study published by the International Land Coalition

Claire Provost

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 December 2011 08.55 EST

Population growth, the increasing consumption of a global elite, and an international legal system skewed in favour of largescale investors are fuelling a worldwide rush for land that is unfolding faster than previously thought and is likely to continue, according to the largest study of international land deals to date.

Researchers estimate that more than 200m hectares of land – over eight times the size of the UK – have been sold or leased between 2000 and 2010. But although the food price crisis of 2007-08 may have triggered a boom in international land deals, the study argues that a much broader set of factors – linked to population growth and the rise of emerging economies – is raising the prospect of “a new era in the struggle for, and control over, land in many areas of the global south”.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/dec/14/rush-for-land-gobal-south

Thanks to Lester Brown for this article.  See  www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights22

Rising Meat Consumption Takes Big Bite out of Grain Harvest

Earth Policy Release
Data Highlight
November 22, 2011

World consumption of animal protein is everywhere on the rise. Meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 284 million tons in 2009, more than doubling annual consumption per person to over 90 pounds. The rise in consumption of milk and eggs is equally dramatic. Wherever incomes rise, so does meat consumption.

As the oceanic fish catch and rangeland beef production have both leveled off, the world has shifted to grain-based production of animal protein to expand output. With some 35 percent of the world grain harvest (760 million tons) used to produce animal protein, meat consumption has a large impact on grain consumption, and therefore global food security.

The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. Grain-fed beef is one of the least efficient forms of animal protein, taking roughly 7 pounds of grain to produce a 1-pound gain in live weight. Global beef production, most of which comes from rangelands, has grown by about 1 percent a year since 1990.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights22

Thanks to Sandra Kanck for this article.  See http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/11/food-security-looming-crisis?utm_source=Pro+Bono+Australia+-+email+updates&utm_campaign=1254f5e7db-Tuesday_News_Service_22_November_201111_22_2011&utm_medium=email

Food Security a Looming Crisis

Posted: Friday, November 18, 2011 – 14:50

With the global population pushing past 7 billion people recently, the global food chain is approaching a tipping point, according to Alison Watkins, CEO of GrainCorp Limited.

Speaking at the Creative Innovation conference in Melbourne, Watkins said increasing affluence amongst the growing global population means the world is consuming more protein in the form of meat – for which corn is a major food source.

Corn is also now being widely used in the creation of ethanol as nations try to limit their dependence on foreign oil.

Watkins the use of corn in the creation of ethanol, as well as a major source of feed for animals, has led to food security becoming a major concern.

Watkins said with the global population growing by one percent per annum (that’s the equivalent of adding a Germany – or an Ethiopia – every year) “the global food chain is approaching a tipping point”.

She said the rate of improvements in crop yields has reduced dramatically over recent years, and we are going to see a halving of the arable land per head of population over the next 30 years.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/11/food-security-looming-crisis?utm_source=Pro+Bono+Australia+-+email+updates&utm_campaign=1254f5e7db-Tuesday_News_Service_22_November_201111_22_2011&utm_medium=email

Thanks to Mark O’Conner for this article.  See http://www.thespec.com/print/article/575310

The food bubble is going to pop

Gwynne Dyer

August 8, 2011

There are all kinds of bubbles. We had the financial bubble that burst in 2008, causing economic devastation that we are still paying for. There is the Chinese real estate bubble, the biggest in history, which may take the whole world economy down with it when it bursts. But nothing compares with the food bubble.

Back in 2008, the OECD published a report on world food supply predicting that the price surge of that year would quickly revert to normal: “Barring any underlying climate change or water constraints that could lead to permanent reductions in yield, normal higher output can be expected in the very short term.” And barring age, disease and accidents, we will all live forever.

Between April 2010 and April 2011, the average world price of grain soared by 71 per cent: not a very big deal for people in rich countries who spend less than 10 per cent of their incomes on food, but a catastrophe for poor people who already spend more than half their money just to keep their families fed. And that is before “climate change and water constraints” get really serious. But they will.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.thespec.com/print/article/575310

Thanks to Harriett Stinson for this article.  See http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html

Skeptic finds he now agrees global warming is real

Associated Press

By SETH BORENSTEIN – AP Science Writer | AP – Mon, Oct 31, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) – A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.

The study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of “Climategate,” a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.

Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.

To read the full article, please click here: http://news.yahoo.com/skeptic-finds-now-agrees-global-warming-real-142616605.html

Thanks to John James for this article.  See  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 November 2011 05.01 EST

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.

Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this “lock-in” effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world’s foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.

“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change

Many thanks to Lindsey Grant for this article.  To download your copy, see: https://docs.google.com/a/necsp.org/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeMDIwZjM0MTktMzRlZS00YTAwLTg0YzMtMjY0YjcwMjRhZjcz&hl=en_US&pli=1

From the AP. See: http://news.yahoo.com/economy-best-birth-control-us-births-dip-again-213808194.html

Is economy best birth control? US births dip again

By MIKE STOBBE

The Associated Press

Thursday, November 17, 2011

ATLANTA – The economy may well be the best form of birth control. U.S. births dropped for the third straight year – especially for young mothers – and experts think money worries are the reason.

A federal report released Thursday showed declines in the birth rate for all races and most age groups. Teens and women in their early 20s had the most dramatic dip, to the lowest rates since record-keeping began in the 1940s. Also, the rate of cesarean sections stopped going up for the first time since 1996.

Experts suspected the economy drove down birth rates in 2008 and 2009 as women put off having children. With the 2010 figures, suspicion has turned into certainty.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt now that it was the recession. It could not be anything else,” said Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. He was not involved in the new report.

To read the full article, please click here: http://news.yahoo.com/economy-best-birth-control-us-births-dip-again-213808194.html