Thanks to Tyler LePard, Media Manager of Population Action International, for alerting me to the discussion on the RH Reality Check website, which just published PAI’s feature on population and climate change. There are four posts and places to comment on each one:

• “Taking on Population and Climate Change” by Carolyn Vogel, PAI’s VP of Programs
• “Combating Global Warming Brings Population Back to the Agenda” by Leiwen Jiang, PAI’s new Senior Demographer
• “Global Climate Change: What Does it Mean for the World’s Women?” by Malea Hoepf Young, Research Associate at PAI
• “Should We Be Talking About Population and Climate Change?” by Karen Hardee, PAI’s VP of Research

They are available at http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/tag/population-and-climate-change

See Leiwen Jiang’s paper below.

Two landmark conferences of the 1990s really seemed to get the links between human population and the environment. The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development noted that “human beings are the centre of concern for sustainable development.” Building on this two years later, the Cairo Programme of Action included the objective “to reduce both unsustainable consumption and production patterns as well as negative impacts of demographic factors on the environment in order to meet the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

For full article, visit:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008

The Environmental Protection Agency, under fire for apparently discounting the impact of climate change, on Thursday said global warming poses real risk to human health and the American way of life.

Risks include more heat-related deaths, more heart and lung diseases due to increased ozone, and health problems related to hurricanes, extreme precipitation and wildfires, the agency said in a new report.

For full article, visit:
http://www.businessinsurance.com/cgi-bin/printStory.pl?news_id=13471

Climate change, according to recent research, is leading to an increase in the spread of parasitic diseases.

On Monday, delegates at the 23rd International Congress of Entomology heard that viral and parasitic diseases have been shown to increase in case studies because of the effects of climate change.

“Today’s lifestyles are energy dependent and the increased demand is leading to an increased warming in the atmosphere,” said Dr John Githure of the African Insect Science for Food and Health based in Nairobi, Kenya.

For full article, visit:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php

Plunging penguin populations are a signal that the world’s oceans are suffering the effects of climate change, fishing and oil and gas development, according to an analysis that could provide new ammunition for groups seeking federal and global protection for the birds.

The paper’s author, University of Washington conservation biologist P. Dee Boersma, has studied the birds for more than 30 years.

For full article, visit:
http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=1347

Hollywood is turning the silver screen “green,” but cutting waste, energy and costs in an industry known for big budgets and over-the-top productions is not easy, even in the trend setting movie business.

Hollywood has long used its star power to help the environment. A-list stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford are well-known environmentalists and Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth,” about global warming, is widely credited for making the issue more mainstream.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews

Yale Environment 360, a new online magazine dedicated to covering the global environment, has been launched. Edited by Roger Cohn ‘73, the former editor of Mother Jones and Audubon magazines, Yale Environment 360 aims to become one of the leading Web sites for commentary and reporting on the crucial environmental issues of the day. Yale Environment 360 features authoritative opinion, analysis and in-depth reporting by leading journalists, scientists, environmentalists and policy makers from around the world. The site also provides a forum for discussing global environmental issues. You can bookmark the new publication at http://e360.yale.edu/.

This is National Refugee Week, an appropriate time for Australians to consider the plight of climate refugees — those people being displaced as a result of sea-level rise, drought and extreme weather events.

This crisis is set to eclipse all refugee crises to date in terms of the number of people affected — it is estimated that about 200 million people could be displaced by 2050 with a sea level rise of only 50 centimetres — yet there has been no co-ordinated international effort to tackle this problem.

For full article, visit:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-refugee

PMC and Sonny Fox Consultants will host a one-day event for members of the creative community on November 18 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, CA.
Continue Reading »

Thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article.
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The latest controversy over biofuels backs up Oxfam’s report published last week. Profit, pressure from industry and farm subsidies show that there is more behind this enthusiasm for the crops than a desire to stop climate change.

If politicians want to reduce emissions and stop global warming, biofuels are not the solution. Recent research suggests that biofuels may increase greenhouse gas emissions rather than reduce them. And by pushing up demand for agricultural land, they’re causing farming to expand into other areas that store carbon – such as wetlands and forests – releasing way more carbon than is saved through biofuels.

For full article, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/04/biofuels.carbonemissions

Thanks to Fred Stanback for this article.
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As the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Hayden should have some insight on the biggest threats facing the U.S. But when Hayden recently described what he saw as the most troublesome trend over the next several decades, it wasn’t terrorism or climate change. It was overpopulation in the poorest parts of the world. “By mid-century, the best estimates point to a world population of more than 9 billion,” Hayden said in a speech at Kansas State University. “Most of that growth will occur in countries least able to sustain it.” The sheer increase in population, Hayden argued, could fuel instability and extremism, not to mention worsening climate change and making food and fuel all the more scarce. Population is the essential multiplier for any number of human ills.

For full article, visit:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1739253,00.html