Thanks to Ned Lundquist for the following article.
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Diminished Arctic Ice means good news and bad
Open sea lanes require more vigilance

By Edward Lundquist

There is a lot of water in the world for the U.S. Navy to patrol. Now add one more ocean to the list.

Because of a changing global climate, the year-round ice in the Arctic has dramatically diminished, meaning that the Arctic Ocean is now open for ship traffic for at least part of the year. The result is a remarkable shipping shortcut between Europe and Asia from 11,500 miles to 6,000 miles—a journey of almost half the distance.

The newly accessible Arctic is significant for the U.S. “Explorers have sought routes through the Arctic for 500 years,” said Mead Treadwell, chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.
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Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article.
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Rises in food prices and global population, especially among the middle classes in India and China, have brought renewed respect to the philosopher of demographic catastrophe, Thomas Robert Malthus.

In the 1990s, a number of writers, including me, were denounced as grim, deterministic Malthusians because of our emphasis on the role the natural world played in global affairs. It was an era without limits, it seemed, when any country could achieve prosperity and human rights. Contrarily, we argued that rising populations, depleted soils and water resources, and other natural phenomena might limit what could be achieved in specific places, and that there was therefore a need for tragic realism.

For full article, visit:
http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008

Thanks to Scott Connolly for this editorial from the Burlington Free Press. Incidentally, the author’s statement, “Our own administration prohibits financial aid to any organization that promotes family planning through contraception” is not accurate. The administration may not be enthusiastic about family planning, but it has not prohibited aid to organizations promoting family planning. The focus of the gag rule is to deny aid to organizations involved in promotion or information related to abortion. The administration has also required some portion of family planning aid be used to promote abstinence.

My Turn: Population key to global food crisis (PDF, 26KB)

Thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article.
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Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent, according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.

The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent.

Biofuels, which supporters claim are a “greener” alternative to using fossil fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, and rising food prices will be on the agenda when G8 leaders meet in Japan next week for their annual summit.

For full article, visit:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080704/

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 Carter Dillard for sending this OpEd from USA Today.
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For anyone wondering where food prices are really headed, the news that Beijing has begun buying up farmland in Africa and South America offers a troubling hint. When China began acquiring oil fields in the 1990s, it signaled both the end of China’s self-sufficiency in oil and the start of a competition between China and other big oil importers that helped push crude prices to their current record levels. That the world’s most populous nation now seeks to lock up pieces of foreign food production not only confirms that China has reached the end of food self-sufficiency as well, but suggests that Western hopes for a quick end to today’s food-price crisis could be overly optimistic.

For full article, visit:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/todays-food-cri.html

Many thanks to Bill Willers for this copy of his 1994 paper on sustainable development.

Sustainable Development: A New World Deception (Word doc., 3 MB)

Thanks to Brian Czech, Ph.D., President of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, for this paper. This paper is in press and available only for limited distribution. Please do not circulate it without the permission of the author, who may be contacted at brianczech@juno.com

Prospects for reconciling the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation with technological progress (Word doc., 121KB)

Thanks to Joyce Tarnow for this article by James Howard Kunstler. Despite the title, it is relevant globally.
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Everywhere I go these days, talking about the global energy predicament on the college lecture circuit or at environmental conferences, I hear an increasingly shrill cry for “solutions.” This is just another symptom of the delusional thinking that now grips the nation, especially among the educated and well-intentioned.

I say this because I detect in this strident plea the desperate wish to keep our “Happy Motoring” utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts.

For full article, visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp

In this announcement from Nazareth, Ethiopia, thirty religious leaders from the Afar region, representatives from the Office of the Supreme Sharia Courts, Islamic Affairs Bureau, and the Women’s Affairs Bureau of Ethiopia issued a declaration to end the practice of female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation (FGM). The declaration was issued at the end of a Population Media Center (PMC) workshop held from July 30 to August 1 in 2007, to discuss the issue of female circumcision and what religious leaders can do to help eradicate the practice. The PMC workshop was the first part of a “whole society” strategy to eradicate the practice of FGM in Ethiopia, and the Afar region in particular. PMC uses a “whole society” strategy to strengthen the impact of communication initiatives. The PMC strategy in Ethiopia includes a radio serial drama with a storyline about the risks and negative consequences of FGM.

For full article, visit:
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/270991/38