Listen to an interview with Paul Ehrlich on NPR conducted by Diane Rehm at http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/07/24.php#20644. Thanks to Steve Kurtz for the article below by Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
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Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly — language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.

For full article, visit:
http://www.alternet.org/water/94268/?page=entire

Thanks to Jane Roberts for this article.
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Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.

Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.

For full article, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7403989.stm

Thanks to John Tanton for this article by Victor Mallet, the Asian Editor for the Financial Times out of Hong Kong.
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This time last year I wrote a column to celebrate the decline of the Japanese population. I wanted to debunk the idea that countries with falling numbers of inhabitants were heading inexorably towards social and fiscal disaster or even extinction.

A year on, there are encouraging signs of a change in attitudes. In particular, economists are increasingly challenging the myth that population growth is essential for economic growth. There have, of course, been setbacks on the road to common sense. Jim Rogers, who founded the Quantum fund with George Soros, continues to question the wisdom of long-term investment in Japan because ‘there will be no Japanese’ if the current low birth-rate is maintained - a very big ‘if’. International Monetary Fund economists and Indian government ministers persist in using the awful phrase ‘demographic dividend’ to describe the alleged economic benefits of hundreds of millions of young people entering the workforce, even though these people are just as likely to be a social and fiscal burden in increasingly capital-intensive economies such as India.

For full article, visit:
http://www.ft.com/cms

Thanks to Joe Starinchak of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for this article. You may have already heard of Noosa Shire, Australia but, if not, it’s nice to have an example of a community that values its biodiversity and natural landscapes, is aware of carrying capacity, and as a result has capped its population and is actively seeking a steady state economy. Could this ever happen in Vermont?

See http://www.isocarp.net/Data/case_studies/963.pdf

Many thanks to Fred Meyerson for this article from Nature (Reports). He and several other demographers who work on population and climate issues are quoted.
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When Brian O’Neill migrated to population research six years ago, he was surprised to find it a rather sparsely populated field. Looking for a wider-angle approach to the work he did in climate modelling, he decided to address the one important factor that he felt was being left out of emissions projections. Put simply, that factor was people: how many there are, how old they are and where they live. Unexpectedly, few other researchers were taking this kind of population information into account. “I entered a sparsely populated area of demography,” he says.

With one foot in each camp, O’Neill, who is now based at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is ideally placed to gauge why research on population seldom enters into climate change equations. “The assumption of emissions scientists is that population isn’t really important,” he says. But, he adds, it doesn’t help that it’s also a politically sticky topic. Say the words ‘population policy’, and many people still think of China’s one-child system, or campaigns of forced sterilization.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0806/full/climate.2008.44.html.

The world’s poorest countries have one thing in ever greater abundance: people.

“Nearly all of world population growth is now concentrated in the world’s poorer countries,” said Bill Butz, president of the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based independent research organization.

Currently 1.2 billion people live in countries classified as developed by the United Nations, compared with 5.5 billion in less developed regions, PRB said in its annual Population Data Sheet, released Monday.

For full article, visit:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/18/america/NA-GEN-US-More-Poor.php

One sees many estimates of net world population growth per year. Population Reference Bureau’s latest data show the figure to be 82 million.

See http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/worldpopulationclock2008.aspx

In case you have not seen Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado-Boulder give a talk on population, peak oil and the exponential function, please watch these You Tube videos.

(Part 1)

Continue Reading »

Population Media Center has an article in the current issue of Worldwatch Magazine (pages 24-29) on the results of a public opinion poll we commissioned to determine the reactions of various segments of the American public to different ways of framing the population issue. You can read a summary of the findings at http://www.populationmedia.org/where/united_states/population-news-media-strategy/. The raw data can be seen at http://www.populationmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/roper-population-survey-results-62008.pdf.

For anyone planning to be interviewed on a talk show or a news program, the findings from this poll may be useful in helping to frame their statements about population issues.

Worldwatch Magazine Population Issue - Sept/Oct 2008 (PDF, 3MB)

Thanks to John Tanton for reminding me of this 1971 paper by Garrett Hardin, which seems fitting in response to some of the recent disasters to strike Asia.

Nobody Ever Dies of Overpopulation (PDF, 14KB)