On Tuesday, May 15th, WWF released the 2012 edition of its Living Planet Report.

• To see the full report (PDF) click here: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/lpr_2012_final_120507.pdf
• To see the summary document (PDF) click here: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/lpr_2012_summary_booklet_final.pdf
• Below is a news report out of Seattle announcing the report. See: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/press-releases/article/Earth-in-Major-Resource-Overdraft-WWF-s-3558018.php

Earth in Major Resource Overdraft – WWF’s Living Planet Report 2012

By 2030 humanity will need two planets worth of resources to support the world’s population

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) May 14, 2012

Humanity’s ever-growing demand for natural resources is putting huge pressure on the planet’s biodiversity and threatening our future security and well-being, according to the Living Planet Report 2012, released today by World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The report measures the health of 9,014 populations of more than 2,600 species – a thousand more populations than had been monitored by previous editions. This data, which creates the Living Planet Index (LPI), is presented in the report alongside updated global ecological and water footprint data.

The biannual report examines the ecological state of the planet and is produced in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network. The report is being launched just five weeks before nations, businesses and civil society gather in Rio de Janeiro for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 ). Twenty years after the first Earth summit, this meeting is a key opportunity for global leaders to reconfirm their commitment to creating a sustainable future.

“It’s taken a near meltdown of our economy for our nation to finally have a thoughtful conversation about our national debt. It’s time for us to have that same kind of conversation about our ecological debt, because right now we’re living beyond our planet’s means.” said Colby Loucks, Director of Conservation Science, WWF. “The science is clear: we need to be smarter about how we use our finite natural resources.”

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.seattlepi.com/business/press-releases/article/Earth-in-Major-Resource-Overdraft-WWF-s-3558018.php

In an amazing barrage, the international press has been filled with reports of a recent study emanating from Tohoku University, Japan. This study, related to Japan having reached a population stabilization, looks at the glass half empty. It concludes that the Japanese people will become extinct…. in 1,000 years. The lead author of the study has created a population clock, in order to chronicle this demographic demise of Japan; he is said to have created the population clock to encourage “urgent” discussion of the issue.

Here is the clock: http://mega.econ.tohoku.ac.jp/Children/

Rather than choose any particular article, I have pasted below a small sampling of the various reports issued in the last several days. Many scores of similar articles appeared all over the world. Click on the headline of any one.

Lack of babies could mean the extinction of the Japanese people
Fox News
Another study recently showed Japan’s population is expected to fall a third from its current 127.7 million over the next century. Government projections show the birth rate will hit just 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, well below the …

Japan population clock shows extinction in 1000 years
Channel News Asia
TOKYO: Japanese researchers have unveiled a population clock that showed the nation’s people could theoretically become extinct in 1000 years because of declining birth rates. Academics in the northern city of Sendai said that Japan’s population of …

Japan population clock shows ‘extinction’ in 1000 years
The Daily Star
By Kyoko Hasegawa TOKYO: Japanese researchers on Friday unveiled a population clock that showed the nation’s people could theoretically become extinct in 1000 years because of declining birth rates. Academics in the northern city of Sendai said that ..

‘Population clock’ forecasts no children after year 3011 | OMI Japan …
By Jerry
The team, led by professor Hiroshi Yoshida, developed a child population clock that displays an estimated number of children at any moment based on past percentages of decline. The clock was made available on the university’s website …

Population clock shows Japanese face extinction in 1000 years
GlobalPost
Japan’s population is expected to shrink by 30 percent by 2060, due to high life expectancy and low birth rates. (YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images) Japanese could become extinct in 1000 years if current population trends continue, according to …

Researchers: Japan will have no kids under age 15 by 3011
msnbc.com
A population clock developed by the researchers shows the child population count at any given moment based on declining percentages released recently by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, according to a news release by Professor …
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Of all the fantasies indulged in by a society speeding toward self-destruction, none is as consequential as the idea that continuing growth — both in population and size of our economy — has a happy-ever-after ending.  Yet, when overpopulation is discussed at all, it is discussed as a problem limited to the developing world. Indeed, a growing chorus of “pro-natalist” or population growth ideologues insists that, in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world, population stability or decline represents a demographic crisis that needs to be reversed.

In order to ignore the patently obvious fact that unlimited population growth is neither environmentally or socially sustainable, one would have to be prepared to explain how a resource-gobbling U.S. of 500 million or 700 million people would work.  (If you’re not prepared to do so, you’ve already accepted the reality that some limits exist and that the only question is what those limits should be.)

If, though, you really believe that predictions of overpopulation-induced catastrophe have been overblown, there are still two critical questions to be addressed, both of which are currently verboten as a matter of public debate.

First, even if ever-increasing population were survivable, is it really desirable? Second, are we really so inflexible that we can’t figure out any adaptations (beyond permanent crowding and permanent austerity for most citizens, that is) to enable a society that is becoming older to be economically and socially robust?

In fact, more isn’t better, and there are both market-driven and state-driven alternatives to be pursued.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/population-us-remains-full-denial-mode?page=0,0

See: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/4410712.html

New Study Suggests Improving Contraceptive Knowledge May Positively Influence Behavior, Reducing Risk of Unplanned Pregnancy

More than half of young men and a quarter of young women who participated in a 2009 survey displayed serious gaps in knowledge about common contraceptive methods, according to “Young Adults’ Contraceptive Knowledge, Norms and Attitudes: Associations with Risk of Unintended Pregnancy,” by Jennifer Frost et al. of the Guttmacher Institute. The authors found that the lower the level of contraceptive knowledge among young women, the greater the likelihood that they expected to have unprotected sex in the next three months, behavior that puts them at risk for an unplanned pregnancy. These findings come on the heels of a study that found that women in their 20s have the highest risk of experiencing an unintended pregnancy.

The authors relied on data collected through telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,800 unmarried women and men aged 18-29 as part of the 2009 National Survey of Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge, which aimed to better understand the characteristics associated with risky contraceptive practices among young adults.

The analyses also reveal that although most unmarried young adults are trying to avoid pregnancy, many are not taking the necessary precautions to do so or have conflicting attitudes about pregnancy and contraceptive use. Sixty-nine percent of young women and 45% of young men were highly committed to avoiding pregnancy. Some 25% thought that using condoms every time one has sex is a hassle, 60% underestimated the effectiveness of oral contraceptives and 40% held the fatalistic view that using birth control does not matter. The more strongly men and women agreed that regular condom use is “too much of a hassle,” the more likely they were to expect to have unprotected sex.

Read the rest of this entry »

I think you will enjoy the following Mother’s Day tribute written by Bob Walker, President of the Population Institute. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-walker/mother-earth_b_1503702.html

Remembering “Mom” on Mother’s Day

It’s time that Mom gets a little more appreciation.

Ask any mother and she will tell you: It’s not easy being a mother. It’s not just the nine months of pregnancy or even the delivery; it’s the commitment that goes with nurturing a child and providing for its future. And if the child does not return the mother’s love, it becomes a thankless job. Just ask Mother Earth.

For four and a half billion years Mother Earth has been doing her best to nurture life, but it’s not easy being a single mom, even when you’re a planet. For the first couple billion years, conceiving was impossible. Literally. Molten temperatures and a toxic atmosphere made it pretty tough to string together the nucleic acids and conditions that would make life possible, but with a little help from water-laden comets, Mother Earth finally got the job done, and about 600 million years ago complex life forms finally emerged.

Still, it’s been tough. Making plant life abundant required the slow accumulation of topsoil. For animal life to prosper, more oxygen in the atmosphere was required. Then, just when life was flourishing, a comet crashed into the Earth and caused a mass extinction. And now Mother is struggling to support 7 billion humans, the most affluent of which are rapidly depleting the Earth’s resources, and the poorest of which are struggling desperately to survive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some thoughts from Jane Roberts, co-founder of the 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund. Before you read Jane’s words, remember that House Republicans recently released a fiscal year 2013 spending bill for foreign aid and other State Department programs that includes a rider to reinstate the so-called “global gag rule.” The rule, which President Obama lifted through an executive order in 2009, blocks U.S. foreign aid to countries or organizations that use their own money to offer abortion services or support abortion rights.

Jane writes:

On July 22, 2012, 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund (www.34millionfriends.org) will celebrate (if that is the right word) its 10th anniversary.

July 22, 2002 was the day then Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the Bush Administration was not going to release the $34 million Congress had approved for UNFPA. That was the day Lois Abraham and I, independently of each other, started asking 34 million Americans for at least one dollar. 34 Million Friends has to date raised $4.2 million. We are still going!

I view women’s access to health and to all that the term “reproductive health” entails as central to any hope for people, the planet and peace in the decades to come. I am proud to say that family planning is at the core of UNFPA’s work. I also have the strong opinion that talking about population in a vacuum without alluding to the nitty gritty of what it takes to provide universal access to FP does more harm than good. And I am of the strong opinion that gender inequality is the paramount reason for the hundreds of millions of women who lack access.

34 Million Friends has become an educational tool for alerting people here in the U.S. and to some extent around the world about gender inequality and how it relates to population and for linking access to reproductive health and choices to any chance at all for environmental sustainability and peace. The women of the world and I would greatly appreciate members of this list-serv spreading the word. It’s time for 34 Million American people to take a stand.

You may be interested to know that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church has, during its recently concluded convention in Tampa FL, revised its resolution on Population. It is a bit stronger than the previous one in terms of acknowledging that Genesis 1:28 is not a commandment of indefinite duration…

The call to action section of the document begins by asking all United Methodists to access educational opportunities that focus on the issue of population and its inter-relatedness to other critical issues such as poverty, disease, hunger, environment, injustice, and violence, and to promote these opportunities in the local church. The document also urges that United Methodist medical facilities around the world to provide a full range of reproductive health and family planning information and services.

You can scan the redline and strikeout version here:

http://calms.umc.org/2012/Text.aspx?mode=Petition&Number=133

Thanks to Jenny Goldie for sending me this article, which is reporting on the controversy that has arisen around the New Zealand government’s plan to spend $800,000 subsidising long-term reversible contraception for women on welfare benefits. This has raised some hackles from those arguing that the subsidy will create a sense of pressure in the people who are welfare recipients to use the service, out of fear they may lose the benefits if they don’t. This, despite the fact the program is purely voluntary.

See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-08/nz-divided-on-free-contraception-plan/3998676

Uproar in NZ over free contraception plan

By New Zealand correspondent Dominique Schwartz

Updated May 09, 2012 08:26:50

The New Zealand government is planning to offer free long-term contraception to women on welfare payments in a budget measure that is whipping up a storm of fury.

While some family planning organisations have welcomed the move, one poverty action group says it borders on state control of reproduction.

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies among OECD countries. A United Nations report last year also highlighted what it called the country’s “staggering” rates of child abuse and poverty.

The government says it is committed to helping families break out of the beneficiary cycle by getting recipients back into education and jobs. To that end, it has unveiled a $230 million welfare reform package.

But one small plank of the reforms has created uproar – the plan to spend $800,000 subsidising long-term reversible contraception for women on benefits.

From July, the government will offer to pay for contraceptive implants, injections and inter-uterine devices for teenagers on benefits. From October, the subsidy will be available for all female beneficiaries and their 16 to 19-year-old daughters.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-08/nz-divided-on-free-contraception-plan/3998676

You may enjoy the following excerpt/adaptation, recently printed in the HuffPost, from Carl Safina’s book (“The View From Lazy Point; A Natural Year in an Unnatural World”). Safina is the author of six books and many other writings about how the ocean is changing and also founding President of Blue Ocean Institute.

How May People Can the World Support? It Depends…
Posted: 05/08/2012 9:46 am

See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-safina/population-growth_b_1499281.html

Along the coast where I live, at almost any time of year I love to experience the energies of various migrations of birds and of fish and whales. I think of it as the real world, as natural.

But can we distinguish real from artificial when the world has become so human-dominated that some geologists have suggested naming our time the Anthropocene, the time of people? The migrations, the weather — when we look closely, all bear our thumbprint.

In my idealistic youth I was sometimes told to “pay attention to the real world.” But there I saw a place of tedium tallied in digits and zeros, where strings of zeroes are pursued and prized. The mass delusion of business’s “real world” is the faith that the ledger books capture the value and the consequences of our transactions. They don’t. Yet that collective delusion is real enough to mask some very concrete things.

If people are using the world’s forests, fishes, soils, freshwater and other resources something like 25 percent faster than the world can replace them, it means, basically, that the world would already be broke if we weren’t taking so heavily from the future. People call it “leveraging,” but a new word for delusion doesn’t cure the illness.

To read the full post, please click here:

You may recall the Daily Email of April 6th, 2012, which provided a video link to a speech given by Melinda Gates, in which she announced her commitment to putting contraception back on the global development agenda. Below, we have a further report on Ms. Gates’ initiative, written by the talented Michelle Goldberg. Goldberg is a senior contributing writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and is also a past winner of the the Population Institute’s Global Media Award for Best Book (The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power & the Future of the World).

See:  http://www.thedailybeast.com//content/newsweek/2012/05/06/melinda-gates-new-crusade-investing-billions-in-women-s-health.html

Melinda Gates’ New Crusade: Investing Billions in Women’s Health 

May 7, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

She plans to use the Gates Foundation’s billions to revolutionize contraception worldwide. The Catholic right is pushing back. Is she ready for the political firestorm ahead?
In the 12 years since Melinda Gates and her husband, Bill, created the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organization, she has done a lot of traveling. A reserved woman who has long been wary of the public glare attached to the Gates name, she comes alive, her associates say, when she’s visiting the foundation’s projects in remote corners of the world. “You get her out in the field with a group of women, sitting on a mat or under a tree or in a hut, she is totally in her element, totally comfortable,” says Gary Darmstadt, director of family health at the foundation’s global health program.

Visiting vaccine programs in sub-Saharan Africa, Gates would often ask women at remote clinics what else they needed. Very often, she says, they would speak urgently about birth control.

“Women sitting on a bench, 20 of them, immediately they’ll start speaking out and saying, ‘I wish I had that injection I used to get,’” says Gates. “‘I came to this clinic three months ago, and I got my injection. I came last week, and I couldn’t get it, and I’m here again.’”

They were talking about Depo-Provera, which is popular in many poor countries because women need to take it only four times a year, and because they can hide it, if necessary, from unsupportive husbands. As Gates discovered, injectable contraceptives, like many other forms of birth control, are frequently out of stock in clinics in the developing world, a result of both funding shortages and supply-chain problems.

Women would tell her that they’d left their farms and walked for hours, sometimes with children in tow, often without the knowledge of their husbands, in their fruitless search for the shot. “I was just stunned by how vociferous women were about what they wanted,” she says.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.thedailybeast.com//content/newsweek/2012/05/06/melinda-gates-new-crusade-investing-billions-in-women-s-health.html