Thanks to Bob Walker, President of the Population Institute, for the following article. See here: http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=34c8251342e0f59c19bee1935&id=a7eab17ae0&e=78ddd0303a

The New “Anti-Choice” Movement

Thank you, Rick Santorum, for clarifying what it means today to be “anti-choice.”  Historically that label has been applied to those who would deny women the right to an abortion.  Now the whole world knows that an increasing number of social conservatives are not just anti-abortion; they are avidly anti-contraception as well.

For years, even decades now, many social conservatives have justified their opposition to family planning by linking it to abortion, but within the past year it’s been increasingly clear that they are also opposed to contraception.

When Rick Santorum said last week that he thought states should have the power to ban family planning, he wasn’t saying anything new.  He had been saying it all along; most of us just weren’t listening.  Apparently, he has always believed in the “dangers of contraception.”

If the polls can be believed, Rick Santorum’s political ascendancy is about to crash, but “pro-choice” advocates should be forever thankful to him for putting the religious right’s hostility toward contraception into full public view.

To read the full article, please click here: http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=34c8251342e0f59c19bee1935&id=a7eab17ae0&e=78ddd0303a

Kudos to Bryan Welch, publisher of Mother Earth News, Utne Reader, Natural Home and The Herb Companion for stepping up to the plate on the population issue. I had always been amazed at the willingness of Mother Earth News editorials to engage on population. Now I understand. See: http://www.motherearthnews.com/beautiful-abundant/humanitys-ponzi-scheme.aspx

Humanity’s Ponzi Scheme

A Ponzi scheme, also known as a “pyramid scheme,” is a scam in which an unethical financial entrepreneur promises investors big returns, which he fraudulently generates from the contributions of later investors. Bernard Madoff is the most notorious recent perpetrator. He raised tens of billions of dollars from thousands of investors before he went to jail in 2009. New investors heard about the big returns earned by earlier contributors to the scheme and eagerly put their money in, which allowed the con artist to fool several successive new generations of victims over the course of two decades. Every Ponzi artist faces a day of reckoning. Eventually, he runs out of new investors. His actual returns have never been equal to the dividends he paid out, but he made up the difference by draining new accounts. Eventually, he can’t pay dividends any more. He doesn’t even have the money to return to late investors because he’s spent their money paying off earlier contributors, building his reputation as a genius.

Our economic dependence on population growth bears a disturbing similarity to a global Ponzi scheme. It’s relatively easy to create “economic growth” so long as there are more consumers every year. Directly or indirectly, we are all dependent on population growth for our livelihoods. But eventually, resources run short. Every pyramid scheme eventually collapses when the supply of new investors dries up. If we accept the obvious fact that this planet’s resources are not unlimited, then eventually the global supply of new consumers will be constrained.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/beautiful-abundant/humanitys-ponzi-scheme.aspx

Please note this review of the population-taboo reinforcing book Too Many People: Population, Immigration and The Environmental Crisis. Importantly, the scathing review is written by prominent eco-socialist Alan Thornett, who is reportedly a member of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International and a long-time leading member of Socialist Resistance, the British Section of the Fourth International. See: http://socialistresistance.org/3013/too-many-people-a-review

Too many people? A review

As a long-time comrade of Ian Angus, a fellow ecosocialist, and an admirer of his work on Marxism and ecology, I am disappointed by the tone he has adopted in his new book on population Too Many People?-which he has authored jointly with Simon Butler, co-editor of the Australian publication Green Left Weekly.

The thesis they advance is that the population of the planet is irrelevant to its ecology, and that even discussing it is a dangerous or even reactionary diversion-a taboo subject. They even argue that such discussion is divisive and detrimental environmental campaigning. [page 97]

The book appears to be a response to Laurie Mazur’s very useful book published last year A Pivotal Moment- Population, Justice and the environmental challenge. This was reviewed by Sheila Malone in SR (July 2010), as part of a debate on the issue.

Mazur argues that it is not a matter of choosing between reactionary policies from the past but that “we can fight for population policies that are firmly grounded in human rights and social justice”. I agree with her on this point, though not with everything in her book.

I didn’t expect to agree with Ian’s book as such, since I have differed with him on this issue for some time. I did expect, however, an objective presentation of the debates without the ideas of fellow ecosocialists being lumped together with those of reactionaries and despots.

To read the full review, please click here: http://socialistresistance.org/3013/too-many-people-a-review

Thanks to Bill Ryerson for alerting me to this blog entry on the Canadian Business website. You can leave anonymous comments by scrolling down to the bottom. See: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/54806–population-bomb-theory-is-a-myth-in-a-vacuum

No sooner had I finished writing about how technology fears are stoked by supposedly learned people and the media than another example rears its ugly head. This time, with the world’s population exceeding seven billion people, it’s new worries of a population bomb.

For those unfamiliar with it, the concept is at least as old as Robert Thomas Malthus, an English reverend and scholar of the late 18th and early 19th century. Malthus believed that if the world’s population kept growing at its then-pace, humanity would run out of food and other resources and experience a catastrophe that would greatly thin out the herd to a more manageable and sustainable size.

Of course, it didn’t happen and it probably never will, despite vocal kvetching by modern-day Malthusians, simply because population growth does not occur in a vacuum. Everything else-particularly technology and the economy-grows alongside it. So far, this has served us very well, despite the increasing population.

The reality is that technology, economy and population are interlinked. The more a country has of the first two, the less it has of the third. A quick glance at birth rates confirms it-the rich, technologically advanced countries in North America and Europe typically have the lowest while those in Africa have the highest. Going by those figures, it’s obvious that the more prosperous a country is, the fewer children its people have, for reasons that are equally clear.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/54806–population-bomb-theory-is-a-myth-in-a-vacuum

Thanks to Michael Tobias conducting this interview with Bill Ryerson, which appears on the Forbes.com website. Please Tweet, Facebook or otherwise share as you are able. See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltobias/2012/01/09/at-the-crossroads-of-sustainability-a-conversation-with-bill-ryerson/

At the Crossroads of Sustainability: A Conversation with Bill Ryerson

Michael Charles Tobias, Contributor

I write about all things ecological – economics, biology, ethics

Imagine a country like French Guiana or Vanuatu – with human populations of 225,000 to 235,000 – emerging, every day! That is the conundrum facing humanity and the natural world. The human population explosion, multiplied by its cumulative consumption, represents what many believe to be the most significant challenge ever faced by life on Earth in billions of years. This is an equation that forms the basis for most rational analysis of global environmental issues. It is a starting point. In the absence of dealing with it, most other techno-fixes or alleged ecological “solutions” are unlikely to produce much traction.

I spoke with Bill Ryerson about this essentially fundamental reality we are all grappling with. Ryerson is President of Population Media Center (Shelburne, Vermont) and CEO of the Population Institute (Washington, DC). He has endeavored to help solve the population problem for 40 years, including 25 years of using social change communications worldwide.  You can read his chapter in the Post Carbon Reader, “Population: the Multiplier of Everything Else.”

During his career, Ryerson has served as Director of the Population Institute’s Youth and Student Division, Development Director of Planned Parenthood SE Pennsylvania, Associate Director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Executive Vice President of Population Communications International.

Michael Tobias: Bill, most corporations and students of the environment- consumers, people everywhere – seem to be paying some lip-service to the word “sustainability.” What is the underlying reality, in your opinion?  Is human civilization moving in a sustainable direction?

Bill Ryerson: Michael, sustainability is the ultimate health issue, the ultimate human rights issue, and the ultimate environmental issue.  Books like “Collapse” are ringing alarms for the public, while numerous scientists are now debating not whether the collapse will occur, but when – and how bad it will be.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltobias/2012/01/09/at-the-crossroads-of-sustainability-a-conversation-with-bill-ryerson/

Please see this posting on the financial blog Zero Hedge, originally authored by Gregor Macdonald, contributing editor at ChrisMartenson.com. The article, while focusing on food inflation, touches on many aspects of the human predicament. Satellite pictures near the bottom are especially impressive: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-punch-mouth-food-price-volatility-hits-world

A Punch to the Mouth: Food Price Volatility Hits the World

Perfect Storms

2011 was an abysmal year for the global insurance industry, which had to cover yet another enormous increase in damages from natural disasters. Unknown to most casual observers is the fact that during the past few decades the frequency of weather-related disasters (floods, fires, storms) has been growing at a much faster pace than geological disasters (such as earthquakes). This spread between the two types of insurable losses has moved so strongly that it prompted Munich Re to note in a late 2010 letter that weather-related disasters due to wind have doubled and flooding events have tripled in frequency since 1980. The world now has to contend with a much higher degree of risk from weather and climate volatility, and this has broad-reaching implications.

And critically, it has a particular impact on food.

Many factors seen over the past decade have produced higher food prices: population growth, urbanization, the decline of arable land per person, and the upgrading of diets for example. But more damaging than food inflation has been the pushing of global food prices out of their long, quiet envelope of stability.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-punch-mouth-food-price-volatility-hits-world

Thanks to Steve Kurtz for pointing out this article. See: http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/12/22/abstinence-only-its-baaack/

Abstinence-Only: It’s Baaack

December 22, 2011 by Andy Kopsa

Reproductive-health experts breathed a sigh of relief in 2009 when President Barack Obama did away with over a decade of funding for abstinence-only funding under previous administrations (which had added up to more than $1.5 billion over ten years). But now, abstinence-only looks to be back on the conservative agenda.

Under Bush, ab-only had become the norm in most U.S. schools, even though study after study [PDF] had revealed its ineffectiveness in reducing the number of teen pregnancies and reducing the spread of disease. According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, virginity pledges-a staple of abstinence-only programming-not only failed to decrease teen STD rates, but actually resulted in pledge-takers avoiding medical attention once infected, leading to increased chances of transmission. So it appeared science had prevailed when President Obama’s 2010 budget swapped out all federally funded ab-only programs for comprehensive sex ed.

That is, until abstinence-only funding reared its ugly head again when Republicans sneaked it into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, to the tune of up to $50 million per year through 2014. And just last weekend, conservatives in Congress pushed through an additional $5 million for ab-only funding in the federal 2012 appropriations bill.

To read the full article, please click here: http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/12/22/abstinence-only-its-baaack/

Thanks to Eric Rimmer for sending in this article. See: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/11/29/house-govt-consider-bill-control-population-growth.html

House, govt consider bill to control population growth

Elly Burhaini Faizal, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/29/2011 11:06 AM

The government and the House of Representatives are mulling creating a legislation on population growth control to gear up efforts to revitalize the country’s long-stalled family planning program, a senior family planning official says.

Sugiri Syarief, the head of Na-tional Demography and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN), said on Monday that despite achievements during the last three years, rapid population growth remained a problem in Indonesia partly due to prolonged neglect of the family planning program in regions and at the local level.

If the law were established, he said, local governments would hopefully be far more committed to controlling the currently high rate of population growth in the country.

“I’m sure it will greatly affect the implementation of our family planning program, providing us with a breakthrough to revitalize this long-stagnated movement,” Sugiri told journalists after attending a hearing with Commission IX overseeing health, labor and social affairs at the House of Representatives.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/11/29/house-govt-consider-bill-control-population-growth.html

See the following article in the Fall/Winter 2011 edition of The Population Press. Go to: http://www.populationpress.org/publication/2011-4-4.html

NIGER: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

By:

Malcolm Potts, Virginia Gidi, Martha Campbell and Sarah Zureick

[In a world of Seven Billion, this is a cautionary tale for us all. What happens when a culture tells girls to value early marriage, servitude, no education, and no family planning? What happens when millions of desperate people flee their homelands? ~ Population Press Editor]

With the world’s fastest growing population, highest total fertility rate, rare and diminishing arable land, limited rainfall, high levels of malnutrition, extremely low levels of education, gross gender inequities, and a likelihood of conflict over diminishing resources, Niger presents us with a challenge for which we are not yet prepared. Niger is the most extreme example of a catastrophe that is likely to overtake the entire Sahel region of Africa.

Climate change could overwhelm an already fragile ecological environment. We examine two broad policy options: (1) the past policy of focusing on socioeconomic development and largely ignoring family planning; (2) the emerging emphasis on family planning choices. We conclude that the only plausible scenario for Niger is to prioritize family planning as a critical factor for development, and also delay the age of marriage. All the countries of the Sahel could be facing mortality in next 30 years that will match Africa’s deaths from AIDS over the past 30 years.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.populationpress.org/publication/2011-4-4.html

Thanks to Oakvillegreen Conservation Association’s Liz Benneian, an award-winning environmental activist, community leader and former journalist, for these excerpts from the group’s “Organizing To Win” seminars. These seminars teach groups how to become more effective advocates for their causes.

For example, individuals highly concerned about a) local population growth, or b) international family-planning funding decisions made by their federal representatives could benefit from these pointers. Especially interesting is the section titled “Understanding How Decisions Are Made.”

Getting Organized: Creating A Group from the Ground Up

Determine your goals. Develop a mission statement. Don’t waste time wordsmything these things to death. This is soul-destroying stuff and will drive people away. Mission statements are not etched in stone and can be changed as your group moves along.

Choose a chair. The chair must be tough and fair and put inter-committee squabbles to an end. The core group must trust each other, support each other and further the group’s goals. Anyone who cannot do that must go.

Announce the group, organize an event and invite others to join.

You can download the full text (pdf) here:

http://www.oakvillegreen.org/images/doc/organizing_to_win_notes_june_2011.pdf