Thanks to Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity for this article from Treehugger.  Seehttp://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/population-growth-ecological-footprint-about-equity-environment-collapse.php?campaign=daily_nl

Population Growth and Ecological Footprint – It’s About Equity, Environment & Preventing Collapse

by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 02.15.11

Sometime later this year the human population will pass the 7 billion mark. As I write this we’re at 6.9 billion and ticking upwards by about one person a second, or so the population clock at Global Population Speak Out tells me. Even with the widely (widely) disparate levels of natural resource consumption across nations by the end of August each year our collective ecological footprint begins outstripping the planet’s ability to regenerate what we’ve taken–we start going into ecological debt. This depletion of natural capital is driven by a comparatively small percentage of the world’s people in wealthy nations, but the impact of billions of people living at subsistence levels is not insignificant as well.

In short, when talking about human’s environmental impact you simply can’t separate population growth and resource consumption–even if many people try to, pointing fingers at each other and carelessly invoking Malthus. When it comes down to it though the two play against one another, both bumping up against the hard ecological limits of the planet–as I’ve written about on a number of occasions.

There’s one part of this debate that is all too often not mentioned by the environmental community, but should be: Equity.

Without going into specifics of my income (along with population growth another taboo discussion for some), in the United States I earn very nearly the median income in 2010 for my writing. Nevertheless, compared to all of the people on the planet I am in the top 0.91% of the richest people in the world, as the image above from the Global Rich List shows. Surely if this is the case those of us living in wealthy nations can afford and manage to adjust our lives so that there is a more equitable distribution of wealth both domestically and internationally.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/population-growth-ecological-footprint-about-equity-environment-collapse.php?campaign=daily_nl

Thanks to Lester Brown for this news release.  See www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2011/update91

World One Poor Harvest Away From Chaos
By Lester R. Brown

February 15, 2011

Today there are three sources of growing demand for food: population growth; rising affluence and the associated jump in meat, milk, and egg consumption; and the use of grain to produce fuel for cars.

In early January, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that its Food Price Index had reached an all-time high in December, exceeding the previous record set during the 2007-08 price surge. Even more alarming, on February 3rd, the FAO announced that the December record had been broken in January as prices climbed an additional 3 percent.

Will this rise in food prices continue in the months ahead? In all likelihood we will see further rises that will take the world into uncharted territory in the relationship between food prices and political stability.

Everything now depends on this year’s harvest. Lowering food prices to a more comfortable level will require a bumper grain harvest, one much larger than the record harvest of 2008 that combined with the economic recession to end the 2007-08 grain price climb.

If the world has a poor harvest this year, food prices will rise to previously unimaginable levels. Food riots will multiply, political unrest will spread and governments will fall. The world is now one poor harvest away from chaos in world grain markets.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2011/update91

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.  See http://www.thelocal.se/32138/20110218/

Sweden’s Population Nears 9.5 Million

Published: 18 Feb

Sweden’s population continued to grow at the end of 2010, despite a drop in immigration for the first time since 2004.

At the end of 2010, Sweden’s population stood at 9.42 million, 74,888 more than at the end of the previous year, according to Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån – SCB) on Friday.
A total of 149 municipalities reported population increases in Sweden, while the number of residents decreased in 140 localities in the country in 2010 and remained unchanged in one municipality – Ydre in central Sweden.
In Norrköping, Lund and Nacka, the populations surpassed 130,000, 110,000 and 90,000 inhabitants, while Vallentuna north of stockholm passed a more moderate 30,000.
Over the last 40 years, 16 municipalities have recorded successive population increases every year, mostly larger towns or suburban areas. However, Filipstad in central Sweden northeast of Karlstad and nearby Hällefors have both experienced a population decrease for 40 straight years.
115,641 children were born in Sweden last year, a 3.4 percent increase from 2009, which also recorded a 3.4 percent increase on the previous year. Slightly more boys than girls were born.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.thelocal.se/32138/20110218/

Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.  See http://www.norwaypost.no/news/high-population-growth-in-2010.html See an article on Sweden below.

The Norway Post

Written by Rolleiv Solholm

Friday, 17 December 2010 08:08

HIGH POPULATION GROWTH IN 2010

Many thanks to Fred Stanback for this column.  See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/10/AR2011021006323.html

How biofuels contribute to the food crisis

The Washington Post

By Tim Searchinger

Friday, February 11, 2011

Each year, the world demands more grain, and this year the world’s farms will not produce it. World food prices have surged above the food crisis levels of 2008. Millions more people will be malnourished, and hundreds of millions who are already hungry will eat less or give up other necessities. Food riots have started again.

Nearly all assessments of the 2008 food crisis assigned biofuels a meaningful role, but much of academia and the media ultimately agreed that the scale of the crisis resulted from a “perfect storm” of causes. Yet this “perfect storm” has re-formed not three years later. We should recognize the ways in which biofuels are driving it.

Demand for biofuels is almost doubling the challenge of producing more food. Since 2004, for every additional ton of grain needed to feed a growing world population, rising government requirements for ethanol from grain have demanded a matching ton. Brazil’s reliance on sugar ethanol and Europe’s on biodiesel have comparably increased growth rates in the demand for sugar and driven up demand for vegetable oil.

Agricultural production is keeping up in general with the growing demand for food – but it keeps up with the added demand for biofuels only if growing weather is good. A good growing year in 2008 helped end that year’s crisis, but average-to-poor weather since then has stressed inventories and confidence. Higher fuel costs for farmers and a weaker dollar contribute to higher prices, but prices soar only when large consumers, fearing that production will continue to fall short, bid up prices to secure their supplies.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/mar/22/guardian-weekly-letters-25-march

Thanks to Lindsey Grant for his insightful article, Geoengineering and the Misplaced Faith in Growth.  You can download the PDF at www.npg.org or https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeMDU5MWQ5NGUtNDE5MS00ZDY4LTlmZWQtZDI4Zjc2MjI3MmI3&hl=en&authkey=CIOOv9MH

From Glamour.  See http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2011/glamour-exclusive-hillary-clinton-catches-up-with-her-hero-nujood-ali

In 2008, when Glamour honored Hillary Clinton as a Woman of the Year, we also recognized a brave Yemeni girl named Nujood Ali-who at age 10 was the first child bride in her country to demand and get a divorce-and her lawyer, Shada Nasser. Secretary Clinton was so impressed with this young honoree that she arranged to meet with Nujood and Shada in New York City the day after the ceremony, and a bond was forged. Last month, the Secretary of State traveled to Yemen, where she caught up with Nujood and Shada; she then wrote this piece for Glamour.com.

The Fight Against Child Marriage

by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

At a recent town hall meeting in Yemen, I reconnected with two of my heroes.

Nujood Ali was just nine years old when she was forced by her own family to marry a man three times her age. As is the case with so many child brides, Nujood had to drop out of school against her will, and she was physically abused. Wanting to find a way out of her misery and suffering, Nujood boarded a bus and found her way to the local courthouse.

Everyone towered above her and paid no attention to her until a judge asked the young girl why she was there. Nujood said she wanted a divorce. Female attorney Shada Nasser took Nujood’s case and others like it. Today, thanks to Shada’s work, girls across Yemen have been given their childhoods back. They are back in school, where they belong.

Child marriages like Nujood’s are tragically common in many societies. In Yemen, for example, among the poorest one-fifth of girls, more than half marry before the age of 18. Of course, every society approaches marriage differently. But all societies also agree on the need to protect children. Which is why we must help young women like Nujood to make the case in their own societies that child marriage is unjust and unwise.

Stopping child marriage is not just a must for moral or human rights reasons-it lays the foundation for so many other things we hope to achieve. Primary education. Improved child and maternal health. Sustainable economic development that includes girls.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2011/glamour-exclusive-hillary-clinton-catches-up-with-her-hero-nujood-ali

Law and Custom Press Afghan Women’s Shelters

Date: Thursday, February 10, 2011
Source: The New York Times
Author: ALISSA J. RUBIN; Sangar Rahimi

After her parents threw her out of the house for refusing to marry a 52-year-old widower with five children, Sabra, 18, boarded a bus that dropped her, afraid and confused, in downtown Kabul. She slept in a mosque for days, barely eating, until a woman took pity on her and put her in touch with human rights workers, who escorted her to a women’s shelter.

That journey — terrifying enough for a young woman who had never ventured beyond the corner bazaar — would become harder still under new rules being drafted by the Afghan government that women’s advocates say will deter the most vulnerable women and girls from seeking refuge and are placing shelters under siege.

The new rules speak to the suspicions that women’s shelters still generate in this deeply conservative society, where the shelters have come to symbolize the competition between modern values and traditional Afghan ways. Many believe their very existence at best encourages girls to run away from home and at worst are fronts for brothels.

The changes in the law would require a woman like Sabra to justify her flight to an eight-member government panel, which would determine whether she needed to be in a shelter or should be sent to jail or back home, where she would be at risk of a beating or even death. She would also have to undergo a physical exam that could include a virginity test.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many thanks to Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center, for these three fascinating papers on irrigation with seawater.  You can link to them at

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeMjY5MTRmMTYtOWQxYy00YmFlLTllOTMtMzk4MDlhM2NkNGE5&hl=en&authkey=CJOtyKIE

and

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeMjBmZDg5MGEtNmRhOS00NzdkLTg1NDYtOGYzNmU1ZWEyYzky&hl=en&authkey=CKiYxaQM

and

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5F-idWfw7TeZjc1OGYyOGMtZjQzZC00NTcyLWFlMjgtMzAyY2QyYTYyZGJj&hl=en&authkey=CKXj7IgB

Thanks to Ben Zuckerman for this article from New Scientist.  See http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927986.400-earth-economist-the-food-bubble-is-about-to-burst.html

Earth economist: The food bubble is about to burst

10 February, 2011

By Alison George

We’re fast draining the fresh water resources our farms rely on, warns Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute

What is a food bubble?

That’s when food production is inflated through the unsustainable use of water and land. It’s the water bubble we need to worry about now. The World Bank says that 15 per cent of Indians (175 million people) are fed by grain produced through overpumping – when water is pumped out of aquifers faster than they can be replenished. In China, the figure could be 130 million.

Has this bubble already burst anywhere?

Saudi Arabia made itself self-sufficient in wheat by using water from a fossil aquifer, which doesn’t refill. It has harvested close to 3 million tonnes a year, but in 2008 the Saudi authorities said the aquifer was largely depleted. Next year could be the last harvest. This is extreme, but about half the world’s people live in countries with falling water tables. India and China will lose grain production capacity through aquifer depletion. We don’t know when or how abruptly the bubble will burst.

With population rising, a fall in grain production would spell big trouble.

Yes. Tonight at the dinner table there will be 219,000 people who weren’t there last night. But that’s not all: we also have maybe 3 billion people moving up the food chain, consuming more grain-intensive livestock products.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927986.400-earth-economist-the-food-bubble-is-about-to-burst.html