Thanks to Paul Ehrlich for this interview with him in the Los Angeles Times.  See http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison-ehrlich-021211,0,413002.column

Patt Morrison Asks

Paul R. Ehrlich: Saving Earth

The scholar looks the planet, and humanity, in the face.

Patt Morrison

February 12, 2011

For a scholar who traffics in some of the more dispiriting elements of modern biology, ecology and demographics, Paul R. Ehrlich is a remarkably funny guy. His caption for this picture? “A living Neanderthal” contemplating the skull (a replica) of an extinct one. Maybe his humor is a coping mechanism for the parlous state of the planet; maybe it’s the result of more than 50 years as a Stanford University researcher, professor and author.

However you draw the map of this melting, freezing world, Ehrlich is on it. He got there in 1968, with the sizzlingly, and to Ehrlich’s mind now, regrettably titled book “The Population Bomb.” It is replete with “ifs” and “whens” about the catastrophic collision of population versus resources, some of which have come to pass and some of which haven’t — yet. On that score, Ehrlich is as gleeful at attacking his critics as they are at going after him.

In his latest book, “Humanity on a Tightrope,” coauthored with Robert E. Ornstein, the tightrope could still turn into a lifeline if humans choose the right balance. Before he’s off to Costa Rica to pursue his first academic love, butterflies, he’s looking the planet, and humanity, in the face.

One thing I draw from your new book is that you’re now calling on individuals to do what institutions have failed to when it comes to saving the planet and ourselves.

That’s part of it. We now know more than enough about what the hell is wrong with the world. The climate, the toxification of the planet, the epidemiological environment, the chances of plague, losing biodiversity, the rate of extinction of species — and we’re doing nothing about it. We’ve had 10 failures now on international attempts to do something about climate change. If we don’t figure out how to change human behavior toward sustainability, we’re basically … screwed, I think is the technical term.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison-ehrlich-021211,0,413002.column

Thanks to Kathlene Carney for the link to a transcript of this interview with Paul Ehrlich by Alex Smith, host of the syndicated show, Ecoshock, done as part of Population Media Center’s talk show project.  See http://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/Ehrlich_interview_110211.htm.

Humanity On A Tightrope — Dr. Paul Ehrlich on EcoShock

Radio Ecoshock interview with Alex Smith, February 11, 2011

When it comes to population, the name Paul Ehrlich inevitably comes up.  In 1968, Dr. Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb”.  About 40 years, and 40 books later, this distinguished scientist comes to us with a new book called “Humanity On A Tightrope.”

Dr. Erhlich, it’s an honor to welcome you to Radio Ecoshock.

Paul R. Ehrlich: Great to be with you.

Alex Smith: First off, you have an authoritative co-author for this project.  Can you tell us a bit about Robert E. Ornstein, and how you two came to write this book?

PRE: Well, Bob and I have been friends for years.  And he’s a very distinguished psychologist, noted for some of his early work in split brains, for a number of great books explaining what we know about how the brain works.

We’re both very, very concerned about human behavior, in various dimensions.  So we decided that it was time to write a second book together.  We wrote one about twenty years ago called “New World New Mind”.  So this is in a sense a follow-up.

AS: Listeners and readers may be surprised, to find your new book is not specifically about population.  Instead, you propose a common tool we’ll need to face the many threats to civilization.  Things like climate change, polluted oceans, and so on.

Dr. Ehrlich, what is the common human ability we need to develop?

PRE: We already have one that allows us to put us in each others’ shoes.  That’s a very unusual trait for an animal, but we have it.  It’s a critical one, and we do it automatically when in small groups.  Because, as you know, for most of our evolutionary history we’ve been a small group animal.  We lived for hundreds of thousands of years as homo-sapiens, and before that as other species in groups of 50 to 150 people where we could easily tell, often, what was going on in the minds of other individuals and in a sense feel what they were feeling.

We actually have nerves that are designed, in our brain, to let us put ourselves in other peoples’ shoes.  That’s a really crucial thing which we need to spread much further these days.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Joe Bish for this editorial, which was distributed to 800 U.S. newspapers and magazines by the Cagle Syndication Service.  See http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp?columnID={7C8F77B4-9C6E-43E0-BCFD-0E4A514B885D} for the editorial cartoons that accompanied this editorial.

In the Year of 7 Billion, 8 Is Enough
By Joe Bish

This fall, probably in late October, human population will exceed 7 billion people. Yet, on this score, the young adults of today’s world have an unprecedented hope. For the first time in modern history global population stabilization is possible within our lifetimes.

United Nations calculations show that if global fertility settles at 1.4 children per women within a few decades, down from today’s average of 2.6, our planet’s rapid population growth could completely halt by 2045, at just over 8 billion. That is only 34 years away.

Yes, those are cries of joy you hear. They come from the multitude of species on the brink of human-induced extinction, from the atmosphere our expanding civilizations are force-feeding mass quantities of carbon and other pollutants, and from oceans choked with plastic.

More importantly, though, listen to the sighs of hope coming from women and young girls all over the planet.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Climate Economics Group.  Scanning the main report, it does not seem that the authors considered the alternative of limiting population growth.

Three-report package

The Last Drop: Climate Change and the Southwest Water Crisis

Water is already a major concern in the Southwest, where homes, businesses and farms use far more water than is produced by rain and snowfall, and groundwater reserves are shrinking.
In this study, funded by a grant from the Kresge Foundation, Frank Ackerman and Liz Stanton quantified the impact of climate change on the Southwest’s water supply.
Without prompt action, they found, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah will face a combined shortfall over the next century of 1,815 million acre feet from population and income growth alone, plus an additional 282 million to 439 million acre feet of shortfall due to climate change.
Based on current water prices, meeting the baseline shortfall alone would cost $2.3 trillion to $4 trillion, and climate change could increase that by a quarter, adding as much as $1 trillion to the costs of 21st-century water supply in the Southwest.

To read the main policy report, click here.
A second piece of this package, California Water Supply and Demand: Technical Report, describes our CWSD model, created to analyze urban and agricultural water use.
A third piece, The Water-Energy Nexus in the Western States: Projections to 2100, describes an analysis of water use for energy production, conducted by Synapse Energy Economics Inc.

From Zunia.  See http://zunia.org/post/population-dynamics-in-a-warmer-world/

Population Dynamics in a Warmer World

The National Committee for Geography of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Earth System Governance Project organised a one-day colloquium on Population Dynamics in a Warmer World. This report summarizes the presentations at the colloquium that has been structured around four themes and speakers:
1. Insights from population projections 2050 and beyond (Professor Wolfgang Lutz, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA))
2. Insights from climate change science on potential climate change impacts (Professor Johan Kleman, Bert Bolin Centre for Climate Research at Stockholm University)
3. Environmental migration – a contested concept (Madeleen Helmer, Red Cross Climate Center)
4. Historical examples of migration and adaptation (Professor Alf Hornborg, Human Ecology Division at Lund University)

For the full report, visit http://www.earthsystemgovernance.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/ESG-Report_Population-Dynamics-Warmer-World.pdf

Thanks to Jack Alpert for this article. See: http://www.realitysandwich.com/onset_catabolic_collapse

The Onset of Catabolic Collapse

John Michael Greer

I’ve commented more than once on the gap in perception between history as it appears in textbooks and history as it’s lived by people on the spot at the time. That’s a gap worth watching, because the foreshortening of history that comes with living in the middle of it quite often gets in the way of figuring out a useful response to a time of crisis — for example, the one we’re in right now.

This is all the more challenging because the foreshortening of history cuts both ways; it makes small but sudden events look more important than they are, and it also helps hide slow but massive shifts that will play a much greater role in shaping the future. Recent increases in the price of oil, for example, kicked off a flurry of predictions suggesting that hyperinflation and the sudden collapse of industrial society are right around the corner; identical predictions were made the last time oil prices spiked, the time before that, and the time before that, too, so the traditional grain of salt may be worth adding to them this time around. (We’ll most likely get hyperinflation in the US, granted, but my guess is that that will come further down the road.) Look at all these price spikes and notice that the peaks and troughs have both tended gradually upwards, on the other hand, and you may just catch sight of the signal hidden in all that noise — the fact that providing industrial civilization with its most important fuel is loading a greater burden on the world’s economies with every year that passes.

The same gap in perception afflicts most current efforts to make sense of the future looming up ahead of us. Ever since my original paper on catabolic collapse first found its way onto the internet, I’ve fielded questions fairly regularly from people who want to know whether I think some current or imminent crisis will tip industrial society over into catabolic collapse in some unmistakably catastrophic way. It’s a fair question, but it’s based on a fundamental misreading both of the concept of catabolic collapse and of our present place in the long cycles of rise and fall that define the history of civilizations.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.realitysandwich.com/onset_catabolic_collapse

Thanks to Laurie David for this article.  See http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/news/amazon-drought-caused-huge-carbon-emissions/

Amazon Drought Caused Huge Carbon Emissions

By Stuart Grudgings (Reuters) – February 8, 2011

A widespread drought in the Amazon rain forest last year was worse than the “once-in-a-century” dry spell in 2005 and may have a bigger impact on global warming than the United States does in a year, British and Brazilian scientists said on Thursday.

More frequent severe droughts like those in 2005 and 2010 risk turning the world’s largest rain forest from a sponge that absorbs carbon emissions into a source of the gases, accelerating global warming, the report found.

Trees and other vegetation in the world’s forests soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow, helping cool the planet, but release it when they die and rot.

“If events like this happen more often, the Amazon rain forest would reach a point where it shifts from being a valuable carbon sink slowing climate change to a major source of greenhouse gases that could speed it up,” said lead author Simon Lewis, an ecologist at the University of Leeds.

The study, published in the journal Science, found that last year’s drought caused rainfall shortages over a 1.16 million square-mile (3 million square km) expanse of the forest, compared with 734,000 square miles (1.9 million square km) in the 2005 drought.

It was also more intense, causing higher tree mortality and having three major epicenters, whereas the 2005 drought was mainly focused in the southwestern Amazon.

As a result, the study predicted the Amazon forest would not absorb its usual 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in both 2010 and 2011.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/news/amazon-drought-caused-huge-carbon-emissions/

Thanks to Jenny Goldie for this article.  See http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/61122

Asia-Pacific At Risk From Climate Migration: Report

Date: 08-Feb-11
Country: SINGAPORE
Author: David Fogarty

Governments in the Asia-Pacific region face the risk of unprecedented numbers of people displaced by floods, storms and other impacts of climate change, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report on Monday.

The bank and climate scientists said the region, home to 4 billion people, will be among the regions most affected by the impacts of climate change, leading to major migration both within and between nations, stretching resources.

The draft report, “Migration due to climate change demands attention” also said no international mechanism has been created to manage millions of people on the move.

“Protection and assistance schemes remain inadequate, poorly coordinated, and scattered. National governments and the international community must urgently address this issue in a proactive manner,” it said.

Failure to do so risked costly humanitarian disasters, the report concluded.

To read the full report, please click here: http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/61122

Thanks to Jenny Goldie for this article.  See http://www.theage.com.au/national/doctors-in-population-push-20110207-1ak63.html

Doctors In Population Push

February 8, 2011 The Age

AUSTRALIAN doctors have joined entrepeneur Dick Smith’s fight against population growth with a new health campaign targeting general practitioners and their patients.

The Doctors for the Environment Australia group has sent a poster titled ”Advancing Australia Fairly!?” to about 24,000 GPs this week to outline the health impacts of the nation’s increasing population.

The poster shows an oversized boot crushing a tree. On the sole of the boot is the statement ”Population growth, more of us, less for all”. The poster asserts that ”population pressure impacts on cost of living, food and water security, traffic congestion, productive farmland, social cohesion and quality of life”.

A spokesman for the group, Dr George Crisp, said the campaign came as Australia’s population growth rate exceeded that of India and Cambodia and was ”harming our quest for liveable communities”.

It also coincides with the federal government seeking feedback on the challenges and opportunities stemming from Australia’s growing population.

Dr Crisp said his group, which has about 500 members, was particularly annoyed that the federal government’s issues paper on a sustainable population strategy for Australia did not include a scientific review of what an ideal population for a healthy Australia would be in the future.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.theage.com.au/national/doctors-in-population-push-20110207-1ak63.html

Thanks to Steve Kurtz for this article.  See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12338901

UN ‘concerned’ by world population growth trends

By Camille Ebden BBC News

The world population growth rate must slow down significantly to avoid reaching unsustainable levels, says a new UN report.

To have a reasonable chance of stabilising world population, fertility must drop to below “replacement level”.

It must then be maintained at that level for an extended period, says the report.

This replacement level is the fertility level at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next.

The world population is already poised to reach 7 billion later this year and this figure potentially could double to 14 billion by 2100 if action is not taken.

“Even countries with intermediate fertility need to reduce it to replacement level or below if they wish to avoid reaching unsustainable population levels.” End Quote Hania Zlotnik Director, UN Population Division

This is of particular concern for the least developed countries worldwide, which are growing at the fastest rate and are already the most vulnerable to famine.

The UN Population Division have produced six projections of potential future population change based on different changes to fertility level and other factors.

In the medium scenario, world population peaks at 9.4 billion in 2070 and then starts to decline.

However for this to happen, fertility needs to decline significantly in most developing countries.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12338901