The short article pasted below reminds us of the reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance (RISUG) male contraceptive technology currently being studied in India. Interestingly, the Parsemus Foundation (whose director of medical research is based in California) works to advance innovative and neglected medical research and is attempting to market a RISUG technology in the United States under the brand name Vasagel.

• You can find out more here: http://www.newmalecontraception.org/risug.htm

• To express your support for this effort via a petition, and sign up to be kept informed of further developments, click here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TSKSKGM

The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men
Posted by Jon Clinkenbeard. March 26, 2012, 11:25 AM CDT

See: http://techcitement.com/culture/the-best-birth-control-in-the-world-is-for-men/

If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists.

The procedure called RISUG in India (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) takes about 15 minutes with a doctor, is effective after about three days, and lasts for 10 or more years. A doctor applies some local anesthetic, makes a small pinhole in the base of the scrotum, reaches in with a pair of very thin forceps, and pulls out the small white vas deferens tube. Then, the doctor injects the polymer gel (called Vasalgel here in the US), pushes the vas deferens back inside, repeats the process for the other vas deferens, puts a Band-Aid over the small hole, and the man is on his way. If this all sounds incredibly simple and inexpensive, that’s because it is. The chemicals themselves cost less than the syringe used to administer them. But the science of what happens next is the really fascinating part.

To read the full article, please click here: http://techcitement.com/culture/the-best-birth-control-in-the-world-is-for-men/

Below is a press release sent by Regina Layug Rosero, a project coordinator for Mulat Pinoy, a social media initiative for Filipino youth that focuses on population and development issues in the Philippines and is on the front lines building support for the RH Bill.

You can read more about Mulat Pinoy here: http://www.mulatpinoy.ph/about-us/

Mulat Pinoy brings population and development awareness to youth in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, MARCH 29, 2012

In February 2012, 24 students from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao visited Manila to participate in Mulat Pinoy’s workshop, “Social NetWorth: The Filipino Youth on Social Media and Popdev.”  The workshop participants hailed from Manila, Quezon City, Calamba, Cebu, Iloilo, General Santos City and Davao, and were all college students and leaders in their communities.

Social NetWorth aimed to teach the participants about population and development (popdev) issues: in particular, how the population affects other things like the environment, employment and education. In addition, the participants learned about media and social networks, and how these can be used as tools to promote awareness of popdev.

During the workshop, the participants produced videos where they focused on a popdev issue and called the youth to action. These videos may be viewed on the Mulat Pinoy YouTube Account (http://www.youtube.com/user/mulatpinoy).

After the workshop, the participants returned to their communities to develop a Mulat Pinoy project of their own. The 24 participants were divided in pairs or groups, each with a cause, a vision, a mission and a blog.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a Bloomberg article reporting on the seemingly interminable struggle to pass a Reproductive Health and Rights Bill in that country, where for 14 years the Catholic Church has vigorously led the opposition to passage. See: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-27/condom-queues-incite-church-tensions-in-philippines.html

Condom Queues Incite Church Tensions in Philippines
By Natasha Khan and Norman P. Aquino – Mar 27, 2012 12:00 PM ET

Lorna Villar gave birth seven times in 14 years. After her last pregnancy pushed the 34-year-old’s blood pressure to dangerous levels, the Manila mom says contraception became a life or death matter.

Villar now lines up in a crowded clinic between an auto repair shop and a kiosk selling sodas to avoid more pregnancies. The intrauterine device she had inserted free by a charity puts her among the 34 percent of Filipino women ages 15 to 49 using modern birth control — about the same proportion as in Myanmar and Iraq, United Nations data show.

“It’s such a relief to know I won’t fall pregnant again,” says Villar, sitting on the concrete floor of her windowless, 20 square meter (215 square feet) home in Tondo, one of Manila’s poorest neighborhoods. The 7,000 pesos ($160) a month her husband makes driving cranes and ferrying people in a tricycle taxi is barely enough to live off, she says.

One in five women of reproductive age in the Philippines have an unmet family planning need, the UN Population Fund says, leading to unintended pregnancies and population growth twice the Asian average. Relief may come from a reproductive health bill backed by President Benigno Aquino that promises free or subsidized contraception, especially for the poor, says Ugochi Daniels, the fund’s country representative in the Philippines.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-27/condom-queues-incite-church-tensions-in-philippines.html

Below is a March 25th article, published in the on-line version of The Daily Mail. Herein you can see Prime Minister David Cameron quoted as saying, “We urgently need to find places where we’re prepared to allow significant new growth to happen.” See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120035/New-city-Midlands-rail-link-green-belt-land-cope-population-growth.html

The opposition group also quoted in the story has a website, which can be found here: http://stophs2.org/

If you are interested, there is additional coverage from the BBC, where Friends of the Earth’s campaigns director Craig Bennett says: “A strong planning system is vital for building the clean economy promised by government, but there are mounting concerns that ministers will unleash a building free-for-all that will infuriate local communities and devastate our countryside.” See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17514730

Summary –

Radical plan to create new Midlands city on green belt land to cope with population growth:

• Up to 100,000 homes are to be built
• Plan exploits controversial new National Planning Policy Framework rules
• Development would create conurbation stretching 40 miles from Coventry to Wolverhampton
• Ministers want new age of ‘pro-growth’ planning
• Plans to build 2m UK homes by 2020 to meet demands of rising population
• Proposals have faced wave of protests from countryside groups

By Daniel Martin

PUBLISHED: 05:45 EST, 25 March 2012 | UPDATED: 05:16 EST, 26 March 2012

A new city could be built in the Midlands alongside the controversial High Speed 2 rail line as part of a drive to tackle the country’s housing shortage.

The transport project’s chief engineer said up to 100,000 homes could be built on green belt land.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120035/New-city-Midlands-rail-link-green-belt-land-cope-population-growth.html

The Ecologist, whose reporting on population-related issues has historically been spotty, has interviewed the world famous Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hahn, who may have surprised them by noting that reducing consumption is both important, but not sufficient by itself, in meeting the ecological crisis. This is part one of a two part interview. To read the first portion of the interview, please click here: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1291786/thich_nhat_hanh_maybe_in_100_years_there_will_be_no_more_humans_on_the_planet.html

Thich Nhat Hanh: maybe in 100 years there will be no more humans on the planet

Tom Levitt

22nd March, 2012
The acclaimed buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh talks to the Ecologist about the loss of biodiversity and why human vulnerability is not something we should despair about.

Do you believe humans can avoid a global ecological collapse, or are we driving ourselves towards one?

The National Wildlife Federation tells us everyday that 100 plants and animal species are lost to deforestation. Extinction of species is taking place everyday. In one year there may be 200,000 species going into extinction. That is what is happening; that is not the problem of the future. We know that 151 million years ago there was already global warming caused by gigantic volcanic eruptions. They caused the worst mass extinction in the history of the planet. The 6C increase in global temperature was enough to wipe out 95 per cent of the species that were alive. Global warming already happened 251 million years ago because of volcanic eruptions and 95 per cent of species on earth disappeared.

Now a second global warming is taking place. This time because of deforestation and industrialisation; man-made, maybe in 100 years there will be no more humans on the planet, in just 100 years. After the disappearance of 95 per cent of species on the earth by the mass extinction the earth took 100 million years to restore life on earth. If our civilisation disappears it will take some time like that for another civilisation to reappear. When volcanic eruptions happened the carbon dioxide built up and created the greenhouse effect that was 251 million years ago. Now the building up of carbon dioxide is coming from our own lifestyle and industrial activities.

If 6C degrees take place, another 95 per cent of species will die out, including Homo sapiens. That is why we have to learn to touch eternity with our in breath and out breath. Extinction of species has happened several times. Mass extinction has already happened five times and this is the sixth. According to the Buddhist tradition there is no birth and no death. After extinction a thing will appear in other forms, so you have to breathe very deeply in order to acknowledge the fact that we humans may disappear in just 100 years on earth.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1291786/thich_nhat_hanh_maybe_in_100_years_there_will_be_no_more_humans_on_the_planet.html

Two items follow.

1) You may be interested to learn of the Planet Under Pressure conference, currently taking place in London. Overall attendance is said to number more than 2,700 people. More information, copied from the conference website is below. There is a promise of live web-streaming of some of the select panels and presenters; and, you can download a series of policy briefs that specifically target policy-makers in the Rio+20 process, aiming to give them access to “the latest scientific thinking on sustainable development issues.”

• http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/webstreaming.asp

• http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/policybriefs.asp

Unfortunately, many believe that population has a good chance of being left off the Rio+20 agenda, as the Daily Email of February 8th, 2012 indicated.

2) With that in mind, I am pasting below an article published by the ECSP at The Woodrow Wilson Center on February 22nd, titled “Reaching Out at Rio: Population Growth, Family Planning, and Environmentalists”. It is reporting on a panel discussion at the Center which analyzed results of a recent survey and several focus groups conducted in association with Americans for UNFPA on how environmentalists are most comfortable talking about population. There is a video webcast of the discussion available.

See: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/reaching-out-rio-population-growth-family-planning-and-environmentalists

“Promoting women’s empowerment is an effective strategy for looking at climate and the environment but also is important in its own right,” said the Sierra Club’s Kim Lovell at the Wilson Center on February 22. “Increasing access to family planning for women around the world is a climate adaptation and climate mitigation solution.”

Drawing on research by Brian O’Neill (National Center for Atmospheric Research) and others Lovell explained that meeting the unmet need for family planning around the world could provide up to 16 to 29 percent of the emissions reductions required by 2050 in order to avoid more than two degrees of warming (the target set by nations to prevent the most damaging effects of climate change).

For environmentalists and those concerned with climate change, “sometimes the idea has been that population is toxic, that we can’t talk about population growth,” said Nancy Belden of Belden Russonello and Stewart Consulting, but the results of a recent survey and several focus groups conducted in association with Americans for UNFPA demonstrate that there is great potential for engaging the environmental community in such a discussion.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/reaching-out-rio-population-growth-family-planning-and-environmentalists

Thanks to Steve Kurtz for forwarding me this article, which reports on global water security issues (World Water Day was Thursday, March 22). See: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/water-short-world-will-need-more-crop-per-drop-experts

Water-short world will need ‘more crop per drop’ – experts

21 Mar 2012 18:41

Source: alertnet //

By Megan Rowling

MARSEILLE, France (AlertNet) – Water must be used more efficiently and its waste reduced if the world is to meet rising food demand from a fast-expanding population amid the pressures of climate change, experts have said ahead of World Water Day.

Marked each year on March 22, the United Nations hopes the 2012 event will focus attention on water’s critical role in feeding the world.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says the world will have to produce up to 70 percent more food to feed a global population expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, from the current 7 billion. That will require better management of water, boosting farmers’ resilience to climate shifts, and cutting food and water waste.

Water consumption by agriculture is estimated to rise 19 percent by 2050, but the figure could be much higher if crop yields and production efficiency don’t improve dramatically, warns the latest U.N. World Water Development Report.

Water scarcity already affects more than 40 percent of people on the planet, and two-thirds could be living under water-stressed conditions by 2025, according to the FAO.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/water-short-world-will-need-more-crop-per-drop-experts

I enjoyed this article on “trends” by Post Carbon Institute’s Richard Heinberg, which I found on the Peak Oil News and Message Boards. See: http://peakoil.com/generalideas/heinberg-fun-with-trends/

Heinberg: Fun with Trends

If current population trends continue . . .

• The population of the United States will increase to over 600 million by 2080, and in 2150 it will equal China’s present size.
• World population will achieve 14 billion by the year 2075 and 30 billion by 2150.

If current energy trends continue . . .

• By 2015 China will be importing more oil than the United States does that year.
• By 2030 China will be absorbing all available global oil exports, leaving none for the US or Europe.
• In just 8 years China will be burning as much coal as the entire world uses today.
• Natural gas will be virtually free in the US by 2015.
• Officially assessed US natural gas reserves will be exhausted by 2025.

If current economic trends continue . . .

• China’s economy will be 8 times as big as it is today by 2040.
• China’s economy will surpass the size of the present global economy before 2050.
• The US federal debt will double-from $14 trillion to $28 trillion-by 2022.
• In 2072, the federal debt will amount to $896 trillion, or $1,629,091 for each American (assuming a US population then of 550 million).
• By the end of the century, each American will “owe” over a billion dollars.
• Thanks to the doubling of US households living on less than $2 per person per day between 1996 and 2011, in 150 years there will be about 1.5 billion Americans living on practically no income.
• The number of billionaires in the world (having grown from 793 to 1210 in just two years, from 2009 to 2011) will equal the world population in only 70 years. (Given the previous trend, this is especially gratifying news: since the rate of growth in the number of billionaires in the world exceeds the rate of growth in extreme poverty in the US, this means each American will become a billionaire before his or her grandchildren plunge into desperate poverty).
• Read the rest of this entry »

I am very happy to distribute the following column, written by Froma Harrop. It is an excellent take on the situation in Japan. The Japanese population stabilization and (eventual) gradual decline have caused most pro-growth economists and other such cheerleaders to convulse in fear. As such, this is an especially nice read. See: http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20120323/COLUMNISTS100/303230009

COLUMN: Birthrates did not doom Japan

There’s one complaint visitors to Tokyo rarely make, and that is “not enough people.” With a population of 36 million, the Tokyo metropolitan area stuffs an average 6,800 people in each square mile. By contrast, the New York metro area, with 19 million residents, has a density of 2,800 people per square mile.

The Tokyo subways still employ the legendary “people pushers,” who shove passengers into the already packed cars. The Japanese have a word for their daily trip to work: “tsukin jigoku,” or “commuter hell.”

In an area about the size of Montana, Japan has a population of 128 million. Montana has about 1 million. If any country could do with fewer people, it would be Japan.

To read the full article, please click here: http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20120323/COLUMNISTS100/303230009

The Earth Policy Institute sent me this recent article by Lester Brown, which you may find interesting. It is adapted from Lester’s book, “World on the Edge”. The full book available online at www.earth-policy.org/books/wote.

How Much Will it Cost to Save Our Economy’s Foundation? Lester R. Brown

During the past two summers, Pakistan was hit with catastrophic floods. The record flooding in the late summer of 2010 was the most devastating natural disaster in Pakistan’s history. The media coverage reported torrential rains as the cause, but there is much more to the story. When Pakistan was created in 1947, some 30 percent of the landscape was covered by forests. Now it is 4 percent. Pakistan’s livestock herd outnumbers that of the United States. With little forest still standing and the countryside grazed bare, there was scant vegetation to retain the rainfall.

Pakistan, with 185 million people squeezed into an area only slightly larger than Texas, is an ecological basket case. If it cannot restore its forests and grazing lands, it will only suffer more “natural” disasters in the future. Pakistan’s experience demonstrates all too vividly why restoring the earth is an integral part of Earth Policy Institute’s Plan B to save civilization. Restoring the earth will take an enormous international effort, one far more demanding than the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild war-torn Europe and Japan after World War II. And such an initiative must be undertaken at wartime speed before environmental deterioration translates into economic decline, just as it did for the Sumerians, the Mayans, and many other early civilizations whose archeological sites we study today.

Our natural systems are the foundation of our economy. We can roughly estimate how much it will cost to reforest the earth, protect topsoil, restore rangelands and fisheries, stabilize water tables, and protect biological diversity. The goal is not to offer a set of precise numbers but rather to provide a set of reasonable estimates for an earth restoration budget.

Read the rest of this entry »