Your response is needed to David Harsanyi’s article below from the Denver Post, in which he attacks White House Science Advisor John Holdren for believing in “an imaginary population catastrophe.” It deserves a thoughtful, but forceful rebuttal. In your letter be sure to reference the article (Harsanyi, Science Fiction Czar, July 15, 2009). Send your Letters to the Editor via e-mail: openforum@denverpost.com or

Letter to the Editor
The Denver Post
101 W. Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO 80202

You can also post your response online below the article at http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12837799?source=rss

(Letters to the editor – to be considered, letters must include full name, home town and daytime phone number)

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Thanks to Rigmor Allbäck for this report of a meeting of 42 scientists at the University of California Berkeley in January.
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THE WORLD IN 2050: A Scientific Investigation of the Impact of Global Population Growth on a Divided Planet
Written by Berkeley Conference Participants
Wednesday, 10 June 2009 00:10

An international group of 42 scientists met at the University of California, Berkeley on January 23-24, 2009 to discuss The World in 2050, and how global changes in the human population might change our future. The meeting was organized by the Bixby Centers at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The participants all spoke as individuals and not as representatives of governments or organizations. The proceedings are web-cast (see www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/worldin2050/worldin2050-overview.aspx), and the papers prepared for the Forum will be published as a theme issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. This statement, prepared by the organizers, summarizes some conclusions of the meeting without committing every participant to support of every detail.
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Faced with the challenge of designing an educational video game that would hold the attention of the world’s youth, student designers at Champlain College came up with a motif they can run with: Soccer.

Nearly one year into a three-year project to create an electronic game to discourage violence against women, students in the college’s Emerging Media Center have begun fleshing out their ideas for a theme with universal appeal among the target audience, Third World boys ages 10-13. That theme is what most of the world knows as football — an activity with sure-fire entertainment value. Entertainment value is a prerequisite for any game that seeks to influence behavior, the students say.

For full article, visit:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090715/NEWS02/90714034

The author of this article, Tim Johnson, also wrote about our electronic game project in his recent blog
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll

Thanks to Eric Rimmer for this article published in The National.
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For three days last week 60 international experts met in Abu Dhabi to discuss tactics in the war against global warming. The forum held at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research looked at the issues at the centre of negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol and, most importantly, how the estimated US$100 billion needed to limit the increase in global mean temperatures to 2°C would be met.

The conference, organised by the NYU School of Law, is symptomatic of just how seriously climate change and the devastating effects it threatens are being taken.

For full article, visit:
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090509/WEEKENDER/705089799/1311

Read Emergent Media Center’s (EMC) response to Nicholas Kristof’s recent blog post, ‘NYT Magazine Issue on Women.’

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30

PMC is working with EMC and UNFPA to create an electronic game for adolescent boys aimed at preventing violence against women. For more information on this project, visit http://www.populationmedia.org/where/worldwide/

Read PMC’s response to Andrew Revkin’s recent blog post, ’90 Billion People, 1 Planet?’

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/90-billion-people-no-problem

XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference
Marrakech, Morocco
September 27 – October 2 2009
http://iussp2009.princeton.edu/default.aspx
This will be the first IUSSP International Population Conference to be held on the African continent and in an Arab country. The Conference will include over 180 regular scientific sessions, poster sessions, and training sessions, as well as plenary and debate sessions, side meetings and exhibitions. Simultaneous translation in French and English will be provided for all plenary, debate, regular and training sessions. In addition, simultaneous translation in Arabic will be provided for all plenary and debate sessions and all sessions organised by the Moroccan NOC on population issues in the Arab world.

Engel Entertainment is proud to announce the DVD release of its award-winning feature documentary, A Walk to Beautiful. This film tells a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation through the journeys of five Ethiopian women suffering from childbirth injuries who reclaim their lives.

Chosen to appear in over 25 festivals worldwide, A Walk to Beautiful has won international praise, including the Best Feature Documentary Award from the International Documentary Association and the Excellence in Media Award from the Global Health Council. In 2008, A Walk to Beautiful was released in theaters and an edited, one-hour television version of the film premiered on PBS’s NOVA, the most watched documentary series on public television.
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Thanks to Paul Ehrlich for the this paper, published in the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development. It is a fascinating look back at the Population Bomb. See http://www.ejsd.org/docs/The_Population_Bomb_Revisited.pdf.

Population Bomb Revisited Paul Ehrlich 2009 (PDF, 238 KB)

Thanks to Raymond Ready for alerting me to last year’s interview of Paul Ehrlich by Living on Earth. The title of the interview was, “Is Chicken Little Right?” You can listen to the interview at http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?program

Another Ehrlich classic was his interview with Diane Rehm. Listen to it on NPR at http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/07/24.php#20644

Contraception is a “best buy” for development. By helping individuals to choose when to have children, family planning saves lives; it prevents unintended pregnancies, averts maternal and child deaths, and prevents abortions. Family planning also saves public sector resources; for $1 a government spends on family planning service delivery, $2 to $6 can be saved in providing other interventions, including basic health and education for fewer children, maternal health services, and improvements in water and sanitation.

For full article, visit:
http://www.prb.org/Publications/PolicyBriefs/contraceptives.aspx