Thanks to John Feeney for this article.
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Only since 1800, in the last 0.01% of the history of Homo sapiens, has the human population shot into the billions. Now at nearly 6.7 billion, with 9 billion looming 40 years away, few environmentalists seem to care.

Yet the population-environment link is clear. Our environmental impact, as gauged by total resource consumption for a country or the world, is the product of population size and the average person’s consumption.

Today’s crumbling environment, racked by climate change, mass extinction, deforestation, collapsing fisheries and more is evidence our total consumption has gone too far. We are destroying our life-support system. In ecological terms we are in “overshoot” of Earth’s “carrying capacity” for humans, our demand exceeding the planet’s absorptive and regenerative capacities.

For full article, visit:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

Thanks to Peter Salonius for sending me the article below.

Population Growth in the United States & Canada: a Role for Scientists (PDF, 139KB)

Thanks to Bill Willers for this article by Peter Salonius.
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News of food price escalation is bringing global carrying capacity for human beings ‘front and center’- with food riots all over the world.

This is being precipitated now by food-to-ethanol programs, although with constantly rising populations fed by the increased food produced by various agricultural revolutions (the Green Revolution being the latest), these riots would have eventually happened. However the speed of these developments is awe inspiring.

On April 14 2008 we heard Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, calling for a crash program of food production increases to stave off the approach of famine. How many times does he think we can pull new ‘productivity rabbits’ out of the hat when soil resources of the planet continue to be degraded to produce more food for the irresponsibly breeding horde?

For full article, visit:
http://www.abc.net.au/news

In 2007, PMC had projects in Brazil, Eastern Caribbean, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Mali, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, the United States and Vietnam.

2007 Annual Report (PDF, 3MB)

Thanks to Marianne Ward for this follow up commentary from Marni Fogelson-Teel on the Duggar family population explosion.
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When People and several other popular media outlets heralded the news that the Duggar family in Arkansas welcomed their 17th child earlier this month, my reaction was not necessarily that of awe or amazement. It was anxiety. While the Duggar family is certainly an anomaly, it would become more than slightly problematic if everyone exercises their reproductive rights and simply has as many children as they physically can.

A recent study from the Optimum Population Trust pointed out that tactics for combating climate change “almost universally ignore population: it is seen as too sensitive and too controversial.” Personal birth rate and contraceptive choice are contentious subjects for many people because reproductive decisions often result from religious or cultural traditions. However, this decision has a huge impact on more than just one’s own family. In his hugely popular book The End Of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey Sachs explains how the most poor countries, “are stuck with fertility rates of five or more. On average, a mother is raising at least two girls, and in some cases three girls or more. In those circumstances, national populations double each generation.”

For full article, visit:

Many thanks to Sandy Irvine for sending the link to the website on Ecological Sustainability. You can find the home page at http://www.ecological-sustainability.info/. I found the statement in the “About Us” section most interesting.

You can link to it at http://www.sandyirvine.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/PDFs/About%20Us.pdf.

New Training Manual Helps Mobilize Muslim Religious Leaders for RH/FP. Religious leaders play a key role in shaping the health-seeking behavior of their communities-particularly with respect to family planning and reproductive health, topics where science, religion, culture and morality profoundly intersect.
http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow

Below is a paper by Martha Campbell, “Why the Silence on Population Issues.” A second piece on this same topic was sent to me by Luigi De Marchi, founder of the Italian Planned Parenthood Federation. He broadcast this editorial on May 5, 2008 over Italy’s Liberal Radio.

Why the Silence on Population (PDF, 178KB)

World Crisis (Word doc., 33KB)

Thanks to Ben Zuckerman for this editorial, which was distributed to 800 newspapers and magazines in the U.S. through the Cagle Syndication Service.
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Ever since my youth I’ve been a numbers type of guy. As a teenager in the 1950s I discovered that the typical American woman was having 3 or 4 children and I calculated that the USA was in for a big population explosion. At about the same time, Chinese women were having even more children than Americans. The fact that these two countries together are currently responsible for half of the entire anthropogenic contribution to increasing atmospheric carbon is partially a result of the large population increases engendered by these high fertilities.

For full article and an accompanying editorial cartoon, visit http://www.caglepost.com

Additional related editorial cartoons can be viewed at http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.

Dave Paxson, John Feeney and I participated in a 90-minute radio program on April 20 on population issues produced by Free Range Thought in Media. You can listen to the program – one of several in a series on population – at http://www.freerangethought.com/.

At the same site, you can also listen to an interview with David Pimentel of Cornell University discussing population and the current food crisis.

Part one of the April 20 interview can be linked to directly at: http://www.freerangethought.com/Audio/Ryerson_Paxson_Feeney_P1_042008.mp3.

And this is the link for part 2: http://www.freerangethought.com/Audio/Ryerson_Paxson_Feeney_P2_042008.mp3.

The interview is also posted on the PMC website by clicking here.