Thanks to Fred Stanback for linking me to this crash environmental course that cuts to the real problem. Worth the time for educators and all others: See http://www.chrismartenson.com/environmental_data.

Yale Environment 360, a new online magazine dedicated to covering the global environment, has been launched. Edited by Roger Cohn ‘73, the former editor of Mother Jones and Audubon magazines, Yale Environment 360 aims to become one of the leading Web sites for commentary and reporting on the crucial environmental issues of the day. Yale Environment 360 features authoritative opinion, analysis and in-depth reporting by leading journalists, scientists, environmentalists and policy makers from around the world. The site also provides a forum for discussing global environmental issues. You can bookmark the new publication at http://e360.yale.edu/.

Some time in the 1980s, the combined environmental effects of our species began to exceed the ability of the planet to sustain us all. So to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization, which we might say is the prime directive of the human race, we either have to learn to reduce our environmental impacts or our population, and probably both.

Whatever one’s view of population control, it seems inevitable that we must stop increasing our population at some point. Predictions are population may level off at nine billion by mid-century. Perhaps nine billion of us could get a handle on our consumption of everything and limit our environmental footprint, but no matter how carefully we live, could the world handle 12 or 15 billion of us, or more?

For full article, visit:
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix

“Population, Health, and Environment: Exploring the Connections,” an original ECSP video, offers a lively, brief, and accessible explanation of population-health-environment connections, with examples and photos from successful programs in the Philippines. View the video on YouTube, then rate it, comment on it, favorite it, or post a video response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGUtXzU-xb8

Presenter Lori Hunter of the University of Colorado, Boulder, spoke at the Wilson Center earlier this year as part of ECSP’s PHE meeting series. www.wilsoncenter.org/next10

Thanks to Phil Kreitner for this heartening article
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Most weekdays, Oona Baker picks up her daughter, Ramona, from preschool and heads home to the Woodstock neighborhood. The two eat lunch, then decide what’s next. The library? Or baking cookies? With no siblings to factor in, mother and daughter map their own schedule.

“We’re pretty minimal people,” Baker, 34, says. “We have a small house. We have a small car. We can walk lots of places. Our life is just easier with one child.”

Not just easier, but greener.

In a city where people harvest rainwater, and bicycling to work is a badge of green pride, some Portland families say stopping at one child is global activism at its most personal.

For full article, visit:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment

Many thanks to Paul Paquet for sending this editorial from Nature.

A fresh approach to water (PDF, 88 KB)

Thanks to Sally Mattison for this article.
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Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water – and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

For full article, visit:
http://features.csmonitor.com

The amount of water in the world is limited. The human race, and the other species which share the planet, cannot expect an infinite supply.

Water covers about two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, admittedly. But most is too salty for use.

Only 2.5% of the world’s water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers.

For full article, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/755497.stm

PMC was recently featured in The Environmental Magazine. Below is a PDF file of the article (PMC is featured on page 31 under the heading “Taught By TV”)

Destination America - Immigration, the Environment and Big Population Numbers (PDF, 1,514 KB)

For those familiar with the work of Stanford Biologist Peter Vitousek, this paper is related to his study of human consumption of the products of photosynthesis.
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Humanity’s impact on the biosphere’s structures (e.g., land cover) and functioning (e.g., biogeochemical cycles) is considerable. It exceeds natural variability in many cases. Sanderson and others have classified up to 83% of the global terrestrial biosphere as being under direct human influence, based on geographic proxies such as human population density, settlements, roads, agriculture and the like; another study, by Hannah et al., estimates that about 36% of the Earth’s bioproductive surface is “entirely dominated by man”.

For full article, visit:
http://www.eoearth.org/article