Earth's systems in rapid decline. Overpopulation is causing huge losses in biodiversity, and 'protected areas' such as national parks aren't working.

The Convention on Biological Diversity's 2010 conference in Nagoya, Japan agreed to put 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans on Earth under protection by 2020, but this may not stop the decline in biodiversity [EPA]

By Stephen Leahy

Protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system. Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population, overconsumption and inefficient resource use.

Without dealing with those big issues, humanity will need 27 planet Earths by 2050, a new study estimates. 

The size and number of protected areas on land and sea has increased dramatically since the 1980s, now totaling over 100,000 in number and covering 17 million square kilometres of land and two million square kilometres of oceans, a new study reported Thursday.

Dealing with failure

But impressive as those numbers look, all indicators reveal species going extinct faster than ever before, despite all the additions of new parks, reserves and other conservation measures, according to the study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. 

For full article:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/20118383214222938.html

Unemployment in Africa: What is the way forward?

By Mike Mukula, Daily Monitor

The African continent is day by day sliding into unemployment and poverty, especially of the youth. If leaders do not make long-term strategic plans, Africa will certainly be plunged into another cycle of subjugation and violence. The high fertility rate among our females and population growth in most countries, speaks volumes! This is because 50 per cent of people in most countries are below the age of 30. The spiralling rate of urbanisation exacerbates this threat. And yet, the said rate is not in consonance with job-creation!

Worth pondering is also the fact that the number of youth dropping out of school is increasing. Reasons range from poor societal norms, especially in the countryside, to non-affordability of tuition fees and requisite scholastic materials, especially for the boys. Girls drop out mainly due to puberty-related stress factors, being forced into early marriage, being defiled by errant teachers or relatives, or getting unwanted pregnancies.

Why is Africa likely to suffer severe unemployment and related repercussions? In my view, one of the root causes is education. Lamentably, most African countries have never changed colonial-time curricula! While other countries, especially in the northern hemisphere, have been moving in tandem with the times - technology and job market imperatives - we in Africa have not.

For full article:

http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/1210936/-/12sr961z/-/

Capt. Mukula is chairman of the Pan-African Movement, Uganda Chapter 
captmukula@yahoo.co.uk

Unplanned pregnancies in states reach 4 in 10 - USA Today by Sharon Jayson

At least 4 in 10 pregnancies in every state were unwanted or mistimed, according to the first-ever state-level analysis of unintended pregnancies.

According to the analysis released today, more than half of pregnancies in 29 states and the District of Columbia were unintended; 38% to 50% were unintended in the remaining states.

Using another measure that calculates frequency of unintended pregnancies, the analysis by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute found the highest rates of unintended pregnancy were in the South, Southwest and in states with large urban populations. Highest was Mississippi with 69 per 1,000 women ages 15-44; lowest was New Hampshire, with 36 per 1,000.

"There are many, many reasons why people don't plan ahead, even when it's such a crucial decision," says Claire Brindis, director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California-San Francisco, who was not involved in the analysis.

For full article:

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/pregnancy/story/2011/05/40-of-pregnancies-across-USA-unplanned-study-finds/47316772/1.  

We must be prepared for more Anders Breiviks - The Muslim population of Europe will undoubtedly rise – and the irrational fear will spread

By Robert Fox - The First Post

One of the problems with Colonel Gaddafi is that from time to time he is in the habit of speaking an inconvenient truth. OK, let's not exaggerate, from time he speaks grains of inconvenient truths.

Since 2006 the Libyan leader has been proposing that Islam should be the religion of Europe - he even said so in Rome during his visit there two years ago.

Furthermore, Gaddafi said last year that it will become Europe's major religion and that European governments will have Muslims in them by 2050. He said this was sure to happen because of the growth of the Muslim population in Europe, which he claims could be "more than 50 per cent if Turkey joins the EU".

Last October Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany seemed to half agree with the colonel when she denounced the failure of multiculturalism in her country in her party conference speech in Potsdam. As a good daughter of a Lutheran pastor she suggested that the Muslims of Germany must integrate more and sign up to the basic values - mostly taken from secular Christianity - embraced by the constitution of today's federal Germany.

All this has particular point and accent in the aftermath of the massacre of 76 Norwegians by Anders Behring Breivik. He aimed to murder the Labour prime minister Jens Stoltenberg and youth members of the party at their summer camp because they are the appeasers who have allowed Muslim immigrants to get more than a toehold in Norway.

The issue was summed up a couple of days ago by one of the most socially and politically observant and astute officers I have known in the British Army, or any other army for that matter.

For full article: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/82342,news-comment,news-politics,the-muslim-population-of-europe-will-rise-we-must-be-prepared-for-more-anders-breiviks#ixzz1Ta9e5XPz

Making Food Security Global

By Terry Waghorn, Forbes

Food security is perhaps the most expansive of the 10 categories we at Katerva break sustainability into. Within its realm are aspects of many other categories including behavioral change (consumption habits), protected areas (land management), urban design (agricultural integration), human development (poverty reduction), transportation (efficient distribution) and more. All the major sciences (biology, chemistry, psychology, etc) can lend their prowess to the issue of global food security.

For full article:

http://blogs.forbes.com/terrywaghorn/2011/07/29/making-food-security-global/

Literacy and the Population Problem

By Justin Gillis, New York Times

The world’s population is expected to pass seven billion in late October. A few weeks ago, I joined my colleague Celia Dugger in writing about worrisome new population projections from the United Nations. Instead of peaking in this century, as previously expected, the new projections suggested that the human population would continue growing all the way into the next century, probably topping out above 10 billion.

Whether the planet can support that many people, and in what living conditions, is a subject of continuing uncertainty.

In a special report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, experts consider the implications of this continued population growth and other demographic shifts expected in coming decades. Some, but not all, elements of the package are available free at this link, including videos and a podcast discussing several of the new papers.

The article that most caught my eye was a review paper by demographers in Vienna. They confirmed previous research suggesting that the single biggest factor influencing population growth rates is the educational status of women. If one wants to slow the rapid population growth in developing countries, the thinking goes, the highest priority should be putting more girls in school.

For full article:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/literacy-and-the-population-problem/

'Explosive' population growth threatens developing nations, says UN

By Kate Taylor, TG Daily

By the end of this year, there'll be seven billion people on the planet, a whole billion more than in 1999, according to new UN figures.

In 2011, approximately 135 million people will be born and 57 million will die, a net increase of 78 million people.

And between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added — nearly as many as inhabited the entire planet in 1950. By the end of the century, the population will reach 10.1 billion, says the Population Division of the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Practically all the growth in the next 40 years - 97 percent - will take place in less developed regions, with just under half in Africa.

For full article:

http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/57558-explosive-population-growth-threatens-developing-nations-says-un

Devastating famine elicits divergent reactions

By Malcolm Mcsporran, Vancouver Sun

Re: African food shortage becomes a major crisis, July 7 The headline is wrong: There is no food shortage in Africa; there are too many people. The headline should have read, "African over-population becomes a major crisis."

For full article: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Devastating+famine+elicits+divergent+reactions/5183497/story.html#ixzz1Ta0mRtMZ

Rural US Disappearing? Population Share Hits Low - ABC News

In this Feb. 9, 2011 file photo, a coal truck drives out of downtown Welch, W.Va. Rural places account for just 16 percent of the nation's population, the lowest share ever, while metro areas are booming into sprawling megalopolises (/AP Photo)

By HOPE YEN Associated Press - WASHINGTON July 27, 2011 (AP)

Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the nation's population, the lowest ever. The latest 2010 census numbers hint at an emerging America where, by midcentury, city boundaries become indistinct and rural areas grow ever less relevant. Many communities could shrink to virtual ghost towns as they shutter businesses and close down schools, demographers say.

For full article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=14173815

EU27 Population Now At 502.5 Million

By Eurasia Review

On 1 January 2011, the population of the EU27 was estimated at 502.5 million, compared with 501.1 million on 1 January 2010. The population of the EU27 grew by 1.4 million in 2010, an annual rate of +2.7 per 1000 inhabitants, due to a natural increase of 0.5 million (+1.0‰) and net migration of 0.9 million (+1.7‰).

he population of the euro area (EA17) was estimated at 332.0 million on 1 January 2011, compared with 330.9 million on 1 January 2010. The population of the euro area grew by 1.0 million in 2010, an annual rate of +3.1‰, due to a natural increase of 0.3 million (+1.0‰) and net migration of 0.7 million (+2.1‰).

These figures come from a report2 published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Highest natural growth rates in Ireland, Cyprus, France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom

In 2010, 5.4 million children were born in the EU27. The crude birth rate was 10.7 per 1000 inhabitants, the same as in 2009. The highest birth rates were recorded in Ireland (16.5‰), the United Kingdom (13.0‰), France (12.8‰), Cyprus (12.4‰) and Sweden (12.3‰), and the lowest rates in Germany (8.3‰), Latvia (8.6‰), Hungary (9.0‰), Italy (9.3‰), Austria (9.4‰), Portugal (9.5‰) and Malta (9.6‰).

For full article:

http://www.eurasiareview.com/eu27-population-now-at-502-5-million-28072011/

A Global Minimum Wage System by Thomas Palley

The global economy is suffering from severe shortage of demand. In developed economies that shortfall is explicit in high unemployment rates and large output gaps. In emerging market economies it is implicit in their reliance on export-led growth. In part this shortfall reflects the lingering disruptive effects of the financial crisis and Great Recession, but it also reflects globalization's undermining of the income generation process.

One mechanism that can help rebuild this process is a global minimum wage system. That does not mean imposing U.S. or European minimum wages in developing countries. It does mean establishing a global set of rules for setting country minimum wages.

For full article:

http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/000197

This article is drawn from Chapter 12, "The Challenge of Globalization," of Thomas Palley's forthcoming book: From Financial Crisis to Stagnation: The Destruction of Shared Prosperity and the Role of Economic Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Part 34: Human Overload--how and why journalilsts avoid the population connection

By Frosty Wooldridge

“Mark Twain’s famous ‘silent assertion’ lives, breathes and manifests in the 21^st century.  The press continues to obfuscate cloud, deny, suppress and ignore America’s and humanity’s greatest dilemma: overpopulation.” 

                                                                                            FHW

          Why do you suppose most Americans remain apathetic to our hyper-population growth?  What rational person supports water shortages, climate change, and worse ramifications caused by more people? 

          Surprise!  Most vacant-minded leaders fail to see a problem.  Four years ago, I personally called U.S. Congressman Chris Cannon, (R-UT).  He said, “America can easily hold one billion people.”

          I nearly fell out of my chair.  It’s almost beyond my understanding that anyone can be that ‘obtuse’.  [Politically correct term for—dumber than a box of gerbils!]

          How do Americans live in denial?  For the life of me, I don’t understand.

          The imminent writer T. Michael Maher said, “Recent surveys show that Americans are less concerned about population than they were 25 years ago, and they aren’t connecting environmental degradation to population growth.

For full article:

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/869/802/Part_34:_Human_Overload-how_and_why_journalilsts_avoid_the_population_connection.html

PRB 2011 World Population Data Sheet - PR Newswire

World Adding Another Billion People Every 12 Years

Embargoed until 5 p.m. (EDT) (GMT-4), July 27, 2011

Global population will reach 7 billion later in 2011, just 12 years after reaching 6 billion in 1999

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today's world population is double the population in 1967. But while the overall growth rate has slowed, the population is still growing, and growth rates in some countries show little if any decline.

The Population Reference Bureau's 2011 World Population Data Sheet and its summary report will be released on July 27, 2011, at 5 p.m. (EDT) at www.prb.org. These publications offer detailed information on 18 population, health, and environment indicators for more than 200 countries. A webinar will be held on July 28, at 11 a.m. (EDT).

"Even though the annual population growth rate has declined to 1.2 percent per year, world population grows by about 83 million annually," says Wendy Baldwin, PRB's president. "If the late 1960s population growth rate of 2.1 percent—the highest in history—had held steady, world population would have grown by 117 million annually, and today's population would have been 8.6 billion."

For full article:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prb-2011-world-population-data-sheet-126285533.html

The scourge of 'peak oil' When demand for oil consistently surpasses supply, experts warn that our lives will look "very differently".

"We're going to see major changes in industrial civilisation ... anything with a parking lot is going to be in trouble" [EPA]

Energy derived from oil reaches, quite literally, every aspect of our lives. 



From the clothes we wear, to the food we eat, to how we move ourselves around, without oil, our lives would look very differently. 



Yet oil is a finite resource. While there is no argument that it won't last forever, there is debate about how much oil is left and how long it might last.



Tom Whipple, an energy scholar, was a CIA analyst for 30 years - and believes we are likely at, or very near, a point in history when the maximum production capacity for oil is reached, a phenomenon often referred to as "peak oil".



"Peak oil is the time when the world's production reaches the highest point, then starts back down again," Whipple told Al Jazeera. "Oil is a finite resource, and [it] someday will go down, and that is what the peak oil discussion is all about."



There are signs that peak oil may have already arrived.


For full article:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/07/201172081613634207.html

UNFPA to Produce Report on Ethiopian Population

By Andualem Sisay
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is set to launch Ethiopia’s population report focusing on the state and trend of Ethiopian population.

According to the UNFPA Deputy Representative, Ibrahim Sambuli, the reason behind is to showcase the rest of the world Ethiopia’s experiences in health extension program, women initiative and the like. “We are given green light from Ethiopian government to prepare a separate report that assesses Ethiopia’s population status,” he said this morning (July 26, 2011) briefing journalists gathered in Adama town, a hundred kilometers from the capital, for a workshop that deals with population issues.

For full article:

http://www.newbusinessethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=558:unfpa-to-produce-report-on-ethiopian-population-&catid=44:poverty-reduction&Itemid=55

The expected value of each human being is positive (on the Beckham's)

By: Timothy P. Carney | Senior Political Columnist

Soccer player David Beckham and his wife Victoria (formerly a performer) are being derided in the British press as "bad role models." No, they're not publicly carrying on affairs, fighting in public, or abandoning their children. Their sin: having four children.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/expected-value-each-human-being-positive#ixzz1TIN0Nutq

Global warming threatens world peace - UN - Legal Brief - Note

The UN Security Council has made their first official statement implicating climate change as a serious threat to world peace and security, says a Jurist report.

For full article:

http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=20110725081048984

Most Americans Want Scientists, Not Politicians, to Lead Climate Debate - Reuters

The latest results from an ongoing Yale/George Mason study indicate that Americans want experts to explain how human activities are altering the climate

By Elizabeth McGowan, SolveClimate News

WASHINGTON—Americans nationwide still have a quiver full of queries for experts about climate change.

But the content of their questions — and the sources they are likely to trust with answers — vary depending on their level of concern and engagement with the issue.

That's one of the latest conclusions drawn from an ongoing and wide-ranging study that has tracked how each of the "Six Americas" interprets the threats of global warming since the last presidential election. Researchers at Yale and George Mason universities first identified those half dozen separate audiences after their initial autumn 2008 survey.

For full article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/05/idUS333949079520110705

Watch your population growth, Kenya advised - Capital FM

NAIROBI, Kenya July 22 – Kenya needs to check its population growth rate just like its Vision 2030, benchmarking countries like Singapore and Malaysia, in order to achieve sustained development.

According to the CEO of the National Coordinating Agency for Population and Development, Dr Boniface K’Oyugi, a sustained population growth rate of 2.9 percent will make Kenya’s population to hit 70 million mark in 2030.

Dr K’Oyugi said that the Draft National Population policy is aimed at encouraging Kenyans to establish smaller families which are sustainable.

“This is policy that would like to align the aspirations of vision 2030 so that population can support targets of the vision,” he said adding that the population pressure also impacts negatively on the environment.

For full article:

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2011/07/22/watch-your-population-growth-kenya-advised/

Overpopulation: Don't buy 'more people, more problems' [Blowback] Los Angeles Times Part 2

Laura E. Huggins responds to The Times' July 24 Op-Ed article "The world's biggest problem? Too many people." Huggins is a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and at the Property and Environment Research Center. She was co-editor of the book "Population Puzzle: Boom or Bust?"

Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich write, "Unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial."

We are in denial for a reason. For more than 40 years, climaxing around the first Earth Day, the public has been bombarded with apocalyptic tales of disaster regarding population growth. Paul Ehrlich, for example, a Stanford professor, prominent prophet of population doom and contributor to this op-ed article, predicted in his 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb" that millions of people would die of starvation during the 1970s because the Earth's inhabitants would multiply at a faster rate than the world's ability to supply food. Six years later, in "The End of Affluence," a book he co-authored with his wife, Anne Ehrlich, the death toll estimates increased to a billion dying from starvation by the mid-1980s. By 1985, Ehrlich predicted, the world would enter a genuine era of scarcity.

For full article:

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/07/overpopulation-dont-buy-more-people-more-problems-blowback.html

Overpopulation debate comes to one conclusion - Los Angeles Times Part 1

Overpopulation is the world's biggest problem, write biologists Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich in Thursday's Op-Ed pages. They contend that the world's growing population is creating an unsustainable strain on Earth's resources and forcing the future of humanity to hang in the balance.  

Our editorial board recently took a similar position in "Diffusing the population bomb." "Nations cannot indefinitely produce larger and larger generations to support older ones," they wrote. "Humans may have the reproductive ability to keep raising their numbers, but the planet on which they do it is finite."

RealClearScience's Alex B. Berezow, however, debates whether overpopulation is actually a crisis. He writes that we don't need to worry about overpopulation because, in fact, in some places the population is actually decreasing. He offers birthrates in Russia as one example:

The problem is so bad in Russia, which may shrink by 25 million people in the next 40 years, that demographers are referring to a population crisis. This will put an enormous strain on Russia's economy as the government struggles to care for its aging population.

For full article:

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/07/overpopulation-debate-comes-to-one-conclusion-.html

Panel Recommends Coverage for Contraception - US

By ROBERT PEAR – NYT

WASHINGTON — A leading medical advisory panel recommended on Tuesday that all insurers be required to cover contraceptives for women free of charge as one of several preventive services under the new health care law.

Obama administration officials said that they were inclined to accept the panel’s advice and that the new requirements could take effect for many plans at the beginning of 2013. The administration signaled its intentions in January when Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, unveiled a 10-year program to improve the nation’s health. One goal was to “increase the proportion of health insurance plans that cover contraceptive supplies and services.”

Administration officials, who say they hope to act on the recommendations by Aug. 1, are receptive to the idea of removing cost as a barrier to birth control — a longtime goal of advocates for women’s rights and experts on women’s health.

For full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/health/policy/20health.html?_r=1&ref=us

food prices, says report Government support for ethanol has led to an increase in corn production and a steep rise in soybean imports

A growing number of US farmers are switching to crops such as corn in order to meet the demand for ethanol. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

Demand for biofuels in the US is driving this year's high food prices, a report has said. It predicts that food prices are unlikely to fall back down for another two years.

The report, produced by Purdue University economists for the Farm Foundation policy organisation, said US government support for ethanol, including subsidies, had fuelled strong demand for corn over the last five years.

A dramatic rise in Chinese imports of soybeans was also putting pressure on prices and supply, the report said.

For full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/19/biofuel-demand-us-fuel-prices

What's That Ticking Sound? The Male Biological Clock - Wall Street Journal

By JENNIFER VANDERBES

Several months ago, my friend Anna called to complain about her boyfriend of eight months. Bombarded by media warnings about the female biological clock, he wanted to make sure that Anna was fit for childbearing before the relationship moved forward. He had taken her to a fertility clinic where a reproductive endocrinologist drew blood to check her ovarian reserve and injected radioactive iodine into her uterus to ensure that her fallopian tubes were clear.

Anna is 32. Her boyfriend is 52.

Anna's boyfriend was right to be concerned. As women increasingly pursue careers and take advantage of fertility treatments to postpone childbirth into their 30s and 40s, they do place their offspring at risk for countless disorders and diseases. This occurs, however, not because of the woman's age but because women in their 30s, like Anna, tend to couple off with older men. And when it comes to fathering healthy children, older men, it turns out, are just as much at the mercy of their biological clocks.

                                        

For full article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576400161673484394.html