Overpopulation to become a serious problem soon - The issue of Bangladesh

The fears of the overpopulated conditions of Bangladesh have been termed baseless and unfounded by a number of analysts. Rather, they have been pointing to its growing agricultural productivity, particularly cereal production, that maintained a balance of sorts between population growth and food supply to assert the opposite view.

For full article:

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=127091&date=2011-02-25

Air traffic in 24 hours.wmv (better quality: add &fmt=18 to url!) Video

Time to pause and think.. a fab video

What's Behind Egypt's Problems?

To read article: What's Behind Egypt's Problems?

Earth doomed, to be effaced by over population by Business & Health

By Christine Jared-Perrin | February 21, 2011 11:46 AM AEST

The face of the Earth would be undistinguishable in the year 2050 as the population boom of no less than 10 billion will leave people battling for scarce resources all over the world, researchers at a US science conference have warned.

to read more: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/114367/20110221/earth-ohio-state-university-over-population-food-production-united-nations.htm

Budget cuts to family planning have a cost, USA TODAY

Budget cuts to family planning have a cost

By Veronica Flores-Paniagua/Express-News

Updated 12:01 a.m., Saturday, February 19, 2011

The irony shouldn't be lost on anyone that, on the same day the state Senate passed the sonogram bill that supporters hope will stave off some abortions, the attorney general issued twin rulings that could limit impoverished women's access to family planning services.

This unfolds while lawmakers are contemplating sharp reductions in family-planning funding for services that help reduce the number of Medicaid-paid births and unplanned pregnancies.

What's next? A law that keeps women in bare feet?

Thursday's rulings from state Attorney General Greg Abbott target Planned Parenthood. The organization has offered reproductive health services to women through the fledgling, state-funded Women's Health Program since 2007. Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, a physician and chairman of the Senate Nominations Committee, sought the opinion to support his contention that Planned Parenthood's family planning clinics shouldn't be eligible for WHP funding because the clinic network also includes abortion facilities.

New GOP Hostage: End Family Planning in the U.S. or Shut Down Govt

For article: New GOP Hostage: End Family Planning in the U.S. or Shut Down Govt

Over-exploitation as an indication of excessive human presence

By Alok Jha, science correspondent

Eat more anchovies, herring and sardines to save the ocean's fish stocks

We should consume less of the fish at the top of the food chain and more of their prey to rebalance the marine ecosystem, says fisheries scientist.

Cut back on tuna and salmon and load your plate instead with herring and sardines if you want to help save the world's fish. So says the scientist who led the most comprehensive analysis ever carried out of fish stocks in the world's oceans and how they have changed over the past century.

The study by Villy Christensen of the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Centre confirmed some previous indications that populations of predator fish at the top of the food chain, such as cod, tuna and groupers, have suffered huge declines, shrinking by around two-thirds in the past 100 years. More than half that decline occurred in the past 40 years.

To read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/18/fishing-food

The Fight to Save Family Planning - from the Huffington Post

Budget cutting fever is sweeping Capitol Hill this week as the House of Representatives debates a temporary spending bill that would slash discretionary spending in 2011. When it comes to family planning, the "fever" has reached viral hemorrhagic proportions. It's like an outbreak of the Ebola virus.


Now, in their budget cutting zeal, some House Republicans, led by Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH, 5th), are reportedly gearing up to wipe out the $648 million a year currently being spent for international family planning assistance. Never mind that doing so would deny family planning services to 26.5 million women in the developing world, and would result in 7.8 million more unintended pregnancies, 3.7 million more abortions, 87,000 additional newborn deaths, and 12,000 additional maternal deaths. Because those numbers don't appear as a line item in the federal budget, it appears that they don't matter to budget-cutting zealots.


To read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-walker/the-fight-to-save-family-_b_824086.html

World Bank warns food prices at 'dangerous levels'

16 February 2011 Last updated at 11:13 GMT

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Food prices are at dangerous levels according to the World Bank and have pushed 44 million more people into poverty since June.

The rapid increase is hitting the poor particularly hard and it is an issue likely to be on the agenda at the G20 meeting in Paris on Wednesday.

The worldwide problem is causing inflationary pressures across the developing world, as Kate Peevor reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12477941

Choke Point: China - Confronting Water Scarcity and Energy Demand in the World's Fastest Growing Industrial Economy

By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue

Exploring an escalating confrontation over resources with global implications.

Water scarcity, rapid economic growth and soaring energy demand are forming a tightening noose that could choke off China's modernization.

To read more http://www.csrwire.com/csrlive/commentary_detail/3843-Choke-Point-China-Confronting-Water-Scarcity-and-Energy-Demand-in-the-World-s-Fastest-Growing-Industrial-Economy

New tests reveal many pesticides block male hormones — Environmental Health News

The second "Green Revolution" which permitted cereal production alone to double between 1961-1985.. ..and so permitted our numbers to grow... is anything but green...

Many agricultural pesticides – including some previously untested and commonly found in food – disrupt male hormones, according to new tests conducted by British scientists. The researchers strongly recommended that all pesticides in use today be screened to check if they block testosterone, which is critical to men’s and boys’ reproductive health. Thirty out of 37 pesticides tested by the University of London altered male hormones, including 16 that had no known hormonal activity until now. Most are fungicides applied to fruit and vegetable crops, including strawberries and lettuce. “This study indicates that, not surprisingly, there are many other endocrine disruptors that we have not yet identified or know very little about,” said Emily Barrett, a University of Rochester scientist who was not involved in the study. The findings come as the EPA faces opposition from the pesticide industry after expanding its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, which requires testing of about 200 chemicals found in food and drinking water to see if they interfere with estrogen, androgens or thyroid hormones.

To read more:

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/pesticides-block-male-hormones

World food shortage a scary thing | Farm Press Blog

A LOOK AT THE DAUNTING TASK AHEAD FOR U.S. FARMERS


How commercial farmers will continue to feed a growing world population and a faster growing Middle Class can be a scary thing. Facing reality of future food shortages and taking steps to avoid them is a better alternative than hoping it will all work out. 


To read more:
http://southeastfarmpress.com/blogger/roy-roberson

How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? (part 1 of 6) Video

Resource Scarcity - Review by Forbes (Video)

The World's Toilet Crisis by Vanguard TV

Vanguard correspondent Adam Yamaguchi travels to India, Singapore and Indonesia to understand why people don't use toilets and what's being done to end the practice of open defecation. 

An estimated 2.6 billion people, about 40% of the world's population, have no access to toilets and defecate anywhere they can. As a result, more than 2 million people -- including 1.5 million children -- die from complications of chronic diarrhea.

When human waste isn't contained or flushed down the toilet, it's everywhere -- in streets, open fields and, most dangerously, in the very water people drink. Adam investigates how countries are trying to solve an epidemic that few people want to talk about -- the world's toilet crisis.

"Vanguard," airing weekly on Current TV Wednesdays at 10/9c, is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.

For more and video clip: http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92482205_the-worlds-toilet-crisis.htm

News from the World Economic Forum - The Davos Debrief: Policy Priorities

Sunday 30 January, 09.00 – 10.00, 2011

“Action is also needed on the population “cluster bombs” that will see a world populated by 7 billion people by the end of this year and possibly 9 billion people by 2050. Those 3 billion babies will be born in some of the world’s poorest places. Virtually all of the 60 countries with annual population growth rates of 2% or more are low-income and middle-income economies.

Human ingenuity and technological progress had rescued the world when population numbers doubled in the last century and productivity kept pace with the growth. A world with 9 billion people, however, will be a more serious problem because it coincides with rising expectations about standards of living.

Everyone will want to have a big house and a car, travel and enjoy the appurtenances of modern life, yet the planet’s finite resources cannot sustain those demands. On the other hand, if population growth is slowed by education and empowerment of women, for example, what would have been spent on those 3 billion babies can be used on the basics of inclusive growth such as health, education and gender equality.

Policy-makers are beginning to pay more attention to prevention, and this is as it should be. The emphasis should shift from treatment and care to childhood vaccination, exclusive breast feeding and all the way to chronic diseases, which are estimated to affect up to 60% of the global population.

Yet another policy priority is the rise of technology and its effect on how people and institutions relate and communicate with one another. Young people no longer read newspapers or long reports, for example, yet they remain well-informed. Institutions should learn to communicate with them through such routes as social media and smart-phone apps.”

The world's rubbish dump: a tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

The Independent
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent, and Daniel Howden

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."


http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html