Abortion soars among women in 40s. The number of women having abortions in their 40s has risen by almost one third in a decade, according to new figures - UK

In total, 8,179 women aged 40 and over terminated pregnancies last year - including more than 650 women above the age of 45, and 21 women aged 50 and over Photo: ALAMY

by Laura Donnelly - The Telegraph – UK

Experts said the dramatic rise reflects increased sexual activity among older women, and higher numbers of single women and divorcees – who are far more likely than previous generations to have casual sex or short-term relationships.

The head of Britain's biggest abortion provider said women in their 40s – dubbed "The Sex and the City generation" – were increasingly inclined to take chances with contraception, only to be shocked when they became pregnant.

Pro-life campaigners described the figures as "extraordinarily depressing".

For full article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/women_shealth/8543857/Abortion-soars-among-women-in-40s.html

Russian Law Seeks to Lower Abortion Numbers

Kenneth Rapoza

Like a scene out of an old Charles Dickens novel, Russian women who are considering abortion might soon be able to leave their newborn children anonymously at the doorstep of special government funded wellness centers if a new bill passes the Russian parliament.

For full comment:

http://blogs.forbes.com/kenrapoza/2011/05/30/russian-law-seeks-to-lower-abortion-numbers/

Indian street kids work at dawn, then dream of school - (The youth bulge: Economic boom or demographic disaster?)

Indian street urchin studies at a school run by Save the Children NGO - AFP

Deccan Chronicle

Fourteen-year-old Deepchand should be learning but instead he lies sprawled fast asleep on the floor of an Indian school, exhausted by his early morning labours finding rubbish to sell.

Abandoned by his mother, his father dead, he works as a trash collector on the streets of New Delhi, starting two hours before dawn collecting plastic bottles, drink cans and metal anything that will earn him a little cash.

Deepchand, who like many street kids has only one name, uses the plastic bag in which he collects garbage as his sleeping bag when he beds down on the pavement at night.

For full article:

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/indian-street-kids-work-dawn-then-dream-school-507

Budget for a big push - Bangladesh

The Financial Express

Abdul Bayes, Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University looks at the future economy and finances of Bangladesh:

“Available indicators seem to suggest that the target set for the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate at 6.7 per cent is going to be realised. Of course, the growth rate estimates by World Bank and ADB put it on a lower side at 6.3 to 6.5 per cent. The growth rate of 6.7 per cent may surprise some people but not me.”

“The syndrome of our growth is dubbed a "demographic dividend". That means, our working labour force is growing at a higher pace than the population growth, and this burgeoning work force have been doing something to eke out a living. The main propeller of growth in recent periods was this simple behaviour - as perceived by economists.”

for full article:

http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=137475&date=2011-05-31

Robert Groves: Measuring the Latest Census News, by Claire Suddath, Time Magazine

America is aging. Americans are living longer but having fewer children, and the country's population growth can be largely attributed to immigration, much of it Hispanic. We've known this for a while — earlier reports have estimated that whites would become a minority in the U.S. by the year 2050 — but exactly how, where and at what rate these changes are happening has largely been a matter of conjecture.

On May 26, the U.S. Census bureau released two reports. One is an extensive study of the Hispanic population while the other details the slowing down of the U.S. population growth rate. The U.S. has a new median age of 37 years, up from 35 in 2000 and 33 in 1990.

For full article:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2074359,00.html#ixzz1NvjTJapp

Robert Groves - Director of the United States Census Bureau, a sociologist, and research professor in survey methodology.

Beware Malthusians in reasonable clothing The green critics of population control are just as misanthropic as their prophylactic-promoting opponents.

By Tim Black – Spike

The ambient jazzy, folky music - possibly nicked from a nearby Starbucks - had been turned to mute. The lights were dimmed. And the effect was near instant. The postgraduate-dominated audience under-populating the Bloomsbury Theatre in London was finally settling down in glum anticipation of ‘My vision for the future’, the first public event of ‘Population Footprints’ – a ‘UCL and Leverhulme Trust conference on human population growth and global carrying capacity’. Quite what the audience was expecting, I’m not sure. Doom-laden prophesying? Possibly. Encomia to family planning? Probably. Frighteningly self-righteous blather about there being too many people and too few resources? Almost definitely. This last, after all, is the great unmentionable that the green and the not-so-good can’t stop mentioning, a neo-Malthusian idea that has seized the withered imaginations of every repressed misanthrope from Forum for the Future founder Jonathon Porritt to the patron saint of wildlife programmes, Sir David Attenborough. As Attenborough himself said in a recent piece for the New Statesman: ‘The fundamental truth that Malthus proclaimed remains the truth: there cannot be more people on this earth than can be fed.’ For full article: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10560/

Employers targeted in illegal worker crackdown Obama administration shifts its focus to companies and away from illegal immigrants

By Julia Preston - The New York Times

TUCSON — Obama administration officials are sharpening their crackdown on the hiring of illegal immigrants by focusing increasingly tough criminal charges on employers while moving away from criminal arrests of the workers themselves.

After months of criticism from Republicans who said President Obama was relaxing immigration enforcement in workplaces, the scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions.

In a break with Bush-era policies, the number of criminal cases against unauthorized immigrant workers has dropped sharply over the last two years.

For full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43215651/ns/business-us_business/

Few options for educated youth under occupation - Palestine

Maan News Agency

JERUSALEM (IRIN) -- The lack of job opportunities for young people in the occupied Palestinian territories has created an unemployment crisis that could further destabilize the Arab region, experts warn.

"The largest generation, which was born in the 1980s, has reached working age... young adults are now perceived as the most problematic age group," notes sociologist and demographer Philippe Fargues, also director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence.

For full article:

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=392229

Forget politics, Gulf business leaders fear demographics - Youth bulge

By James Zogby

Given the upheavals occurring across the Middle East, it might be seen as remarkable that business leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar report high levels of satisfaction in the economic environment in their countries and optimism about the future. This is despite the fact that some of the most difficult situations are right on their doorsteps.

This was one of the findings of a business confidence survey conducted by Zogby International and Oliver Wyman, querying 164 executives across these Gulf countries. Completed this month, this is the fourth in a series of biannual surveys measuring not only confidence but priorities for reform and satisfaction with government performance on a range of economic matters.

What we found is that six in 10 executives say business conditions have improved in the past year, and an even higher percentage (65 per cent in the UAE, 81 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 92 per cent in Qatar) expect conditions to get better in the next two years. While about a third expressed concern with political unrest in the broader region, less than one in seven were concerned that unrest would affect economic conditions in the three countries covered in the survey.

For full article:

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/forget-politics-gulf-business-leaders-fear-demographics?pageCount=0

James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute

Demographic tectonics - Africa

By Pierre Buhler – Khaleej Times

The latest United Nations population figures provide a dramatic glimpse of how the demographic map of the planet is being reshaped. For the latest revision of its biennial “World Population Prospects,” the UN Population Division has extended its forecasts by 50 years, to 2100. Long-term forecasts must be taken with a grain of salt – they “have no operational role,” as the French demographer Herva Le Bras has written; they just help “staging and exaggerating today’s fears.”

Still, the margins of error allow for a fairly reliable picture of the world’s population in the decades to come. And what matters more is the breakdown of the aggregate figures, as their distribution holds far-reaching consequences.

For this, demography delivers a high level of certainty. The women liable to give birth within a generation are already born; life expectancy and mortality indexes evolve slowly. The most volatile factor is actually the fertility rate – the number of children per woman. Only if this rate is above the generation replacement level of 2.1 will there be a natural increase of a population. When it hovers between 5 and 7, as it does in some 20 countries, the “compounded interest” effect is extremely powerful.

Pierre Buhler is a former French diplomat and associate professor at Sciences Po, Paris,

For full article:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.aspcol=&section=opinion&xfile=data/opinion/2011/May/opinion_May149.xml

The idiocy of endless growth - Australia

By Dick Smith – The Sydney Morning Herald

It's the obvious but forbidden truth: on a finite and already swollen planet, we can't expand indefinitely.

Some time in the next few months, the world's population clock will tick over 7 billion people. Global population has tripled in my lifetime, and is continuing to rise. The United Nations has just predicted we face a world of 10 billion in 2100. This has immense implications for all of us, and Australia will not be immune from the impacts.

Dick Smith is a businessman and former Australian of the year. Dick Smith's Population Crisis is published today by Allen & Unwin.

For full article:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-idiocy-of-endless-growth-20110529-1fata.html#ixzz1NqMLyeev

Greenpeace chief visits Sun Valley to push for clean energy

By Karen Bossick - Times-News corresponent

KETCHUM — Clean energy is on the brink of equaling what comes from nuclear and coal-fired power plants, Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford said Saturday.

Radford, who is based in Washington, D.C., talked at the Sun Valley Wellness Festival over Memorial Day weekend. He also talked Saturday night at Light on the Mountains Spiritual Center near Ketchum.

The risks of nuclear power and coal are too great to consider building more plants in Idaho, as have been proposed, he said.

“Even if a disaster is not probable, if the consequences are big, it’s too risky,” he said.

Seaweed impacted by nuclear contamination following the Japanese tsunami contains 50 times more radiation than is safe for human consumption — “and seaweed is a big part of the Japanese diet,” Radford said.

For full article:

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/wood-river/article_38e7c637-e5f0-547a-9453-653dd3b3e28f.html

Green Failure: What’s Wrong With Environmental Education? - Yale Education

 Charles Saylan

Marine conservationist Charles Saylan believes the U.S. educational system is failing to create responsible citizens who consider themselves stewards of the environment. To do that, he says in a Yale Environment 360 interview, educators need to go beyond rhetoric and make environmental values a central part of a public education.

by michelle nijhuis

In a new book, Charles Saylan, co-founder and executive director of the California-based Ocean Conservation Society, and his co-author pose a key question: What can the U.S. educational system do to improve students’ understanding of the environment and its importance in their lives?

The environment is often seen as a political issue and pushed to the margins of school curricula by administrators and parents, note Saylan and Daniel Blumstein, a biology professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, in The Failure of Environmental Education (And How We Can Fix It). But at its core, the authors contend, environmental responsibility is a broadly held, nonpartisan value, much like respect for the law. As such, they believe, it deserves a central place in public education, with lessons on the environment permeating every student’s day. Environmentally active citizens, they say, should grasp everything from an understanding of tipping points to the “capacity to see intangible value in things: forests simply for the sake of the forest; the expanse of wilderness simply because it is alive, primal, and fiercely beautiful.”

In a Yale Environment 360 interview with journalist Michelle Nijhuis, Saylan emphasized his conviction that raising awareness is only half the job of environmental education. Students, he said, should be encouraged to tackle environmental problems in their own communities and should learn how the political process works and how they can act at the local, state, and national levels to turn individual beliefs into policy.

aylan also talked about the frustrations and rewards of his own experiences as an environmental educator and laid out his vision of what must be done to fundamentally overhaul environmental education. If environmental education is to be truly effective in creating responsible citizens who will help stop human degradation of the environment, Saylan insists, it must go well beyond platitudes and the occasional class trip.

For interview:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/green_failure_whats_wrong_with_environmental_education/2407/

Chile dams will bring social and environmental destruction

UTV News

A massive hydroelectric project was approved last Monday in Chile after three years of evaluations and big controversy. The project involves the construction of five hydroelectric power stations in two of the most untouched and wildest rivers in the world – the Baker and the Pascua rivers.

HidroAysén project will dam around 6,000 hectares in the remote southern Chilean Patagonia. This will have a deep environmental impact in a place as pure as that. The Aysén region is the less populated region in the country and is famous for its beauty and isolation. An interesting ecotourism industry has been developing in the area lately, which would be damaged by the dams. The project also includes the construction of a transmission line from Aysén region, all the way to the capital Santiago. This will mean power cables and 5,000 towers of 50 meters tall, one every 400 meters, along 2,200km. The effect will be the deforestation of 23,000 hectares, and six national parks as well as 11 national reserves will be damaged. The visual impact would be massive.

For full article:

http://www.u.tv/News/Chile-dams-will-bring-social-and-environmental-destruction/5e972cb0-28c3-4947-b650-ed6b9dfecbb1

Net migration to UK reaches highest level for the last five years Gap between those arriving to live in the UK for 12 months and those leaving to live abroad jumped by nearly 100,000

Polish migrant workers looking for work read job adverts in a Polish shop window in west London. Photograph: Alamy

By Alan Travis - Home Affairs – The Guardian

migration to Britain has risen to its highest level for five years, fuelled by a sharp fall in the number of people going to live abroad and a resurgence in Polish migrants coming to live in the UK.

The latest quarterly figures show that net migration – the gap between those arriving to live in the UK for more than 12 months and those leaving to live abroad – jumped by nearly 100,000 in the year to September 2010, to 243,000.

The unexpected rise is a major blow to the Conservatives' pledge to reduce the number to the "tens of thousands" by the next general election in 2015.

For full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/26/net-migration-uk-immigration

U.S. Sees Surge in Asian, Hispanic Populations

Conor Dougherty – Wall Street Journal

New findings from the Census Bureau show that Asians and Hispanics are the nation's fastest-expanding large minority groups, and shed light on which states are seeing most population growth from the groups.

For full article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576349712589423294.html

Baby boom to baby bust - Australia

Bernard Salt From:
 The Australian May 28, 2011 12:00AM

THE Big Tilt is the proposition that from 2011 onwards there will be a fundamental shift in the demography of Australia.

This is the idea that over the past 60 years the number of people entering the workforce has exceeded the number exiting through retirement. But with what some demographers are calling "the baby bust", and with the first baby boomer born in 1946 turning 65 in 2011, this means that during the 2010s more people will exit than enter the productive stage of the life cycle. This is best demonstrated through the interplay between the 15 and the 65 cohorts.

For full article:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/baby-boom-to-baby-bust/story-fn59niix-1226064006938

Is the U.S. entering a population slump?

By John D. Sutter, CNN

The population of the United States is still growing -- but not the way it once was. And it definitely isn't booming like populations in some other countries in the world.

Between 2000 and 2010, the country grew at a rate of 9.7%, which was lower than any decade since the Great Depression, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which is releasing a steady stream of stats about the nation.

During the 1930s, the country grew at a rate of about 7%. For comparison, the U.S. grew at a rate of about 19% in the 1950s, during the baby boom, and things generally have been slowing down since then.

For full article:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-26/us/national.population.growth_1_population-growth-global-population-world-population?_s=PM:US

Water wars? Thirsty, energy-short China stirs fear Remapping of rivers in world's most heavily populated region is happening on a gigantic scale, with potentially strategic implications

By DENIS D. GRAY - Associated Press

BAHIR JONAI, India — The wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock.

No one knows exactly how the disaster happened, but everyone knows whom to blame: neighboring China.

"We don't trust the Chinese," says fisherman Akshay Sarkar at the resettlement site where he has lived since the 2000 flood. "They gave us no warning. They may do it again."

About 500 miles east, in northern Thailand, Chamlong Saengphet stands in the Mekong river, in water that comes only up to her shins. She is collecting edible river weeds from dwindling beds. A neighbor has hung up his fishing nets, his catches now too meager.

Using words bordering on curses, they point upstream, toward China.

For full article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42630131/ns/world_news-world_environment/t/water-wars-thirsty-energy-short-china-stirs-fear/

House bans funds for teaching abortion techniques - USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to ban teaching health centers from using federal money to train doctors on how to perform abortions, the latest in a series of anti-abortion measures pushed by the Republican majority.

The author of the measure, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said she wanted to make it "crystal clear that taxpayer money is not being used to train health care providers to perform abortion procedures."

The proposal was presented as an amendment to the latest of several GOP bills to restrict funding for the health care act that was enacted last year. This bill gives Congress control over spending for a program to encourage health centers to provide training to medical residents. The amendment applies to funding in that grant program.

The Foxx amendment passed 234-182 despite the objections of some Democrats that it would prevent health centers from teaching a basic medical technique that can be critical to saving a woman's life during emergencies.

"This amendment would jeopardize both education and women's health care by obliterating funding for a necessary full range of medical training by health care professionals," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

For full article:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ja7O7jcXO-13VISb9xcj_1TknOsQ?docId=fb2b69c2e56a4a7f98b5d9c60b3c2370

Unemployment Crisis Puts Global Recovery At Risk, OECD Says

By Janell Ross – HuffPost Business

Global recovery might be under way, but so long as unemployment remains elevated worldwide, recovery will remain fragile at best, a new report finds.

Since the recession shook economies around the world, most countries have returned to modest levels of growth. Sustaining that recovery, however, will require jobs for some of the more than 50 million who can't find work in the world's most developed economies, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's latest Economic Outlook report.

"This is a delicate moment for the global economy, and the crisis is not over until our economies are creating enough jobs again," OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said in a statement.

For full article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/unemployment-recovery-oecd-global_n_866829.html

Demographic Tectonics - (Growing migratory pressures)

By Pierre Buhler - New York Times

PARIS — Slow but steady contraction in the north, vigorous and sustained expansion in Africa; seven billion of us by October this year, eight billion sometime around 2025. The latest United Nations population figures provide a dramatic glimpse of how the demographic map of the planet is being reshaped.

For the latest revision of its biennial “World Population Prospects,” the U.N. Population Division has extended its forecasts by 50 years, to 2100. Long-term forecasts must be taken with a grain of salt — they “have no operational role,” as the French demographer Hervé Le Bras has written; they just help “staging and exaggerating today’s fears.”

Still, the margins of error allow for a fairly reliable picture of the world’s population in the decades to come. And what matters more is the breakdown of the aggregate figures, as their distribution holds far-reaching consequences.

For this, demography delivers a high level of certainty. The women liable to give birth within a generation are already born; life expectancy and mortality indexes evolve slowly. The most volatile factor is actually the fertility rate — the number of children per woman. Only if this rate is above the generation replacement level of 2.1 will there be a natural increase of a population. When it hovers between 5 and 7, as it does in some 20 countries, the “compounded interest” effect is extremely powerful.

Unsurprisingly, Asia remains the largest human reservoir, holding more than 60 percent of the world’s population — a proportion that should still be around 55 percent by 2050.

What is most striking, though, is the unabated demographic swelling of Africa. Africa’s population has almost doubled between 1975 and 2000, growing from 416 to 811 million; it will add another 75 percent to reach 1.4 billion people in 2025, and presumably another 55 percent to reach the staggering figure of 2.2 billion by mid-century.

For full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/opinion/26iht-edbuhler26.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Pierre Buhler is a former French diplomat and associate professor at Sciences Po, Paris.

The French paradox, and the British backlash - Immigration

By E.G Austin – The Economist

One of the interesting aspects of immigration in France is that it highlights the tension between integration and anti-discrimination. Like other countries, France has at times been in the business of soliciting immigrants, but not just any immigrants. Of course, as we saw with Australia, a country can't just pick and choose its immigrants, unless it has the will and the capacity to fiercely enforce its borders against irregular migration. And so France, in recognition of this reality and with its high degree of cultural self-regard, adopted an aggressive stance on integration. Patrick Simon, the head of France's National Institute for Demographic Studies, explained that by the 2005 "integration contract", would-be immigrants were checked on "integration skills" such as knowledge of French values and norms, and linguistic proficiency. Integration was thereby not just an abstract concept or a vague policy goal: it was a selection criterion. "The idea is to produce invisibility," said Mr Simon, "invisibility so equality will be reached."

EU proposes way to control immigration from Africa - Growing migratory pressures

by Ivan Camilleri, Brussels for The Times of Malta, 25th May, 2011

The European Commission yesterday unveiled new plans aimed at better managing migration flows from Africa towards Europe and combating illegal immigration.

Brussels also proposed the introduction of a “safeguard clause” in its visa regime that would enable it to reintroduce restrictions if some states abused of the EU visa waiver.

Announcing the new “long-term” measures, European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said the EU would be doing its utmost to conclude “mobility partnerships” with North African countries that would facilitate legal channels of migration. This would be in exchange of obligations concerning the return of illegal migrants trying to enter the EU.

The EU Executive was aiming to establish its first mobility partnerships with Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, she said.

The proposals are clearly in response to the influx of thousands of economic migrants to Lampedusa from Tunisia over the past weeks.

For full article:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110525/local/EU-proposes-way-to-control-immigration-from-Africa.367137

Russian Demographics - Something Stirring in the East? - Expose on Russian demographics: Pro-natalism in Russia, Action and Reaction?

By Claus Vistesen, ON MAY 24TH, 2011 - Citizen Economists

One of the reasons that I have always had a problem with Goldman Sachs’ infamous notion of the BRIC economies was not the fact that it excluded other important economies such as e.g Chile or Indonesia, but rather that Brazil, India, Russia and China never belonged in the same group. The reason for this is largely because of demographics. Both Russia and China are consequently set to age much more rapidly than India and Brazil due to very rapid fertility transition in the 1990s. The demographic situation is especially dire in Russia which not only saw a dramatic and lingering decline in fertility in the 1990s but also saw a corresponding increase in mortality (aids and alcohol as big culprits).

The Hypocrisy of Being Green and Making Babies - HuffPost Green

By Toni Nagy

If you had one louse on your head, would you think it was a problem? How about two? Would you hunt down and exterminate the Adam and Eve of lice nestled in your hair, or let them be? What about 10? Or 20? Or 200? What is the number you would tolerate before dunking your head in toxic poison to kill them all? Sometimes I think that is how the earth feels about us. Even though I know overpopulation is a serious threat to the environment, it is hard to come up with a solution. I mean, I am not a mathematician or anything, but either more people have to die or fewer people have to be born.

About a year ago, when I was pregnant, I saw this video by comedian Doug Stanhope:

For video and full article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-nagy/the-hypocrisy-of-being-green-and-reproducing_b_862487.html

Bill Gates responds to the question "Will combating global poverty contribute to overpopulation?"

Short interview with Bill Gates on the question of healthcare and population growth

Population Matters for a sustainable future - NEWS RELEASE - Tuesday 24 May

- For immediate release

 - Most people think the UK population is “too high”

In a recent YouGov survey of 3,538 UK adults, almost four out of five (79%) thought the UK population was too high, with almost half (45%) saying it was much too high.

The majority view within each demographic group and region was that the UK population was too high.

The release of the survey coincides with a major international symposium on human population growth and global carrying capacity, organised by UCL and the Leverhulme Trust, being held in London this week (May 25th and 26th). 

See www.populationfootprints.org



The survey, commissioned by Population Matters, also found that over four out of five (84%) thought the world population was too high, with over half (53%) thinking it was much too high.

International Day of Biodiversity on the 22 May was a good reason to celebrate nature, it is also a reminder that we are not the only form of life on this planet.

International Day of Biodiversity – let's put conservation at the heart of politics

Unless biodiversity loss goes on the agenda of every minister from transport to trade, our generation will fail the next one

By Janez Potočnik, Guardian.co.uk

We might think of ourselves as an intelligent species but our self-destructive behaviour, at least as far as nature's delicate infrastructure is concerned, shows little evidence that this is true. The well-documented fact is that we are at risk of destroying this precious planet for future generations, or at least saddling them with an enormous financial and environmental legacy of having to fix the problems we couldn't.

This callous disregard is directly linked to growth. During the 20th century, the human population grew by four times and economic output by 40 times. We increased our fossil fuel use by 16 times, our fishing catches by 35 and our water use by 9. At the same time – and it is no coincidence – we have been living through an alarming global decline in species and natural habitats at up to 1,000 times the natural rate. In the EU alone, up to one quarter of animal species is threatened with extinction and 88% of our fish stocks are over-exploited. Most of our ecosystem services are 'degraded' – ie no longer able to deliver those basic and largely unknown, yet vital services such as crop pollination, clean air and water, and control of floods or erosion.

For full article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/20/international-day-biodiversity-heart-politics

Whether a big Australia or small, immigration can't be ignored

By Anna Boucher

The issue of population has been a contentious one as Australians have heard one leader extol the virtues of a "big Australia" (Kevin Rudd), while his successor, Julia Gillard, shrank from the term and added sustainability to the population minister's portfolio.

Now, that minister, Tony Burke, has released a report on population that is short and contains a glaring omission — meaningful discussion of immigration's role in population growth.

Based upon the immigration intake and previous projections by Treasury, Australia's population is likely to increase to about 36 million by 2050. Yet, the report, Sustainable Australia - Sustainable Communities, makes no mention of any number.

For full article:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/whether-a-big-australia-or-small-immigration-cant-be-ignored-20110523-1f0c8.html#ixzz1NGPXe4ou

Dr Anna Boucher is lecturer in government and international relations, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney.

UN Chief warns Nigeria against population explosion

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, on Monday warned Nigeria against population explosion, saying the current figure of 158 million could balloon to 730 million by 2100.

"I am really scared about population explosion in Nigeria. It is not healthy. Nigeria should work towards attaining a maximum of three children per family," Sachs told AFP on the margins of a presidential interactive meeting with key members of the business community.

For full article:

http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article1083058.ece/UN-Chief-warns-Nigeria-against-population-explosion

Overcoming the threat of population boom - Jakarta (Indonesia)

By Sudirman Nasir, Makassar

Several government officials, demographers and public health analysts have recently reminded us that the threat of a population boom in Indonesia is real. 

In point of fact, population growth in the country during the period from 2000 to 2010 was 1.49 percent per year, compared to 1.45 percent during the period of 1990 
to 2000. 

The rate translates into at least 3.5 million births per year, which will significantly augment Indonesia’s current population size of 237.6 million people.

In just five more years, Indonesia’s population could swell to more than 250 million people. Furthermore, the United Nations has predicted the country’s population will reach 263 million by 2025.

We should look at the above figures as an early warning, indicating the possibility of a multi-dimensional crisis in the next 15 to 30 years. For sure, the rise of annual population growth rate will over-stretch and overload Indonesia’s limited resources as well as trigger various social, economic, security, ecological and public health problems in the coming years.

For full atticle:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/05/24/overcoming-threat-population-boom.html