UK: Schools ‘must give sex education’
Schools should be forced to give sex and relationship education lessons to pupils, a Labour MP has said. Chris Bryant (Rhondda) said the UK had a “terrible” problem with teenage pregnancy in comparison to other European countries.
But Tory Therese Coffey said it should be for parents to decide how to provide sex and relationship education [...]
Bees stung by ‘climate change-linked’ early pollination
Climate change could be affecting pollination by disrupting the synchronised timing of flower opening and bee emergence from hibernation, suggests new US-based research. Declining numbers of bees and other pollinators have been causing growing concern in recent years, as scientists fear that decreased pollination could have major impacts on world food supplies.
Previous studies have focused [...]
Britain’s bumblebees at risk of extinction because of inbreeding
The University of Stirling study found that isolated populations of a rare bumblebee on a remote Scottish island are more susceptible to disease because of a lack of genetic diversity. The research could have implications for other rare insects and animals struggling to survive in nature reserves or zoos.
Conservationists said that the results showed the [...]
Governments must ramp up action to ward off looming water crisis, UN report warns
With competition on the rise between humans and other species for the world’s limited water supplies, governments must take environmental issues into consideration when drafting laws on the use of water to avert an impending water crisis, cautions a new United Nations report.Although more than two-thirds of the planet is covered in water, only 2.5 [...]
The rise and rise of water shortage
Over the past 2000 years, population increase has been four times more significant than climate change in the rise of water shortage. That’s according to researchers from Finland and The Netherlands, who have analysed population growth, climate data and water-resource availability.
“Moderate water shortage first appeared around 1800, but it commenced in earnest from about 1900 [...]
In India the granaries are full but the poor are hungry
India’s grain warehouses are bursting at the seams and sacks of rice and wheat lie rotting in the open for lack of storage space. These government-managed stocks are for offsetting a fall in agricultural production in the event of drought or floods, but are also meant for sale to the poorest segment of the population [...]
Congolese chimpanzees face new ‘wave of killing’ for bushmeat
They are some of the most myusterious apes on the planet that according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. But according to an 18-month study of remote human settlements deep in the Congolese jungle, chimpanzees are being subjected to a “wave of killing” by bushmeat hunters.
The scientists who [...]
Forest carbon stores may be massively overestimated
Rainforests may store much less carbon than we thought. It could be time to dramatically revise our estimates following the discovery that apparently similar forests hold vastly different amounts of the stuff. The finding is important because there are plans for governments worldwide to compensate tropical countries for rotecting their forests as “carbon sinks” to [...]
Climate shifts ‘not to blame’ for African civil wars
Climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, a study suggests. It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest. Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak [...]
New detailed map shows carbon in Peru’s Amazon
A new, highly detailed map of part of Peru’s Amazon shows how much climate-warming carbon is stored there, and where cutting down vegetation has sent this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, scientists said on Monday. The three-dimensional map could help clear the way for an international agreement to curb deforestation and forest degradation, which account [...]
Syria: Photos reveal devastation of a years-long drought
On a dusty, rocky plain patches of dried grass try to poke through. A couple of makeshift tents, composed of scraps of material flapping insecurely in the wind, attract the eye while two swaddled figures can be seen talking in the background. Utterly exposed and barren, a feeling reinforced by the black and white photographer Doha Hassan, [...]
9,000 free condom vending machines set up in Shanghai
Shanghai residents, including students and migrant workers, will now be provided free condoms through more than 9,000 vending machines to be set up across this business capital of China. Condom vending machines will be put up in dormitory buildings, restrooms and laundries ‘where students can help themselves’, officials from the city’s family planning service said, [...]
US company plans to ship fresh water from Alaska to India
Photo: Dipak Kumar/Reuters
Imagine an oil tanker plowing through the ocean, hauling valuable cargo from resource-rich nations of the world to the countries that need it: but instead of oil, the tanker holds millions of gallons of fresh water.
It’s not a vision from some futuristic film or doomsday novel, but the present-day intention of companies trying [...]
UN calls special meeting to address food shortages amid predictions of riots
Two years after the last food crisis, when prices surged by nearly 15% in the UK, food inflation is back. Soaring global food prices have prompted City and food industry experts to warn that the cost of the weekly shop is set to rise by up to 10% in the coming months. As in 2008, [...]
Migratory birds decline in UK due to low African rain
Photo:ALAMY
Ornithologists have found that species including the turtle dove, willow warbler, tree pipit and redstart are struggling to find enough food in the weeks before they set off in the spring to fly to the UK. The scientists believe that years of poor rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa have reduced supplies of the seeds, fruits and [...]
Rising wheat prices raise fears over UK commitment to biofuels
The soaring price of wheat has raised questions about the UK’s commitment to biofuels as it attempts to wean itself from its dependence on oil. A network of biorefineries that convert wheat and other crops into bioethanol that can then be blended with petrol are being developed as the UK looks to meet its EU [...]
A climate warning from the deep
Photograph: British Antarctic Survey
Bryozoans make unlikely prophets of doom. Nevertheless, scientists believe these tiny marine creatures, which live glued to the side of boulders, rocks and other surfaces, reveal a disturbing aspect about Antarctica that has critical implications for understanding the impact of climate change.
British Antarctic Survey researchers have found the dispersal of these minute [...]
Temperature records to be made public
The UK Met Office is leading the project to create a new set of temperature records from around the world. The move is being seen as a response to criticism by global warming sceptics of the withholding of data used in climate change research. The records, taken from land-based temperature recording stations around the world, will [...]
Population control gets govt priority in Bangladesh
A six-point recommendation had been put forward from Thursday’s(September 2) meeting of the National Population Council to keep the country’s population growth rate at a balanced level. The Population Council, which held its first meeting in the last 14 years Thursday at the PM’s Office, also reorganised its committee consisting of 60 members with Prime [...]
Jakarta ‘cannot accommodate’ any more people
In a efforts to control the seasonal influx of newcomers to the capital, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo recently urged the public not to bring friends or relatives back with them after the Idul Fitri exodus. “In Tambora there are so many people that you trip over children when you walk,” Fauzi said as quoted by [...]
Kenya: A High Population Rate is No Blessing
Contrary to previous impressions that Kenya’s population growth was slowing down, the census results published on Tuesday demonstrate that the situation is not getting better. On average, a Kenyan woman gives birth to four or five children. The statistics also indicate that every year, one million children are born.
To illustrate the magnitude of the problem, [...]
Phillipines: CDO archdiocese launches two natural family planning books
The Cagayan de Oro (CDO) archdiocese in Mindanao has launched two books on natural family planning (NFP). CDO Archbishop Antonio Ledesma said this is part of the Catholic church’s promotion of NFP as an alternative to the artificial contraceptive methods.
According to the Natural Family Planning International, Inc. (NFPI) website, “NFP is a way of following [...]
China rapidly aging after 30 years of birth control policy
China, the world’s most populous country, is rapidly aging after it enforced a one-child policy 30 years ago, statistics showed Wednesday. According to the China Population and Development Research, 350 million out of the expected total population of 1.45 billion will be aged over 65 by 2050. The number is equivalent to nearly one out [...]
UN debuts website for tracking climate aid
Due to drought and lack of green grass for their cattles, Turkana pastoralist women are migrating in the area of Lorengippi, Northern Kenya. Developing countries are hoping for more ‘climate aid’ from rich countries. Photograph: Roger Job
The UN has today launched a new website designed to track climate funding commitments from industrialised countries in a [...]
U.S. reiterates commitment to 2020 climate goal
The United States reiterated on Friday that it was committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. “I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I’m quite sure the president isn’t,” U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during two days [...]
Are solar panels the next e-waste?
In recent years the electronics industry has gained notoriety for creating an endless stream of disposable products that make their way at life’s end to developing countries, where poor people without safety gear cut and burn out valuable materials, spilling contaminants into their water, air, and lungs.
Solar modules contain some of the same potentially dangerous [...]
Now meat price surge raises fear of food inflation
Freakish weather conditions and soaring demand from China, Brazil and other fast-emerging economies have pushed meat prices around the world to a 20-year high. International food prices have risen to their highest in two years, shooting up five per cent between July and August. Wheat is up by more than 50 per cent since May. [...]
Amazon river level in Peru at 40-year low
The Amazon river has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years in north-eastern Peru, causing severe economic disruption in a region where it is the main transport route. At least six large boats have been stranded near the port city of Iquitos. The low water level is the result of a prolonged spell of [...]
Openness urged on UK’s emissions
The UK government’s chief environment scientist has called for more openness in admitting Britain’s apparent cuts in greenhouse gases are an illusion. Robert Watson says that if emissions “embedded” in imported goods are counted, UK emissions are up, not down. He says the same syndrome is true for other rich nations which offshored manufacturing industry. [...]
Tibetan nomads struggle as grasslands disappear from the roof of the world
Like generations of Tibetan nomads before him, Phuntsok Dorje makes a living raising yaks and other livestock on the vast alpine grasslands that provide a thatch on the roof of the world. But in recent years the vegetation around his home, the Tibetan plateau, has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess livestock and plagues of [...]
UK: Record population increase is ‘the biggest since the Sixties’
The population of England and Wales took a record leap upwards last year, official estimates showed yesterday. The number topped 55million - a rise of more than 400,000 on the 2008 figure. The 0.74 per cent rise was the highest percentage annual increase since the Sixties. It also meant that the population for the UK [...]
Road to cut off Serengeti migration route
Look out wildebeest, here come the cars. Tanzania’s government plans to build a commercial road in the north of Serengeti National Park, cutting through the migratory route of 2 million wildebeest and zebra. The road would cut the animals off from their dry-season watering holes, causing the wildebeest population to dwindle to just a quarter [...]
Liberia: Something New for the Senior Class - Girls
When students return to the classroom at Bopolu Central High School this year, there will be something not seen at the school since it reopened after Liberia’s long civil war: senior-class women. Marking a milestone for a school struggling with a gender gap, eight girls are expected among Bopolu’s 24 seniors. While Bopolu’s primary grades [...]
Financing said vital for world climate change deal
A global fund to help poorer countries switch to green industrial technology is vital in any new international pact to battle global warming, Switzerland’s top climate change negotiator said on Wednesday. The official, Franz Perrez, was speaking at a news conference on the eve of a two-day gathering of environmental ministers and experts from some [...]
Kenya: Camel clinics bring condoms to nomads
Photo: Nomadic Communities Trust
In the remote and rural district of Samburu, northern Kenya, where paved roads are scarce and motorised transport hard to come by, reaching the mostly pastoralist and nomadic inhabitants with HIV/AIDS services requires an unusual approach.
John Lokolale, 21, a Samburu Moran (warrior), said he did not know what the word condom meant [...]
Help for Women Who Are Forced to Get Pregnant
The old stereotype of the gold-digging hussy who gets pregnant to trap a man into marriage seems to have faded, probably because women are not as economically dependent on men as they once were. But that’s not to say that pregnancy is no longer being wielded as a weapon: researchers who work in family planning [...]
Lincolnshire, UK: Fall in teenage conceptions will benefit region’s young people
A woman is given a contraception injection
A record low in teenage pregnancy figures could signal a brighter future for the region’s children according to health chiefs. The high teenage pregnancy rate was highlighted as a key area of concern in the region’s 2009 health report. But a boost in Long Acting Reversible Contraception procedures following [...]
U.N. to study impact of incomplete climate action
The U.N. panel of climate scientists will look at the costs of “second best” ways of fighting global warming amid doubts that all countries will sign up to U.N.-led action, a leading expert said on Tuesday. Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the U.N. working group looking at the economics of global warming, said the last U.N. [...]
Wheat sends food prices up: FAO Food Price Index climbs five percent in August
Surging wheat prices drove international food prices up five percent last month in the biggest month-on-month increase since November 2009, FAO announced. The FAO Food price Index (FFPI) averaged 176 points in August, up nearly nine points from July, FAO said in its latest update on the global cereals supply and demand situation. The increase [...]
UK biofuels ‘falling short’ on environmental standards
The Renewable Fuels Agency says it is disappointed that the vast majority of biofuels sold on UK forecourts do not conform to environmental standards. The body said fuel suppliers were meeting legally binding volume targets but some were falling “well short” on achieving voluntary green standards. But since biofuels have had to be mixed into [...]
Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye
The ice may not retreat as much as feared this year, but what remains may be more rotten than robust. Last September September, David Barber was on board the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, heading into the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. He was part of a team investigating ice conditions in autumn, the time when [...]
Kenya’s population soars by 10 million
Kenya announced on Tuesday its population stands at 38.6 million after a national census conducted last year, marking an increase of around 10 million since the last census in 1999. Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya said the increase of about one million people per year puts pressure on resources and he urged for more investment and [...]
Ireland: Pharmacists call for morning-after pill to be available over the counter
Pharmacists are renewing calls for the ‘morning-after pill’ to be available over the counter. At present, women who wish to take emergency hormonal contraception require a prescription from a doctor.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said its members have the skills to dispense such drugs and provide appropriate advice and counselling to patients. It is important [...]
Ellen MacArthur: ‘I can’t live with the sea any more’
The round the world record holder explains why she has turned her back on the sea to crusade for the planet.
Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/sailing/7966301/Ellen-MacArthur-I-cant-live-with-the-sea-any-more.html
which concludes: Though she loves children – the Ellen MacArthur Trust is dedicated to helping those with cancer – she says it is “not in her mind” to start a family of her own. [...]
How do parking lots affect the environment?
Automobiles are parked for roughly 95% of their lifetimes yet we know little about how parking spaces affect the environment. Using five different approaches, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, US, determined that there are between 105 million and 2 billion parking spaces in the US for roughly 300 million vehicles. The energy consumed [...]
Afghanistan eyes wheat price amid import needs
Afghan authorities are keeping a close eye on world wheat prices as they seek to boost strategic stocks ahead of winter and ensure that demand is met as some traditional suppliers halt exports. Afghanistan is among the most vulnerable countries in the world for food supply, according to the Food Security Risk Index 2010, compiled [...]
New South Wales, Australia: Teenage baby boom sparks call for better sex education
The number of teenage mothers [in Australia] has jumped after decades of steady decline and NSW has had the most significant increase. The teen fertility rate in NSW rose 15 per cent from 2007 to 2008, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Nationally, the number of teenagers giving birth rose 10 per cent, from [...]
Beijing asks parents to register second child
Beijing has urged parents to register the birth of their second child before Nov 1 — if they don’t, they will be liable to pay fines, a media report said Monday. China’s family planning policies encourages urban residents to limit their family size to one child. Families who register their second child now will face [...]
Qatari women are delaying getting married and having fewer children
Women in Qatar are delaying getting married and having fewer children, as education and career now play a bigger role in their everyday lives. The recently published Millennium Development Goals in Qatar 2010 (MDG Qatar 2010) report shows that the fertility rate of Qatari women has decreased from 5.7 children per woman in 1999, to [...]
Hazards of adolescent pregnancy
From the Malaysia Star:
Pregnancy in adolescence, i.e. in a girl aged between 10 and 19 years, is increasingly becoming a problem in many developed and developing countries. This phenomenon has been influenced by the decreasing age of the first period (menarche) and schooling.
The former has been decreasing at a rate of about two to three [...]
Why failure of climate summit would herald global catastrophe: 3.5°
Coastal megacities like Shanghai, and low-lying regions of countries such as Pakistan (above) are most at risk from rising sea levels Photo: AP
The world is heading for the next major climate change conference in Cancun later this year on course for global warming of up to 3.5C in the coming century, a series of scientific [...]
A world too full of people
Leucadia Quispe, a 60-year-old mother-of-eight, was born and raised in Botijlaca, a settlement that sits in the foothills of the Chacaltaya and Huayna Potosí mountains in Bolivia. High above, the Chacaltaya glacier is retreating at an unexpected pace: three times as fast as predicted ten years ago. It will be gone in a generation.
Seven out [...]
Japan plans to bind large firms to CO2 caps
Japan’s compulsory emissions trading scheme is set to start in April 2013 and cover large CO2 emitting companies, a draft of the government’s proposals showed on Monday, but several issues are still open to debate. The draft, obtained by Reuters, will be presented on Tuesday to an expert committee at the Environment Ministry, which aims [...]
Fears for wildlife under threat in UK waters
2-minute video report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11128089
Friends of the Earth urges end to ‘land grab’ for biofuels
Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters
European Union countries must drop their biofuels targets or else risk plunging more Africans into hunger and raising carbon emissions, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE). In a campaign launching today, the charity accuses European companies of land-grabbing throughout Africa to grow biofuel crops that directly compete with food crops. Biofuel companies [...]
UK: Housebuilders to win reduced carbon target for homes
One of the UK’s most radical environmental policies – requiring all new homes from 2016 to be “zero carbon” – is set to be scaled back amid pressure from the housebuilding industry. Builders claim the proposals would be too expensive and impossible to implement for many flats, and would result in a slump in the [...]
UN climate change panel to be warned over reports
Photo: CORBIS
A review of the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been conducted in response to intense criticism of the body, whose reports are used by governments to inform policy decisions on global warming. The findings of the review are due to be handed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [...]
China: Rare earth export cuts protect environment
China’s decision to slash export quotas of rare earth elements was a necessary step to protect the country’s environment, commerce minister Chen Deming said following criticism from Japanese officials. “Mass extraction of rare earth will cause great damage to the environment and that’s why China has tightened controls over rare earth production, exploration and trade,” [...]
Good Companies Guide: easing the planet’s growing pains will help business to profit
A few diehards in the City still think sustainability is just for sandal-wearers. But how we deal with the major ecological and social challenges facing the world will have enormous implications for the global economy and for the prospects of the UK’s leading companies. It will also have an impact on the pension savings and [...]
The Frozen Zoo aiming to bring endangered species back from the brink
There are only eight northern white rhinoceroses left in the world, but the Frozen Zoo hopes to boost the population. Photograph: Benedicte Desrus / Alamy/Alamy
The inside of a metal box filled with liquid nitrogen and frozen to -173C (-280F) is hardly the ideal habitat for a large African mammal. But, as a test tube is [...]
Congo rapes: Scramble for Africa
Cassiterite, wolframite, coltan: they might be the spoiled offspring of celebrity parents, or characters from an unfamiliar fairytale. The truth is much more prosaic. They are the minerals on which laptops and mobiles and even the tin of tomatoes in the cupboard depend. Cassiterite in the main component of tin oxide. Wolframite is a source [...]
How James Lovelock introduced Gaia to an unsuspecting world
(James Lovelock is of course one of our patrons)
Photo: Corbis
Once in a generation, perhaps, you get to read a book that will change the way we see the world. But it might take a whole generation to realise by how much. My copy of Gaia is a first edition from 1979: hardback price £4.95 (and [...]
Coffee threatened by beetles in a warming world
The highlands of southwestern Ethiopia should be ideal for growing coffee. After all, this is the region where coffee first originated hundreds of years ago. But although coffee remains Ethiopia’s number one export, the nation’s coffee farmers have been struggling.
The Arabica coffee grown in Ethiopia and Latin America is an especially climate-sensitive crop. It requires [...]
Recession may have pushed US birth rate to new low
The U.S. birth rate has fallen to its lowest level in at least a century as many people apparently decided they couldn’t afford more mouths to feed. The birth rate dropped for the second year in a row since the recession began in 2007. Births fell 2.6 percent last year even as the population grew, [...]
Preventing Teenage Pregnancy in Ecuador
When fifteen-year-old Maria Victoria Urquizo tends to the potato-field in front of her brother’s house in the indigenous community of Guanilchig, she has a stunning view of the majestic, snow-capped Chimborazo—Ecuador’s highest mountain. At 3,500 meters (about 11,500 feet) above sea level, the morning air in this Western range of the Andes is crisp. The [...]
Turkmenistan: Population policy – guarantee of prosperity
According to the data collected for many years by different countries, in particular the CIS states, population challenges that have a direct impact on an economic growth, competitiveness and stability of states and, ultimately, the welfare of citizens is urgent in the modern world. Taking this fact into account, the UN agencies identified strategic support [...]
Niger: Small steps towards a sustainable future
Nigerien women have an average of seven children. Photo: Catherine Lune-Grayson, IRIN
The population of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, is growing at an unsustainable rate, according to the authorities and civil society groups. If current growth rates of 3.3 percent per year remain unchanged, by 2050 Niger’s population will have reached [...]
Wales’ dense population could have economic benefits, researchers say
Wales has become one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, figures reveal. It has more people per square kilometre than Northern Ireland, Poland, France and Spain. The figures also show that England has become the most densely populated large country in Europe – overtaking Holland, traditionally the most highly populated. Researchers from the [...]
UK: Net migration up by 20% in 2009
The UK population swelled by nearly 200,000 last year - one of the largest increases during Labour’s 13 years in power. There were 196,000 more immigrants than Britons leaving for abroad, according to official figures released on Thursday. That meant the overall population of Britain rose by the equivalent of a city the size of [...]
How to feed the world
The world is planting a vigorous new crop: “agro-pessimism”, or fear that mankind will not be able to feed itself except by wrecking the environment. The current harvest of this variety of whine will be a bumper one. Natural disasters—fire in Russia and flood in Pakistan, which are the world’s fifth- and eighth-largest wheat producers [...]
Russia counts the cost of drought and wildfires
The extreme heatwave, which caused a severe drought and wildfires in Russia, might be over, but both officials and consumers are now busy calculating its cost and trying to work out its consequences. Russian deputy economy minister, Andrei Klepach, said earlier this week that the drought would take up to 0.8% off this year’s economic [...]
Time to blame climate change for extreme weather?
IT IS time to start asking the hard questions. Countless people in flood-stricken Pakistan have lost families and livelihoods. Who can they hold responsible and turn to for reparations?
Less than a decade ago, these questions would have been dismissed outright. “Many scientists at the time said that you can never blame an individual weather event [...]
Seeing a Time (Soon) When We’ll All Be Dieting [Book review]
Fifty years ago, a billion people were undernourished or starving; the number is about the same today. That’s actually progress, since a billion represented a third of the human race then, and “only” a sixth now. Today we have another worry: roughly the same number of people eat too much. But, says Julian Cribb, a [...]
UN: Food Insecurity in Kyrgyzstan to Grow Worse
Two youths, ethnic Russian Maxim, 9, and Kyrgyz Sumat, 10, left, walk through debris as they search for food in the ransacked market in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan. Photo: AP
The United Nations says more than one-quarter of the households in Kyrgyzstan do not have enough food, and that the problem is expected to get worse in [...]
Securing water resources in rural Kenya
Lack of rainfall can lead to poverty, food shortages, disease and gender inequality in rural areas. Climate change may further exacerbate the situation. Managing water resources better might help communities adapt to future climate change but this requires understanding of the hydro-climatic system in a given area. For example, we need to better understand how [...]
The Shape of Things to Come
All populations, like all individuals, must address issues of age. Unlike people, however, populations can stay young indefinitely and can even grow younger with time. This report is about the ages of populations, how age is structured within populations, why that matters, and how governments and societies can influence population age structure.
The Shape of Things [...]
Europe’s coasts: reconciling development and conservation
In some cases it was their sheer beauty that led to development, in others economic potential. Whatever the causes, coastal regions today host almost half of the inhabitants of EU countries with a sea border. They host homes and workplaces, industries, holiday destinations and recreation areas. With an immense variety of habitats, ranging from salt-adapted [...]
Africa has the means to feed itself but does it have the support – and the will?
By: Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, chief executive officer of Fanrpan
One week from now, 200 agricultural experts from across Africa and around the world will meet in Namibia at the annual regional food security policy dialogue of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (Fanrpan) to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing [...]
S. Korea’s childbirth declines for 2nd consecutive year in 2009
The number of infants born in South Korea declined for the second straight year in 2009 as a result of a fall in the population of women of childbearing age and the number of marriages, government data showed Tuesday. The number of newborns stood at 445,000 last year, down 4.5 percent from a year before, [...]
Plantation linked to junta is ‘destroying’ Burmese tiger reserve
The site of a village in the reserve that has been razed for cash crops
The world’s largest tiger reserve, in the wilds of northern Burma, is being rapidly eroded as a businessman with links to the junta replaces trees with cash crops, according to a report published yesterday. The Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve in Kachin [...]
Deluges after the deluge
The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around [...]
Australian kingmakers consider climate change position
Independent MPs are today meeting to discuss whether action on climate change should be a condition of any king-making deal with Labor or the Liberal-led coalition as horse-trading begins in the wake of Saturday’s inconclusive Australian election. Rob Oakeshott, Bob Katter and Tony Windsor are aiming to decide what demands should be presented to the [...]
Rising temperatures reducing ability of plants to absorb carbon, study warns
Rising temperatures in the past decade have reduced the ability of the world’s plants to soak up carbon from the atmosphere, scientists said [on Thursday 19 August]. Large-scale droughts have wiped out plants that would have otherwise absorbed an amount of carbon equivalent to Britain’s annual man-made greenhouse-gas emissions.
Scientists measure the amount of atmospheric carbon [...]
Brazil Aims for World’s “Most Perfect” Population Census
Come Dec. 31, about 68 countries are expected to complete the arduous task of taking an accurate head count of the number of people living within their geographical borders. The demographic census, which traditionally takes place every 10 years in different countries in different time frames, will this year cover nearly half the world’s population [...]
The ten-day traffic jam driving China mad
In a list of the top places to spend the summer, a motorway just outside Beijing beneath a pall of smog and battered by ferocious heat would probably not feature. But some have little choice. For five days, thousands of Chinese motorists have been stuck in the world’s worst traffic jam that stretches for 60 [...]
Putin ponders climate change in Arctic Russia
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin travelled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer. Putin, who has in the past displayed a light-hearted approach to global warming by joking Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, flew to a scientific [...]
India Tries Using Cash Bonuses to Slow Birthrates
Dr. Archana R. Khade, left, and a nurse, Sunita Laxman Jadhav, right, explained incentives to delay childbirth to a new bride near Satara this month.
Sunita Laxman Jadhav is a door-to-door saleswoman who sells waiting. She sweeps along muddy village lanes in her nurse’s white sari, calling on newly married couples with an unblushing proposition: [...]
Jakarta’s population surpasses 15-year forecast
The Jakarta branch of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealed the city’s population had reached 9.5 million, or 4 percent of the country’s total population of 237.6 million. “The total population in the city is 9,588,198 people, with 3 percent more males in the ratio of male to female,” agency head Agus Suherman told The [...]
Fuel of the future: The new power generation
The Royal Bank of Scotland might at first seem an unusual focus for climate change activists’ ire. But since last Thursday, members of Climate Camp have been campaigning outside their headquarters in Edinburgh. The reason? They are protesting over the huge loans the bank has provided to oil companies, oil being one of the biggest [...]
We’ve gone into the ecological red
Climate scientists believe extreme weather events like the recent flooding in Pakistan will become more frequent. Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP
At the weekend, Saturday 21 August to be precise, the world as a whole went into “ecological debt”. That means in effect that from now until the end of the year, humanity will be consuming more natural [...]
Britain prepares for mackerel war with Iceland and Faroe Islands
Photograph: H Taillard/Corbis
It’s summer, and off the coast of Britain anglers are enjoying a blue-grey abundance of mackerel. Barbecued, smoked, or baked in cider, this firm favourite provides a seasonal guilt-free treat, certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). But in a dispute echoing the cod wars of the 1970s, Britain and the [...]
Africa’s ambitious return of ancient rice
One by one, Ali Kassim pulls out the weeds that have grown in his rice paddy. It’s surprisingly rare in Africa, but he is cultivating African rice - once close to extinction after it was pushed aside centuries ago for a higher-yield imported Asian variety.
Researchers hope to see more and more farmers like Kassim, who [...]
Endangered spaces: Can our wildest places survive tourism?
The visitors: tens of thousands of tourists flock to the Galapagos Islands every year. AFP/Getty Images
Eco-tourism. Is this now-fashionable concept basically a contradiction in terms – on a par, as cynics might say, with “business ethics” or “compassionate conservatism”? “Adventure travel” is, of course, a concept as old as the hills, even if some of [...]
Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
Photo: Tatan Syuflana/AP
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fuelled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about “peak oil”. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is also refusing to hand over policy documents [...]
Resource wars: the global crisis behind a hostile takeover battle
BHP Billiton’s £28bn hostile bid for Canada’s Potash Corporation sets the scene for one of mining’s biggest takeover battles. But this is more than a clash between multinationals intent on self-aggrandisement.
Certainly, the usual arguments are wheeled out by the predator about diversification, synergies and the prospect of fatter profits, while the target company complains about [...]
Legacy of the ladette: Now alarming rise in teenage promiscuity and abortions is linked to women’s binge drinking
The devastating effects of excess alcohol on young women have been spelled out by a major study. Binge drinking ‘ladettes’ are 40 per cent likelier to have an abortion. And the proportion of teenage girls who blame alcohol for losing their virginity has more than doubled compared with 60 years ago.
The study, the most extensive [...]
Syria grapples with surging population
Ibrahim Issa, a jovial Syrian taxi-driver who wears a blue robe over an ample belly, has nine children from two wives. He plans to marry a third wife soon. He says it is up to Allah whether more children arrive, and not for him to interfere, say, by using contraception. Like all Damascus taxi-drivers, he [...]
Good Riddance to the Population Explosion: Keys to Prevent Unsustainable Growth
Every day, about 350,000 people are born and 150,000 die. Run this loop for a few decades, and the United Nations projects that we’re on track to increase global population by about one-third by 2050.
Most of that growth will happen in the poorest countries on Earth. Despite their poverty, those two billion people will add to [...]
Earth Overshoot Day: a day to forget or a day to remember?
Photo: AFP
How best to communicate the various environmental crises – climate change, loss of biodiversity and habitats, resource depletion, watercourse contamination, to name but a few – facing us today?
It’s an open question aired frequently by environmentalists. Do you repeatedly present to the world the stark future we face if we continue to ignore these [...]
New Report on Population Asks Americans to Start Talking About What Really Matters
When a man and a woman have unprotected sex, babies are quite often the result. Sexual decisions not only impact the lives of those involved, but impact the planet we all share. Currently the world’s population is growing by 80 million people every year. On a planet with finite resources this means we either take [...]
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