UK chancellor challenges biofuels/ Shell cites energy needs
The UK chancellor has asked the World Bank to review the impact of the switch to biofuels on food prices. Biofuels have been increasingly challenged as unsustainable by scientists and environmental campaigners due to their adverse impact on food production and food security.
Guardian report
However, Shell’s Chief Executive has warned that the world needs every fuel [...]
Climate change assumptions ‘optimistic’
Claims that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has seriously underestimated the challenge and costs of stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions in the 21st century are fuelling controversy among climate and energy researchers.
“The paper is a bombshell,” says Marty Hoffert, former chair of the Department of Applied Science at New York University. “It explodes the idea [...]
Parliamentarians call for abortion rights, sex education
Strasbourg, 16.04.2008 – The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today called on the organisation’s member states to decriminalise abortion, within reasonable gestational limits, if they have not already done so, and to guarantee womens’ “right to access to a safe and legal abortion”.
The Assembly – which brings together national parliamentarians from 47 [...]
Room for improvement in UK sex and relationships education
Schools minister Jim Knight is leading a review of sex and relationships education (SRE) in UK schools. This follows a 2006/7 survey by the UK Youth Parliament which found a large variation in quality of current SRE provision:
40% of 11-18 year olds felt that SRE was poor or very poor: 33% felt it was [...]
Oil prices to increase further
While there is a debate about the timing of “peak oil”, it is increasingly accepted that we’re not far from it, if not past it already. While the consequences for transport and energy are worrying enough, we should not forget the fundamental role of oil in agricultural productivity, through fertiliser, agricultural machinery, intensive farming, plastics [...]
Immigration isn’t just about Powell
Enoch Powell, forty years ago, was concerned about the effect on Britain of ethnic minorities forming up to 10% of the population. It’s now about 8% and rising. And Britons today are concerned about ethnic tension, according to a BBC poll, quoted April 17th.
What concerns us more is not the ethnic mix, but the total [...]
Current agricultural practices unsustainable, says report
The global agriculture system will have to change radically if the world is to avoid future environmental and social problems, a report has warned.
The study, commissioned by the UN and World Bank, concluded that while recent advances had increased food production, the benefits were spread unevenly.
The findings were published by the International Assessment of Agricultural [...]
IMF warns of widespread starvation risk
The Head of the IMF has added his voice to those concerned about rising food prices. He believes hundreds of thousands could die from starvation in lower income countries, with the crisis having longer term impacts on child malnutrition and a loss of governmental legitimacy.
Report of speech by IMF
Guardian report on issue
Threat to reduce 24 week abortion limit
Some MPs are planning to use the Human Fertilisation and Embrology Bill to reduce the abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks. Opponents to the reduction include the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Faculty of Reproductive Healthcare, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, Antenatal Results and Choices, the Royal College of Nurses, [...]
Can drinking make you pregnant?
It can if you’re a UK teen. British teenagers are near the top of the OECD tables for inebriation and pregnancy. Of course, there are other factors, including a relatively poor life experience. A 2007 UNICEF report put Britain at the bottom of developed countries for child wellbeing. However, early pregnancy [...]
Earth Day 2008 - April 22nd
Founded by the organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network (EDN) promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide.
Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect, interact, and have an impact on their communities, and create positive change in [...]
Immigration amnesty proposal, successful court challenge
London’s mayoral candidates have called for an amnesty for the estimated 380,000 irregular immigrants in the capital. London has to provide services for them but doesn’t receive central government subsidies for unregistered inhabitants.
Meanwhile, there has been a successful legal challenge to the government’s latest points system to limit immigration.
It isn’t easy to control immigration [...]
Climate change - New Scientist Special Report
A New Scientist special report on climate change provides lots of background detail on current thinking and emerging issues.
Report
Teenage conception local authority league table
Britain has the third highest rate of teenage pregnancies amongst OECD countries. Only New Zealand and the US have higher rates, due respectively to Maoris and Hispanic immigrants. Last month’s UK government announcement of, admittedly falling, teenage conceptions and pregnancies in the UK helpfully split out the figures by local authority. The lowest rates of [...]
Climate, peak energy, population, equals perfect storm
Lindsey Grant of US based Negative Population Growth has written a 16 page paper ‘Edge of the Abyss’ bringing the impact and interaction of these factors together. Dramatic and highly recommended.
The paper will be on npg.org shortly and is currently here.
EU urges family planning programme for Philippines
DAVAO CITY — The European Union (EU) is urging the Philippines to implement a comprehensive family planning program in an effort to curb the country’s rapidly growing population.
Key points:
- Population growing at 2.36% pa (ed. - equates to about 25% over ten years)
- Population growing faster than rice production
- Threat to forest and marine [...]
Food riots in Egypt, Haiti, harbinger of future conflict
Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned yesterday, after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.
As well as this week’s violence in Egypt, the rising cost and [...]
Climate change threatens health warns WHO
WHO Director-General warns vulnerable populations at greatest risk of projected impacts
7 APRIL 2008 | GENEVA — Scientists tell us that the evidence the Earth is warming is “unequivocal.” Increases in global average air and sea temperature, ice melting and rising global sea levels all help us understand and prepare for the coming challenges. In addition [...]
Channel 4 survey finds concern on immigration widespread
Award-winning journalist Rageh Omaar investigates how immigration has affected Britain in a landmark three-part current affairs series by Dispatches on Channel 4.
Part 1 Mon 7 April 2008, 8pm
Part 2 Mon 14 April 2008, 8pm
Part 3 Mon 21 April 2008, 8pm
A survey for the programme finds that four out of five Britons think there is an [...]
Sex education ‘fails Scots pupils’ says NHS report
Scotland has some of the highest rates of sexual disease and teenage pregnancy in the west: there are 57 pregnancies each year per 1000 women under 20. But a new report into sex education in Scottish schools, based on hundreds of schools, challenges the effective implementation of a three year £15m sexual health strategy.
Schools are [...]
World Bank proposals don’t address population growth
President of the World Bank Group, Robert E. Zoellick, forecasts that “The realities of demography, changing diets, energy prices and biofuels, and climate changes suggest that high — and volatile — food prices will be with us for years to come”.
However, his proposals on aid, investment, trade and transparency fails to address the underlying issue [...]
Demand for family planning predicted to rise
The Population Reference Bureau has forecast increasing demand for family planning as the number of women of reproductive age increases sharply and as the propensity to want contraception increases. Demand for family planning is unmet across much of the developing world, leading to unsafe abortions and soaring populations. Will western governments help meet [...]
Peers’ Immigration Report ‘forgets environment’
A House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report issued today concludes that:
- migration statistics are unreliable
- systematic evidence that immigration benefits UK population is lacking
- record inflow is putting pressure on housing and public services.
However, the report fails entirely to consider the environmental impact of these inflows, given the unsustainable size of the current UK [...]