Higher fertilizer costs hit subsistence farmers
World fertilizer prices have risen by 200 to 500% over the last 15 months, driven by the rising cost of oil and soaring demand from US biofuel producers. This is threatening the world’s poorest subsistence farmers, according to the UN, raising the possibility of widespread hunger for millions more. Prices are expected to stay high [...]
World population stats. from the Population Reference Bureau
Yesterday, the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) released its 2008 World Population Data Sheet. Required reading for anyone interested in how population trends are changing our world, this year’s publication focuses renewed attention on the growing “demographic divide” between the rich and poor areas of the world. In releasing the report, Bill Butz, PRB’s president, observed that [...]
Warming climate threatens Alaska’s vast forests
Records indicate that Alaska has already experienced the largest regional warming of any U.S. state — an average 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) since the 1960s and about 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) in the interior of the state during winter months.
“We’ve got mounds of evidence that an extremely powerful and unprecedented climate-driven [...]
Abortion does not harm mental health
Women do not put their mental health at risk by having an abortion, according to an authoritative study that will undermine the campaign to tighten the UK’s abortion laws.
A comprehensive review of research by the American Psychological Association (APA), one of the world’s most influential mental health bodies, found no evidence that the majority of [...]
US population set to grow by 40% in the next 40 years.
The U.S. Census Bureau last week released its latest population projections for 2050. In releasing the new numbers, the Census Bureau noted that, “The nation will be more racially and ethnically diverse, as well as much older, by midcentury.” It will also be significantly larger.
The report indicates that the U.S. is on track to break the [...]
Millions eating food grown with polluted water
At least 200 million people around the world risk their health daily by eating food grown using untreated waste water, some of which may be contaminated with heavy metals and raw sewage, according to major study of 53 world cities.
Urban farmers in 80% of the cities surveyed were found to be using untreated waste water, [...]
Population growth threatens UK’s future
Continuing large-scale population growth threatens Britain’s future security, the Optimum Population Trust said today (Thursday, August 21). Commenting on the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, which showed UK population growth running at 0.6 per cent (388,000) in 2007, along with record immigration and emigration and rising numbers of births, David [...]
Coastal dead zones spread globally
“Dead zones” in coastal waters — regions of ocean floor so deprived of oxygen that most marine life cannot survive — are spreading worldwide at an alarming pace, scientists said on Thursday.Driving the trend are nitrogen and phosphorous from chemical agricultural fertilizers that reach coastal waters after flowing off farm fields and into streams and [...]
Focus on family planning in the Philippines
Pregnancies per annum 3m
Unwanted pregnancies per annum 1.5m
Backstreet abortions 0.5m
Cost of contraception per month: half a days wages for bottom 25% of population
Population in 1975 41m (Thailand 41m)
Population today 90m (Thailand 64m)
World’s largest importer of rice (Thailand world’s largest exporter of rice)
Average annual income $4,000 (Thailand $8,000)
Projected population in 2040 140m
Reuters August 17th
Ecotowns not sustainable, say Planning Institute presidents
As a development model, the ecotown is to be welcomed. However, as former presidents of the Royal Town Planning Institute, we hold serious reservations about the way in which sites for these developments have been promoted (Germaine Greer, G2, August 11). Some of the proposed ecotowns derive from a clear planning process, but others represent [...]
UK Government limits employment of non EU workers
Businesses who use skilled workers from outside of the EU will need to pay between £300 and £1,000 from later this year, under new immigration rules. The charges are part of a continuing and major overhaul of the UK’s economic migration system. Under the new rules, workers from outside the European Union will be subject [...]
Environment degrades around the world
Arctic
Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
As a result, scientists say that the disappearance of sea ice at the North Pole could exceed last year’s record loss. More than a million square kilometres melted over the [...]
The need for family planning grows
Governments are not always responding to the growing requirement for family planning amongst the world’s massive population of young people. Teenage pregnancy is increasing in Latin America, with government commitment to sex and relationship education not matched by reality. And in Bangladesh, unmet demand for family planning among married young women has increased from 11% [...]
Prepare for global temperature rise of 4c
There is no doubt that we should aim to limit changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial,” Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the Guardian. “But given this is an ambitious target, and we don’t know in detail how to limit [...]
Deforestation threatens primates, climate
Deforestation, often driven by population pressures, are threatening the existence of half the world’s private species, according to IUCN. And an Australian study concludes that carbon capture in virgin forest may be three times higher than the IPCC estimate, increasing the impact on the climate of continued deforestation across the developing world. Guardian, Reuters, New [...]
Limiting population growth is slow but sure
Rising greenhouse gas emissions could pass a critical tipping point and trigger runaway global warming within the next 100 months, according to a report today.
The estimate from the New Economics Foundation is based on when emissions will reach such high levels that it “is no longer likely” the world will be able to avoid a [...]