Royal Commission consults on UK population growth
The Royal Commission has decided to carry out a study on The Environmental Impacts of Demographic Change in the UK. The preparatory phase of this new study will overlap with the completion of the current study on Adapting the UK to Climate Change.
The Commission has carefully considered all the responses to its invitation to comment [...]
Farmers face growing climate change dilemma
Farmers of the future will have to use cattle and sheep that belch less methane, crops that emit far less planet-warming nitrous oxide and become experts in reporting their greenhouse gas emissions to the government.
Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and globally that share will rise as demand for food from growing human [...]
Growing pollution leads to “global dimming”
Visibility on clear days has declined in much of the world since the 1970s thanks to a rise in airborne pollutants, scientists said on Thursday.
They described a “global dimming” in particular over south and east Asia, South America, Australia and Africa, while visibility remained relatively stable over North America and improved over Europe, the researchers [...]
Birds, fish threatened
Nearly a third of U.S. bird species in trouble
Nearly one-third of all U.S. bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline, with birds in Hawaii facing a “borderline ecological disaster,” scientists reported on Thursday.
The State of the Birds report, issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar along with conservation groups and university ornithologists, also noted [...]
‘Stem rust’ fungus threatens global wheat harvest
The world’s leading crop scientists issued a stark warning that a deadly airborne fungus could devastate wheat harvests in poor countries and lead to famines and civil unrest over significant regions of central Asia and Africa.
Ug99 — so called because it was first seen in Uganda in 1999 — is a new variety of an [...]
High prevalence of child marriage in India
A large proportion of women in India were married when they were still children, a study has found, and researchers warned that such unions carried higher risks of unwanted pregnancies and female sterilization.
Nearly all the women who were married before they reached the legal age of 18 reported that they used no contraception before they [...]
Sex is main cause of population growth
Sex, not religious or cultural beliefs or the quest for economic security, is what increases family size and drives world population growth, according to one of the UK’s leading authorities on family planning.
Conventional economic wisdom, which says that couples in poorer societies actively plan to have large families to compensate for high child mortality, to [...]
What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?
The least developed countries as a group and in
their majority are lagging behind in the transition
to low fertility and have rapidly growing
populations.
• Lack of access to family planning and, in
particular, to modern methods of contraception is
a major cause of the persistence of high fertility
as indicated by the high levels of unmet need for
family planning prevalent [...]
Tidal wave of trash threatens world oceans
A tidal wave of man-made trash is threatening world oceans, damaging wildlife, tourism and seafood industries and piling additional stress on seas already hit by climate change, conservationists said on Tuesday.
A report by U.S.-based Ocean Conservancy detailed what it called a “global snapshot of marine debris” based on itemized records of rubbish collected by nearly [...]
Australia cuts migrant job intake
Australia has said it will cut the number of skilled foreign workers it accepts by 14% to safeguard local jobs.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced the cut, the first by the country in 10 years.
Mr Evans said the government did not want to admit people who would compete with Australians for limited jobs amid the global [...]
World Water Day - population growth, climate change challenge supply
Recent reports have stressed the importance of water and the developments threatening our access to sufficient future supplies. Amongst these are population growth and the related ones of industrialisation and climate change. It’s the new oil!
Link to official site
Climate fears ‘being realised”
The worst-case scenarios on climate change envisaged by the UN two years ago are already being realised, say scientists at an international meeting.
In a statement in Copenhagen on their six key messages to political leaders, they say there is a increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climate shifts.
Even modest temperature rises will affect millions of [...]
Greenland thaw feared climate shift by 2200
A drastic climate shift such as a thaw of Greenland’s ice or death of the Amazon forest is more than 50 percent likely by the year 2200 in cases of strong global warming, according to a survey of experts.
The poll of 52 scientists, looking 100 years beyond most forecasts, also revealed worries that long-term warming [...]
Global crisis ‘to strike by 2030′
Growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030, the UK government chief scientist is warning.
Demand for food and energy will jump 50% by 2030 and for fresh water by 30%, as the population tops 8.3 billion, he is due to tell a conference in London.
Climate change will [...]
Teen magazines are sexualising readers
A study by The Sunday Telegraph of several magazines aimed at teenage girls found that they contained sexually-explicit material which was potentially in breach of the industry’s editorial code.
Campaigners have attacked the magazines’ self-regulatory body as “toothless” and have called for an independent organisation to monitor the publications, which are read by children as young [...]
Global warming may trigger carbon ‘time bomb’
Even modest amounts of global warming could trigger a carbon “time bomb” and release massive amounts of greenhouse gases from frozen Arctic soils, a new study has warned.
Philippe Ciais, a researcher with the Laboratory for Climate Sciences and the Environment in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, told the Copenhagen Climate Congress that billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide [...]
Health advances increase lifespans in poorest nations
Life expectancy in the poorest developing countries will rise to 69 over the next four decades if progress in combating HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases continues, according to United Nations population projections released Wednesday.
That’s only eight years less than the current life expectancy in today’s richest countries, where people will on average live to 83 [...]
Earth heading for 5 billion population?
A conference next week will attempt to answer a question that has fascinated scientists for centuries but has now taken on a new urgency – how many human beings can the Earth support?
With the earth’s population growing by around 80 million - a new Germany - each year, the Optimum Population Trust has assembled a [...]
Severe global warming will render half of world’s inhabited areas unliveable, expert warns
Severe global warming could make half the world’s inhabited areas literally too hot to live in, a US scientist warned today.
Parts of China, India and the eastern US could all become too warm in summer for people to lose heat by sweating - rendering such areas effectively uninhabitable.
Steven Sherwood, a climate expert at Yale University, [...]
World’s oceans face an acid test
Carbon dioxide emissions from modern society are turning the ocean more acidic and some sea creatures are already suffering, according to research to be discussed at a major global science conference.
The IPCC forecasts that ocean pH will fall by “between 0.14 and 0.35 units over the 21st Century, adding to the present decrease of 0.1 [...]
$50 million US contribution will boost women’s rights, says UN
United States President Barack Obama’s release of $50 million to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will help curb poverty and improve the health of women and children in over 150 nations, the agency said today, lauding an action it said will help it continue its “life-saving” work.
Mr. Obama signed legislation yesterday to restore US [...]
Carbon cuts ‘only give 50/50 chance of saving planet’
The world’s best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.
The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society [...]
Population growth, climate change sparking water crisis
Surging population growth, climate change, reckless irrigation and chronic waste are placing the world’s water supplies at threat, a landmark UN report said on Wednesday.
Compiled by 24 UN agencies, the 348-page document gave a grim assessment of the state of the planet’s freshwater, especially in developing countries, and described the outlook for coming generations as [...]
‘Big rise’ in illegal immigrants
The UK is home to nearly three quarters of a million illegal immigrants, research obtained by the BBC’s Panorama programme suggests.
A Home Office estimate in 2001 put the figure at 430,000.
But a recent study commissioned for the Mayor of London estimated the number of illegal or “irregular” immigrants and their dependents to be 725,000 in [...]
Polar regions found warming fast, raising sea levels
The Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than previously thought, raising world sea levels and making drastic global climate change more likely than ever, international scientists said on Wednesday.
New evidence of the trend was uncovered by wide-ranging research in the two areas over the past two years in a United Nations-backed program dubbed the [...]
Climate change transforming rainforests into major carbon emitters
Drought, rising temperatures and deforestation are causing tropical forests to change from carbon sinks into a major carbon emitter, warn scientists from the UK and Australia.
Climate modellers had assumed, the scientists said, that rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere would increase the growth of trees because CO2 can encourage plants to grow, and in [...]
Britain ‘biggest in EU by 2050′
Britain could have the biggest population in Europe by 2050 and be the third biggest recipient of migrants in the world, UN projections suggest.
They predict net immigration will average 174,000 a year up to 2050, swelling the population to 72 million.
The UN predictions, based on the latest census and research from around the world, suggested [...]
Health hazards demand stronger climate change measures
Policymakers should consider the threat climate change poses to public health in setting their priorities for action and investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the United Nations health agency told a conference in Copenhagen.
Based on research, WHO estimates that around 150,000 deaths now occur in low-income countries each year, with young children making up almost [...]
More droughts, less ice
Amazon’s 2005 drought created huge CO2 emissions
A 2005 drought in the Amazon rainforest killed trees and released more greenhouse gas than the annual emissions of Europe and Japan, an international study showed on Thursday.
The report said rainforests from Africa to Latin America may speed up global warming if the climate becomes drier this century. Plants [...]
World Population to exceed 9bn by 2050 (if we’re lucky)
Biennial population estimates from the UN. Future outcomes depend heavily on extending family planning provision.
Press release
Selected tables
Data online
A sustainable population is required, says Jonathon Porritt
I’ve always felt that logic and sound evidence provide a pretty solid foundation for good policy-making. But some issues are more amenable to logic than others, and population is clearly the least amenable of all.
I’m in the population doghouse yet again. On 1st February the Sunday Times carried a front page story based on comments [...]
Britain’s birds facing extinction as climate change leaves them with nowhere to go
Scientists have calculated that the average range of British birds will move 550 kilometres (340 miles) to the north by 2100 as the climate heats up.
In a study to be published on Wednesday in the journal Public Library of Science, researchers will reveal they have found detailed evidence to show a significant wildlife transformation is [...]
Australia fires release huge amount of CO2
Bushfires that have scorched Australia’s Victoria state released millions of tons of carbon dioxide and forest fires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms, a top scientist said on Thursday.
Mark Adams of the University of Sydney said global warming could trigger a vicious cycle in which forests could stop becoming [...]
International Womens Day and Reproductive Health
Everyone has the right to enjoy reproductive health, which is a basis for having healthy children, intimate relationships and happy families. Reproductive health encompasses key areas of the UNFPA vision – that every child is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV and every girl and woman is treated with [...]
CO2 rise in atmosphere accelerates in 2008
Increases in the amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accelerated last year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Reuters on Wednesday.
The new data may dampen hopes that a slowdown in industrial output and carbon emissions, which started at the end of last year, will temporarily deflect climate change.
“For [...]
Rise in foreign born UK residents
The number of people born overseas and resident in the UK rose to 6.5 million in the year to June 2008, says the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
That figure was an increase of 290,000 on the 12 months to June 2007.
Some 720,000 National Insurance numbers were issued to foreign nationals in the year [...]
Teen pregnancies ‘rise slightly’
The number of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales has risen slightly, figures show.
The Office for National Statistics data showed there were 41.9 conceptions per 1,000 15 to 17 year olds in 2007 - up from 40.9 the year before.
It is the first increase since 2002 and means the government will almost certainly [...]
PAKISTAN: Urgent need for better family planning
Pakistan’s rapidly increasing population is placing severe strains on economic resources, development and security, say experts who are urgently calling for more effective family planning.
In 1950 Pakistan had a population of 37 million and was the world’s 13th largest country. By 2007 it was the sixth largest country with 164 million people. Pakistan is projected [...]
Climate change lays waste to Spain’s glaciers
The Pyrenees mountains have lost almost 90% of their glacier ice over the past century, according to scientists who warn that global warning means they will disappear completely within a few decades.
Scientists have ruled out the idea that the progressive deterioration of glaciers around the globe are part of normal, long-term fluctuations in their size. [...]
Migrants face tighter work rules
Non-EU migrants should not be able to take a skilled job in the UK unless it has been advertised to British workers first, the home secretary has said.
The number of non-UK-born workers in Britain reached 3.8 million last year.
Workers from non-EU countries are categorised by a points-based system that decides whether they can find work [...]
Asia to ‘lose 7.2 million jobs’
About 7.2 million people in Asian countries are likely to lose their jobs in 2009 amid the global downturn, a UN report has suggested.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) said that in the worst case scenario the number of newly-unemployed might total 22.3 million.
The UN agency warned that a significant rise in the number [...]
Contraceptive advice goes outline
NHS Direct has recently launched an online Contraception Checker to help take the agony out of what to do next. It is designed to deal with enquiries about emergency contraception, missed contraceptive pills, dislodged contraceptive devices, interactions with other medicines or failed contraceptives.
The new tool takes the protocols - used by NHS Direct call centre [...]
Civil strife, peacemaking often tied to natural resources
With over 40 per cent of intra-State warfare tied to the exploitation of natural resources, peacemaking efforts must focus more sharply on environmental factors, according to a report launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
“From Conflict to Peacebuilding – The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment” was launched as UNEP’s Governing Council [...]
Most wars hit world’s rich wildlife areas
Most wars in the last half-century occurred in places that shelter some of the most biologically diverse and environmentally threatened wildlife on Earth, a new study reported on Friday. These include the Vietnam war, when the use of the defoliant Agent Orange destroyed forest cover, and timber harvesting that funded wars in Liberia, Cambodia [...]
Closing the net on illegal fishing
“The problem of illegal fishing is enormously widespread,” observes Michael Lodge, an OECD fisheries expert. “We have estimated the problem as being as much as 20% of the global catch.”
Since 2000, the UN has been warning about the grave consequences of overfishing in the world’s seas. However, the impact of illegal fishing is adding [...]
Heat waves and extreme drought will increase with climate change
The severe drought and searing heat that recently allowed wildfires to char much of Australia will oppress wide swathes of the earth with increasing frequency this century, according to a forecast by scientists who met this week in Beijing, China, the United Nations weather agency said today.
The continental United States and Mexico, the Mediterranean basin, [...]
Foreign workers’ share of UK job market almost doubles
Non-UK born workers now account for one in seven jobs after more than 1.8 million foreigners were added to the UK labour force over the last decade.
Two thirds of those have come from outside the EU, making a mockery of the Government’s claims that a cap on immigration will be ineffective because the majority of [...]