• Researchers Discover Way to Reverse Immune System Aging

    Updated: 2011-03-31 14:41:42
    Thanks to Leta Finch for this article.  See http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/news/2011/01/researchers-discover-way-to-reverse-immune-system-aging.aspx# Researchers Discover Way to Reverse Immune System Aging Copyright 2011 by Virgo Publishing http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/ Posted on: 01/27/2011 Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered a way to reverse the aging process by removing old B lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell in the [...]

  • Clean energy companies call on Congress to save loan guarantee program - 34 companies and 7 associations write that the House proposal to kill the DOE loan guarantee program would cost thousands of jobs all across the country.

    Updated: 2011-03-31 14:23:50
    By CAP’s Richard W. Caperton. Yesterday, 34 clean energy companies and seven associations that represent different sectors of the clean energy economy sent letters to Congress urging them to not end the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program.  The companies identified 34 projects in fifteen states that would be at severe risk of not moving forward [...]

  • Joe Barton claims that “Texas air quality is excellent” while leading the nation in carbon pollution

    Updated: 2011-03-30 19:00:24
    A recent study found “air quality in Houston is still among the worst in the nation.”  Yet, as this Wonk Room cross-post makes clear, “Smokey” Joe Barton apparently lives in a different Texas. Visiting the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Fort Worth, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) — who infamously apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward [...]

  • Boulder Overpopulation Reduces Citizen Opportunities for Involvement

    Updated: 2011-03-30 14:09:55
    The City Council of Boulder, Colorado recently acted to reduce the time an individual speaker could have to address the Council on an issue before the Council in a public meeting from three minutes to two minutes.  The letter below is Al Bartlett’s response to this reduction in democracy, which is a predictable consequence of local [...]

  • Filipinos debate population control

    Updated: 2011-03-30 06:49:06
    Earlier this year “The Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health and Population and Development Act of 2011” unanimously passed the House Committee on Population and Family Relations in the Philippines. This means that this controversial Bill is a step closer towards becoming law. Why is it controversial? Read more...

  • China considers scrapping 1-child policy

    Updated: 2011-03-30 06:40:48
    The Chinese government may consider lifting restrictions on its notorious one-child policy. Wang Yuqing, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the government newspaper People’s Daily that he would like to see a gradual opening of the one-child policy which has been in force since 1979. Read more...

  • The Coming Misery That Big Oil Discusses Behind Closed Doors

    Updated: 2011-03-29 15:06:13
    Thanks to Jack Alpert for this article.  See http://www.countercurrents.org/levine150211.htm where you can also watch a monologue by Jeremy Bentham on the global energy situation. The Coming Misery That Big Oil Discusses Behind Closed Doors By Steve LeVine 15 February, 2011 The Oil and the Glory When big-thinkers at companies with the most skin in the [...]

  • The science of population projections

    Updated: 2011-03-29 06:35:27
    The Population Reference Bureau takes a dim view of large families and favours contraception and so on, but it does produce excellent material about how to interpret demographic information. In this video well-known demographer Carl Haub goes through the assumptions behind population projections. It’s well worth viewing. Read more...

  • NCSE calls for “Creating a Ten-Year Global, Integrative, Multi-Dimensional Biodiversity Initiative”

    Updated: 2011-03-28 15:48:44
    From the National Council for Science and the Environment. A new Multi-dimensional Research Program for Global Biodiversity is needed, according to the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), The need for a decadal initiative is described in a new report “Creating a Ten-Year Global, Integrative, Multi-Dimensional Biodiversity Initiative” from NCSE and its partners [...]

  • Reflections of a Naturalist: Human Overpopulation

    Updated: 2011-03-28 12:51:50
    Thanks to Bruce Snyder for this article.  See http://rolandcclement.blogspot.com/ where you can read all of Roland Clement’s blog entries. Reflections of a Naturalist Roland C Clement Friday, February 18, 2011 Human Overpopulation Starting from different bases on different continents, and different cultural assumptions, all three major civilizations had nevertheless overpopulated their environments by the turn [...]

  • If the “greater good” trumps human rights…

    Updated: 2011-03-28 06:32:32
    Monday , March 28, 2011 Human Dignity and world population March 28th 1:32:32 AM If the greater good” trumps human rights Marcus Roberts 28 Mar 2011 tags human rights utilitarianism Before I started writing this blog , the topic of demography usually came before my consciousness through the media , in conversations etc in the following form : The world has a problem in that its population is growing too quickly . The world's resources are inadequate to support this huge population . Unless something is done , there will be a major crisis there will be food shortages and many people will die of starvation . This could also lead to wars over food resources . The answer therefore , is to do something What though Implement a Chinese-style one child policy Encourage , sterilisation ,

  • Women want a pay rise, men want a baby

    Updated: 2011-03-28 06:15:18
    A recent study by market research company, Colmar Brunton, into New Zealand young people in their 20’s indicates that young women are increasingly finding their self esteem and identity outside the traditional family structure of marriage and family, and want to put off having children to continue with their careers. The young women who completed the survey rated getting a pay rise or a compliment at work as more important than getting married or having children. Read more...

  • How fast are we losing species anyway?

    Updated: 2011-03-28 04:25:05
    I’ve indicated over the last few weeks on Twitter that a group of us were recently awarded funding from the Australian Centre for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis – ACEAS – (much like the US version of the same thing – NCEAS) to run a series of analytical workshops to estimate, with a little more precision [...]

  • Population and Consumption

    Updated: 2011-03-26 14:56:56
    Thanks to Randy Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity for this article from Treehugger.  Seehttp://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/population-growth-ecological-footprint-about-equity-environment-collapse.php?campaign=daily_nl Population Growth and Ecological Footprint – It’s About Equity, Environment & Preventing Collapse by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 02.15.11 Sometime later this year the human population will pass the 7 billion mark. As I write this we’re [...]

  • Earth Hour 2011: Going Beyond the Hour

    Updated: 2011-03-24 18:49:51
    For a four-year-old event, Earth Hour’s quickly reached a status on par with Earth Day: this year on Saturday, March 26th, 130 countries and territories, tons of organizations, businesses, and landmarks, and hundreds of millions of people will participate in this annual “hour of darkness” designed to get people thinking about the steps they can [...]

  • High Population Growth in Sweden

    Updated: 2011-03-24 13:47:46
    Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.  See http://www.thelocal.se/32138/20110218/ Sweden’s Population Nears 9.5 Million Published: 18 Feb Sweden’s population continued to grow at the end of 2010, despite a drop in immigration for the first time since 2004. At the end of 2010, Sweden’s population stood at 9.42 million, 74,888 more than at the end [...]

  • High Population Growth in Norway

    Updated: 2011-03-24 13:45:28
    Thanks to Joe Bish for this article.  See http://www.norwaypost.no/news/high-population-growth-in-2010.html See an article on Sweden below. The Norway Post Written by Rolleiv Solholm Friday, 17 December 2010 08:08 HIGH POPULATION GROWTH IN 2010 The population of Norway is estimated to be about 4 923 000 persons at the end of the year. This figure represents a population [...]

  • Can the United States Feed China?

    Updated: 2011-03-23 16:50:33
    By Lester R. Brown In 1994, I wrote an article in World Watch magazine entitled “Who Will Feed China?” that was later expanded into a book of the same title. When the article was published in late August, the press conference generated only moderate coverage. But when it was reprinted that weekend on the front [...]

  • More headaches for China

    Updated: 2011-03-23 04:50:10
    As a follow up to last Friday’s post about Asia’s gender imbalance, () it must be said that public and media recognition of this problem is not new. In fact, a decade ago, Time magazine wrote of the effects of “China’s Lifestyle Choice”. The article stated that, as of 2001, “China’s womb police” have “succeeded remarkably well”. Read more...

  • A Surprising Reason We Don’t Farm As Sustainably As We Could

    Updated: 2011-03-22 17:08:01
    I recently posted a description of a highly sustainable form of row crop farming that combines high productivity with low environmental impact.  This is not just a theoretical vision but something which is actually being practiced on a significant commercial scale (e.g. non-tillage, cover cropping, controlled wheel traffic, variable rate fertilization…).  It is difficult to [...]

  • Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XI

    Updated: 2011-03-21 15:06:24
    The latest six cartoons… (see full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here). – Filed under: cartoon, conservation, environmental economics, environmental policy

  • UK “fertility remains high”

    Updated: 2011-03-21 03:49:38
    Remember when the archetypal family was Mum, Dad and 2.4 kids? Apparently in the United Kingdom, far from 2.4 children being the norm, a fertility rate of 1.94 children per woman in 2009 is a “high” fertility rate, at least according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Read more...

  • A bleak future for boys in China, India and South Korea

    Updated: 2011-03-18 04:55:15
    Just backing up a post by Marcus Roberts the other day, the Canadian Medical Association Journal has just published an article which claims that it will be decades before the natural sex-ratio is restored in parts of India, China and South Korea because of sex-selective abortion and son preference. Read more...

  • 7 billion people and what lies ahead

    Updated: 2011-03-17 23:43:45
    Here is a brief video with excellent graphics from The Economist about the arrival of the world’s 7 billionth person. I don’t share its rather woolly optimism about the future, but in 2 minutes and 21 seconds you can’t communicate everything. Read more...

  • Will gender imbalance lead to war?

    Updated: 2011-03-17 05:25:18
    Last weekend I saw an interesting headline in the local Saturday paper here in Auckland, The Weekend Herald. It read: “Bachelor Nations Risk Testosterone Overdose”. Looking at the author of the piece, I was even more interested to discover that it was written by one of the historians that I most enjoy reading – Niall Ferguson. Of course, this may not seem that exciting, but for us long-suffering Herald readers an interesting headline and an interesting contributor in the same piece is like receiving manna from heaven after wandering in the wilderness. And then discovering that that manna is wrapped in bacon. Read more...

  • Classics: demography versus genetics

    Updated: 2011-03-15 16:30:10
    Here’s another short, but sweet Conservation Classic highlighted in our upcoming book chapter (see previous entries on this book). Today’s entry comes from long-time quantitative ecology guru, Russ Lande, who is now based at the Silwood Park Campus (Imperial College London). – In an influential review, Lande (1988) argued that “…demography may usually be of more [...]

  • Big sharks. Big mystery.

    Updated: 2011-03-09 03:39:24
    My PhD student, Ana Sequeira, has just written a great little guest blog post for the Environment Institute‘s blog. Given I’m en route to Tasmania for a quick consultancy meeting, I thought I’d let myself off the hook and reproduce the post here. Well done, Ana (and hint to my other students – your time [...]

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