Sustainable Population

2011-07-26T12:23:00.001-04:00

Thanks to Bill Ryerson for distributing this excellent article on the need for stronger support for global family planning.

From the May 2011 issue of Population Connection's The Reporter.

See http://www.populationconnection.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8051 to download the full magazine.

Our Profound Choice: 7 Billion Reasons to Invest in Family Planning

By Martha Campbell and Malcolm Potts

As the global human population reaches 7 billion later this year for the first time in world history, there are several simple things we can (and should) be doing to slow population growth and get on a path toward stabilizing our numbers at 8 billion.

Demographic projections are not predictions. They tell us what can happen if we make a variety of policy choices and investments, most of them pertaining to family planning. The UN high variant projection for the world population in 2050 is 10.5 billion. The low variant is 8 billion. The difference between these two numbers - 2.5 billion - is equivalent to the population of the entire world in 1950. With 2.5 billion more people come farms and factories, mines and ports, and schools and hospitals that must be built and maintained-and energy that must be consumed.

It took nearly 130 years for the world population to grow from 1 to 2 billion, but the recent growth from 6 to 7 billion has occurred in only 12 years. Will the next billion be added so quickly or will we slow the tide toward a more sustainable peak figure? Since the mid-1990s, international attention has shifted away from family planning. Unless critical changes are made as rapidly as possible, even the high projection of 10.5 billion people in 2050 could be exceeded. In fact, business as usual has us on track to surpass 11 billion in 2050.

Most specialists outside the population field, such as agriculture and climate change experts, assume that world population will reach 9 billion (the UN medium projection) in 2050 and little or nothing can be done to alter this path. This is the wrong approach and every sensible person must ask: Is human population growth some phenomenon beyond our control, or are there policies and investments that would enable global population to stabilize at the lower projected number?

It is a genuine, dramatic, profound choice. Early in the Second World War, when England stood alone against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill made his famous "their finest hour" speech. He posed that the world could "move forward into broad, sunlit uplands" or, alternately, that it could "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age..." Today, Churchill's stirring words apply not to two nations at war, but to a decision about human population that the whole planet must make. A difference of 2.5 billion will have a huge impact on whether we can feed and employ rising numbers of people while also switching to an ecologically sustainable economy. It is a challenge as formidable as any war and the choices are as stark as those between the broad, sunlit uplands of the civilized world and an abyss of a new Dark Age.

Demography is an unforgiving taskmaster. Many of those who will be parents in the next 40 years are already born and enumerated. Even if they have fewer children than their parents, global population will continue to grow. We can see the consequences of this type of demographic momentum in China. Although the average Chinese couple now has fewer than two children, as a result of rapid population growth in the past, China's population continues to increase by 7 million every year. Whatever we do, global population will continue to grow for another generation or two. The key issue is, at what rate?

Fortunately, we know a great deal about how to make family planning available without infringing on any human rights. In nearly every setting where couples, and particularly women, have been provided with the means and correct information they need to manage whether or when to have another child, birth rates have fallen rapidly. There is no reason then - other than lack of political will - that the world population should not stabilize at 8 billion.

Half the world's women have already reached replacement level fertility, which is an average of 2.1 births. (Demographers use 2.1 because some children die before they are able to reproduce.) Another third of the world's women have between 2.1 and 4 births. These women live mainly in countries where family size has been falling in recent decades. There is reason to believe that they will move to replacement level fertility in a few more decades-provided that population and family planning are given the priority they deserve.

Demographers used to believe that once a country's fertility rate began to decline, it would continue to do so automatically. For example, Kenya made a modest but consistent investment in voluntary family planning in the 1970s and 1980s and as a result, the average family size fell from 8 to 5. Later, the focus was taken off family planning, and the naïve assumption that birth rates would go on declining proved sadly wrong. In 1998, demographers projected that the population of Kenya in 2050 would be 51 million. As a result of the loss of attention to family planning and a consequent stall in fertility decline, the population in 2050 is now projected to be 85 million.

Forty years ago, population growth caught media attention and inspired scientific endeavors the way climate change does today. Why have media voices grown silent on this issue? Why do many people, including those representing a variety of advocacy groups, avoid talking about population?

If people think that bringing down average family size involves telling people what to do, or at worst, coercive family planning, then they are unlikely to want to talk about population. In contrast, when people learn that reducing average family size depends on fulfilling an unmet need for family planning, then suddenly they can see that it's acceptable to talk about population. In short, family planning means listening to what people want, not telling them what to do. The low birth rate in the United States isn't due to someone telling us to have fewer children; rather, we have achieved small families because we could.

In 1994, the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo drew attention to the many needs of women (some of which had been overshadowed by demographic targets), especially in Africa. Unfortunately, coming out of that conference, some groups began to view the issue of 'population' as politically incorrect. Family planning budgets collapsed, while HIV/AIDS budgets ballooned. The term 'family planning' was replaced by the broader phrase 'reproductive health,' triggering numerous pilot projects, few of which were brought to scale. Further hurting the cause, low fertility in countries such as Russia and Japan suggested the 'population explosion is over.'

In virtually all societies couples have sexual intercourse frequently. This means that women cannot limit family size unless they have access to contraception and accurate information about how to use it. The Demographic and Health Surveys, conducted in nearly every developing country, show that 215 million sexually active women do not want another child in the next two years, or ever, yet they are not using a modern method of contraception.

Holding global population at 8 billion depends on a reasonable level of access to a variety of contraceptive methods made available through a range of distribution channels and backed up with reliable information. Making family planning readily available means changing policies, increasing modest budgets to subsidize the very poor, and overcoming bottlenecks in the supply line.

Family planning is a choice, not a diagnosis, and communities must be empowered to help themselves. In Ethiopia, Venture Strategies and the Bixby Center, working with local leaders, have shown that community volunteers (including, in one case, two Ethiopian priests) can safely dispense the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera. Such task shifting is key to addressing unmet need for family planning because the demand is so great. There is simply no time to wait for doctors and nurses to tackle the problem single-handedly. Other trained community members must be part of the solution.

Over the decades, family planning has been unnecessarily over-medicalized. In Tanzania, women are refused the Pill if they have five children; in Madagascar, if they have none. There is no scientific justification for either rule. Dispelling misinformation is another necessary step. Some clinic providers give misleading advice or are unwilling to prescribe adolescents contraceptives. Perceived dangers of using contraception are highly prevalent and may be one of the most stubborn barriers to family planning. In many countries, women think the Pill is more dangerous than childbirth, whereas the risks are literally a thousand times in the opposite direction. Reliable ways of dispelling misinformation exist, however, such as the use of community theater and popular radio and television soap operas.

No country has achieved replacement level fertility without access to safe abortion. This is true even of Catholic countries such as the island of Malta, where abortion remains illegal but statistics show many women travel to neighboring countries to terminate unintended pregnancies. The world is most likely to maintain a population of 8 billion if safe abortion is made universally available. This is not because more abortions will be performed, but because those women who have abortions will receive contraceptive counseling. Studies show that after an abortion, a woman is more likely to adopt a method and use it consistently than in any other situation. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the TFR is now 1.6. The most plausible explanation for this uniquely low TFR is that Marie Stopes International provided comprehensive abortion care, including postabortion contraceptive care, for well over a decade before the recent liberalization of the abortion law.

Safe abortion (using manual vacuum aspiration, which can be done in low-resource settings by non-physician providers) and medical abortion (using the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol) are transforming women's health. In Tigray, a remote part of Ethiopia, 70 percent of the hospital beds were once given to women suffering from botched abortions. Once community health workers were taught how to provide medical abortion, this suffering was virtually eliminated, and women gained from being exposed to modern contraceptive choices.

Without doubt, the greatest challenge of the 21st century will be to move to an ecologically sustainable global economy. If we fail to meet that challenge, then we will irreversibly damage the planet with the most massive extinction of plants and animals since the asteroid that eliminated the dinosaurs.

Some who deny the importance of human numbers point to the Netherlands as a prosperous, small country with almost 17 million people. They ask why the world can't accommodate a few billion more people at the European standard of living? The problem, as ecologist Mathis Wackernagel points out, is our footprint. The Netherlands imports food, timber, and other resources from around the world. The greenhouse gases it puts into the atmosphere spread from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The footprint of the 17 million people in the Netherlands is eight times the actual area of the country.

The exact worldwide figures are open to debate, but there is legitimate concern that by 2050 the planet's water, land, and atmosphere will no longer be able to support the population's needs in a sustainable way. Given time and a great deal of scientific ingenuity, we might still be able to reduce our consumption and create an ecologically sustainable economy. But the more we impoverish the earth in the short term, the more difficult the task will be.

Well over 95 percent of the population growth between now and 2050 will be in the least developed countries-those that are also the least able to feed, educate and employ their burgeoning numbers. The poorest 2 billion people on the planet contribute 3 percent of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Cruelly, the adverse impacts of global warming will be greatest on those who have contributed least to the problem. Global warming will increase the number of people exposed to malaria. In a country such as Bangladesh, a small rise in sea level could inundate vast areas of rich agricultural land.

Even at a population of 8 billion, it will be difficult to feed everyone, as nearly all the good agricultural land in the world is already farmed at moderate intensity. As the emerging economies in Asia and Latin America consume more animal protein, that livestock will be fed the same grain that will be needed for African villages facing starvation. The absurdity of converting grain to ethanol will be responsible for leaving more children malnourished in the least developed countries.

Some of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, especially those making up the Sahel, face particularly grave challenges. They have average family sizes of 5 or more. In Niger, the rate of population growth exceeds the rate of economic growth. More than one quarter of women over age 40 have 10 or more children, and only 1 in 1,000 women completes secondary school. Approximately 10 percent of children under five in Niger suffer from acute malnutrition and 44 percent of children suffer from chronic malnutrition. If the TFR falls from the current 7.4 to 3.8 by 2050, the population will still expand from 16 million today to 58 million by 2050. If the TFR does not fall so fast, then the population could reach a totally unsustainable 80 million.

The history of family planning is one of missed opportunities. When the World Health Organization (WHO) was established in 1948, the first Director General, a Canadian named Brock Chisholm, saw reducing mortality and slowing population growth as synergistic goals. However, the Vatican and some Catholic countries ferociously opposed giving any assistance for family planning to countries such as India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), which requested it in the 1950s. The Catholic minority went as far as to threaten to destroy the fledgling WHO and create a new world organization. Chisholm was forced to back down at a time when death rates were falling in a spectacular way. Vaccination, DDT to control malaria, and relative peace in much of the world had a tremendous impact on death rates. It was at this time that a small but sensible investment in family planning in countries such as those lining the Sahara would have had the greatest leverage.

From the 1970s to the 1990s considerable progress was made in making voluntary family planning available in East Asia and Latin America, but a highly reprehensible episode of coercive family planning in India in the 1970s, the Chinese one-child policy that was initiated in 1980, and Peru's forced sterilizations in the 1990s set progress back a second time. And, as we have mentioned, the ICPD often focused on women's empowerment at the expense of population and family planning.

To keep world population at 8 billion we need a sense of scale and a sense of urgency; the confidence that population growth can be slowed within a human rights framework; the political will to make it happen; the investments necessary to make family planning options universally available; the courage to fight patriarchy so that women are free to make the best decisions for themselves; and a burning desire to bequeath our children and grandchildren a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world rather than a hungry, angry world riven by conflict over resources and a slew of failed states-some perhaps armed with nuclear weapons. Stabilizing the population at 8 billion requires adopting win-win policies that benefit women and their families and help make the world a safer, less divided, more sustainable place.

Population is only one factor among many in health and development outcomes, educational attainment, food and water security, and political stability. It is only one factor, but it's a critical one. Attention to population will not solve the world's problems alone, but without it, the world's problems will not be solved.

Martha Campbell is a Lecturer in the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. In the 1990s she directed the population program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. In 2000 she founded and became President and CEO of Venture Strategies for Health and Development, a nonprofit organization that works to help facilitate large-scale health and reproductive health change where it is wanted in low resource countries.

Malcolm Potts is an obstetrician and reproductive scientist. He is the first Fred H. Bixby Chair of the Population and Family Planning program in the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley and has developed the Bixby Center with a team of young experts. He was the first Medical Director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a position he held for a decade. He has published ten books and over 200 scientific papers.

2011-03-28T07:38:00.010-04:00

Oops, We Did It Again

by Mark Powell,
Secretary, Vermonters for Sustainable Population

At the end of last year, the Census Bureau released preliminary data from the 2010 Census. As an environmentalist I should have been comforted to learn that U.S. population growth had slowed down; there was just one little problem. I recently published a guest editorial in the Times Argus entitled, “Our Population is Growing Too Fast,” which began, “In the past twenty years, the U.S. population has grown faster than ever before . . .” You can imagine that I was somewhat perplexed by the discrepancy between my own characterization of U.S. population growth and the prevailing media sound bites in the wake of the Census results. How could I come to such a dramatically different conclusion? A closer look shows that the Census Bureau’s characterization of the data masks the largest demographic surge in any developed country’s history.

The last twenty years have exceeded the rapid expansion of the U.S. population during the baby boom, which currently dominates discussions surrounding budget shortfalls, growing entitlement burdens and generational imbalances. Now, the baby boom has been superseded by a new boom; a millennium boom, driven primarily by immigration rather than fertility rates. This shift is drastically altering America’s future and makes current challenges even more imposing.

The baby boom presented a unique challenge because of the sharp increase in the numbers of Americans within a narrow age range. Since the current boom is distributed across a broader age range, the millennium boom invokes very different challenges. At the same time, however, some of the people who have immigrated to our country in the past twenty years are baby boomers themselves, adding to the generational imbalances that threaten to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare. And there is another very important contrast between the two booms. During the baby boom the American economy had 18 years to prepare before competition for jobs began. In the millennium boom, most new arrivals are already of working age.

The Census Bureau has deployed remarkably soothing statistical talking points that do not fit the reality of America’s current demographic trajectory. Their statements and publications offer up uneventful news nuggets that consistently emphasize a trend of slowing U.S. population growth. To date, the only decades that have exceeded 2000-2010[1] in numerical population growth were the previous decades of the 1990s and the 1950s, the height of the baby boom. In the 1950s the United States added 28.4 million people, barely superseding the 27.5 million estimated increases of the aughts[2]. Some have challenged these results, claiming that certain groups were undercounted, but officially, the aughts have seen the third largest decadal growth, not just in America, but in the history of the industrial world, and that growth directly follows the largest single decade increase of the 1990s. [3]

, The Census Bureau news releases and public statements included summaries of the numerical growth but provided little context for those numbers, focusing almost exclusively on the percentage rate instead. By comparing current expansion to an increasingly higher bar indicative of our bigger baseline population size, this analysis carries an inherent bias toward growth.

At a press conference held on December 21, 2010, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves presented a series of charts and graphs and summarized them by saying, “The percentage growth this last decade…is thus the second lowest of the past century.”[4] In specifically citing the “percentage growth” on a decade-by-decade basis, Director Groves reserved his agency a sliver of plausible deniability in a remarkably disingenuous summary that was faithfully echoed throughout the media coverage. Without this distinction, this statement would have been completely inaccurate, and it is highly misleading to suggest that the past decade’s population growth in the U.S. was slow in any meaningful context. Our population increased by 22 million and 23 million in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. When compared to the aughts increase of at least 27.5 million, those decades were slower growing eras. The 1990s experienced the fastest population growth in U.S. history, so it is not surprising that the pace of growth might slow soon after, especially in a decade that concluded in a recession. But summarizing short-term data as if it represents longer-term trends rises, in this case, to statistical malpractice.

Figure A, below, shows both the percentage rate analysis emphasized by the Census Bureau and the numerical increases upon which those percentages are based. .[5]

Figure A

Looking at the percentage growth indicated by the red line, it is easy to think that U.S. population growth has gradually receded and that our population is stabilizing. We could find comfort there, if that was really the case. But the Census Bureau’s statements made only perfunctory references to the data indicated by the blue columns, with virtually no context or comparative data, and declined to represent the numerical increases in any of their widely released graphic materials. As you can see, the percentage-based analysis, the exclusive focus of the Census Bureau statements, contrasts sharply with the numerical analysis, which clearly indicates that the gradual slowing of our population growth seen in the 1970s and 1980s has been reversed. Our country is currently growing faster than ever.

If the Bureau wanted to effectively illustrate long-term implications of our growth, they could have used a rolling average, as statisticians often do in situations where short-term variations are acknowledged to be potentially misrepresentative. A twenty-year rolling average for the decades since 1930 produces the following graph (Figure B).[6]

Figure B

Even if you specifically bracket the baby boom years, comparing the growth from 1945 to 1965 rather than distinct decades, the two decades of the baby boom saw an increase of 54 million people in our population, while the millennium boom has surpassed 60 million. As the economy recovers, immigration is also likely to rise. Taking births to recent immigrants into account, this boom is likely to drive forward with still more rapid population growth, making this not only the largest population surge in our history, but also the most sustained one. That, however, is not the message that was portrayed in the release of the 2010 Census results.

Why do my own statements about rapid US population growth so drastically contradict those characterizations made by the Census Bureau? The difference is in the way the facts have been reported. Figure C is from the press packets made available by the Census Bureau in December 2010.[7]

Figure C

As you can see, this graph portrays the overall population size using green bars. This portrayal however, depicts the per-decade increases on a much diminished scale, making it very difficult to discern even minor variations between decades. Had they used the bar elements of the graph to portray decennial increases rather than cumulative totals, the differences in numerical growth between decades would be much more emphatic. So what this graph most readily conveys is not the decade-by-decade total size as shown by the green bars, but the decade to decade shifts in the percentage growth, indicated by the jagged red line, so that the percentage growth of one decade becomes the visual standard by which the succeeding decade is measured. Since the 1990s witnessed the largest numerical growth in our history, anything that follows is thus compared to a higher base, making it seem far less consequential than the numerical comparisons would suggest. .[8] Furthermore, consider how Director Groves explained this graphic during the December 21^st press conference. “There are two notable decades here. Between 1930 and 1940, the small growth rate of 7.3% is thought to be related to the great depression of the 1930s. Between 1950 and 1960, the high growth rate of 18.5% reflects the so-called baby boom.”[9] Groves did not include the 1990s in his description of the most significant decades.

Now have a look at a graphic that was used in 2001 to inform the American public of the demographic tsunami recorded in the 2000 census.

Figure E

So why did the 2010 graphic emphasize only percentages and the blunt indicator of total population size while the 2000 graphic provided a clear illustration of the numerical growth and the way it sharply varies from the percentage growth? And why did Director Groves not describe the 1990s as notable when they saw the largest population growth in the history of the developed world?

The reasons the current Census team chose to do so could very well hinge on the Obama Administration’s desire to avoid a robust debate on U.S. population growth. A central factor in that growth, and one that might explain the Census Bureau’s portrayal of current trends, is immigration. The Obama administration supports comprehensive immigration reform, including some form of amnesty, but the public is still divided. One could argue the dynamics would change if the Census Bureau admitted in good faith that the U.S. is in the midst of the largest demographic surge in our history.

On the evening of the preliminary 2010 Census data release, Census Director Groves appeared on the PBS evening Newshour. The moderator, Judy Woodruff, inquired about the role of immigration, to which the Census Director replied, “Immigration is a part of our picture, as in most developed societies. Over the last 10 years, a rough estimate would be about 60 percent of the growth we experienced was from the natural increase of the then resident (emphasis added) population, about 40 percent from immigration.”[10] This response is inaccurate in two ways. First, immigration’s impact on American population size is not comparable to its impact in other developed nations. As of the 1980’s the U.S. tracked steadily towards population stabilization in league with countries such as Great Britain, Germany and Japan, but we have veered sharply upwards. According to the UN, we’re growing faster than Thailand, and unless we reduce immigration, we will be growing faster than the Dominican Republic in three decades.[11] Secondly, the Director emphasized only the percentage of people who enter the country, but specifically avoided pointing out that when you consider the children born to immigrants, the total impact of immigration is about 65% of total growth, rather than 40% he cited. The Census Director has phrased his words very carefully here, resulting in a clear but disingenuous disconnect between our historically unprecedented immigration and population growth’s economic, social and environmental impacts.

This debate may seem inconsequential to those who seldom consider the topic of domestic population growth. It’s important to realize, however, that the issue of U.S. population growth, in the absence of Census Bureau efforts to call attention to it, probably won’t achieve close scrutiny any time soon. Without reductions in both legal and illegal immigration rates, the 2020 Census is likely to reflect a continuation not of the pause in rapid growth that we experienced between 2006 and 2010, but of the unprecedented resurgence in population growth seen between 1990 and 2005. Putting forth misleading impressions that growth is slowing down makes it far less likely that the impact of immigration on population growth will play a pivotal role in our impending changes to immigration policy. Since immigration drives approximately two-thirds of our population growth, and immigration reform is on a short list of priorities at the White House, it is very important that the American public is aware of its impact.

[1] Hereafter referred to as the “aughts.”

[2] 1950-1960 figures based on: Census Bureau-- Historical National Population Estimates, 1900 to 1999 (8k), found at: http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/1990s/popclockest.txt

2000-2010 figure based on: Census Bureau—U.S. Census Bureau Announces 2010 Census Population Counts Apportionment Counts Delivered to President; found at http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb10-cn93.html

This press release did not specifically cite the numerical growth, only the percentage, but I did the math all by myself!

[3] United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: 2008 Revison, found at http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp Note, I compared the growth from 1950 onward for the ten most populous countries as listed by the US Census Bureau, found here: http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wp96/wp96005.pdf,

[4] United States Census Bureau/ CSPAN Video Library.: U.S. Population: 308,745,538, 21 December 2010. 20 http://www.c-span.org/Events/US-Population-308745538/10737418368-1/

[5] 1900 to 2000 figures based on: Census Bureau-- Historical National Population Estimates, 1900 to 1999 (8k), found at: http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/1990s/popclockest.txt 2000 estimate based on: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2008 (NST-EST2008-01), found at http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est2008.html; For 2010 figure—Ibid.

[6] Ibid. Rolling average was calculated for year indicated by calculating the increase of the previous twenty years and dividing by two.

[7] U.S. Census Bureau; Apportionment Data. http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-data.php

[8]Perry, Mark J, et al., Census 2000 Brief : 1990 to 2000, Population Change and Distribution, Issued April 2001, C2KBR/01-2

[9] United States Census Bureau/ CSPAN Video Library.: U.S. Population: 308,745,538, 21 December 2010. 20 http://www.c-span.org/Events/US-Population-308745538/10737418368-1/

[10] Newshour on PBS, Dec. 21, 1010, Judy Woodworth interview with Robert Groves, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec10/census1_12-21.html

[11] United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: 2008 Revison, found at http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp

2011-03-17T19:26:00.015-04:00

The Triumph of Innumeracy

by Mark Powell

Vermonters for Sustainable Population

At a December 21^st press conference, Census Director Robert Groves released the results of the 2010 census. News coverage across the board has echoed the soundbite that population growth had slowed signficantly, with a typical headline calling it “ the slowest since the Great Depression.” In reality, the US population in the past twenty years has grown faster than ever before, but that was not the message we heard. That was not the message we heard from the Census Bureau, however. In its press appearances and written statements, Director Groves and other Census Bureau spokepersons emphasized percentage rates of growth almost exclusively, providing real numbers only in their entirety and not at all in any graphical context. As if aware of the potentially explosive response he was hoping to avoid, Director Groves showed a slight squeamishness as he stated, “The percentage growth this last decade . . . . is thus the second lowest of the past century.”[i]

The characterization is fair and accurate only if the increase in the U.S. population is measured as a percentage of the existing population, but is irresponsibly inaccurate when considering the actual numerical increase in comparison to past decades of growth. At a minimum, the Census has reported an increase of 27.5 million people in the U.S. from the year 2000 to the year 2010, a 9.7% increase. Looking at the percentage increases of the past century, this is indeed a modest growth that is surpassed by every one of the previous five decades. Since the U.S. population at the start of this decade was more than twice the size of the 1940 population, however, the use of percentages understates the significance of this decade’s growth. Looking at the actual numbers of decennial census results, on the other hand, shows that this decade is surpassed only by two others. One of these, the previous decade from 1990 to 2000, recorded an unprecedented 32.7 million increase to the size of the U.S. population. The other comparable decade, from 1950 to 1960, the high point of the legendary baby boom, saw an increase of 27.9 million people to the U.S. population, barely enough to supersede the current decade, which, as I mentioned, was portrayed in headlines as the slowest decade of growth since the Depression. I think this is an important distinction that is clearly de-emphasized in the language and analysis that prevails in the news coverage of this preliminary report.

It is fair to ask whether the percentage increase or the increase in actual numbers is a better measure of the impact of continued U.S. population growth, but I fear that the Census Bureau, in choosing to report out on the less-controversial interpretations based on percentage increase, is de-emphasizing the significance of current immigration policy and its impact on current and future population growth. If it were not for the recent economic downturn, experts all agree, immigration would have continued at its record pace through the end of this decade. If it had done so, it would probably have exceeded even the 1990’s in the numerical increase of the U.S. population.

In the chart below, I have graphed U.S. population growth from 1900 to 2010 in two different ways. The first shows the percentage increase, which appears fairly innocuous in that it shows a modest trend of declining population growth relative to the existing size of the U.S. population. The second shows the actual numerical increase by decade, indicating in a much more definitive way the fact that U.S. population growth has rebounded considerably in the past twenty years.

US Population: Percentage Growth by Decade as Emphasized in 2010 Census Coverage

Decade Ending:

U.S. Population: Numerical Growth by Decade as Ignored by 2010 Census Coverage

Decade Ending:

If they had been interested in showing a clearer picture of the historical trends, they could have used a rolling average, as statisticians often do in situations where short term variations are potentially unrepresentative. Using a twenty-year rolling average to portray U.S. population growth over the past century would produce the following graph:

Even if you were to specifically bracket the baby boom years, comparing the growth from 1945 to 1965 rather than on the basis of distinct decades, the two decades of the baby boom saw an increase of 54 million people in our population, while the twenty years just ending saw an increase of at least 59 million. The baby boom has just been eclipsed by the 20 year period just ending, and we are poised for even more population growth as the economy rebounds. When the baby boom reached the age of 20, it called it quits and went to bed. This boom, at 20 years old, is snoozing at the moment. However, with a likely resurgence in immigration as the economy improves, and taking into account the fertility of recent immigrants, this boom is likely to wake up and drive forward with continued unsustainable growth in our population, making this not only the largest population surge in our history but also the longest running one.

This is the most widely distributed graph portraying the 2010 Census Results.

As you can see, this graph does portray the overall population size, using green bars, and that is obviously at a higher level today than ever before. They have used a scale, however, that portrays the per-decade increases on a much diminished significance, making it very difficult to discern even minor variations between decades. Had they used the bar elements of the graph to portray decennial increases rather than cumulative totals, however, the differences in numerical growth between decades would be much more emphatic. So what this graph most readily conveys is not the decade-by-decade total size as shown by the green bars but the decade to decade shifts in the percentage growth, indicated by the jagged red line, so that the percentage growth of one decade becomes the visual standard by which the succeeding decade is measured. Since the 1990s witnessed the largest numerical growth in our history, anything that follows it has to meet a higher standard of growth just to avoid an inferiority complex. As mentioned earlier, when all is said and done the Aughts will likely be recognized as the second fastest growing decade, population wise, in our history. Sure doesn’t come across in this 2010 graphic, though, does it? Now have a look at a graphic that was used in 2001 to inform the American public of the demographic earthquake recorded in the 2000 census.

Clearly, then, U.S. population growth is not slowing down when considered from a long-term, statistically meaningful way. This begs the question; does the Census Bureau have an interest in portraying our current population growth as slower than it actually is? And if so, why?

A Parched Future

2009-08-28T07:51:00.001-04:00

A Parched Future
Ignoring U.S. Population Growth Threatens the Environment and Social Services

While the country and the Congress debate our future direction in reversing global warming and providing health care to all Americans, policy-makers and the public alike continue to ignore the major impact of our rapidly expanding population. The United States’ population is now over 306 million and is growing at the net gain of one person every ten seconds. By 2050 the U.S. population is expected to reach 438 million. According to the Population Reference Bureau, the United States is the only developed country that significantly contributes to global population growth.

Some theorize that current over-population and on-going rapid population growth are issues the human mind cannot cope with due to their overwhelming implications -- and are therefore subject to psychological denial tactics by both individuals and societies.
Yet we already see the climate change impact of over-populating the planet as greenhouse gases pour into the atmosphere, arable land is consumed by urban expansion and safe, healthy water supplies are harder to find.

Water serves as a prime indicator of the population problem. Water wars already occur in the Southwest. By 2050, climate change is expected to cut short winters which will reduce one-quarter of the snow pack in the Sierras, dramatically diminishing water availability in Western States. Proposed solutions include harvesting stormwater to collect 400,000 acre-feet of water per year, enough to supply two-thirds of Los Angeles’ annual water use. Still, the amount of water available will drop by 74% per person in the U.S. by 2050.

Population growth means the United States will have to revamp social systems such as healthcare and education. Conservative analysis shows the increases to U.S. population increases health care costs by about $2,700 per person per year. Adding 138 million people by 2050 could easily add $350 billion dollars in health care costs in that year alone! As we attempt to address the shortfall in healthcare today and find ourselves overwhelmed by the financial burden, you have to wonder how we are going to care for all of these people. But have you heard one mention of the costs of population growth in the health care debate?

With education resources strained in almost every state, the influx of new students will further stress already overloaded systems. It is critical that we understand the aggravating factors contributing to these problems and address them immediately.

How can we bring U.S. population growth into the discussion of critical issues such as climate change and healthcare? Why has over-population been denied attention by policy-makers and the public alike? Where will the U.S. get enough clean water to supply its mushrooming population? Who will pay for the impact of population growth on basic social services such as education?

US targets population growth, urges women's power

2009-05-22T15:03:00.000-04:00

US targets population growth, urges women's power

Date: Thursday, April 23, 2009
Source: Associated Press Worldstream
Author: EDITH M. LEDERER

WASHINGTON -- The new U.S. ambassador for global women's issues pledged Thursday the Obama administration's "deep commitment" to a U.N. blueprint aimed at slowing the world's population explosion and empowering women.

At the heart of the more than 100-page action plan adopted at the U.N. population conference in Cairo, Egypt, 15 years ago is a demand for women's equality through education, economic development, access to modern birth control and the right to choose if and when to become pregnant.

Underlying the conference was the record growth in global population and research, which shows that educated women choose to have fewer children. In 1994, when delegates from 180 countries met in Cairo, the population was 5.7 billion. According to the latest U.N. estimates, it will hit 7 billion early in 2012 and top 9 billion in 2050.

The U.S. ambassador, Melanne Verveer, said President Barack Obama's decision to contribute $50US million to the U.N. Population Fund for family planning, an increase of more than 100 percent over the last U.S. contribution, in 2001, "will send an unambiguous signal to the world that the U.S. supports the Cairo Platform for Action."

The Bush administration cut off money to the fund because of claims, denied by the U.N. agency, that it supported forced abortions and sterilizations in China.

Verveer, former chief of staff to Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was first lady, spoke at a luncheon honoring Dr. Nafis Sadik on her 80th birthday.

Verveer praised the Pakistani obstetrician-gynecologist for framing "the vision" of the Cairo plan that linked development, human rights, women's rights and reproductive health for the first time.

Sadik, a former head of the U.N. Population Fund, was secretary-general of the Cairo conference.

"I wanted to come here today to clearly reiterate the renewed and deep commitment of the United States government to the ... Program of Action, and the Obama administration's steadfast determination to continue to work with other governments and NGOs to meet the goals we have set," she said.

Clinton, now secretary of state, told a conference of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in Houston last month "that reproductive rights and the umbrella issue of women's rights and empowerment is going to be a key to the foreign policy of this administration." She stressed the link between women's rights and democracy.

"A society that denies and demeans women's rights and roles is a society that is more likely to engage in behavior that is negative, anti-democratic and leads to violence and extremism," she said after receiving the federation's Margaret Sanger Award named for its founder for her work on behalf of women's health and reproductive rights.

Tim Wirth, who led the U.S. delegation at the Cairo conference, called the Program of Action "a revolutionary document" because "it really is ultimately about the transfer of political power."

"That's why it's been so difficult," said Wirth, who is now president of the United Nations Foundation. "That's why it's been so controversial. There's a finite amount of political power in the world and what this document did in so many ways was to transfer a lot of political power from men to women."

Sadik, taking up the point, thanked Verveer "for capturing the spirit of the Cairo message" and expressed hope that she would convey to the Obama administration "how important it is to transfer power really to women equally no more, no less and to take away the power from men who have much more, and not what they actually deserve."

"So I hope that will be the message," she said. "Equality is the name of the game and our real message."

Sadik, who currently is a special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on HIV/AIDS and global health issues, said 15 years after Cairo the first thing that needs to be done is "shed the baggage" that the Bush administration "put on us ... so unnecessarily" and move forward.

"I hope that the U.S. diplomatic policy, defense policy and development policy are all going to focus on the rights of women and make that the underpinning for anything else that they may do in a developing country," she said.

"We need urgently to increase family planning and reduce maternal mortality," Sadik said. "It is, frankly, a crime against humanity that half a million women are allowed to die every year as a direct consequence of pregnancy."

She also decried "the distortions of religion" that deny women their human rights and "bigots" who fall back on cultural values to deny rights to girls and women especially on matters of reproductive and sexual health.

In Sadik's honor, the United Nations Foundation, which sponsored the lunch, announced that it was establishing a fund to help some of the more than 600 million adolescent girls in the developing world.

Paradise Lost: Case Study of Limited Resources and Population Expansion

2009-05-12T07:03:00.002-04:00

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/09/off_road_warriors/

ATVs having nowhere to ride on Cape Cod is one of many problems that have worsened after decades of growth and development (“Off-road warriors,” 5/9/09). In fact, the Cape is one of the best places in the U.S. to observe the effects of rapid population growth. What once was an isolated and untamed place to vacation and experience vast natural beauty has become an extension of the Greater Boston suburbs, with its housing, retail shopping, and endless traffic.

There are irrevocable costs that come with our society’s relentless promotion of growth. The story behind the ATV article is that in many ways parents today cannot provide to their own children the lifestyle they once enjoyed. Unless we learn to live sustainably, with smaller families and a stable population, our children and future generations will miss out on an ever-increasing list of life-enhancing experiences.

Americans also should question the paradigm that communities must always be growing in order to enjoy a better quality of life. Indeed, the opposite is oftentimes true with the attendant higher taxes, housing costs, traffic congestion, and the incessant loss of open spaces.

Henry Barbaro

NECSP Board Member

America On The Brink -- A New Book

2009-05-10T10:32:00.001-04:00

AMERICA ON THE BRINK: THE NEXT ADDED 100 MILLION AMERICANS

By Frosty Wooldridge

Published April 27, 2009; Available 1-888 280 7715; Barnes and Noble; Borders; www.barnesandnoble.com ; www.borders.com ; www.Amazon.com In London, England contact: www.authorhouse.co.uk

"Eye-opening, incisive, brilliant! The US has the fastest growing population of any industrial nation, and one of the world's highest consumption rates. Water, topsoil, forests, fish, petroleum...the more of us, the more pressure we exert on our environment. Many discuss our personal consumption patterns, but few dare talk about the underlying crisis of population growth. Wooldridge is one of the few courageous voices warning us about the implications of our current direction, and informing us what we can do to change course." Richard Heinberg, Peak Everything

"Electrifying reading! This is a veritable cannonade of a book. Wooldridge targets the people and institutions, from the President on down, who refuse to look at the consequences of population growth in the modern era. His focus is on the United States, but his range is the world. He fearlessly addresses issues that politicians fear to mention, such as the effects of mass immigration on our population future and our social systems. He engages to force population issues into our local and national political decisions." Lindsey Grant, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population.

"The environmental community may be outrageously AWOL on the important subject of population, but not Frosty Wooldridge. Read this book!" Richard D. Lamm, Governor of Colorado 1975- 1987

"Wooldridge's powerful indictment of our political leaders for failing to address U.S. overpopulation should be required reading in classrooms and boardrooms. To mindlessly add 100 million more people to our nation's population in the next 30 years will put the United States economy and social order at further risk. His challenge needs to be addressed on individual, national and international levels before it's too late." William B. Dickinson, The Biocentric Institute

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans--injects a whole new dynamic facing the United States in the 21^st century. While national leaders at every level ignore accelerating consequences, immigration-driven hyper-population growth will become THE single greatest issue facing America in the years ahead. By adding 100 million people by 2035, every crisis facing Americans today accelerates in harsher consequences--whether it is water shortages, climate change, energy scarcity, dwindling resources, gridlock, air pollution and a decline of quality of life. Wooldridge compellingly states the obvious fact that the U.S. cannot continue population expansion indefinitely. He offers Hobson’s Choice as a final result of mass denial. If the U.S. adds another 100 million people via immigration, it faces two doors: if the country picks door # 1, this civilization walks over a cliff. If it picks door # 2, it walks into quicksand. Once that 100 million people manifest, no one, no matter what their race, creed or color—escapes. Americans will endure water shortages, energy problems, crowding and a much diminished standard of living. The American Dream will no longer be available. However, he offers concrete ways to change the future. In all great social change, it takes a ‘conscious shift’ that leads to a ‘critical mass shift’ and finally, a ‘tipping point’ whereby a civilization turns toward a sustainable and viable future. It’s up to each citizen and leader to make sure that ‘tipping point’ occurs. The fate of this civilization hangs in the balance.

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans

By Frosty Wooldridge

Publisher: Author House www.authorhouse.com, Price: $17.99

ISBN # 978-1-4389-6074-6

219 pages, 41chapters

Order Phone number: 1-888-280-7715 credit card or check

It will also be available on www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com

within a few weeks.

Radio, TV, newsprint: for complimentary media copy, call Yvona Doane: 1 888 519 5121 Ext. 5299

Author Contact: www.frostywooldridge.com

The Great American Garbage Patch

2009-05-04T07:24:00.001-04:00

The Great American Garbage Patch

http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty463.htm

By Frosty Wooldridge

In my 40 years traveling around this planet, I discovered human beings respect nothing anywhere in the world. No matter how beautiful, no matter how pristine the location and no matter what country—human beings toss their trash everywhere. They inject their chemicals into the land, air and water. They throw their rubbish into rivers, lakes and streams.

In my forty years of Scuba diving around the world, I’ve seen our pristine lakes and oceans turn into trash cans for humans. Millions of tires, nets, plastic, glass and metal containers roll around the ocean floor like ‘creatures’ out of place.

As recently exposed on Oprah, “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” twice the size of Texas, features three million tons of plastic debris floating around the Pacific. In some places, it reaches 60 feet thick. It kills millions of marine creatures annually. It’s not just the Pacific, 46,000 pieces of plastic float on every square mile of all our oceans and seas! That figure is correct!

While riding my bicycle around the world or climbing mountains, I have seen humans toss soiled baby diapers into pristine pools, fjords and rivers. On Mt. Everest, known as the “Earth Mother”, climbers have left tons of trash and garbage on her flanks in their efforts to reach the top. At the base, climbers have turned the area into a sewage pit.

Most large rivers running out of industrial nations feature raw sewage that creates ‘dead zones’ like the 10,000 square mile one at the mouth of the Mississippi River to 27,000 square mile dead zones in the North Sea. How big is that? That’s the size of North Carolina.

Instead of changing their ways, humans continue adding more trash upon the trash with no end in sight.

In a sobering expose’ Mother Jones featured a brilliant piece by world famous author Bill McKibben. He also wrote a ground-breaking book: The End of Nature. I highly recommend reading his books.

“Waste not, want not” by Bill McKibben, Mother Jones/May-June 2009 http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/05/waste-not-want-not

“Once a year or so, it's my turn to run recycling day for our tiny town,” McKibben said. “But it's also kind of disturbing, this waste stream. For one, a town of 550 sure generates a lot—a trailer load every couple of weeks.

“More than that, though, so much of it seems utterly unnecessary. Not just waste, but wasteful. Plastic water bottles, one after another—80 million of them get tossed every day. The ones I'm stomping down are being "recycled," but so what? In a country where almost everyone has access to clean drinking water, they define waste to begin with. In fact, once you start thinking about it, the category of "waste" begins to expand, until it includes an alarming percentage of our economy. Let's do some intellectual sorting:

“There's old-fashioned waste, the dangerous, sooty kind. You're making something useful, but you're not using the latest technology, and so you're spewing: particulates into the air, or maybe sewage into the water. You wish to keep doing it, because it's cheap, and you block any regulation that might interfere with your right to spew. This is the kind of waste that's easy to attack; it's obvious and obnoxious and a lot of it falls under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and so on. There's actually less of this kind of waste than there used to be—that's why we can swim in most of our rivers again.” Or to correct McKibben, at least 53 percent of them!

“There's waste that comes from doing something that manifestly doesn't need doing,” said McKibben. “A hundred million trees are cut every year just to satisfy the junk-mail industry. Or think about what we've done with cars. From 1975 to 1985, fuel efficiency for the average new car improved from 14 to 28 miles per gallon. Then we stopped worrying about oil and put all that engineering talent to work on torque.”

While we Americans run through our busy days, mountains of trash accumulate worldwide by our singular activities.

McKibben said, “Chris Jordan is the photographer laureate of waste—his most recent project, "Running the Numbers," uses exquisite images to show the 106,000 aluminum cans Americans toss every 30 seconds, or the 1 million plastic cups distributed on US airline flights every 6 hours, or the 2 million plastic beverage bottles we run through every 5 minutes, or the 426,000 cell phones we discard every day, or the 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags we use each hour, or the 60,000 plastic bags we use every 5 seconds, or the 15 million sheets of office paper we use every 5 minutes, or the 170,000 Energizer batteries produced every 15 minutes. The simple amount of stuff it takes—energy especially—to manage this kind of throughput makes it daunting to even think about our waste problem. (Meanwhile, the next time someone tells you that population is at the root of our troubles, remind them that the average American uses more energy between the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve and dinner on January 2 than the average, say, Tanzanian consumes in a year. Population matters, but it really matters when you multiply it by proximity to Costco.”

I have read where Americans use 90 billion plastic and paper bags annually. (Source: Sierra Club) But I’ve also read that the total number of plastic bags for humanity exceeds 386 billion annually. All go to the landfill, or, as you can verify daily—all over the landscape.

“Americans discard enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet every three months—and aluminum represents less than 1 percent of our solid waste stream,” We toss 14 percent of the food we buy at the store. More than 46,000 pieces of plastic debris float on each square mile of ocean. And—oh, forget it.”

McKibben covers waste from many corners, but then, he covers the waste of our two wars and military waste.

“Want to talk about government waste?” said McKibben. “We're going to end up spending north of a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq, which will go down as one of the larger wastes of money—and lives—in our history. But we spend more than half a trillion a year on the military anyway, more than the next 10 nations combined. That almost defines profligacy.

“We landed on a continent with topsoil more than a foot thick across its vast interior, so the fact that we immediately started to waste it with inefficient plowing hardly mattered. We inherited an atmosphere that could buffer our emissions for the first 150 years of the Industrial Revolution.

“But our margin is gone. We're out of cash, we're out of atmosphere, we're out of luck. The current economic carnage is what happens when you waste—when the CEO of Merrill Lynch thinks he needs a $35,000 commode, when the CEO of Tyco thinks it would be fun to spend a million dollars on his wife's birthday party, complete with an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David peeing vodka. The melted Arctic ice cap is what you get when everyone in America thinks he requires the kind of vehicle that might make sense for a forest ranger.”

McKibben makes sense! He’s brilliant! So why am I pulling my hair out by the roots? Why do I ride my bicycle along highways with an endless stream of trash? Why do I see fast food, beer and pop bottles littering America’s rivers and lakes? Why do humans create and inject ever more deadly chemicals into the environment annually? How can Americans remain mind-numbingly apathetic to mountains of debris covering North America?

How about the ones of us that care? Let’s create incentive laws to encourage the ones that don’t care—to pick up after themselves. How about a 10 cent national deposit/return law like Michigan’s. I have bicycled the entire ‘mitt’ of Michigan and never picked up one plastic, can or bottle container. Why? Because no matter who tosses their container litter, an armada of kids picks up everything for the financial reward. It’s time for America to take responsibility for cleaning up America. Let’s stop the waste stream by engaging a “National Recycling Policy”.

The original people of this continent, living here thousands of years, maintained a pristine environment. New arrivals from Europe trashed North America inside of 150 years. That’s unreasonable and immoral. It’s unconscionable! Let’s change ourselves toward a more responsible society.

No Joy In Mudville -- Swine Flu and The Human Future

2009-04-30T12:20:00.001-04:00

The reality that inspired that old saying, “nature bats last” is making an uncomfortable and terrifying trip around the planet this week.

As the swine flu threatens a global pandemic, we are brought face to face with the innate and irrevocable power of our Earth’s global ecosystem to self-regulate. It’s nature’s version of the U.S. Constitution -- a system of checks and balances where no one entity is more powerful than the other. When operating correctly, this system produces balanced outcomes that limit the fecundity of any one species in order to ensure the viability of the whole system.

We are used to understanding this dynamic – and far more comfortable observing it -- when it applies to rabbits on the tundra, moose on an island, or bacteria in the Petri dish.

Now, however, this target is us! And we don’t like it one bit.

From the human perspective, the swine flu is something that rightly needs to be defeated and destroyed. But we should also see this unfolding event as an opportunity to remember that we are neither omniscient nor omnipotent on this planet. Our normal operating perspective, especially in the U.S., is that we have fundamentally conquered nature and partitioned ourselves as an elite species not subject to Earth’s forces. This means our economy can abuse our environment without penalty and our populations can increase forever.

Yet now -- as our fellow citizens begin to fall sick and die -- rather than gracefully partitioned, we begin to realize we may actually be quarantined!

On a planet that is asked to support a quarter million more humans every day (225,000) and 82 million more per year, can anyone be surprised that nature is reminding us of her prowess? Most serious ecologists have been saying for decades that the planet is over-populated by billions. And, most serious environmentalists already know that human population must be stabilized to have any shot at global sustainable development

As this terrible tragedy unfolds, isn’t it time to have a conversation about planetary sustainability and the fundamental role population stabilization must play in achieving it? Without serious discussions of this sort, it’s almost certain that nature will continue to bat last – but it will be humanity that ultimately strikes out.

Quality Not Quantity

2009-04-29T07:53:00.000-04:00

The upside to the recession

by Samantha Macina

Published: Tuesday, April 28, 2009

http://www.fairfieldmirror.com/news/the-upside-to-the-recession-1.1737634

The solution to two of the world’s biggest problems could potentially be linked, according to Robert Costanza, who spoke about “The Global Recession as an Opportunity to Create a Sustainable and Desirable Future,” to members of the University on Thursday as a part of Earth Week.

Costanza stated that there is actually a plus side to the current worldwide economic recession. It provides us with an opportunity to rethink our goals as a society, and create a sustainable future by changing the way we view the economy.

According to Costanza, the 1950s brought about an increase in society’s use of ecological resources, such as fossil fuels and raw materials. This constantly increasing use has caused unprecedented changes in the world’s ecosystems, causing loss of land area, increased storms and more flooding worldwide.

Unless we work to stop it, our environment will continue to decline.

Costanza said Americans typically view the economy as a market whose purpose is for growth. But this is the wrong way to look at things. “The economy should be for creating a high quality of life, and sustaining it in the future. It’s about human well-being,” he said.

He recommended a “full world model of economy,” in which material growth would slow. Instead, there would be an increase in quality of consumption, not quantity.

Costanza expressed his hope that the recession has us on the right path, and will “break our addiction” to the material.

Costanza has spent years conducting research on the relationship between ecological and economic systems.

Since receiving his PhD systems ecology from the University of Florida, Costanza has become a professor of ecological economics, the director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, and the co-founder of the International Society for Ecological Economics.

He concluded that best way to improve the environment and increase quality of life is by rethinking the way we view the economy.

For Costanza, maintaining ecosystems is the solution to economic success. They will create well being by providing us with services, such as climate control, food, water, security, and health.

According to Costanza, the value of the resources ecosystems could provide would be about $33 trillion per year, plus an increased quality of life.

Students in the audience were willing to heed Costanza’s advice. “I think it is very important for students, not only at Fairfield, but all over the world, to learn about these issues. They need to be dealt with to ensure our survival, and the change can start with us,” said Taylor Bicho ’11.

Michael Chiaramonte ’11 said “It’s important for our generation to learn about environmental problems, and how to fix them, because it is something that will continue to affect us.”

Costanza urged the audience not to retreat back into old ways after the recession is over.

He said, “Global recession has us on the right path.”

Overwhelming Evidence

2009-04-27T07:40:00.002-04:00

Global: Health Outcomes

Whereas: From 1970 to 2004, the proportion of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa fell slightly from 35% down to 32%. However, since the regional population more than doubled during that time, the number of hungry people has actually increased 43% from about 93 million to 214 million.

Whereas: 380 women become pregnant every minute -- half of them do not plan or wish the pregnancy.

Whereas: Over 100 million women in developing countries would prefer to avoid pregnancy but are not using any form of family planning or birth control. Worldwide, over 350 million couples lack access to a full range of modern family-planning information and services.

Whereas: Over 24 developing nations still have fertility rates, or average number of children per woman, of 6.0 or higher, -- while another 24 have fertility rates of 5.0-5.9

Whereas: Wherever high-quality contraceptive services have been made available with supporting information, the birth rate has fallen, even among low-income populations.

Whereas: Between 2007 and 2025, cereal production must increase from the present 2.2 billion tons to three billion tons, to keep up with population growth.

Whereas: As the result of growing human numbers and over cultivation of ecologically fragile lands, per capita grain yields in Africa have fallen by as much as 30% since 1970.

Whereas: Of the estimated annual 200 million pregnancies on Earth, about 40% or 80 million of them are unwanted or mistimed.

Whereas: In 1984, the year of the infamous famine, the population of Ethiopia was 42 million. Today it has reached 75 million and by 2050 the country is projected to have a population of 145 million.

Whereas: In Nigeria, the growing population will push the cost of vaccines from $20 million annually in 2000 to $70 million in 2015.

Global: Stability

Whereas: In 1900, there were 21 acres of land per person in the world (including tundra, desert, etc.). In the year 2000 there were 5. That amount is shrinking every year as population grows.

Whereas: By the year 2020, the combined populations of Asia and Africa will be 6 to 8 billion people – equal to or greater than the number that now lives on the entire planet.

Whereas: China, its population expanding at about 7 million people per year as of 2006, appears to be advancing economically along the same path as did Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. If it does this to the point of achieving the same level of fish consumption as these nations, the entire sustainable wild fish production of all the world's oceans would be required just to supply China's fish needs.

Whereas: If human population grows as projected over the next fifty years, more food will have to be produced worldwide than has been produced during the past 10,000 years combined.

Whereas: The Middle East, besides having the world's highest rate of unemployment, also has the world's highest rate of population growth, and the largest portion of the world's armed conflicts. Africa, besides having the world's second-highest unemployment rate, also has the world's second-highest rate of population growth and the world's second-largest portion of armed conflicts.

Whereas: In the politically unstable and conflicted countries shown in the table below, not a single country is at replacement level fertility – instead, the region is growing rapidly.

Nation	Total Fertility Rate	Doubling Time
Afghanistan	6.8	26 years
Iraq	5.1	25 years
Saudi Arabia	4.5	27 years
Pakistan	4.8	20 years
Palestine	5.6	19 years

Whereas: The U.S. CIA concluded that a key driving trend for the Middle East in the next 15 years will be population pressure. They point out that, even now, in nearly all Middle Eastern countries, over half of the population is under age 20.

Whereas: The world's fishing fleet doubled in number of large boats and in total capacity during 1970-90. In 1998, this fleet had a fishing capacity twice that of the sustainable yield of the world's wild fisheries

Whereas: Pakistan is short of educational infrastructure and lacks as many as 60,000 middle schools. The average Pakistani boy completes 5 years of schooling, the average girl 2.5 years. Pakistan's female literacy rate is 42%.

Whereas: Violence at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists has its origins in the combination of the world's highest population growth rate and some of the world's most degraded environments. Economies in which per-capita GDP has fallen 60% during the past two decades cannot afford the cost of the infrastructure growth (44% of GDP) needed to accommodate these high population growth rates.

Whereas: Only 33% of developing-world population growth comes from unwanted fertility. About 49% comes from momentum caused by the population age structure, and this requires at least two generations to eliminate. Only about 18% of population growth comes from high desired family size.

Whereas: A thousand billion dollars are spent annually around the world on military spending but only around $60 billion on development and humanitarian aid.

Whereas: High population growth rates result in a dire scarcity of financial capital since any financial capital creation is absorbed in the costs of the infrastructure needed to accommodate population growth. At the same time, large family size in low-income countries causes people to spend most of their income on immediate survival needs of food, housing and clothing, leaving little left over for investment and capital formation. The scarcity of financial capital translates into scarcities of transportation systems, communication systems, electric power systems, human capital, and sound legal systems – all of which are essential for attracting capital from external sources. The lack of capital, external or internal, thus translates into a lack of jobs, which translates into high unemployment rates. The resultant desperate poverty produces desperate struggles for the basic necessities. The result is high levels of armed conflict and decreasing levels of safety for capital investments of all types.

Whereas: The projected four billion people living in cities by 2030 will be more than those who lived on the entire planet in 1975.

Whereas: One-half of the world's population is currently under age 24. To put that in perspective, there are more young people in the world today, than all people living in 1960.

Whereas: Approximately 350,000 humans are born each day and 150,000 die each day, resulting in about 200,000 additional humans on the planet each day.

Whereas: A CIA study covering more than 50 years reported that the primary predictor of a country's instability was its infant mortality rate. Afghanistan's infant mortality rate is 154/1000 births, nearly three times higher than the worldwide rate of 56/1000.

Frosty Vs. Bjorn -- Frosty Wins!

2009-04-23T16:37:00.002-04:00

Note: When Frosty Wooldridge sent us this article and his response, we did a fact check on Lomborg's statement that "organic farming leaves a larger footprint than its conventional cousin" -- which struck us as absurd.

Mr. Lomborg's personal assistant wrote us back and said the "source" for this statement was a wikipedia page devoted to ecological footprinting. The sentence Lomborg based his statement on is a hypothetical postulation meant to uliminate possible shortcomings of ecological accounting -- yet Lomborg, aided by whomever is asleep at the Denver Post's editorial desk, turned this into a pronouncement of fact on the ecological footprint of organic farming!

To wit:

The method seems to reward the replacement of original ecosystems with high-productivity agricultural monocultures by assigning a higher biocapacity to such regions. For example, replacing ancient woodlands or tropical forests with monoculture forests or plantations may improve the ecological footprint. Similarly, if organic farming yields were lower than those of conventional methods, this could result in the former being "penalized" with a larger ecological footprint.^[23] Of course, this insight, while valid, stems from the idea of using the footprint as one's only metric. If the use of ecological footprints are complemented with other indicators, such as one for biodiversity, the problem could maybe be solved.

As Frosty points out in his reponse, this ridiculous statement on organic farming pretty much sums up Lomborgs whole article.

LOMBORG’S UTTER BALDERDASH AND LACK OF RESPONSIBITY TOWARD HUMANITY

By Frosty Wooldridge

http://neighbors.denverpost.com/blog.php/2009/04/20/lomborgs-utter-balderdash-and-lack-of-responsibility-toward-humanity/

Re: “Despite predictions of doom, Earth is enough” Bjorn Lomborg, Denver Post, 4/19/09

The highly educated academic from Denmark, Bjorn Lomborg, in an op-ed piece in the Denver Post on Sunday told his audience that human overpopulation wasn’t a problem: “That our profligate consumption requires five planets is a catchy story, but it is wrong. The planet we have is more than enough.”

Professor Lomborg, please tell that to the tens of thousands of species already ensnared by human population hyper-growth that suffered extinction in the last century. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of species facing extinction in this century. Tell that to the 100 million sharks that have been killed annually for the past 20 years that they have enough oceans to survive the onslaught of humanity.

“Upwards of two hundred species, mostly of the large, slow-breeding variety are becoming extinct here every day because more and more of the earth's carrying capacity is systematically being converted into human carrying capacity. These species are being burnt out, starved out, and squeezed out of existence thanks to technologies that most people, I'm afraid, think of as technologies of peace. I hope it will not be too long before the technologies that support our population explosion begin to be perceived as no less hazardous to the future of life on this planet than the endless production of radioactive wastes.” Daniel Quinn

Quinn refers to the Sixth Extinction Session rampaging across the planet whereby the largest die-off of species continues at the hand, not of nature or natural catastrophes, but by sheer human hyper-population growth.

I invite Lomborg to pull his head out of his academic ivory tower by addressing the harsh realities outside his college window. For him to make such absurd statements in the 21^st century, shows reprehensible misconduct unbecoming a scientist. His counterpart, the late economist Julian Simon, spouted the same crock of delusion that the planet could carry unlimited population.

The artist Shim Shimmel upon completing his work in Antarctica said, “Antarctica has come to symbolize the last of the wild places. But no place is sacred in Man’s eyes. In this pristine wilderness, greed would still find a haven for devastating industry. For God’s sake, with a planet full of beings such as ourselves, even the stars aren’t safe.”

With thinking and actions like Lomborg’s, humanity will not survive with any dignity or sustainable civilizations in the 21^st century. O.E. Wilson said that humanity has become the most dangerous animal on the planet while it threatens all other creatures on the globe.

H.R.H. Ghazi Bin Muhummad said, “Robert Kaplan's seminal article The Coming Anarchy … uses the image of a luxury car driving one way on a highway and a stream of destitute refugees walking the other way to suggest that whilst one part of the world is moving comfortably and prosperously forward, much of the rest of the world is suffering horribly, and disintegrating due to poverty, disease, crime, conflict, tribalism, overpopulation and pollution.”

With an annual worldwide human starvation death rate of 18 million human beings that die from exceeding their carrying capacity, how do people like Lomborg enjoy center stage in the Denver Post? How can such denial and delusion trump reality? Why didn’t the Denver Post allow a more reality based scientist such as Dr. Albert Bartlett, Dr. Diana Hull, Governor Richard D. Lamm, David Paxson, Charles C. Hartman and others a counter article?

If Lomborg’s specious conjecture that we enjoy ‘enough’ planet, how come our reefs worldwide die off at alarming rates? How come we suffer 27,000 square mile ‘dead zones’ at the mouths of our biggest rivers from so many chemicals spewed by humans into their waters? How come our oil reserves, that run our first world civilizations, descend into steeper curves as we pump the planet dry at 85 million barrels daily?

I could add a hundred more examples. It’s horrifically irresponsible to promote relentless human population growth via the Denver Post.

I invite the Denver Post to pull its ink pens out of the delusion of the benefits of population growth and publish top experts on how we might stabilize human population rather than encourage it like Lomborg.

This article illustrates how the patients are running the asylum!

Iain "Earth Man" Murray Day

2009-04-22T07:49:00.006-04:00

I looked around the New York Times website this morning, but it was only after searching the site that I found Andy Revkin's quick blog entry. The Washington Post was reporting on Obama's Earth Day trip to some wind turbine manufacturer. The Boston Globe had a few token links.

Overall, however, its safe to say this day is not reminiscent at all of the surging, emotional environmental day of action of early 1970's. Instead of a fire-works rocket, we are left with a pop-gun dud. Instead of aurora borealis, we get a Windows XP screen saver. I was sort of sad about this...

Then I had the great misfortune of coming across an article by Iain Murray, director of projects and analysis and senior fellow in energy, science and technology at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Ian has determined that Earth Day is not pro-Earth but "anti-human". You can read his infinite wisdom here, but I warn you he argues that banning DDT has been a net negative for the environment. So, there you go.

Iain does manage to make one good point in his otherwise soiled ideological gymnastics. He notes that, "when environmentalists talk about man's impact on the Earth... they always portray [it] as harmful."

On balance, this tendency is unfortunately true. That's probably because, on balance, man's impact on the ecological integrity of the Earth over the past 200 years has been catastrophic.

However, let's consider for a moment that humans do have the capacity to regenerate and nourish the Earth. We can plant trees, farm organically, try to help endangered species breed successfully -- you know, that sort of stuff. We did evolve from the Earth's ecological systems, after all. We can have a positive impact if we try. Let's not forget that. We could, if we massed our will power, turn our whole economic system into a Earth-nourishing enterprise whose joint objectives were to heal the planet and create wealth for humanity (which should be indistinguishable anyway).

I guess Iain must, in his own weird way, be trying to help out in such a cause. Its (very) hard to believe after-all, but he too is the culmination of eons of ecological evolution!

Let's all write Iain today and wish him well in his crusade?

imurray@cei.org

Tell him Rachel Carson sent you -- or something to that effect.

The Silence of the Lambs

2009-04-21T08:06:00.008-04:00

You can see where it happens: the deep ecologist goes fruity and sabotages heavy equipment, frustrated patriots rage against people who have immigrated instead of unsustainable immigration policies, long time activists throw up their hands and hide away in the forests or mountains.

Unfortunately, in the context of a planet with 6.9 billion humans on its surface, the beautiful music of a peaceable, sustainable future becomes a siren song that drives many onto the rocks of ruin and despair. There is such a cacophony of worldviews, priorities, ideologies, and -- yes -- realities, that there comes a time when we realize there can be no future such as we desire.

There are too many idiots, malcontents, myopic fools and careless vagabonds running about, living their lives with unbridled abandon. We are, in large part, doomed to live out the skipping record of human history with war, pestilence and all other such scourges. Once this becomes so depressingly clear, we sit down -- humbled, frustrated, angry and agnostic.

We begin to see enemies everywhere: fisherman, loggers, conventional farmers, our neighbors, the banks, the WTO, the Federal Reserve, main-stream media, the telephone pole crew cutting overhanging trees back from the wires. The inertia of the complex-dynamic systems, embedded into each other layer after layer, begins to echo in our ears -- just like tinnitus.

Another several species extinctions, a few more collapsed fisheries, 50 football fields of Amazon downed in a few hours, another hideous McMansion development, some moron driving a Hummer, a military budget beyond any sort of human understanding, racism, wars of aggression, snowless mountain tops, drowning polar bears... on and on it goes.

Meanwhile, we are left to wave our raggedy flags of hope with an almost complete assurance of our complete and utter long-term failure. Think of a populationist who started their career back in the 1950's (and seen human population increase by 176%), or those who started warning about global warming in the 1970's (and subsequently watched emissions of 300 trillion pounds of carbon into the atmosphere).

Past performance may not be a guarantee of future results, but come on -- our future is not bright folks. Not all of it anyway. We are going to see plenty of idiocy, lethargy and misguided thinking in our future: then we'll have to put away the toothbrush, clean off the mirror and head out the door to work.

Vain and pompous we can not afford to be. Our tasks are too real, our urgency too authentic. Our hopes too precious to renege.

Because, in the end, even though we know our chances are infinitesimally small, no matter how many times we do the calculations -- or look out at a group of playing seals, watch the circling hawk, see a child smile -- the answer keeps coming up the same:

Do it. Get up. Hold onto that vision. That feeling. That emotion. That inner goodness that you want to hand to the star-fields above you, the companion by your side and the future unfolding around you.

The scrum is going to continue, for better or worse. Like Bugs Bunny liked to say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". In our case, it's probably more like, "We can't probably beat 'em, but we'll dang sure try something." That light inside you is the conscious of the Earth, no more or no less authentic than the next gal's or the next bloke's.

And the final value of that gift is yours to determine -- because you are, in every sense, the final arbiter of our collective future. You really are the steward of the planet's spirit and health. Without your own Earth-bound efforts to tell the world what's inside you, the truth you see, the hopes you have -- well then, the future is incomplete. Incoherent. And ultimately impoverished.

So, go about your work even in the face of all obstacles. Stay focused and do not let unavoidable failures divide your attention, do not let unavoidable resistances make you hide. Your struggle is a currency most authentic -- one that proves its worth both in its circulation and in its accumulation as a cherished reserve for others struggling with their own labors of hope and love.

The lambs will chew their cud, contemplating the horizon, and they will need no words. The whales will breach and blow, and fold back into the ocean. Your light was born and it will flicker and eventually fade, joining other lights along the way. Who can say what is to be and what is not?

Only you.

Only you.

Only you.

Welcome, NECSP Newsletter Readers

2009-04-20T07:42:00.005-04:00

Thanks to all the readers of The Nourished Earth who are visiting our blog for the first time.

In order for a real discourse of sustainable population to reach a significant portion of the New England populace -- and to thereby influence elected representatives to enact laws that will promote the interests of sustainable population activists -- our number one task must be to build community amongst ourselves.

To help this process out, you can keep up with our postings and engage in the conversation by subscribing with an RSS feed (found in the right margin). Then, when we post something you think deserves a comment, it will just be a matter of a few clicks and you will have contributed to the conversation. (You can also access news feeds on important key words, like "population" and "sustainable" by scrolling down a little ways).

There are very few active blogs that deal with sustainable population issues and that's something we want to change. Be part of our efforts from the get go!

Also, don't forget to financially support our operations and keep abreast of our upcoming activities by regularly visiting our homepage. Both of these things will help us a great deal.

And, if you haven't signed up for our monthly newsletter and occasional action alerts just yet, all you have to do is click here.

Thanks for visiting, we hope to hear from you soon -- and have a sustainable day!

Population is part of the problem, but apparently not the solution.

2009-04-17T13:07:00.008-04:00

Let's say you had a problem (we're sure you have several handy examples); but this particular problem happened to involve your house-plants growing, out of control, through the roof of your home, thereby causing your house to flood every time it rained -- tough plants, obviously, but that's not the point.

Your Zen-master neighbor teeters by with his cane, and stops. He says, "You must repair your roof and keep your plants cut back." Then he vanishes in thin air. Cool neighbor, but again -- not the point.

The point is, to keep the problem from happening, you need to do a couple of things. Just repairing your roof isn't good enough, because by next week the plants will have busted through it again. Just keep your plants cut back, however, and you still have a hole in your roof.

Isn't it a mystery then -- one that probably not even your Zen-master neighbor could explain -- that when the Asia Society releases a report citing population growth as one major driver of an impending water shortage in Asia... that they don't say a thing about stabilizing the population as part of the solution?!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asia may see more conflicts over scarce water resources in the coming years as climate change and population growth threaten access to the most basic natural resource, a report warned on Friday.

Water problems in Asia are already severe, with one in five people, or 700 million, not having access to safe drinking water and half the region's population lacking access to basic sanitation, according to the report produced by the Asia Society, a New York-based think tank.

Population growth, rapid urbanization and climate change are expected to worsen the situation, according to the report, "Asia's Next Challenge: Securing the Region's Water Future."

It noted water disputes between hostile neighbors India and Pakistan and the complex relations governing the vast Mekong River, which is shared by China and its southern neighbors, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The report said while water issues have more often generated cooperation than conflict between nations in the past, demographic pressures and water scarcity would be unprecedented in the coming decades.

"The potential for conflicts sparked by the direct and indirect impacts of an increasingly volatile water supply should not be underestimated, particularly in the light of rising concerns about climate change," it said.

"No matter how we approach water resources -- whether it is on the basis of quality and quantity, or as the most potent manifestation of extreme climatic events -- hydropolitics is likely to be a growing force in Asian security," it said.

While Asia is home to more than half the world's population, it has less fresh water per person than any other populated continent, the report said. Asia's population is expected to rise by nearly 500 million within 10 years.

-- By Claudia Parsons

Erosion

2009-04-16T14:14:00.005-04:00

After working in the sustainable population advocacy field, one can't but help at times wonder, "Will the emotional polarity that this issue brings up in people ever be able to be overcome?"

There is a nasty tendency for this issue to register in people's worldview as either the most important, fundamental issue blocking the way to sustainable living scenarios for all scales of human civilization -- or -- as the most insignificant waste-of-time issue imaginable. That's quite a chasm, yet I don't think I am mistaken to say very few people occupy middle ground between these two great extremes.

It's with great struggle and heretofore unknown results that NECSP has been trying to populate (excuse the pun) that middle ground -- to correctly frame population issues as core considerations that any responsible sustainability advocate must make in struggling for an improved future for planet and people.

Not the only considerations one must make (wouldn't that be nice), but certainly one of them.

Is this really so controversial?

No, not really. But the problem is that in the great din and cacophony of each side shouting at each other, moderate voices are imperceptible -- and the balance of our position renders it useless to the partisans, because it undercuts both of their set-in-concrete ideological positions. Who wants to take the time to leave the high perch of your certainty and come down to the middle ground and start motioning for people to lower their voices? To start problem solving like adults?

No matter how narrow of a ledge you must stand on to occupy it, it's much easier to claim the moral high ground (itself conveniently self-defined) than it is to make peace.

The dynamic replicates itself over and over -- global warming vs. global hoax; growth economy vs. steady state; and, yes, Red Sox vs. Yankees. People tend to make decisions based on emotion, and very few issues cut so close to the human experience as the issues of reproduction, progeny and community.

And, in a relative sense, those of us down here on the middle ground looking up at the warring parties are just as convinced of our position as the extremists. We beleive that like a bell curve, there will always be outliers at either end arguing that, "Population is not a problem at all" vs. "Population is the only problem".

Our task then -- at least philosophically -- is to operate on the conviction that though the outlying, highly opinionated folks at the ends of the bell curve may have loud voices, that some critical mass of of our 6.9 billion co-inhabitants of the actually Earth fall within the "reasonable" zone; and, it's our job to find them, empower them, amplify their voices, organize their efforts when neccessary and eventually watch those cliffs of extremism collapse into the sea.

Sir David Attenborough Joins OPT

2009-04-14T09:39:00.003-04:00

The broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has become a patron of a group seeking to cut the growth in human population.

On joining the Optimum Population Trust, Sir David said growth in human numbers was "frightening".

Sir David has been increasingly vocal about the need to reduce the number of people on Earth to protect wildlife. The Trust, which accuses governments and green groups of observing a taboo on the topic, say they are delighted to have Sir David as a patron.

Sir David, one of the BBC's longest-standing presenters, has been making documentaries on the natural world and conservation for more than half a century. In a statement issued by the Optimum Population Trust he is quoted as saying: "I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more."

The Trust, which was founded in 1991, campaigns for the UK population to decrease voluntarily by not less than 0.25% a year. It has launched a "Stop at Two" online pledge to encourage couples to limit their family's size. Other patrons include Jonathan Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, and Dame Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall institute.

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said population was a fraught area of debate, with libertarians and some religious groups vehemently opposing measures by governments to influence individual fertility.

In turn, the Trust accuses policy makers and environmentalists of conspiring in a "silent lie" that human numbers can grow forever with no ill-effects. In January 2009, Sir David revealed that he had received hate mail from viewers for not crediting God in his nature programmes. His most recent documentary focused on how Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution and why it remained important.

Visit NECSP.ORG to learn more about population issues and take action!

Guest Writer: Frosty Wooldridge

2009-04-13T07:11:00.003-04:00

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at http://www.frostywooldridge.com

Below, please find part 1 of Frosty's Book Review of "Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Conner.

With a scant 21 million people on the vast continent of Australia, how could anyone state with any certitude that Oz suffers from human overpopulation? What impudence might that take? How out of touch? How completely absurd? Definitely not ‘fair dinkum’!

China features not much more land mass than Oz but houses 1.3 billion souls. The United States--at least the lower 48 states--equals about the same land mass, but houses 306 million people. Mexico, less than a quarter the size of Australia, features 108 million people.

So what’s the problem? How could there be a snag? Australia encompasses an endless amount of land. It features 2,970,000 square miles of terra firma. How do I know? In 1984 through 1985, I cycled 17,000 kms around Australia including Tasmania. One Aussie, after learning that I intended to cycle the entire perimeter of Australia said, “Well Yank, you must be dead from the neck up!” I answered, “Yes, but it’s a great adventure.” He responded, “Do you know what the Nullabor Plains means?” I said, “No.” He said, “It means treeless for 2,000 kms and 40 degrees C. every day. You’ll fry in the heat!”

None the less, I traveled from Sydney down the Princess Highway to Melbourne; sailed over to Tasmania, up the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles, to Ceduna and across the Nullabor Plains (treeless) and on to Esperance and then to Perth, onward to Port Headlands and upward to Darwin. From there to Cairns and back down to Sydney! What did I see and how did I feel? I fried in the saddle and sweated while I slept at night under the Southern Cross. Withering heat at 120+ degrees F. daily! I stopped at the Great Australian Bite, saw Bondi’s boat that beat the Yanks in the Americas Cup, viewed the Pinnacles of Cervantes, rode past the ant castles, witnessed the ‘prison boab tree’ near Port Headlands and watched the big crocs in Darwin. A frilled lizard scared the daylights out of me near Tenant Creek and I dove on the Great Barrier Reef. I read A.F. Facey’s “A Fortunate Life.” I’m still friends with John Brown in Kiama and Lance Hill in Perth. I’ve backpacked with Lance in Nepal and push-biked across the USA with John. I love Oz and its people.

So why does Australia suffer an overpopulation crisis? From my firsthand experiences, I am here to tell you: desert and sand cover 95 percent of Australia. No water and no arable land! It’s a wasteland with kangaroos, emus, wombats and stray camels eking out their existences in the devil’s horrid heat. When I traveled Oz, it featured 14 million people which it could support. Today, at 21 million, it’s on the edge of its own non-sustainable future. Australians might fool Mother Nature in the short term, but they cannot in the long run. Oz doesn’t possess water or arable land needed to grow food thus to sustain a large human population. That’s a brutal fact!

However, powerful governmental, capitalistic and growth oriented organizations expect to push Australia’s population to 50 million tortured souls. Much the same holds true in the United States and other countries where ‘growthists’ disregard reality and push human populations beyond the ability of the land and water to sustain them. How do they do it? They promote unlimited immigration from other countries that have already exceeded their carrying capacities---and simply exhaust their excess humanity onto the shores of Australia and other countries that possess stable populations. The third world grows by a net gain of 77 million annually, so the line never ends. That alone should give any Oz citizen pause!

The author Mark O’Connor of Overloading Australia, lamented, “I found this book almost impossible to write.” He found the fortitude to finish the project only after teaming with his co-author, conservationist William J. Lines.

With electrifying clarity, O’Connor and Lines spell out a sobering future for Australia. Any kangaroo could figure out what the ‘kangaroo’ government in Canberra cannot seem to grasp! As one man who has seen more of Australia than 95 percent of Australians, I can vouch for the fact that Oz does not possess the farmland or the water to sustain any more population.

“Rightwing growthists demand endless growth of ‘the economy’ backed by endless population growth,” O’Connor said. “Forced since late 2006 to accept a serious public debate about water supplies and about how to maintain ‘growth’ without increasing greenhouse gases, they are nevertheless determined to scotch any discussion about limiting growth.”

I found it exceedingly exasperating that the ‘very’ people in charge of Australia’s future, like Prime Minister Rudd in 2008, did and does not understand the consequences of his/their own actions. He promotes a “Faustian Bargain’ on every citizen in Australia that will force a “Hobson’s Choice.”

“Rudd announced a million news homes would need to be built over the next six years to house the influx [of people] he did not venture to question,” Lines said.

Where might that influx originate? Answer: Australia immigrates roughly 300,000 people annually into its dry and dusty desert country.

Why?

“There is a powerful lobby concerned not with whether human life or that of other species would be better in a ‘larger’ Australia, but with profits!” O’Connor said.

What ‘growthists’ create stems from that “Faustian Bargain” or selling their souls to the devil of growth for the present to place everyone into an environmental and unsustainable ‘hell’ later. Once another five or ten million Australians manifest on that desert continent, everyone suffers “Hobson’s Choice”: if you pick door number A—you walk through and over a cliff. If you pick door number B—you walk through and sink into quicksand. In other words, all your choices lead to death of your civilization.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Thoughts on Development

2009-04-11T16:45:00.002-04:00

A post from Sarah, NECSP's grassroots outreach coordinator:

Fifteen years ago this September, 20,000 people gathered in Cairo, Egypt at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) to tackle issues poverty and clarify the relationship between population growth and underdevelopment. But clarity and consensus on the relationship between population growth and underdevelopment are still elusive, as recent statements made by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations illustrate.

Speaking on April 1^st at the 42^nd session of the Commission on Population and Development, he denounced what he called the anti-life attitude in the preparatory documents for the U.N. summit for the ICPD (known as Cairo +15). The Papal Nuncio was also critical of the “population reduction” mentality expressed by Secretary Hilary Clinton as she accepted the Margaret Sanger award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America days earlier.

Archbishop Migliore and Secretary Clinton represent recent iterations from public voices of the two sides of a critical, though often ignored, debate on the relationship between population and development. It is a matter that deserves careful attention from advocates of a stable population. If our goals are not integral to the goals of human dignity, equality, economic justice, and opportunity to live a full and meaningful life in any society across the globe, now and in future generations, then there is no justification for our work. We are advocates for population sustainability precisely because we are convinced that achieving these goals of justice, especially in underdeveloped regions of the world, will not be possible without simultaneously stabilizing human population. We affirm that the widespread availability of family planning, along with investment in education, local sustainable development, gender equality, health care, participatory governance, and environmental conservation, are all necessary components of just development.

Yet inclusion of this family planning component of our vision for just development is a matter of deep contention for many people. Archbishop Migliore in his statement argued that the presence of a large young workforce in proportion to elder dependents is a key developmental advantage for African nations with high fertility rates. Over the years, advocates for population stability have often been accused of racist and nationalistic fear that drives them to oppress disadvantaged people by depriving them of their younger generations and the full potential of their human capital.

In his book Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits, Steven Mosher also argues that since the rate of population growth is falling (taken as a global average), we should create public policy to enhance rather than diminish birth rates. Mosher notes that population growth is associated with economic growth, concluding therefore that those who would limit birth rates among the poor would, again, see them deprived of their capital.

So, are high birth rates an advantage or disadvantage for poor families in developing nations? We can assume that intelligent and caring people on both sides of the issue all have the best interests of poor people and future generations at heart. But who better understands the complex dynamics between population and development, economics and politics, and the capacities of the ecosystems underpinning it all?

As good observers of the natural sciences, we can begin by recognizing and sizing up the limiting factors that are placed on us by our ecological systems. Sadly, ecosystem science is often left at the sidelines of our political discourse, but it makes a critical difference. If we could be certain that our only limiting factor was the size of the earth, then we might look upon population growth with much less urgency. In the real world, though, the human community lives embedded in a complex ecosystem which must be able to sustain itself in order to continue to support us. We are already placing such strains on that system that we must shift our way of living on the planet into a more harmonious balance with the living systems that support us.

Archbishop Magliore and others point out that the greatest amount of abuse on those systems is coming from those nations that have low birth rates. This is true, and must be addressed, not only for the sake of justice toward underdeveloped nations, but also for the sake of all of our survival. But calling for economic development with restrictions on family planning means growing that unbalanced economy farther and faster than ever, accelerating us toward a situation of critical unsustainability. Recognizing the limitations of our ecology is still a controversial move in the population/development dialogue, but it must be undertaken to address the full reality of the situation.

In terms of economic development itself, however, continued population growth is not proving to benefit poor families and nations. The relationship is complex in this dynamic and globalized world where children of poor rural families often migrate and find gainful employment in cities. Our economy lends itself to high concentrations of people that would not have been possible in previous generations. Of course, this depends on increasing the intensity of demands on ecosystems to produce more food per acre and absorb more emissions into the atmosphere and oceans. Eventually the capacity of these systems to integrate these intense pressures will wane, so the continued intensification and concentration of human demands is unwise.

Therefore, large families within the global economic context may not always impoverish a family as it would have in the past when they would have had to share the resources of a small plot of land among growing numbers of descendents. Research presented by David Canning this month at the Commission on Population and Development does show that lowering fertility rates in developing nations does benefit the family and the country by decreasing the number of child dependents, therefore allowing more female participation in the work force, which results in more investment in child health and education, and increased economic development.

We would all like to live in a world where the gap between the rich and the poor is dramatically reduced, everyone has access to a healthy and fulfilling life, and the prospects for our children are bright. We want to achieve this with the greatest balance of justice and respect for people, especially in light of their own cultures and values. As advocates for a stable human population, we believe this can only be achieved in a world without growing numbers of human beings making impossible demands on our ecosystems. We agree that the lifestyles of the rich nations must be changed along with efforts to invest in underdeveloped areas. And we thoughtfully affirm that education about and provision of family planning to all who need it is a key component of our efforts to assist in the just development of poor nations.

Moderate and Determined

2009-04-10T07:24:00.002-04:00

After reading the two responses to Henry Barbaro's letter in the Jamaica Plain Gazette, perhaps readers can now appreciate both the difficulty and absolute necessity of the mission New England Coalition for Sustainable Population has set for itself: to raise awareness of and promote action on the ways to achieve sustainable population for the region, the nation and the international community. With 225,000 net people added each day to a planet in ecological crisis, this issue is not going away anytime soon.

Both writers agreed that lowered birth rates and stabilized population were worthy and admirable “ends” that must be achieved if our human communities have any real chance at attaining sustainable living scenarios. In this, they are surely correct. Talking “sustainable development” is just a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream -- unless it involves a stabilized population.

But the “means” each author suggested couldn’t have been more divergent. One warned against state-mandated, involuntary human population management and advocated for robust access to voluntary means of birth control and increased education to lower birth rates. The other called for enforcement of strict policies on procreation to alleviate the occurrence of poverty.

The good news is that both have realized that stabilizing human population is a core-component of the urgent need to implement sustainable development regionally, nationally and internationally. On this point, NECSP strongly agrees with them – and its our job to encourage this dialog and provide New Englanders the tools necessary to be activists on sustainable population issues.

As to the “means” each author was suggesting, Glenn Ingrham is right to note the power a government of, by and for the people can wield – when so motivated, our democratically elected officials can marshall profound influence on the choices citizens make (think seatbelts and smoking). On the other hand, Rene Ruiz is right to warn against the very real potential of grevious human rights abuses when government acts mindlessly or with excessive, myopic urgency.

The middle ground is “we the people” identifying stabilized population as fundamental to the path towards a peaceful, ecologically sustainable future and then turning the positive power of our self-government towards that goal. Afterall, it’s the power of our government that is best positioned to ensure the education, literacy and access to family planning that will allow people to make voluntary decisions about reducing their fertility.

In closing, here are two examples of the type of democratic self-government that would do wonders for attaining sustainable population. One: Taking birth control pills off prescription and providing easy access to modern contraceptive methods with subsidies and sliding scale charges. Two: Requiring pre-marital counseling regarding family planning, the economic benefits of small family size and the environmental consequences of population growth –before any marriage licenses are issued.

Please visit the NECSP website, www.necsp.org, to become a member and get involved in this most interesting and crucial of issues.

Poles, Problems and A Middle Way?

2009-04-08T08:33:00.008-04:00

As part of the Global Population Speak Out, NECSP board member Henry Barbaro wrote a letter to his hometown newspaper, the Jamaica Plain Gazette, laying out the basics of the population issues facing humanity at various scales (regionally, domestically and internationally).

Then, in response, a very good thing happened! Other local citizens found their voices and also submitted letters on the topic. And, wow! What amazingly different views the authors had. Scroll down to read two very different letters and tune in tomorrow to read Henry's response.

GOVT SHOULD NOT HAVE POPULATION CONTROL
In the March 20 edition of the JP Gazette, I read with interest the letter written by Henry Barbaro, board member of the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population, on the subject of population control. I welcome debate on this subject, as we should all be concerned about humanity consuming too many resources to maintain a reasonable standard of living and ecological health. It may be the case that, if we cannot stabilize our net environmental footprint, the only solution to this problem is population control. However, previous attempts at population control have had questionable effects on vulnerable populations.

Writing about the Irish potato famine in “The Great Calamity,” Christine Kinealy states the English gov-ernment used famine-related government policy to “…facilitate various long-desired changes within Ireland. These included population control and the consolidation of property…”

The US has also seen ethically dubious policy on this matter. In the 1927 decision Buck v. Bell, the US Supreme Court upheld the right of Dr. Bell to forcibly sterilize his mentally disabled patient Carrie Buck, because, in the opinion of Justice Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Birth control advocate Margaret Sanger argued in “Birth Control Review” (April 1932) for: “A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.”

General attitudes about humanity among population control theorists are also instructive. Caltech nuclear scientist Harrison Brown, in his 1954 book “The Challenge of Man’s Future,” states that the carrying capacity of the Earth is probably between 50 and 200 billion humans. However, he says this fact must be kept se-cret, as humanity is analogous to “a pulsating mass of maggots.” Therefore, according to Brown, humanity must not be allowed to “have its way” regarding population growth. In “The Population Bomb,” biologist Paul Ehrlich analogizes humans with cancer, and suggests compulsory birth regulation may be necessary.

In 1974, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger produced National Security Study Memorandum 200, in which he concluded the US government must take an activist role in depopulating the developing world. Like Ehrlich, Kissinger goes on to suggest an alternate view that asks if “mandatory population control measures” are appropriate for the US and others.

I support a woman’s right to choose, and an individual’s right to access birth control, and therefore I think we must guard against ceding control of our reproductive rights to government in any form. Too often, population control efforts conclude with unacceptable policies that put the burden on the less fortunate. Therefore, I call on the New England Coalition for Sustainable Population to clearly state on its web site that it will never support any form of state-mandated, involuntary population reduction or control. Voluntary methods, such as access to birth control, raising income and education levels, raising literacy rates, etc., are acceptable, so long as they are done with the consent of the population in question.

GOVT SHOULD LIMIT LOWER CLASS PROCREATION
I couldn’t agree more with Henry Barbaro’s letter in the March 20 issue of the JP Gazette (“Population surge threatens the environment”), where he states: “addressing human overpopulation is critical to assuring human sustainability and security in the 21st century.”

I offer a slightly different perspective on population control than that offered in Mr. Barbaro’s letter. In the current era of economic cutbacks, layoffs and burgeoning costs for the care of the lower class, it is imperative we reexamine policy as to how best to ameliorate poverty. Spending on health and human services is the largest portion of the US government’s annual budget at just over $700 billion in Fiscal Year 2008 (www.federalbudget.com).

Throughout history, the poor have garnered much attention, perhaps epitomized by an infamous biblical quote: “The poor you shall always have with you...” (Matthew 26:11, New International Version). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent. In 2007, 37.3 million people were in poverty, up from 36.5 million in 2006.

One overlooked aspect of the policy debate over poverty is that of limiting lower-class procreation through social engineering in Iceland, during the mid 1800s, Gunnar Karlsson noted: “The only obvious way to reduce the expenses of poor relief in the future [is] to limit procreation. At this time, marriages were restricted in Iceland in the same way as in Denmark: those who had received poor relief as adults needed special permission from the communal authorities to enter marriage” (“The History of Iceland,” 2000, 231).

Bioethicist Onora O’Neill noted: “Direct coercion of procreative decisions would not be unjust. Such emergencies would arise only when recklessly fertile poor people persist in having children whose needs could not be met by their parents or by others, either by increasing or reallocating resources….Preventing such reckless procreation would coerce less than would failing to prevent it” (“Faces of Hunger,” 1986, 158).

Using census data to determine poverty rates, families in certain income ranges should be restricted to a certain number of children (or none). The current federally established poverty income level of $21,200 an-nually for a family of four should be redefined to a family of three (one child). Those who are unexpectedly brought into the ranks of the poor through job layoff, injury or illness should still be provided human services and support as is the current intent of entitlement programs. However, once in poverty, strict policies on procreating should be enforced in order to avoid “spreading” the low-income status. Economists would likely need to develop charts to determine how many low-income workers might be needed in any given year, based on the prior year’s economic trends and job needs (unemployment rate and other usual economic indices).

Limiting the procreative tendencies of the lower income classes would benefit the larger society through decreased economic, political and social costs, including a reduction in those crimes that are correlated to poverty.

Comments, Ideas and The Work To Do

2009-04-07T07:32:00.006-04:00

Probably the biggest challenge to bona fide progressive sustainable population advocates is overcoming the dominant cultural assertion that our economy must be physically growing to accommodate an adequate quality of life for the participants of that economy.

Look no further than a post on the Crossing Wall Street blog that is very coherent in as far as it goes:

http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2009/04/population_grow.html

The author can't quite accept that a long-term population decline could coincide with "positive economic growth". If "positive economic growth" is the result of aggregate increases in resource extraction, widgets created and externalized costs multiplied, then perhaps there is reason for the author's doubt.

He does he hit the nail on the head exquisitely, though, with this line: "...per-capita wealth... is very different from a growing economy." Read in context of his entire post, this line seems to be dismissive of the idea of a population declining to sustainable levels as measured by its ecological footprint.

However, isn't this intellectual disconnect really what has happened en masse on the planet? People have evolved to the point where they believe that a "growing economy" is so important that the concept of "increasing per capita wealth" should be thrown under the bus if the two happen to face off in the town square.

The false question is this: "Can an economy 'grow' with a population in long term decline?" Who cares?!!

The question is really this: "Is the international community, in the face of the planetary ecological catastrophe unfolding in real-time, clever enough to engineer an economy that is accommodative of sustaining per capita standard of living that is above the poverty line for 6.7 billion human beings residing on the planet (and growing by a quarter million people per day) -- while operating within the ecological capacities of the planet Earth such that those capacities are not permanently degraded"?

Yes? No? Maybe?

The Hour is Late, The Time is Now and The Future is at Hand

2009-04-05T12:48:00.015-04:00

New England Coalition for Sustainable Population is proud to introduce our new website and refurbished blog. We are eager to organize and train population activists from New England, the United States and across the world -- we want to know you, hear your stories, listen to your ideas and work together to bring sustainable population into the everyday lexicon of environmentalists, capitalists, unions, families, students, children, adults, business people, neighbors and governments across the international community.

Out of the ashes of the old ways, let's help build a new region, a new nation and a new world. Please visit our website by clicking on the "Action" picture above. And don't forget to follow -- and contribute to -- our blog!

It will take a lot of work, but working together as a tight knit group of dedicated activists, thinkers and supporters -- the future is bright, green and sustainable.