Overpopulation Is Not the Problem
The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it.
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The Most Important Day of the 21st Century
One day, sometime around the middle of this century, during the lifetime of people now alive, the population of the planet will be smaller than it was the day before. Global population growth is slowing, will level off, and one remarkable day, decline. This day will mark the dividing line – the definitive transition –…
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The Great Fall: World Population to Stop Growing in 2050
Global population data spanning the years from 1900 to 2010 have enabled a research team from the Autonomous University of Madrid to predict that the number of people on Earth will stabilise around the middle of the century. The results, obtained with a model used by physicists, coincide with the UN’s downward forecasts.
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Urban Heat May Warm Faraway Places
The massive amounts of heat produced by cities may be heating up rural areas 1,000 miles away, atmospheric researchers have found in a new modeling study. Scientists have long invoked the “urban island heat effect” to explain why cities are generally hotter than suburban and rural areas. More people, as well as more cars, houses,…
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The Climate Change Endgame
Whether in Davos or almost anywhere else that leaders are discussing the world’s problems, they are missing by far the biggest issue: the rapidly deteriorating global environment and its ability to support civilization. The situation is pretty much an endgame. Unless pressing issues of the biology of the planet and of climate change generated by…
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Just in Time for the Holidays: Endangered Species Condoms
The next time you think about having sex without birth control, The Center for Biological Diversity wants to make sure that you consider how it might affect the greater world around you. Since 2009, the non-profit has handed out 450,000 condoms with endangered species awareness messages on their wrappers. How would your next passionate evening…
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Latin Americans Rank as Happiest People on Planet
A poll of nearly 150,000 people around the world says seven of the world’s 10 countries with the most upbeat attitudes are in Latin America. The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore, the wealthy and orderly city-state that ranks among the most developed in the world. Wealthy countries sat surprisingly low…
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World Population Living Longer but With More Disability
The health of most of the planet’s population is rapidly coming to resemble that of the United States, where death in childhood is rare, too much food is a bigger problem than too little, and life is long and often darkened by disability. High blood pressure is now the leading “risk factor” for disease around…
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5 Charts About Climate Change That Should Have You Very, Very Worried
Two major organizations released climate change reports this month warning of doom and gloom if we stick to our current course and fail to take more aggressive measures. A World Bank report imagines a world 4 degrees warmer, the temperature predicted by century’s end barring changes, and says it aims to shock people into action…
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Culture Change Needed to Avert Growing Disaster Risk
A culture change is needed if the benefits of development, such as new jobs and hospitals, are not to be destroyed in future natural disasters. A new report, ‘Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers’, published by the UK government, calls on all development stakeholders — including aid and development funders, governments and…