Missing the slums for the cities
Cities in Asia are hubs of production, innovation and wealth, funnelling into themselves immense resources, water, energy, food, drawing in from nearby districts and far-off provinces families and entire communities.
Population
How green are the ‘childless by choice’?
Laura S. Scott has surveyed and interviewed more than 170 people for her Childless by Choice Project. “I’m keenly interested in the process of decision-making,” she says. “How do we get from assuming parenthood for ourselves to the point where we’re saying, “No kids, thank you!’?” She shares what she’s learned in a new book, Two Is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice, and in a forthcoming documentary.
Response to “Who’s to blame for the population crisis?” in Mother Jones
Congratulations to Mother Jones for dedicating the cover of their May/June 2010 issue to the population crisis. I have worked in the population field for four decades, and since joining the movement in the late 1960s, when the issue was at the forefront of public concern, I have witnessed an alarming decrease in responsible reporting on population issues and the importance of addressing the dramatic growth we are faced with each and every day. So, thank you, Mother Jones, for being one of the few to bring the population issue back to the forefront of public discourse.
Peak soil: it’s like peak oil, only worse
Resource collapse is bigger than peak oil, and bigger even than the projected depletion of natural gas, coal and uranium – it encompasses each and every natural resource extracted, exploited or otherwise processed on an industrial scale. We’re experiencing problems with our living environment – climate, soil and water – that are more than just energy issues.
Asia’s epic urban sagas
South Asians are seeing more work on the ground and hearing more policy announcements about urban development than ever before. For many who live in and around towns and cities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India (where South Asia’s biggest cities lie) this could be a good thing. The trouble is: national governments and planning authorities in Dhaka, Islamabad and New Delhi are tending more and more to follow a single ideology – economic growth will drive down poverty – and a primary route to that misplaced objective, which is greater urbanisation.
Dissecting those ‘overpopulation’ numbers: part one – population where?
Is global warming caused by too many people? This begins a series of articles in which Climate & Capitalism editor Ian Angus shows that population numbers can conceal far more than they reveal.
Bolivia’s Evo Morales: Capitalism and plastic no, Mother Earth and indigenous products, yes
(First-hand report)
At the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, the consistent message is ecological, indigenous, communitarian and anti-corporate. The great majority of speakers sound radical and have the support of the thousands of attendees.
The MAHB, the culture gap, and some really inconvenient truths
A group of social and natural scientists and scholars in the humanities is starting the Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB, pronounced “mob”). The admittedly ambitious aim is to change human behavior to avoid a collapse of global civilization.
Out of the demographic trap: hope for feeding the world
In Africa and elsewhere, burgeoning population growth threatens to overwhelm already over-stretched food supply systems. But the next agricultural revolution needs to get local — and must start to see rising populations as potentially part of the solution.
Out of Africa – Apr 6
-Is Africa underpopulated?
-Zambia’s farming revolution poster boy
-Africa’s banking laws shut out the poor: Yunus
Children, the childless, and diverse human ecosystems
Parents love their childless friends, often their only source of grown-up activities like, say, uninterrupted conversation. Or drinking and shooting pool (mmm…). Plus they’re good babysitters! Unchilded people love having relationships with kids. Children love hanging out with adults who are independent and adventurous; they need uncles and aunties. Human communities are ecosystems, and in all ecosystems diversity is the key to health and resilience.
Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud
Here’s the dirty little secret that we’re never supposed to say in mixed company: There are a lot of perks to childfree living, not to mention a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a polluted and crowded planet. [Also, Stephanie Mills video on her decision to remain childless]
