Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Alan Weisman answers questions on his new book. Weisman traveled to 21 countries asking politicians, scientists, family planning specialists, doctors, and religious leaders, crucial questions about how we can successfully deal with the size of human population.
Since the end of the 18th century, when Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, there’s been controversy regarding the concept of “carrying capacity,”…
Albert Bartlett might have been another obscure physics professor had he not put together a now famous lecture entitled "Arithmetic, Population and Energy"in 1969. The lecture begins with the line: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
Sometimes considered a taboo subject, the issue of population runs as an undercurrent in virtually all discussions of modern challenges.
The agendas that are set so solemnly for international (or global) food and hunger problems cannot be used at the sub-national or local administrative level, which must analyse its own problems and find practical solutions, All too often, catering sensibly to the food needs of urban populations is ignored by policy makers, while economic ‘development’ (more infrastructure, more financing, more consumption, more personal mobility at the cost of public transport) is welcomed. The provisioning of food and the planning for shortening and localising food supply chains is usually abandoned by public administrators to the ruthless methods of the market
Speaking out about human overpopulation is not an easy thing, as I have been told that people get offended.
•Mother: Caring for 7 Billion – Teaser – Free Streaming of Director’s Cut •Do the Math Documentary Premieres on Earth Night, April 21 •Growing Cities Movie
Chances are you already have a strong opinion on this subject. There’s a great deal of noise, mostly but not wholly on the American right about the dangers of fertility decline. Jonathan Last’s book _What To Expect When No One is Expecting_ and Ross Douthat’s recent lament about American women’s TFR (total fertility rate – the reason men aren’t mentioned is that men don’t count in fertility calculations) is down to 1.87 children. Both writers predict fairly dire outcomes – economic stagnation a la Japan, a benefits crisis as insufficient new workers arrive. Moreover, for Douthat and other commentators like Rod Dreher, there’s a larger moral and cultural dimension that is absolutely critical…
"Population Bomb" author & Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich on his Royal Society Paper "Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?" From Tasmania, forest expert Dr. David Bowman: wild fires drive more global warming. Economist John Talberth suing the U.S. Government over risky ocean oil leases in the Arctic. Three interviews from a world of trouble.
•Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
•Global warming, peak oil, economic chaos
•The Healing Power Of Beauty In A Bleak World
•Waiting for the punchline
•Moral case for sustainability more effective than economic?
•Pandora’s Boxes
These days, people are maxed out on every level trying to get through life as everything gets more tedious, expensive, and uncertain. The onslaught of “glittering generalities” and opinionated political rhetoric coming from popular media and paid advertising on “both” sides is enough to make many shut off and tune out – their philosophical bandwidth running at full capacity until it is choked off entirely.
There is a growing disconnect between forecasts of prodigious amounts of oil coming out of the Middle East in coming decades and what is likely to happen in the region.
