Population Archives

Can the world feed 10 Billion people?

December 15, 2020May 5, 2011 by Raj Patel

The world’s demographers this week increased their estimates of the world’s population through the coming century. We are now on track to hit 10 billion people by 2100. Today, humanity produces enough food to feed everyone but, because of the way we distribute it, there are still a billion hungry. One doesn’t need to be a frothing Malthusian to worry about how we’ll all get to eat tomorrow. Current predictions place most of the world’s people in Asia, the highest levels of consumption in Europe and North America, and the highest population growth rates in Africa — where the population could triple over the next 90 years.

Future & past – May 2

December 15, 2020May 2, 2011 by Staff

– Will China’s peak herald the “peak human”?
– Live long. Stay healthy. Join the immortals
– Immanuel Wallerstein: The world system after 1945

Voices – April 28

December 15, 2020April 28, 2011 by Staff

– Carl Safina: “Modern Times” Really Akin To The “Dark Ages”
– Q&A: Hunter Lovins
– Sir David Attenborough on over-population
– Arguments for constrained capitalism in Asia
– Activists occupy oil rig in fight to prevent Arctic drilling

Breaking the real population taboo

December 15, 2020April 28, 2011 by Ian Angus

No explanation of the environmental crisis gets more exposure than the claim that it is all caused by overpopulation. The view that really doesn’t get such coverage is the anti-capitalist alternative, the argument that the crisis is caused by a social and economic system that has waste and destruction built into its DNA.

Population – April 17

December 15, 2020April 17, 2011 by Staff

– Lester Brown: Smart planning for the global family
– The Anti-Immigration Crusader
– The Hypocrisy of Hate: Nativists and Environmentalism

Visions of the Afterlight

December 15, 2020April 12, 2011 by Frank Kaminski

Reviews of three novels set in the wake of the oil age:
– Player One by Douglas Coupland
– Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
– Afterlight by Alex Scarrow.

Earth’s Limits: Why Growth Won’t Return – Climate Change, Pollution, Accidents, Environmental Decline, and Natural Disasters

December 15, 2020March 17, 2011 by Richard Heinberg

The current tragic events in Japan bring an extra poignancy to this, the final excerpt from Chapter 3 of Richard Heinberg’s new book The End of Growth.

The peak oil crisis: the 3rd transition

December 15, 2020February 18, 2011 by Tom Whipple

Taken together, the decline and eventual near cessation of fossil fuel production and that of many other minerals, disruption in global weather patterns, and the growing food and water scarcity will constitute the third great transition.

Peak oil, climate change, political turmoil: the lesson from Egypt

December 15, 2020February 15, 2011 by Matthew Wild

Were the Egyptian people that bravely took to the streets to overthrow a tyrannical regime taking part in the world’s first peak oil revolution?

Population – Feb 13

December 15, 2020February 13, 2011 by Staff

– Special National Geographic Series: 7 Billion
– A world too full of people – let’s invest in family planning
– Biology’s Bomb: Graphing ‘Explosive’ Population Growth in Cold War Textbooks

Global population speak out

December 15, 2020February 2, 2011 by Sharon Astyk

We do have to talk about population – we have to talk about it honestly and clearly, and with an eye to the real complexities of the issue. We have to put it on the table and stop being afraid of it. We have to have these conversations even when they are difficult, personal, emotional and when they are hard.

Deep thought – Jan 20

December 15, 2020January 20, 2011 by Staff

-The Ultimate Oxymoron: Industrial Civilization And Mental Health
– Nicole Foss: We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil (video)
– La Niña as Black Swan – Energy, Food Prices, and Chinese Economy Among Likely Casualites
– The Guardian: The population explosion
– Jerome a Paris: Neo-feudalism and neo-nihilism