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Alison Tuch – $2,500 Winner of the 2012 Essay Scholarship

ws_table id=”3″ By Alison Tuch The subject of population growth has always been important to me.  I was born in Richmond, Virginia and have lived in the area my entire life.  I have seen many negative changes in Chesterfield County, where I grew up, due to exploding growth in population.  These changes range from trailers outside every school to traffic …

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Happy Days are Here Again?

There has been a welter of celebratory stories in the popular press claiming that, because of the advent of fracking, our energy problems are over, that we are on the way to ending our dependence on foreign energy sources, and that – as a consequence – any worries about the limits to growth and the transition from fossil fuels are no longer relevant. I will present a less ecstatic analysis.1

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The Meaning of Sustainability

Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Background on Sustainabilty In the 1960s and 1970s, it became apparent to many thoughtful individuals that global populations, rates of resource use and environmental degradation were all increasing so rapidly that these increases would soon encounter the limits imposed by the finite productivity of the global ecosphere and the geological availability of …

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Negative Population Growth Marks 40th Anniversary

Founder Lauds Accomplishments and Outlines Challenges Alexandria, VA (March 26, 2012) – Negative Population Growth (NPG) President Donald Mann has heralded the group’s 40th Anniversary this spring with a call for all Americans to pressure their elected leaders to slow and halt the nation’s fast-rising population numbers before they spin out of control and cause massive economic, social and environmental …

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The Sources of Unemployment

If over the past three decades the United States had deliberately set out to create unemployment, it could hardly have done a more thorough job. The sources of the problem lie in our immigration policy, foreign trade policy, the failure to deal with rising productivity, and our reliance on public and private debt. I will suggest specific solutions. They require a fundamental change in our national thinking to recognize that go-go economic growth is no longer possible at this stage in history.

 

Our present unemployment problem is not transitory, and it is not confined to the United States. It is much more intense in many countries, particularly the poorest ones, and that in turn will lead to more intense migratory pressures. The more prosperous countries – not just the United States – will need the discipline to match their populations and their policies to their job opportunities, their resources and their food supply. They will need to develop and enforce effective controls over migration, trade and debt to survive amidst unprecedented challenges.

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Is Fracking an Answer? To What?

Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version box size=”large”Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking” in the popular literature; “fracing” in some technical journals) is a technique for expanding gas and oil production. It is dramatically raising expectations for future gas and oil production, and technological optimists are hailing it as the answer to fears of a decline in world fossil energy production. …

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