Little Known Presidential Population Leadership
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Those of us familiar with the issue of U.S. population growth are well-acquainted with seeing it summarily ignored by each successive White House administration. Less commonly known are the presidents who initiated studies which led, in some cases, toward policy innovation and broader discussion of the issue of population growth. In this …
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The Southwest: Ground-Zero for Global Warming
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Experts warn that the American Southwest will be the part of the nation hit first, worst and hardest by global warming. But the desert Southwest— what author Wallace Stegner called “the dry core of the West”—could face a civilization-breaking water crisis even without global warming. There is insufficient water for the current …
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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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Two White Hats (NPG Footnote)
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version Money talks, very loud, in American politics. I have pointed out before that American immigration policy is largely set by entrepreneurs seeking cheap labor, not because most people want it.1 In fairness, however, let me say that there is a substantial body of immigration advocates who believe, quite sincerely, that unchecked immigration …
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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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The UN 2010 Population Projections: A Proposal
The United Nations Population Division on May 3rd released its 2010 world population projections. The study is the best available collection of current world demographic data, but the projections, as usual, are something of a parlor game. They involve questionable and highly optimistic assumptions about fertility and mortality. They ignore other studies that identify external forces that will shape population growth. They assume political …
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Australia Considers a Population Policy: Any Lessons for a Drifting USA?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Australia has created a Ministry of Sustainable Population and is nearing the end of a yearlong high-level review of its population strategy. These initiatives since 2009 came in the midst of public concerns about increasing urban congestion and about 2009 demographic projections showing population growing by more than 60 percent by 2050 – to 35 million. The preliminary findings from the …
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The Apolcalypse is on Schedule
… or perhaps ahead of schedule. Climate change is the popular topic, and there are multiple news reports of the accelerated pace of change: the melting Arctic ice cap; the sudden and erratic increase in run-off from Greenland’s glaciers; the breakup of the Ross ice shelf in the Antarctic; the droughts of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon; the storms …
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