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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All in the Family: Preferences for Relatives Drive U.S. Immigration and Population Growth
By Jessica Vaughan Introduction and Key Findings The United States has just concluded the largest decade of immigration in its history. From 2000-2009 more than 10 million legal immigrants settled here.1 This surpasses the levels of both the early 20th century, which for a long time was the high water mark of immigration to the United States, and the 1990s, …
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NOVEMBER’S LESSONS
Scientists have long recognized the population problem, and most of the world’s national scientific societies have warned against continued growth.
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GEOENGINEERING AND THE MISPLACED FAITH IN GROWTH
The ancient Greeks used the word hubris to describe vaulting pride that challenged even the gods.
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PEAK OIL 2005 (NPG Footnote)
For years, it has been puzzling to see commentators debating whether peak oil is a future possibility, when the U.S. Energy Information Administration (DOE/ EIA) data showed world crude oil production peaking in 2005.
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The Great Silence: U.S. Population Policy
Click here for a downloadable, printable PDF version My attention was called recently to a Department of State position paper that said simply that “The U.S. does not endorse population ‘stabilization’ or ‘control.’ The ‘ideal’ family size should be determined by the desires of couples, not governments.” That is not just a major retrograde step; it is a particularly bad …
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HAITI’S PROBLEMS, AND THEIR LESSONS
Few people have as much sympathy as I do for the people of Haiti, especially for the children, for I saw their desperate plight years before the earthquake.
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Immigration and America’s Unchosen Future
Read the entire paper, download a PDF version Immigration and America’s Unchosen Future America Headed in the Wrong Direction The first decade of the twenty-first century brought the United States a mix of conflicting and mostly unsettling indicators of where the nation was headed, and public opinion polls registered a steady increase in pessimism. Presidential candidates in 2008 encountered a public …
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