Fertility is falling and families are shrinking in places— such as Brazil, Indonesia, and even parts of India—that people think of as teeming with children. As our briefing shows, the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less—the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called “the replacement rate of fertility”. Sometime between 2020 and 2050 the world’s fertility rate will fall below the global replacement rate.
At a time when Malthusian worries are resurgent and people fear the consequences for an overcrowded planet, the decline in fertility is surprising and somewhat reassuring. It means that worries about a population explosion are themselves being exploded—and it carries a lesson about how to solve the problems of climate change.
Today’s fall in fertility is both very large and very fast. Poor countries are racing through the same demographic transition as rich ones, starting at an earlier stage of development and moving more quickly. The transition from a rate of five to that of two, which took 130 years to happen in Britain—from 1800 to 1930—took just 20 years—from 1965 to 1985—in South Korea. Mothers in developing countries today can expect to have three children. Their mothers had six. In some countries the speed of decline in the fertility rate has been astonishing. In Iran, it dropped from seven in 1984 to 1.9 in 2006—and to just 1.5 in Tehran. That is about as fast as social change can happen.
On the other hand:
The Malthusians are right that the world’s population is still increasing and can do a lot more environmental damage before it peaks at just over 9 billion in 2050.
On a vaguely related topic, many Chinese never learned how not to get pregnant.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.
The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.
Environmental groups say the oil leak spilling into the Timor Sea should be declared a national emergency, with one expert likening it to a ”disaster movie”.
The situation has worsened in the last 24 hours with a fire breaking out on the deck of the West Atlas rig and Montara well head platform, when the company responsible for its operation began to plug the rig’s leak below the sea bed with mud.
Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.
The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan.
The sage derivative’s leaves have unique characteristics that absorb harmful gases, while the gardenia’s leaves create water vapour in the air, reducing the surface temperature of the factory surrounds and, therefore, reducing the energy needed for cooling, in turn producing less carbon dioxide (CO2).
The two new plants are part of a wide-ranging plan to reduce the impact of Prius manufacture on the environment. Since 1990, the plant has reduced CO2 emissions by 55 per cent.
Now I’ve heard everything. Surely this is a PR stunt.
In a study sure to ruffle the feathers of the Global Warming cabal, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT has published a paper which proves that IPCC models are overstating by 6 times, the relevance of CO2 in Earth’s Atmosphere. Dr. Lindzen has found that heat is radiated out in to space at a far higher rate than any modeling system to date can account for.
International law is unfit to deal with the millions of people expected to flee their home countries to escape droughts and floods intensified by climate change, a group of lawyers said on Thursday.
Under existing laws, host countries must protect and care for cross-border refugees, who are defined as those forced to migrate because of violence or political, racial or religious persecution.
There are no such provisions for so-called climate refugees. Yet by 2050, between 200 million and 1 billion people could be forced to leave their homes because of global warming, said the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, which advises vulnerable countries and communities.
[...]
What most experts agree on is that rising temperatures will leave an additional 200 million to 600 million people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as in parts of Europe and the United States, according to a 2007 global climate report.
Coastal flooding will also hit another 7 million homes.
It was a night for unnatural beauties. Contestants showed off breast implants, nose jobs and face lifts as Miss Plastic Hungary 2009 strove to promote the benefits of plastic surgery in a country where artificial enhancements are viewed mostly with a wary eye.
“I think this competition is long overdue,” said photographer Marton Szipal, one of the pageant judges. “Hungarians used to laugh about plastic surgery but it’s time for Hungarian women to care more about their appearance. They are the most beautiful in Europe.”
Plastic surgeon Dr. Tamas Rozsos said the pageant also meant to show that cosmetic corrections did not necessarily have to be about oversized breasts, bulbous lips and skin stretched to near tearing point.
I read somewhere that the average American child will generate 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide in their lifetime. At $50/metric ton that’s $472,050 in carbon. So if I go to the local high school and pass out 100 condoms and birth control pamphlets, or pay for a poor teenage girl to get an abortion, haven’t I earned the right to get a few plastic bags at the grocery store when I go shopping?
More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don’t have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That results in 76 million unintended pregnancies every year.
Mostly every problem could be solved by having less people, yet this seems to be some Al Gore propaganda.
An 18 year old from a village in Nepal outdoes US companies spending millions on R&D. Too much ‘out of the box’ thinking for us nowadays, I guess. An example of why we have dropped to #2 in competitiveness? At least we have this.
A new type of solar panel using human hair could provide the world with cheap, green electricity, believes its teenage inventor.
Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world’s energy needs.
The young inventor says hair is easy to use as a conductor in solar panels and could revolutionise renewable energy.
[...]
The solar panel, which produces 9 V (18 W) of energy, costs around £23 to make from raw materials. But if they were mass-produced, Milan says they could be sold for less than half that price, which could make them a quarter of the price of those already on the market.
Melanin, a pigment that gives hair its colour, is light sensitive and also acts as a type of conductor. Because hair is far cheaper than silicon the appliance is less costly.
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The Toyota flower gets loose
