17 August 2011

Earth at seven billion
National Post - Canada
“Every indicator of human well-being that you can measure … there’s no question it’s better today, no matter how many people we have,” said Hania Zlotnik, head of the UN’s Population Division. “On the whole, society has been extremely successful, both in reducing population growth from its peak and making life better for most people.”[...]At the same time, more efforts are needed to lower the birth rate in high-fertility regions to avoid worst-case population scenarios, and potentially to slow growth even more than expected, said Ms. Zlotnik. The UN population czar rejects the conventional economic wisdom that fertility starts falling only as affluence in a country rises, saying there are many examples where birth rates have shrunk independent of an economic boom. Bangladesh, for instance, is moving fast toward replacement-level fertility because of robust programs that encourage child and maternal health and family planning. (13 August 2011)

08 August 2011

Learning to live on a crowded planet
Globe and Mail - South Africa

Hania Zlotnik, director of the UN Population Division, says all of this could have been much worse if not for rapid changes to the lives of women. Women are better educated, have more work opportunities and pressures, and get better access to birth control, and that has led to a dramatic drop in fertility over the last two generations. Worldwide, women now have half as many children as they did in the 1960s and just slightly more than is needed to replace and maintain the current population.,…(4 August 2011)

Sustaining seven billion

The Mark - Canada

This October, the United Nations Population Division expects the world’s population to surpass seven billion – a number that has nearly tripled since 1950. Close to half of the population – three billion people – is under the age of 25, making this the largest youth generation in history. While the growth of the population presents challenges, it also provides an unprecedented opportunity to address some of the world’s most pressing issues.…(5 August 2011)
Census: Share of children in U.S. hits record low
The Mercury - USA

Japan, France, Germany and Canada each have lower shares of children under age 15, ranging between 13 percent in Japan and 17 percent in Canada, while nations in Africa and the Middle East have some of the largest shares, including 50 percent in Niger and 46 percent in Afghanistan, according to figures from the United Nations Population Division. In the U.S., the share of children under 15 is 20 percent.…(7 August 2011)

03 August 2011

Population politics: nature and consequences
New Age - Bangladesh
(...) According to a recent report released by the United Nations Population Division, the world population—currently about 7 billion—will not stabilise at 9.3 billion by the middle of the twenty-first century as previously thought but will continue to grow till the end of the century. According to 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects, the official UN population projections prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs released in May 2011, the world population will hit a staggering 10.1 billion by the year 2100. (...) Based on the countries’ reported fertility rates, the UN Population Division divided the world into three categories: high fertility countries, intermediate fertility countries, and low fertility countries. (...) The UN Population Division identified Bangladesh as an intermediate-fertility country based on the information provided by the government. tan, Ghana, Yemen, Mozambique and Madagascar. Needless to say, the high-fertility The UN Population Division projects that the population of Bangladesh, an intermediate-fertility country, will grow to about 195 million by 2070s and then start to decline. However, like the census figures, this projection is also based on the assumption that Bangladesh will achieve a fertility rate of 1.8 or 1.9 within the next few years. Clearly this is unlikely to happen so soon. (...)
31 July 2011)

01 August 2011

Biodiversity On Earth Plummets, Despite Growth in Protected Habitats
Huffington Post - USA
Global population is expected to pass 7 billion in October, according to new estimates from the population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations. That's an increase of 1 billion people in about a dozen years. Other challenges include the size of protected areas -- which are often too small for larger species to survive -- and the lack of connectivity between protected areas, which is needed for healthy genetic dispersal. ,…(30 July 2011)