OMNI
UNITED NATIONS WORLD POPULATION DAY NEWSLETTER #4, JULY 11, 2021
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
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CONTENTS
Google Search
UN Population Day, World Population Day
OMNI Overpopulation Newsletter #11
Art Hobson, “Finding Our Way….)
Negative Population Growth
Population Connection (June 2020)
Dick’s Analysis of Gholipour on 11 Million People
Doug Thompson on Costs of Population Growth: Water
UN World Contraception Day
Vince Beiser, Stopping China’s Gobi Desert and Population
Google Search (edited), 7-10-21
World Population Day | United Nations
https://www.un.org › observances › world-population-day
Jul 11, 2020 · Uploaded by UNFPA
UN World Population Day | UNFPA - United Nations Population ...
https://www.unfpa.org › events › world-population-day
World Population Day 2021: Theme
This year, the theme of World Population Day 2021 is 'the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fertility'. It will be observed to draw focus on the importance of sexual and reproductive health, which is deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.3 hours ago
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UN WORLD POPULATION DAY - July 11, 2021 | National Today
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Event: World Population Day 2021 | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD
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World Population Day: July 11, 2021 - Census Bureau
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OMNI OVER-POPULATION, GROWTH, CONSUMPTION, WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE NEWSLETTER #11, June 10 , 2018.
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/06/omni-overpopulation-newsletter-11.html
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
(#1 July 8, 2010; #2 April 23, 2012; #3 April 4, 2014; #4 June 28, 2014; #5, June 5, 2015; #6, July 16, 2015; #7, Nov. 5, 2015; #8 Jan. 8, 2016, #9 March 17, 2016; #10 July 8, 2016).
At stake: “Population growth can cancel out everything we do to limit the build-up of GHGs (Attenborough 2009), and population continues to increase at a rapid rate.” Scott McNall, Rapid Climate Change (2011, 58).
Art Hobson, “Finding our way through the bottleneck: Trend is from religion toward psychology.” ahobson@uark.edu
NWADG, 15 June 2021.
Now more than ever, and for better or worse, the world is in rapid transition. As the great scientist and naturalist Edward O. Wilson noted in his book The Future of Life, humanity is currently in a bottleneck, a time of resource overuse that will remain difficult for decades, at least until world population stops increasing and recedes significantly below its present numbers.
A few examples of such problems: Changing climate due to excess carbon emissions; water shortages due to overuse and altered climate; plagues due to human encroachment into the natural environment; a global mass extinction due to human expansion; national, cultural, and religious differences leading to displacement and violent conflict; generational and other differences due to fast-changing technologies and their misuse; and differences due to greater awareness of unfair exploitation and mistreatment of women, minorities, religions, and other groups. Underlying everything are stresses due, ironically, to a fundamentally positive development: rapid global communication.
A significant related trend is the steady drift of cultural beliefs away from religious orientations and toward psychological orientations. It's a predictable trend because, as young people become better educated, they tend to become dissatisfied with their parents' religious beliefs, yet the bottleneck causes psychological pressures of just the sort that, in earlier days, caused people to turn to religion for guidance and solace. In particular, many religions require their followers to accept miracles and other beliefs that are implausible, to say the least, in light of contemporary knowledge. Thus some religious institutions are wisely evolving to put less emphasis on traditional theology and more emphasis on counseling and scientifically enlightened psychology. MORE https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2021/jul/06/opinion-art-hobson-through-the-bottleneck/
These cultural trends, both the falling away from religion and the falling toward psychology, strike me as signals of a better future. I hasten to add that some social aspects of religion, especially family counseling, discussion groups, and social gatherings, will always be valuable.
Humankind needs to get smart fast. We need to reduce our population, cut carbon emissions to zero, resolve global water shortages, avoid new plagues, protect wildlife, reconcile our differences, adjust to new technologies, and resolve our prejudices. Education is what's needed, but traditional education, while certainly necessary, is no longer sufficient. There's enough daily stupidity on, say, twitter or the internet to last anybody a lifetime, but the social media are also playing a crucial role in quickly educating many of us in all sorts of global developments including the trend away from religion and toward psychology. All media--newspapers, films, television, and many others--have a powerful role to play as the planet works its way through the bottleneck.
NOTES:
• Edward O. Wilson, https://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1021.html.
• Pew poll: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/generational-cohort/.
Be a part of this historic fight! 7-8-21
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Pandemic Viruses and Overpopulation.
POPULATION CONNECTION (June 2020) contains 3 excellent articles on the origins of diseases like Covid-19. The histories of the many viruses are particularly enlightening to our unfolding Covid-19 experience. 5-31
https://www.populationconnection.org/magazine/june-2020/
John Vidal. “Destruction of Habitat + Loss of Biodiversity Are Creating the Perfect Conditions for Diseases Like Covid-19 to Emerge.”
Sonia Shah. “Think Exotic Animals Are to Blame for the Coronavirus? Think Again.”
Bahar Gholipour. “What 11 Billion People Mean for Disease Outbreaks.”
Some notes on Gholipour. The title makes me hope someone equally skilled will write reports on “What 11 Billion People Mean for Climate Change” and “What 11 Billion People Mean for World Peace.”
The essay puts Covid-19 in its historical place. It opens dramatically with the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic caused by a new strain of H1N1, the influenza virus of the devastating 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed over 30 million people. “…the looming shadow of a deadly pandemic still persists.”
That anxiety existed for all the viruses that surfaced in recent years—from the 2002 SARS coronavirus to the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) . Will this be the one to cause the next pandemic?
And the unprecedented population growth intensifies the fear. In the second half of the twentieth century the human population grew from 2.5 billion to 6 billion. It will reach 9.6 billion by mid-century, and 11 billion by 2100. A study published in Nature in 2008 examined the link between the risk of pandemic and human population density and found a “strong correlation.”
For example, the rate of emergent diseases caused by pathogens new to humans has increased significantly. Some of these diseases have crossed from animals to humans—including the West Nile virus, the SARS coronavirus, and the HIV. Other pathogens have evolved in response to drugs, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Each year, it is likely that more and more diseases will emerge, for all in the past “were linked to sudden human population growth and related activities. And “about two-thirds of new diseases were transmitted to humans from animals.”
The rest of the article elaborates on these discoveries, makes predictions about the future, and examines whether we are prepared with a “robust public health system.”
I’ll select three developments to illustrate what we’re up against and signs of progress: The HIV/AiDS pandemic, first detected in 1981, believed to have originated in chimpanzees, “has infected 60 million people and caused an estimated 30 million deaths.” It “continues to this day.” We are developing novel diagnostics to quickly detect infection, and we have made “immense progress” in reducing the time to make a vaccine. Dick 6-2-20
COSTS OF POPULATION GROWTH
Doug Thompson. “Board Told to Start Work on Pipeline Now.” NADG (Feb. 21, 2020). “to meet the city’s growing demand for water.” The total project will cost $88.8 million. What else will be demanded from the overpopulation?
UN World Contraception Day, Google Search 26 September 2018. WCD takes place on September 26th every year.The day's mission is to improve awareness of all contraceptive methods available and enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health.Sep 26, 2018
UN WHO | World Contraception Day - World Health Organization
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About World Contraception Day (WCD) - Your Life
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World Contraception Day takes place on September 26th every year. The annual worldwide campaign centers around a vision where every pregnancy is wanted. Launched in 2007, WCD’s mission is to improve awareness of contraception and to enable young people to make informed choices on ...
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Contraceptive use and unmet need for family planning are key to understanding profound changes in fertility and to improving reproductive health worldwide.
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Sep 26, 2018 - It is exactly 11 years since World Contraception Day (WCD) was launched on 26 September 2007. ... Reflections on the UN General Assembly.
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Sep 24, 2015 - “To live to their full potential, young people need to have the autonomy to make their own informed decisions about contraception.” World ...
VINCE Beiser. “A Tree Grows in China.” Mother Jones (Sept. Oct. 2017). China’s “Green Great Wall” effort to stop the Gobi Desert from enlarging. “Climate change is partly to blame, but population growth is the main culprit.”