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        <title>InfoShare Partner - Earth Policy Institute</title>
        <description>Population and Health InfoShare : Newest 15 Documents by Earth Policy Institute. Sharing Knowledge to Improve Public Health Worldwide</description>
        <link>http://www.phishare.org/documents/EarthPolicy/?order=Date%20DESC</link>
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            <title>Raising Energy Efficiency in a New Materials Economy - Part I</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch11_ss6a.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The production, processing, and disposal of material in our modern throwaway economy wastes not only material but energy as well, thus producing unnecessary, climate-disrupting carbon dioxide emissions. In nature, one-way linear flows do not survive long. Nor, by extension, can they survive long in the expanding global economy. The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is an aberration, now itself headed for the junk heap of history.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:13:11 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Solar Thermal Power Coming to a Boil</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update73.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[After emerging in 2006 from 15 years of hibernation, the solar thermal power industry experienced a surge in 2007, with 100 megawatts of new capacity coming online worldwide. During the 1990s, cheap fossil fuels, combined with a loss of state and federal incentives, put a damper on solar thermal power development. However, recent increases in energy prices, escalating concerns about global climate change, and fresh economic incentives are renewing interest in this technology.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:26:21 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Redesigning Urban Transport</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch10_ss3.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The world’s cities are facing unprecedented problems. In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. Respiratory illnesses are rampant. In the United States, the number of hours commuters spend sitting frustrated in traffic-congested streets and highways climbs higher each year. In response, forward-thinking city planners are seeking ways to redesign cities for people not cars. They have begun to realize that urban transport systems based on a combination of rail lines, bus lines, bicycle pathways, and pedestrian walkways offer the best of all possible worlds in providing mobility, low-cost transportation, and a healthy urban environment.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:08:30 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Plan for Time B: Cutting Carbon Emissions 80 Percent by 2020</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/80by2020.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[When political leaders look at the need to cut carbon dioxide emissions to curb global warming, they ask the question: How much of a cut is politically feasible? At the Earth Policy Institute we ask a different question: How much of a cut is necessary to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change?

By burning fossil fuels and destroying forests, we are releasing greenhouse gases, importantly carbon dioxide (CO2), into the atmosphere. These heat-trapping gases are warming the planet, setting in motion changes that are taking us outside the climate bounds within which civilization developed.

We cannot afford to let the planet get much hotter. At today’s already elevated temperatures, the massive Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets—which together contain enough water to raise sea level by 12 meters (39 feet)—are melting at accelerating rates. Glaciers around the world are shrinking and at risk of disappearing, including those in the mountains of Asia whose ice melt feeds the continent’s major rivers during the dry season.

Delaying action will only lead to greater damage. It’s time for Plan B.

The alternative to business as usual, Plan B calls for cutting net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020. This will allow us to prevent the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, already at 384 parts per million (ppm), from exceeding 400 ppm, thus keeping future global temperature rise to a minimum.

Cutting CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2020 will take a worldwide mobilization at wartime speed. First, investing in energy efficiency will allow us to keep global energy demand from increasing.Then we can cut carbon emissions by one third by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources for electricity and heat production. A further 14 percent drop comes from restructuring our transportation systems and reducing coal and oil use in industry. Ending net deforestation worldwide can cut CO2 emissions another 16 percent. Last, planting trees and managing soils to sequester carbon can absorb 17 percent of our current emissions.

None of these initiatives depends on new technologies. We know what needs to be done to reduce CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2020. All that is needed now is leadership.

To download the full blueprint, visit http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/80by2020.htm.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:17:53 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Falling Water Tables, Falling Harvests</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch04_ss2.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs. The drilling of millions of irrigation wells has pushed water withdrawals beyond recharge rates, in effect leading to groundwater mining. The failure of governments to limit pumping to the sustainable yield of aquifers means that water tables are now falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people, including the big three grain producers—China, India, and the United States. 

Most of the world’s aquifers are replenishable, so that when they are depleted, the maximum rate of pumping will be automatically reduced to the rate of recharge. Fossil aquifers, however, are not replenishable. For these—including the vast U.S. Ogallala aquifer, the deep aquifer under the North China Plain, or the Saudi aquifer, for example—depletion brings pumping to an end. Farmers who lose their irrigation water have the option of returning to lower-yield dryland farming if rainfall permits. But in more arid regions, such as in the southwestern United States or the Middle East, the loss of irrigation water means the end of agriculture.

To read the rest of this book byte, please visit http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch04_ss2.htm.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:13:38 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Bicycles Pedaling Into the Spotlight</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Bike/2008.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Bicycle production measures our ability to provide affordable transportation, reduce traffic congestion, lower air pollution, increase mobility, and provide exercise to the world’s growing population.

The world produced an estimated 130 million bicycles in 2007 -- more than twice the 52 million cars produced. Bicycle and car production tracked each other closely in the mid-to-late 1960s, but bike output separated sharply from that of cars in 1970, beginning its steep climb to 105 million in 1988. Following a slowdown between 1989 and 2001, bike production has regained steam, increasing in each of the last six years. Much of the recent growth has been driven by the rise in electric, or “e-bike” production, which has doubled since 2004 to 21 million units in 2007. Overall, since 1970, bicycle output has nearly quadrupled, while car production has roughly doubled.

Promoting the bike as a clean and efficient alternative to the personal automobile is a practical way for cities to reduce traffic congestion and smog. To simultaneously confront those problems as well as climate change and an emerging obesity epidemic, government leaders and advocacy groups are working to bring cycling back to prominence in the urban transport mix.

A number of European cities have set the standard for bicycle use and promotion, via pro-bike transportation and land use policies, as well as heavy funding for bicycle infrastructure and public education.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 18:36:49 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>World Facing Huge New Challenge on Food Front: Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option</title>
            <link>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2008/Update72.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:27:02 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>DISTILLERY DEMAND FOR GRAIN TO FUEL CARS VASTLY UNDERSTATED: World May Be Facing Highest Grain ...</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4839_63_Grain_Required_by_Distilleries_EPI.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Investment in fuel ethanol distilleries has soared since the late-2005 oil price hikes, but data collection in this fast-changing sector has fallen behind. Because of inadequate data collection on the number of new plants under construction, the quantity of grain that will be needed for fuel ethanol distilleries has been vastly understated. Farmers, feeders, food processors, ethanol investors, and grain-importing countries are basing decisions on incomplete data.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects that distilleries will require only 60 million tons of corn from the 2008 harvest. But here at the Earth Policy Institute (EPI), we estimate that distilleries will need 139 million tons—more than twice as much. If the EPI estimate is at all close to the mark, the emerging competition between cars and people for grain will likely drive world grain prices to levels never seen before. The key questions are: How high will grain prices rise? When will the crunch come? And what will be the worldwide effect of rising food prices?]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:32:20 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>WATER PRICES RISING WORLDWIDE</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4838_Cost_of_Water.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The price of water is increasing—sometimes dramatically—throughout the world. Over the past five years, municipal water rates have increased by an average of 27 percent in the United States, 32 percent in the United Kingdom, 45 percent in Australia, 50 percent in South Africa, and 58 percent in Canada. In Tunisia, the price of irrigation water increased fourfold over a decade.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:30:35 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>MASSIVE DIVERSION OF U.S. GRAIN TO FUEL CARS IS RAISING WORLD FOOD PRICES</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4837_65_Massive_Diversion_of_US_Grain.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide.

Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In addition, soybean futures have risen by half. A Bloomberg analysis notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol “is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food chain.”]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:29:18 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>PLAN B BUDGET FOR ERADICATING POVERTY AND STABILIZING POPULATION</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4836_PB2ch7_Plan_B_Budget_for_Erad_Pov_and_Stab_Pop_final_.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The twenty-first century began on an inspiring note when the countries that belong to the United Nations adopted the goal of cutting the number of people living in poverty in half by 2015. And as of 2005, the world is ahead of schedule for reaching this goal. There are two big reasons for this: China and India. China’s economic growth of 9 percent a year over the last quarter-century and India’s acceleration to close to 6 percent a year over the last decade are together lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:26:58 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>PLAN B BUDGET FOR RESTORING THE EARTH</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4835_PB2ch8_ss7_The_Earth_Restoration_Budget_final_.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The health of an economy cannot be separated from that of its natural support systems. More than half the world’s people depend directly on croplands, rangelands, forests, and fisheries for their livelihoods. Many more depend on forest product industries, leather goods industries, cotton and woolen textile industries, and food processing for their jobs.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:25:28 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>PLAN B BUDGET FOR SAVING CIVILIZATION</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/4834_PB2ch13_ss4_Mobilizing_to_Save_Civilization_A_Plan_B_Budget_final_.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Mobilizing to save civilization means restructuring the economy, restoring the economy’s natural support systems, eradicating poverty, and stabilizing population. We have the technologies, economic instruments, and financial resources to do this. The United States has the resources to lead this effort. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute sums it up well: “The tragic irony of this moment is that the rich countries are so rich and the poor so poor that a few added tenths of one percent of GNP from the rich ones ramped up over the coming decades could do what was never before possible in human history: ensure that the basic needs of health and education are met for all impoverished children in this world. How many more tragedies will we suffer in this country before we wake up to our capacity to help make the world a safer and more prosperous place not only through military might, but through the gift of life itself?”]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:23:59 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Setting the Record Straight: More than 52,000 Europeans Died from Heat in Summer 2003</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update56.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Following a string of high heat days and meteorologists’ warnings that this summer could be another scorcher, European public health officials and politicians are revisiting the devastating heat wave of 2003. The severely hot weather that withered crops, dried up rivers, and fueled fires that summer took a massive human toll. The full magnitude of this quiet catastrophe still remains largely an untold story, as data revealing the continent-wide scale have only slowly become available in the years since. All in all, more than 52,000 Europeans died from heat in the summer of 2003, making the heat wave one of the deadliest climate-related disasters in Western history.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:41:08 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>WORLD’S WATER RESOURCES FACE MOUNTING PRESSURE</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Water/2006.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Global freshwater use tripled during the second half of the twentieth century as population more than doubled and as technological advances let farmers and other water users pump groundwater from greater depths and harness river water with more and larger dams. As global demand soars, pressures on the world’s water resources are straining aquatic systems worldwide. Rivers are running dry, lakes are disappearing, and water tables are dropping. Additional data may be found at http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Water/2006.htm]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:35:41 +0100</pubDate>
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