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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>
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        <item>
            <title>The Population-Poverty Connection</title>
            <link>http://bit.ly/90bUKx</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The 21st century began on an inspiring note: the United Nations set a goal of reducing the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty by half by 2015. By early 2007 the world looked to be on track to meet this goal, but as the economic crisis unfolds and the outlook darkens, the world will have to intensify its poverty reduction effort.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:41:48 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>The Localization of Agriculture</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2009/pb4ch09_ss5</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers’ markets.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:47:02 +0100</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Plan B 4.0 By the Numbers -- Data Highlights on Poverty and Population</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/pb4_ch7_datarelease/</link>
            <description><![CDATA[These data highlights show that while there have been some successes in the fight to reduce poverty and improve quality of life around the world, many challenges remain, particularly in the face of continuing population growth.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:31:27 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>The Rising Tide of Environmental Refugees</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/8017_PB4ch02_ss7_Rising_Tide_of_Environmental_Refugees.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Our early twenty-first century civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas. Measured by the biologically productive land area that can support human habitation, the earth is shrinking. Mounting population densities, once generated solely by population growth, are now also fueled by the relentless advance of deserts and may soon be affected by the projected rise in sea level. As overpumping depletes aquifers, millions more are forced to relocate in search of water.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:35:39 +0100</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>A Civilizational Tipping Point</title>
            <link>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch01_ss5.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds or tipping points in nature. For example, scientists worry about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery.

We know there were social tipping points in earlier civilizations, points at which they were overwhelmed by the forces threatening them. For instance, at some point the irrigation-related salt buildup in their soil overwhelmed the capacity of the Sumerians to deal with it. With the Mayans, there came a time when the effects of cutting too many trees and the associated loss of topsoil were simply more than they could manage.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:11:39 +0100</pubDate>
        </item>
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            <title>Better Health for All</title>
            <link>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch07_ss4.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Ensuring basic health care for people in low-income countries is critical to the Plan B goal of eradicating poverty and stabilizing population. While heart disease and cancer (largely the diseases of aging), obesity, and smoking dominate health concerns in industrial countries, in developing countries infectious diseases are the overriding health concern. Besides AIDS, the principal diseases of concern are diarrhea, respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis, malaria, and measles. Child mortality is high.

Additional text and data can be found at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch07_ss4.htm.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:10:57 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Health Challenges Growing</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch06_ss3.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Health challenges are becoming more numerous as new infectious diseases such as SARS, West Nile virus, and avian flu emerge. In addition, the accumulation of chemical pollutants in the environment is starting to take a toll. While infectious diseases are fairly well understood, the health effects of many environmental pollutants are not yet known.

Additional text may be found at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch06_ss3.htm.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:03:46 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>When Population Growth and Resource Availability Collide</title>
            <link>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch06_ss5.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[As land and water become scarce, competition for these vital resources intensifies within societies, particularly between the wealthy and those who are poor and dispossessed. The shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person that comes with population growth is threatening to drop the living standards of millions of people below the survival level, leading to potentially unmanageable social tensions.

Additional text and data may be found at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch06_ss5.htm]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:53:08 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Moving to a Stable World Population</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/files/6753_PB3ch7_ss3_Stabilizing_Population_21_Jan_09.doc</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Some 43 countries around the world now have populations that are either essentially stable or declining slowly. In countries with the lowest fertility rates, including Japan, Russia, Germany, and Italy, populations will likely decline somewhat over the next half-century. A larger group of countries has reduced fertility to the replacement level or just below. They are headed for population stability after large numbers of young people move through their reproductive years. Included in this group are China and the United States. A third group of countries is projected to more than double their populations by 2050, including Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.

For full report visit http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch07_ss3.htm.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:58:11 +0100</pubDate>
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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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        <item>
            <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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        <item>
            <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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        <item>
            <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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        <item>
            <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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