Published on Oct 26, 2014
Preview of Exploring Environmental History podcast episode featuring archaeologist Alan Williams exploring the responses and adaptations by Aboriginal people to climate change over the past 50,000 years in Australia.
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Published on Oct 27, 2014
Subscribe to UNICEF here: http://bit.ly/1ltTE3m.
Share this video using the hashtags #GreatLeapBackward and #ChildrenoftheRecession
Five years after the global financial and economic crisis of 2008, a generation of children and young people are growing up in conditions of deprivation not witnessed by their parents and grandparents. Most European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have seen a dramatic rise in the rate of young people not in education, employment or training, with rates reaching as high as 20–25 per cent in the worst-affected countries.
Such trends are part of a larger loss of progress for children and young people caused by the Great Recession. In developed countries, 2.6 million more children are living in poverty, and many wealthy countries have lost 5–10 years of income progress. Is economic recovery on the horizon? Not for children, according to UNICEF’s newly launched Innocenti Report Card 12 “Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries.”
About the report:
Launched by Innocenti, UNICEF’s Office of Research, “Children of the Recession” is a unique report because it is one of the few times UNICEF has focused on the status of children and youth in the 41 wealthiest countries in the world.
Download the full report at: http://www.unicef-irc.org/.Download the full report at: http://www.unicef-irc.org/.
For more about UNICEF’s work, visit: http://www.unicef.org.
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Published on Oct 27, 2014
Thom Hartmann says big businesses that cater to low end wage earners are now seeing drops in sales thanks to Reaganomics.
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Published on Oct 27, 2014
Students, faculty, deans, staff, and alumni from The New School (http://www.newschool.edu) community were among the 400,000 people who took to the streets in New York City on September 21, 2014; marching through the heart of Manhattan with a message of alarm for world leaders set to gather this week at the United Nations for a summit meeting on climate change.
Learn more about the Milano School’s MS Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management | http://www.newschool.edu/public-engag…
The Tishman Environment and Design Center | http://www.newschool.edu/tedc
Produced by students and staff from Red Dog Productions at the school of Media Studies | http://www.newschool.edu/public-engag…
The New School demonstrates our commitment to climate action and our solidarity with people converging on New York City for the historic People’s Climate March on September 21, with a week-long series of events focused on climate change. As a leader and official endorser of the March, The New School’s Climate Action Week includes a diverse set of programming directed towards the university and wider community for enriched learning and engagement opportunities, scholarship, innovation and creativity, solidarity and collective action, and highlighting New School’s values around climate justice and action.
Sunday, September 21, 2014 at 9:00 a.m.
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Published on Oct 27, 2014
Subscribe to UNICEF here: http://bit.ly/1ltTE3m.
Share this video using the hashtags #GreatLeapBackward and #ChildrenoftheRecession
Since the Great Recession hit in 2008, progress for children has taken a great leap backward. In developed countries, 2.6 million more children are living in poverty, and many wealthy countries have lost 5–10 years of income progress. Is economic recovery on the horizon? Not for children, according to UNICEF’s newly launched Innocenti Report Card 12 “Children of the Recession: The impact of the economic crisis on child well-being in rich countries.”
Millions more children could have been helped if protection policies had been stronger before the crisis. Such policies are an investment, and a failure to maintain financial support and services for children and their families at a time of recession has high costs. It leads to a deepening of child poverty and exclusion. It has immediate negative consequences for children’s well-being and development and puts their rights at risk. And over the long term, it has serious consequences for children’s development and for the well-being of society and the economy as a whole.
About the report:
Launched by Innocenti, UNICEF’s Office of Research, “Children of the Recession” is a unique report because it is one of the few times UNICEF has focused on the status of children and youth in the 41 wealthiest countries in the world.
Download the full report at: http://www.unicef-irc.org/.
For more about UNICEF’s work, visit: http://www.unicef.org.
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Published on May 5, 2014
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/population-…
Population statistics are like crystal balls — when examined closely, they can help predict a country’s future (and give important clues about the past). Kim Preshoff explains how using a visual tool called a population pyramid helps policymakers and social scientists make sense of the statistics, using three different countries’ pyramids as examples.
Lesson by Kim Preshoff, animation by TED-Ed.
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Massive conflict and widespread disease would not curb rapidly growing society, study claims
Another World War would not significantly dent the global population (stock image shown). That’s according to a study by the University of Adelaide, Australia. Researchers say that the population has spiralled upwards. It is now more than likely to exceed 10 billion by 2100
Professor
Barry Brook, who co-led the study at the University of Adelaide, Australia, said: ‘We were surprised that a five-year World War Three scenario, mimicking the same proportion of people killed in the first and second world wars combined, barely registered a blip on the human population trajectory this century.’
By Jonathan O’Callaghan for MailOnline
Published: 15:01 EST, 27 October 2014 | Updated: 15:01 EST, 27 October 2014
Rather than reducing the number of people on the planet, cutting the consumption of natural resources and enhanced recycling would have a better chance of achieving effective sustainability gains in the next 85 years, they said.
There are about seven billion people living on our planet and this number is set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, according to UN figures.
This population explosion is largely attributed to better healthcare and farming practices, with some experts arguing that industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries was the tipping point that allowed more humans to thrive.
However, one social scientist claims the human population explosion has its roots as far back as 2,000 years ago.
Aaron Stutz, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory’s Oxford College in Georgia created a new model of demographic and archaeological data to show when humans thrived.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, he claims that political and economic reforms helped to create more stable families, and therefore enabled more people to thrive.
World War Two claimed between 50 million and 85 million military and civilian lives, according to different estimates, making it the most lethal conflict by absolute numbers of dead in human history.
Meanwhile, more than 37 million people are thought to have died in World War One.
The scientists used a computer model based on demographic data from the World Health Organisation and United States Census Bureau to investigate different population reduction scenarios.
They found that under current conditions of fertility, mortality and mother’s average age at first childbirth, global population was likely to grow from seven billion in 2013 to 10.4 billion by 2100.
Climate change, war, reduced mortality and fertility, and increased maternal age altered this prediction only slightly.
A devastating global pandemic today that killed two billion people was only projected to reduce population size to 8.4 billion, while six billion deaths brought it down to 5.1 billion.
The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy Of Sciences.
Co-author
Professor Corey Bradshaw, also from the University of Adelaide, said: ‘Global population has risen so fast over the past century that roughly 14 per cent of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today. That’s a sobering statistic.
There are about seven billion people living on our planet and this number is set to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, according to UN figures.
This population explosion is largely attributed to better healthcare and farming practices, with some experts arguing that industrialisation in the 18th and 19th centuries was the tipping point that allowed more humans to thrive.
However, one social scientist claims the human population explosion has its roots as far back as 2,000 years ago.
Aaron Stutz, an associate professor of anthropology at Emory’s Oxford College in Georgia created a new model of demographic and archaeological data to show when humans thrived.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, he claims that political and economic reforms helped to create more stable families, and therefore enabled more people to thrive.
…(Read more )
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27 October 2014 Last updated at 17:50 ET
By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News 
Nargis, born in 2011, was named the world’s seven billionth person by Plan International
Related Stories
Restricting population growth will not solve global issues of sustainability in the short term, new research says.
A worldwide one-child policy would mean the number of people in 2100 remained around current levels, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Even a catastrophic event that killed billions of people would have little effect on the overall impact, it said.
There may be 12 billion humans on Earth by 2100, latest projections suggest.
Concerns about the impact of people on the planet’s resources have been growing, especially if the population continues to increase.
The authors of this new study said roughly 14% of all the people who ever existed were alive today.
These growing numbers mean a greater impact on the environment than ever, with worries about the conversion of forests for agriculture, the rise of urbanisation, the pressure on species, pollution, and climate change.
“Even if we had a third world war in the middle of this century, you would barely make a dent in the trajectory over the next 100 years” Prof Corey Bradshaw University of Adelaide
The picture is complicated by the fact that while the overall figures have been growing, the world’s per-capita fertility has been declining for several decades.
…(read more).
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Published on Oct 27, 2014
Banking Regulators at the DOJ deemed it too difficult to prosecute the
bankers for the 2008 financial crisis says Bill Black, former bank
regulator and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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By Steven R. Watros, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER15 hours ago
Daniel J. Hilhorst
English professor James T. Engell ’73 emphasizes the necessity of reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions at a Harvard Faculty for Divestment presentation in Fong Auditorium on Sunday.
Several members of Harvard Faculty for Divestment discussed the science behind climate change on Sunday evening and continued to urge University officials to divest Harvard’s endowment from fossil fuel companies, arguing that doing so would galvanize “political will” needed to change energy production and consumption.
Presenter Stephen A. Marglin ’59, an Economics professor, said that Harvard’s divestiture would not cause fossil fuel companies to collapse, but could set an example for other institutions that might be waiting to follow Harvard’s lead.
This, he and the other presenters said, could provoke civil action and political response to match the economic and political forces of fossil fuel companies.
Marglin was joined in presenting by Chemistry professor James G. Anderson and English professor James T. Engell ’73. The three are among the 164 signatories of an open letter published last spring and addressed to University President Drew G. Faust and members of the Harvard Corporation, calling on them to divest from fossil fuels.
In subsequent correspondence, Faust has restated that the University will not divest, arguing that such a move would undesirably politicize the endowment and that Harvard can best address climate change by promoting research and education.
…(read more).
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Transition Studies 