In the most recent Five Friday Facts, Justin provided information on the growth in cities outside the developed world. He points out that increasing populations pose challenges for sustainability. How can we support a global population in denser cities? The argument tends to go that cities are more sustainable since they use less land to [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Population Growth’
Are Cities Really More Sustainable?
February 5th, 2012 
Eric Wilson 
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainability 
Tags: Cars, Collaborative Consumption, Energy, Food, Population Growth, Urban Planning 
No Comments »How to Feed Our Growing Population
November 2nd, 2011 Megan Stilley The world just reached (and flew by) the day when the 7 billion people inhabited the Earth. 7 billion people, that is hard to imagine or comprehend. The crazy thing is, people are not going to stop reproducing anytime soon; current speculation is we will reach 9 billion by 2050. 2050 is not very far [...]
Posted in Agriculture Tags: 7 Billion, Food, Megan Stilley, Michael Pollan, Population Growth No Comments »7,000,000,000
October 31st, 2011 Eric Wilson Today marks the arrival of the earth’s 7 billionth member. This figure (and its timing) is based on demographers at the United Nations. While it is not possible to know when, who, or where exactly the seven billionth member of our current population will be born (it may or may not be today, this month, [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Sustainability Tags: 7 Billion, Population Growth, United Nations, Video No Comments »Carrying Capacity: The Missing Link in Sustainability
October 23rd, 2011 Eric Wilson A few of our previous op-ed pieces have touched on keys to sustainability (including resilience and durability) and where sustainability is today. Often sustainability is conflated with the “green” movement. However, rarely does anyone discuss weak vs. strong sustainability. The former is largely where we are today, substituting human capital for natural. One could argue [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainability Tags: 7 Billion, Population Growth No Comments »Five Friday Facts: Bottlemania Water Facts
October 21st, 2011 Eric Wilson While in between books for school, I picked up a copy of Elizabeth Royte’s Bottlemania. I had previously read (and reviewed) her book Garbage Land. Through two chapters, I have thoroughly enjoyed Royte’s writing and introduction to bottled water. This first set of Five Friday Facts from the book provides an overview of water issues [...]
Posted in China, Eric Wilson, Five Friday Facts Tags: Elizabeth Royte, EPA, Population Growth, Water No Comments »Five Friday Facts: The Nature of Design
September 30th, 2011 Eric Wilson A friend recently lent me her copy of David Orr’s The Nature of Design. I read and reviewed his 1994 book, Earth in Mind several months back. In the first few chapters there were a number of interesting facts. I culled a few from Earth in Mind for a past Five Friday Facts and noted [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Five Friday Facts Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Sequestration, Coal, David Orr, Food, Population Growth, Science, Waste No Comments »The False Promise of Efficiency
January 9th, 2011 Eric Wilson Energy efficiency is not enough. While it is an integral part of an energy management plan and an essential first step to reducing energy consumption and increasing economic savings, a look at the overall consumption of energy, especially from non-renewable sources, indicates that society has failed to make a significant dent in the total energy [...]
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Eric Wilson, Op-Ed Tags: Boulder-Colorado, Energy, Population Growth, Xcel Energy No Comments »Five Friday Facts: Incredible Population Statistics
January 7th, 2011 Justin Manger By 2045, global population is projected to reach 9 billion. It is currently nearing 7 billion. It took humans millions of years to reach 1 billion people in population. The 1 billion threshold was reached in 1800. It took the next 130 years to reach 2 billion (1930), 30 years to reach 3 billion (1960), [...]
Posted in Conservation, Five Friday Facts, Justin Manger, Policy, Sustainability Tags: Population Growth No Comments »From Waste to Resource: Site Visit to the “Living Machine” at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (Naples, FL)
January 6th, 2011 Chris DeArmond Since its establishment in 1954, the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary has become a natural wildlife attraction to more than 100,000 visitors annually. Despite accommodations being made in many areas to handle the growing visitor level, the wastewater from the restroom facilities remained a problem. To address the issue, a natural water treatment system known as a [...]
Posted in Site Visits, Sustainability Tags: Chris DeArmond, Florida, Population Growth, Waste, Wastewater, Water No Comments »Living within Limits in a Seemingly Limitless World
November 9th, 2010 Eric Wilson Viewed from above, the earth is a small blue marble, hurtling through time and space. Standing on the surface though, the vast forests and massive peaks betray how limited earth really is. The issue of scales, both temporal and spatial, make it difficult to grasp the earth’s limits. For the past two hundred years, since [...]
Posted in Economics, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed Tags: Bio-fuels, Cradle to Cradle, Peak Oil, Population Growth No Comments »
