Families should have no more than two children - British thinktank

Families should have no more than two children if they want to help combat climate change, according to new research by a thinktank. According to the report, published by the Optimum Population Trust, Britain's high birth rate is a major factor in the current level of climate change, which can only be combatted if families voluntarily limit the number of children they have. Women in the UK have 1.87 babies on average - the highest birth rate for 26 years, says the report. The report calls for a 'two-child' policy in the UK that would reduce the nation's population from 60 million, as it currently stands, to no more than 55 milllion by 2050.

High population and accelerating consumption means that humans are outstripping the planet's biological capcity, says the report. By 2050, with the global population rising to 9.2 billion, humans will be using twice the Earth's natural capacity. Figures released in the report highlight the links between human population and climate.

Prof John Guillebaud, the report's author, said: "Climate change is now widely regarded as the biggest problem facing the planet but most of the solutions seem to involve national or international agreements that look as far away as ever. We're nearing the point of no return and people are feeling increasingly desperate and helpless. The answer lies in our own hands. We're simply failing to acknowledge the link between human numbers and global warming."

"We have to recognise that the biggest cause of climate change is climate changers – in other words, human beings, in the UK as well as abroad - so deciding to stop at two, or at least to have one child less, is probably the simplest, quickest and most significant thing any of us could do to leave a sustainable and habitable planet for our children and grandchildren."

- These three factors are closely linked : climate change, resource depletion, and over-population. The first is getting more attention nowadays, the second is barely there on the collective radar screen, but hardly anyone has brought up the third until now.

The reasons are obvious. It is a very personal and a very emotional issue - "how dare you presume to tell us how many children we are going to have?". It could also be religious, seeing how certain religions exhort their followers to "go forth and multiply", or some such - the better to "spread the word" you see - the more followers the better. Guess what. The penchant for "growth" is going to collide head on with physical and economic reality.

The doomers often talk about "bacteria in a petri dish" - seeing how the bacteria quickly multiply and eventually eat up all the resources in the dish, and die off. But I'm a moderate myself, not a doomer. And I hope that we are a little bit smarter than the bacteria.

Russia mulls potentially oil-rich Arctic seabed

cnsnews.com :

A Russian research vessel has begun a 90-day voyage to the Arctic as Moscow continues to pursue claims to the potentially energy-rich seabed under the Arctic Ocean. A similar mission returned to Russia on June 24, having reportedly discovered a link between a major underwater ridge and Russia's coastal shelf. As a result, Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute announced that Russia could lay claim to more than one million square kilometres of territory under the Arctic Ocean. Experts believe the area could contain up to 10 billion tons of hydrocarbons, as well as diamonds and metal ore.

Under international law, notably the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country can claim exclusive economic rights within 200 miles of its territory. If a country can prove that its continental shelf extends beyond that zone, it can claim similar rights over a larger area. Russia first presented its claim to seabed under the Arctic Ocean, as well as under the Bering and Okhotsk Seas, to the United Nations in 2001. However, four other polar countries, the United States, Denmark, Canada and Norway, objected to the Russian claims.

Canada flexes its muscles in scramble for the Arctic

energybulletin.net -> environment.guardian.co.uk :

* Eight countries lay claim to oil-rich, unspoilt region
* Global warming opens up fabled North-west Passage

It is not the kind of militaristic statement expected of the peace-loving Canadians. In front of a choreographed line-up of 120 sailors in their summer whites at a naval base outside Victoria in British Columbia, the prime minister, Stephen Harper, gave a warning to other nations with their eye on the potentially oil-rich Arctic. "Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic," he said. "We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it." Mr Harper's message, and the belligerent style in which it was delivered, are a sign that the Arctic, the vast ice-covered ocean around the North Pole, is hotting up - both literally, through global warming, and metaphorically as a political issue. With Canada, Denmark, Russia and the United States all having claims on the region, together with those of Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, international tension in the region is mounting.

There was no dissembling in Mr Harper's speech. "The ongoing discovery of the north's resource riches, coupled with the potential impact of climate change, has made the region a growing area of interest and concern," he said. As the statement implies, two areas of international competition lie behind the Canadian prime minister's actions. The first is that the Arctic region is rich in natural resources. It is thought to hold up to a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves of oil and gas, which as the established fields in the Middle East and elsewhere run dry will become increasingly valuable and sought after. There are also known to be major deposits of diamonds, silver, copper, zinc and, potentially, uranium. It also has rich fish stocks.

The second area of dispute concerns the holy grail of commercial shipping: the North-west Passage. Once opened, it would shorten the maritime trade route from Europe to Asia by some 2,150 nautical miles from the current navigation through the Panama canal.