What Is the Carrying Capacity of Earth?
Alex Casey, Communications Fellow, reports on a conversation she had with Joel E. Cohen, author of How Many People Can the Earth Support? What Does Carrying Capacity Mean? Did you know that the term we use to try to determine the number of people the planet can support is the same one used by sailors […]
The U.S. Fertility Rate Is Below Replacement Level — and We’re Hopeful About It.
The 2020 Census found that the U.S. population grew at its slowest rate since the Great Depression. The current total fertility rate (TFR) is about 1.7 births per woman—far below the replacement level of 2.1. This trend has not been viewed positively by some government officials and economists, to say the least. Competition with China […]
Earth, Population, and Zoonosis
COVID-19 is the latest of many zoonotic diseases that have reached epidemic or pandemic levels in recent decades, including SARS, Ebola, avian flu, and swine flu. Zoonoses are diseases that result from viral animal-to-human spillovers. These spillovers are predominately linked to human encroachment into animal habitats and ecosystem disruption through human activities and climate change. […]
Girls’ Education and Family Planning to Achieve Bodily Autonomy for All
We’re now a third of the way through 2021. We’re still in the midst of a global pandemic that has taken the lives of over 3 million people and has forever changed how many of us operate in the world. Although there is seemingly a light at the end of the tunnel with the distribution […]
Population Growth Around the World
Which Continent Has the Fastest Growing Population? This is a question we are often asked, so we’d like to dedicate an entire blog post to its answer. The reality is that, although the global fertility rate has declined to 2.4 children per woman (from 4.9 when we were founded in 1968), there is a wide, […]
Statement on the Conviction of Derek Chauvin
On Tuesday, April 20th, Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd. The guilty verdicts in the Chauvin case reflect a small measure of accountability, but they don’t change the fact that a Black man was murdered in cold blood. Nothing will change unless and until white people are willing to use their privilege to […]
Population Connection Member Profile: Eric Hirst
Eric Hirst has been a supporter of ZPG/Population Connection since 1979, and he’s also a member of our President’s Circle and ZPG Society. Eric has had an interesting life—and an especially peripatetic one. He lived in New York City, upstate New York, Alabama, Tennessee, and the Bay Area before finally landing in the Seattle area. […]
‘Under the Open Sky:’ Two Activists Aim to Reshape Nepal’s Youth Reproductive Health Landscape
At first glance, Sajja Singh and Riju Dhakal could be fellow students in your college Zoom seminar. You may not immediately suspect that they lead a nationwide youth empowerment and advocacy organization in Nepal, or that one of them is the first female president of the organization. Singh, the former Vice President of YUWA, and […]
Ten Population and Environment Connections
Human caused environmental changes, while felt everywhere, manifest differently by location. A forest you once explored on the periphery of New York State’s Adirondack Park may have large clearings from decreased fracking regulations—a relic from the Trump administration. You may have been ordered to evacuate your coastal home on the Gulf of Mexico in the […]
Digital Capitol Hill Days 2021 Goes Above and Beyond!
The pandemic has drastically elucidated the vast inequities within the global public health sphere, particularly crippling access to comprehensive reproductive health care. Our commitment to fighting for reproductive rights and health- albeit digitally-remains unwavering. With a year of virtually gathering experience under our belt, we approached our annual advocacy event, Capitol Hill Days, with innovation […]
