The local peace activists are having a Human Rights Awareness Week here which culminates in a protest on Saturday against the building of a Wal Mart that is planned for a nearby town. I just guess I’m not seeing the connection between human rights and Wal Mart. The last time I checked, Wal Mart doesn’t kidnap, torture or otherwise violate anybody’s human rights (unless, as these folks seem to think, your rights are being violated by low prices and a wide selection of consumer goods).
Month: April 2003
New Traffic Highs in March
In March, I rang up the highest monthly and weekly page view stats in the 6 or so years I’ve been maintaining a web site. Total page views last month were 489,870. During the week of March 10, the server offered up 123,966 page views which was a new high water mark as well.
European Population Shrinking
You’ve probably heard the overpopulation cant — in the presence of abundant resources, populations will increase in size until they overwhelm their environment and then crash, regardless of whether the species is rabbits or deer or human beings. So why is Europe’s population declining?
Europe is certainly one of the richest parts of the world, and yet its population is currently projected to decline for decades even if Europeans should suddenly start having significantly more children. Europe’s population hit the point where it began declining sometime in 2000.
Currently there are only 1.5 children born for each woman of child bearing age — far below the 2.1 replacement level. Why so few children? Largely because women are waiting longer and longer to get married, on average, in Europe.
As of 2000 the European population was about 375 million. If current marriage and birth trends continue, Europe’s population fall below 300 million by the end of the century.
Source:
Europe shrinking as birthrates decline. Mark Henderson, The Times (UK), March 28, 2003.
Hungry Zambia Hit by Flooding
Zambia, which was already suffering from food insecurity, was hit this month by flooding that destroyed crops and infrastructure in the Gwembe district, south of the capital city of Lusaka.
Zambia is one of a number of African nations suffering from food shortages. As many as 10 million people require food aid in Zambia after drought and corruption took their toll on the country’s food supply.
The BBC reported that up to 2,000 hectares of maize had been destroyed in the flooding.
Source:
Flood hits hungry Zambia. The BBC, March 26, 2003.
Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the big fear was that the developing world was doomed to perpetual poverty with attendant famines. Today the problem in many countries — including developing ones — is just the opposite: obesity is a growing health problem around the world.
The BBC reported this month that the International Obesity Taskforce estimates as many as 1.7 billion people worldwide may be obese. Other estimates put this number close to 800 million, but the International Obesity Taskforce’s Philip James argues that such numbers underestimate obesity among Asian people.
At issue is the body mass index. A body mass index of over 25 is usually considered overweight, but James argues that Asians show negative health impacts from BMI’s over 23.3. Frankly the links between BMIs of 25 or so and health effects are pretty tenuous, and James’ leap to claim that a 23.3 might be dangerous in Asians seems like a lot of grasping for straws.
Still it is fascinating that at the beginning of the 21st century, obesity is in many parts of the world a much bigger risk than hunger.
Source:
Obesity epidemic tops $1.7bn. The BBC, March 17, 2003.