By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, April 18, 2012   In her TED talk in early April, Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation mentioned that if the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in India were its own country, it would be the fifth largest in the world, with over 200 million people. And in this populated land,
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, April 17, 2012 Many people are familiar with the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle” and it has never been more important than now. A group called Business Degree has created an infographic called “The Secret Life of Garbage” detailing the amount of waste created in the United States and China. A few
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, April 9, 2012 Happiness is back in the news, at least at the United Nations. If you paid close attention, you were reminded that the UN unanimously adopted a resolution last year based on the concept of Gross National Happiness. Officially called UN Resolution 65/309, “Happiness: towards a holistic approach to
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, April 3, 2012   Recent negotiations in New York City to prepare a document and agenda for the upcoming Rio+20 conference ended on a discouraging note. Civil society organizations sent an open letter to the secretary general for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), citing frustration with the process
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, April 2, 2012   It’s very hard to comprehend that here we are in the 21st century, living in a supposedly advanced and democratic nation, and there is a huge debate about women’s rights – namely women’s access to and use of contraceptives in the United States. As a Generation X’er,
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by Suzanne York, HowMany.org, September 15, 2011 In a land of 1.2 billion people that is projected to be the world’s most populous nation by 2030, India probably doesn’t come to mind when you hear about a rise in one-child families. But that is actually occurring, according to a study called Middle class dreams: India’s
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By Kelly White, July 21, 2011                         Photo: somewhereintheworldtoday Projecting population growth is not an exact science, so when the United Nations chose October 31, 2011, Halloween, as the day that world population will surpass 7 billion, one has to wonder as to why
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, March 22, 2012  A study just released by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is warning that climate change could exacerbate environmental disasters in Asia and result in a surge of migration by people fleeing crises. In its report, Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific, the ADB observed
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, March 21, 2012   The official focus of the upcoming United Nations “Earth Summit”, aka Rio+20, will be on the green economy and solidifying a sustainable development framework. This past January, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon laid out five imperatives of an action plan to “build the future we want.” These are
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By Suzanne York, HowMany.org, March 14, 2012 If you care about people and the planet, listen up!  According to recent research, 8 in 10 environmentalists want to see population growth addressed along with a focus on consumption and clean energy. This is good news. We cannot afford to continue to “silo” the critical issues facing
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