Our Growing Population

A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday. The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP. "More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Oil Tanker Slams into Great Barrier Reef

BRISBANE, Australia — A salvage team could take weeks to remove a grounded coal-carrying ship from Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where it is leaking oil in a pristine marine environment. The Chinese Shen Neng 1 ran aground on Douglas Shoals, a favorite pristine haunt for recreational fishing east of the Great Keppel Island tourist resort. The shoals – off the coast of Queensland state in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park – are in a protected part of the reef where shipping is restricted by environmental law. Authorities fear an oil spill will damage the world's largest coral reef, which is off northeast Australia and listed as a World Heritage site for its environmental value. This is a very delicate part of one of the most precious marine environments on earth and there are safe authorized shipping channels and that's where this ship should have been. The ship hit the reef at full speed, nine miles (15 kilometers) outside the shipping lane. Authorities fear the ship will break apart during the salvage operation or spill more of its 1,000 tons (950 metric tons) load of heavy fuel oil.

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Cigarette Butts Toxic to Fish

Need another reason to quit smoking?

Cigarette butts, one of the most ubiquitous forms ofgarbage in the world, have been found to be toxic to saltwater and freshwater fish.

Even with a small amount of unburnt tobacco clinging to it, a
single cigarette butt soaked for a day is enough to turn a liter of
water a sickly yellow brown and kill 50 percent of fish swimming
in it. Without tobacco, it takes about 4 smoked filters to do the
same job.Still, humans are inadvertently carpeting the planet in cigarette butts.

According to one estimate, some 4.5 trillion filters
from spent smokes make their way into the environment every
year.When immersed in water, each one becomes a time-released
capsule of compounds like nicotine, cancer-causing benzenes, heavy metals and
other dangerous compounds.

Richard Gersberg, of San Diego State University, said that some states and municipalities have begun moving toward legislation that would ban smoking on beaches, where butts are
commonly discarded.