Legislating for commercial surrogacy would enable Australia to overcome concerns about poorly regulated clinics overseas, such as this one in Thailand.
EPA/Rungroj Yongrit
Often emphasised in discussions about children’s best interests is the idea that certain ways of having and raising children are “natural”. For example, this word appears frequently in reference to how…
Demography is destiny. It’s an old idea but it remains as true as ever, despite the fact that it doesn’t get anything like the attention it deserves. It’s not hard to see why: not only is there a crowded…
The pigeon is still blaming humans though.
Wagner Free Institute
Once the most numerous bird species in North America, passenger pigeons went from numbering in the billions to being extinct in less than a century. Their decline has been mostly blamed on intensive hunting…
Developing policies to shape the level and nature of future population change must go beyond the ‘big’ versus ‘small’ Australia dichotomy.
AAP/David Crosling
In the lead-up to the budget, the story of crisis has been hammered home, but there’s more to a country than its structural deficit. So how is Australia doing overall? In this special series, ten writers…
Who lives in a house like this? Only the census can tell you for sure.
Rob Noble
The coalition government has already secured its legacy in a torrent of cuts to public services. But it hopes to do more. It also wants to do away with the largest evidence base that is available to inform…
We collect huge amounts of data. In health, this includes data relating to inpatient and outpatient care, mental health services, prescribing and primary care. Big data is when the amount of these data…
Despite the views of some church leaders - such as George Pell - who deny global warming, most Christians understand the need to care for the natural world and have embraced the scientific consensus on…
Figures regarding the original population of Australia may be way off.
WanderingtheWorld (www.LostManProject.com)
Like many people, I grew up believing Australia was colonised by a small band of people, who had most likely landed on its shores by accident; but research I published this week suggests a far larger founding…
The world’s getting more crowded - how do we all get what we need while protecting the environment?
James Cridland
Global population trajectories put us at nine billion people by 2050. Our demand for natural resources, particularly water, food and energy, will only rise in the coming decades. With this in mind, how…
Australia’s future depends on decisions we make today - what’s coming towards us?
Johnny Ross
Australians want a future of sustainable self-sufficiency and a healthy environment supporting a robust democracy – free of poverty and inequity. That was one of our projections, as part of the Australia…
The Council has its work cut out to facilitate a rational, evidence-based debate about Australian migration.
Wenxiong Zhang
The announcement of the formation of a Migration Council of Australia and its launch by the Governor General on August 1, confirmed by Department of Immigration and Citizenship official Gary Fleming at…
We’re plummeting into an over-populated world and we may not have a parachute.
...---.../Flickr
The issue of human overpopulation has fallen out of favour among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become a taboo topic. The silence around…
How bad do things have to get before we want to seriously address environmental issues?
AAP
The fifth edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5) - a global environmental report card by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - reads like the results for a sedentary, middle-aged…
The population has the best chance of stabilising if we improve the lives of the poor and reign in excessive consumption of the wealthier.
Flickr/DaveWilsonPhotography
Welcome to the State of the Future series. This series addresses 15 global challenges posed by the Millennium Project, an international non-profit think-tank collecting responses for 40 nodes worldwide…
Back, sperm, back: a human egg on the tip of a pin.
Flickr/wellcome images
Elephants in the room, part two For all our schemes and mantras about making our lives environmentally “sustainable”, humanity’s assault on the planet not only continues but expands. What are the deep…
Serious, interconnected risks are closing in on the globalised community, from climate change to anarchy. Are we heeding the warnings?
AAP/EPA/Daniel Deme
In that world of peripheral vision, essential for business, social and political leaders, it is surprising that the World Economic Forum’s report, Global Risks 2012 has not received greater publicity or…
Difficult austerity: Bangladesh, where on average it takes 130 women to match the carbon footprint of one American woman.
AAP/EPA/Mufty Fire
In any discussion of the world’s environmental problems, someone will always argue that the core problem is that the world has too many people. Cliff Hooker has recently named it “the elephant in the room…
Sydney needs sustainable solutions to keep its growing population happy and healthy.
Franklin Heijnen
Australia’s future population is again under the spotlight. The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) has just released a new report on Australian population futures. And focus has sharpened…
Our teeming attack on the natural world threatens to turn the wilderness into a fetish item.
AAP/The Wilderness Society
Elephants in the room, part one For all our schemes and mantras about making this or that part of our lives environmentally “sustainable”, humanity’s assault on the planet not only continues but expands…
Anthropologue et démographe, professeur émérite au Muséum national d’histoire naturelle et conseiller de la direction de l'INED, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)