The Population Reference Bureau’s 2009 World Population Data Sheet shows that global population numbers will reach 7 billion in 2011. Among its key findings, PRB notes that “population growth is one root cause of increases in global greenhouse gas emissions. But the complexity of the mechanisms through which demographic factors affect emissions is not fully taken into consideration in many analyses that influence governments’ climate change mitigation efforts.”

The NYT’s Andrew Revkin muses about whether “whether family planning programs should be able to get into the carbon business,” citing a study released by Oregon State University that says that the number of children an American resident has could have the greatest environmental impacts of any decision taken by that individual. Reporting on the study, The Oregonian observes that “having fewer children is best way to reduce your carbon footprint.” An interactive graphic from Breathing Earth maps the relationship between population and carbon emissions.

Colorado State University’s Nicole Detraz and Michelle M. Betsill examine whether the April 2007 United Nations Security Council debate, “which emphasized the threat of climate-related conflict, reflects a discursive shift” in an International Studies Perspectives article, “Climate Change and Environmental Security: For Whom the Discourse Shifts.”

A study in Science, “Rebuilding Global Fisheries,” warns that overfishing has decimated global marine resources. However, it also reports that careful, collaborative restoration efforts at the international level could yield significant improvements.

In Der Speigel (republished on Salon.com), Horand Knaup and Juliane von Mittelstaedt report that investors, corporations, and governments are angling to profit from future food shortages (the result of a burgeoning global population and inhospitable climate changes) by buying arable land in less developed countries—particularly in weak states—with little concern for the food security of the host nation.

Now available online, a special issue of the International Social Science Journal from 2005 examines the resource curse. Eleven articles explore “how to translate revenues derived from natural resource exploitation into real benefits for citizens of resource-rich countries.”

A Population Reference Bureau (PRB) policy brief considers several methods of integrating population, health, and environment initiatives in Uganda, citing the Ruhiira Millennium Village Project and the Conservation Through Public Health program as successful examples. Also new from PRB: Farzaneh (Nazy) Roudi explains that Iran’s “youth bulge, along with changes in women’s fertility and reproductive health, provide a backdrop for understanding Iran’s current political instability.”

In “Military vs. Climate Security: Mapping the Shift From the Bush Years to the Obama Era,” Miriam Pemberton of the Institute for Policy Studies compares U.S. government spending on climate change and military, arguing for dedicating more resources to climate security.

A new report from Global Witness reveals that all main warring parties in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo—including rebel groups and members of the Congolese national army—are heavily involved in the mineral trade in North and South Kivu provinces.

In the Spring 2009 edition of The New Atlantis, Kendra Okonski asks if water is a human right, while Travis Kavulla looks at “Aids Relief and Moral Myopia” in Africa, arguing that the Western public-health lobby “must realize that HIV has a social dimension that must be addressed.”

“The natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate, as population pressures mount in the Arab countries,” says the 2009 Arab Human Development Report, which was published this week by the UN Development Programme. A launch event in Washington, DC, features New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and Wilson Center scholar Robin Wright.

A special issue of IHDP Update focuses on “Human Security in an Era of Global Change,” a synthesis report tied to the recent GECHS conference. Articles by GECHS members, including Karen O’Brien and Alexander Lopez, address water and sanitation, the global financial crisis, poverty, and transborder environmental governance in Latin America.

An op-ed by Stanley Weiss in the New York Times argues that the best way to bring water–and peace–to the Middle East is to ship it from Turkey. A response by Gabriel Eckstein in the International Water Law Project blog argues that “transporting water from Turkey to where it is needed will require negotiations of Herculean proportion.”

CoCooN, a new international program sponsored by The Netherlands on conflict and cooperation over natural resources, recently posted two powerpoint presentations explaining its goals and the matchmaking workshops it will hold in Addis Ababa, Bogota, and Hanoi. The deadline for applications is August 5.

Two new IFPRI research papers focus on the consequences of climate change for poor farmers in Africa and provide policymakers with adaptation strategies. “Economywide Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa” analyzes two possible options for the region. “Soil and Water Conservation Technologies: A Buffer Against Production Risk in the Face of Climate Change?” investigates the impact of different soil and water conservation technologies on the variance of crop production in Ethiopia.

“A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources, and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and more conflict,” said President Barack Obama in Accra, Ghana, on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa. “All of us–particularly the developed world–have a responsibility to slow these trends–through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity,” he went on to say.

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) released “Eliminating World Poverty: Building Our Common Future,” a white paper setting its goals for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, including improving climate change adaptation and reproductive health services in developing countries.

In Foreign Policy, Richard Cincotta compares Iran’s youth bulge and democratic reform movement with the experience of China 20 years ago, concluding that the conservative government’s ruthless response will impede the development of durable liberal democracy.

The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that global warming is exacerbating the spread of mosquito-borne dengue fever in the Americas. Harvard’s Dr. Paul Epstein recently discussed similar incidences of climate change-related disease proliferation at the Wilson Center.

In “Well Oiled: Oil and Human Rights in Equatorial Guinea,” Human Rights Watch “details how the dictatorship under President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has used an oil boom to entrench and enrich itself further at the expense of the country’s people.”

A study published in Conservation Letters finds that emphasizing the ways the environment benefits the world’s poor “is a substantial improvement over dollar-based, ecosystem-service valuations that undervalue the requirements of the world’s poor” and “offers great hope for reconciling conservation and human development goals.”

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, which integrates federal government research on climate change, released Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States this week. The report examines climate’s likely impacts on various regions of the country.

The Guardian examines ongoing conflicts over natural resources between indigenous people and governments.

In her final dispatch from the Bonn climate negotiations, Population Action International climate director Kathleen Mogelgaard notes the conspicuous absence of demography in international climate discussions.

A webcast is now available of the Johns Hopkins University-Population Reference Bureau symposium “Climate Change and Urban Adaptation: Managing Unavoidable Health Risks in Developing Countries.”

A new policy paper from the World Bank seeks to answer the question, “Do the households in game management areas enjoy higher levels of welfare relative to the conditions they would have been in had the area not been designated as a game management area?”

A Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, led by John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and Lincoln Chafee, former Republican senator from Rhode Island, has been formed to advise President Obama on how to reduce tropical deforestation through U.S. climate change policies, reports Mongabay.com.

In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement, launched at the climate negotiations this week in Bonn, represents a major step forward in the effort to determine how environmental shocks and stresses precipitated by climate change will compel populations to migrate.

According to Family Planning and Economic Well-Being: New Evidence From Bangladesh, a report from the Population Reference Bureau, “long-term investment in an integrated family planning and maternal and child health (FPMCH) program contributes to improved economic security for families, households, and communities through larger incomes, greater accumulation of wealth, and higher levels of education.”

A YouTube video from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows how Darfuri refugees are struggling to manage scarce natural resources in refugee camps in Chad.

Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health, and Water Security Concepts, the fourth volume of the Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, was launched at a side event to the 17th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

The Obama Plan for Energy and Climate Security: Conference Proceedings and Final Recommendations lays out the Center for a New American Security’s recommendations to President Obama for achieving his climate and energy goals.