The original version of this article, by Lisa Palmer, appeared on The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media.

Humans, it’s no secret, are versatile and unpredictable in how they use their land. We build mega-cities in deserts, raise crops on flood plains, live along vulnerable coast lines enjoying seas dangerously rising, and burn rain forests to create new pastures.

This year’s International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) happened to coincide with the UN’s annual climate change summit. Perhaps it’s apt then that one of the organizations recognized for excellence is helping to bridge the gap between the environment and family planning communities.

In Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War, Jeff Colgan provides an indispensable starting point for researchers interested in the relationship between oil and international conflict.

Super Typhoon Haiyan left the central Philippines in ruins, with a staggering death toll that could climb well above 10,000. The U.S. military is leading the international response to the devastation, along with international aid agencies. The Pentagon has dispatched an aircraft carrier and five other Navy ships, plus a separate group of at least 90 marines and specially trained humanitarian relief teams to the area.

In the latter half of last century, Thailand and other East Asian countries successfully capitalized on shifts in their age structures to gain a boost in economic productivity, a phenomenon known as the demographic dividend. Today, despite the hitherto sluggish pace of Africa’s demographic transition, scholars and politicians remain hopeful that similar changes on the continent may lead to faster development in coming decades. [Video Below]

“Gorillas are very good at family planning; if we were like them, we’d be much better off,” said wildlife veterinarian Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka at the Wilson Center on September 26. The Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) CEO and founder is celebrating 10 years of population, health, and environment (PHE) work in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing health and livelihood interventions to people while protecting mountain gorillas around Virunga and Bwindi Impenetrable National Parks. [Video Below]

In 2009, economist Jeffrey Sachs, alongside more than 20 eminent scholars from different fields, highlighted the importance of biodiversity for human well-being in a policy commentary published in Science. They noted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) included a target to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of species loss, and they also noted that it was one of the MDG targets that was most off-track. “Our lack of progress toward the 2010 target,” they said, “could undermine achievement of the MDGs and poverty reduction in the long term.” The 2010 target was missed, and today species are moving toward extinction at an ever faster pace. Last week’s announcement confirming the extinction of Africa’s western black rhino is the latest sad example of this trend.