“Demographics are going to be to the 21st century what class cleavages were to the 19th century,” said Christian Leuprecht in this conversation with the Environmental Change and Security Program. Leuprecht is an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and was one of the authors featured in ECSP Report 13.

“Specifically with regards to demography and security, the challenge that I see is at the sub-national level. That is to say that most of the conflict, if you look around the world – the intractable conflicts, the violent conflicts, the conflicts that have been dragging on for decades – tend to be at the sub-national level,” he said. “Yet much of the academic work and the way data are gathered are at the national level.”

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.

Today marks the release of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) annual State of the World Population Report. But the 2010 edition, “From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change,” is unlike those that have come before. In lieu of the traditional statistic-driven report, this year’s edition has enlisted another tool to document living conditions across the world — storytelling. In addition to demographers, the UNFPA looked to journalists to fan out across the world to gather stories on the ground and paint a portrait of the challenges and opportunities facing today’s global population that goes beyond the numbers, with particular focus on gender issues and human insecurity.

“Particularly when you go into a society that’s been broken by war or conflict or is so impoverished that is has nowhere to start climbing up, there have to be integrated programs and they have to work with people in mind,” said former New York Times foreign correspondent Barbara Crossette in an interview with The New Security Beat. “The people themselves will solve a lot of the problems around them if they’re just given the tools to do so.”

Crossette is one of the lead authors of the UN Population Fund’s latest State of the World Population Report, “From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change,” set to launch this Wednesday, October 20th. She spoke to us particularly about the challenges of women around the world and the unique storytelling aspect of this year’s report.

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.

“Right now, half the world’s population – some 3 billion people – are under the age of 25,” began Laurie Mazur on the “Population, Climate, and Consumption” panel at the Society for Environmental Journalists 20th Annual Conference. “It’s the largest generation ever that’s coming of age, and the choices that those young men and women make about childbearing will determine whether world population…grows to anywhere between 8 and 11 billion by the middle of this century.”

“The good news is that everything we need to do to slow population growth is something we should be doing anyway,” she continued. Mazur is the author of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge and director of the Population Justice Project.

She was joined on the panel by Brian O’Neill, who spoke about a new study examining the impact of demographics on carbon emissions, and Jack Liu, who spoke about the impact of household size on emissions in China.

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.

“I’m thrilled to be back.” That was the sentiment that Roger-Mark De Souza relayed to me, in his famous lilting baritone, about becoming the new vice president of research and director of the climate program at Population Action International (PAI). De Souza has long been a leading voice on integrated development programs that feature population, health, and environmental (PHE) dimensions. But three years as the Sierra Club’s director of foundations and corporate relations took him away from day-to-day work on these issues.

In his new posts, Roger-Mark will lead PAI’s research team in establishing a strong evidence base and engaging new allies in the effort to support healthier women and families, according to PAI. “Roger-Mark’s diverse research experience makes him an ideal fit for PAI as we undertake critical projects on reproductive health, population and environment issues,” said PAI President and CEO Suzanne Ehlers in a press release.

After a Wilson Center Global Health Initiative event last year, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof spoke with ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko about the importance of maternal health issues and what can be done about it.

“You just know that if men had uteruses and were dying at this rate, every country would have a Minister of Paternal Mortality, the Security Council would be meeting…this would be a real international priority,” said Kristof. “It just should not happen that one woman dies a minute for reproducing.” He recently revisited this topic with a column titled, “Birth Control Over Baldness.”

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.

Contrary to the iconic image of lapping waves submerging low-lying countries, few Pacific islanders are emigrating from their homes due to climate change, according to Australian geographer Jon Barnett of the University of Melbourne.

“Why should we be concerned with scarcity issues?” asks New York University’s Alex Evans. Beyond general population growth, there is also an expanding global middle class that is shifting to more Western diets and consuming more energy, he explains. The net result is that demand for food, water, oil, and land is outpacing supply. These scarcity issues should be grouped together, argues Evans, because you can’t address one without affecting the others.

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.