Word: half
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Ultimately, though, the world must move away from fossil fuels for most of its energy needs. Said Berrien Moore, director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire: "Even if you cut emissions of CO2 in half, the atmospheric concentration will keep going up. You're still adding CO2 faster than you're withdrawing it, so the balance keeps rising...
Prospects are so dire that some environmentalists urge the world to adopt the goal of cutting in half the earth's population growth rate during the next decade. "That means a call for a two-child family for the world as a whole," explained Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute. "In some countries there may be a need to set a goal of one child per family." That is a daunting challenge. During the past decade, many of the world's poor nations condemned the notion of family planning as an imperialist and racist scheme touted by the developed...
...effort needs to be speeded up. For starters, contraceptive information and devices should be available to every man or woman on earth who wants them. According to surveys by the United Nations and other organizations, fully half the 463 million married women in developing countries (excluding China) do not want more children. Yet many have little or no access to effective methods of birth control, such as the Pill and the intrauterine device (IUD). The World Bank estimates that making birth control readily available on a global basis would require that the $3 billion now spent annually on family-planning...
...world have resorted to that permanent solution. The other current mainstay is abortion, which the Worldwatch Institute's Brown called "a reflection of unmet family- planning needs." An estimated 28 million abortions are performed in Third World nations annually, and an additional 26 million in industrial countries. About half are illegal...
...failings, China's effort has produced results. The population growth rate, once among the highest in the world, has been slashed in half, to 1.4%. And the Chinese are determined to reduce the rate still further. The same formidable task will face other developing countries as they confront the population bomb. But confront it they must...