As pointed out in email

[james_davis_nicoll]

India’s declining fertility rate, now only slightly higher than that of the United States, is part of a global trend of lower population growth. Yet the media and many educated Americans have entirely missed this major development, instead sticking to erroneous perceptions about inexorable global population growth that continue to fuel panicked rhetoric about everything from environmental degradation and immigration to food and resource scarcity.

In a recent exercise, most of my students believed that India’s total fertility rate (TFR) was twice that of the United States. Many of my colleagues believed the same. In actuality, it is only 2.5, barely above the estimated U.S. rate of 2.1 in 2011, and essentially the replacement level.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Methane vs. CO2 is a two-sided coin: methane's a far worse greenhouse gas, but its dwell time in the atmosphere is far shorter, which means that there would be potential for faster recovery if we get off natural gas. (This is also part of the reason why the RealClimate folks generally argue that direct CO2 emissions are still the big thing to worry about, in response to people worrying about undersea methane hydrates.)

Still, I have my doubts that methane leaks are being adequately tracked.