Free Republic

Endangered Species: The Coming Crisis of Underpopulation. By Tom Bethell . Ben Wattenberg is an optimist by nature. For years he corrected gloomy conservatives who thought they were losing the war of ideas. Capitalism was winning , he said, and the Cold War would soon be won. The title of a book he published in 1984 gives the flavor: The Good News is That the Bad News is Wrong. He has been proved right far more often than not. Although he is not a professional demographer, the study of population has long been one of his interests and in 1987 ...

Demography has never been an exact science. Ever since social thinkers began trying to predict the pace of population growth a century or two ago, the people being counted have been surprising the experts and confounding projections. Today, it is happening again as stunned demographers watch birthrates plunge in ways they never expected. Only a few years ago, some experts argued that economic development and education for women were necessary precursors for declines in population growth. Today, village women and slum families in some of the poorest countries are beginning to prove them wrong, as fertility rates drop faster than...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. But first Swiftmud wants Tampa Bay Water to help build a massive system to help recycle used water that is now wasted. TAMPA -- Local water utility officials were given some good news Monday in their effort to build a second desalination plant in the Tampa Bay area. Officials with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, whose participation is necessary for the plant to be built, said they might have money available for the project. The encouraging words were a change from the situation earlier this year, when Swiftmud officials said...