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The Vatican’s Role in the World Population Crisis: The Untold Story

Posted by Authors, Stephen D. Mumford 5 Feb 2012

The International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 was a turning point. Until then, it was not widely known that the Catholic Church, as directed by its hierarchy in the Vatican, was a principle force in opposing population growth control. Any effort by the Vatican to conceal its staunch opposition was abandoned when the Holy See shut down the meeting for the first six days. Everyone was stunned. [...]

Vatican Control of World Health Organization Policy: An Interview with Milton P. Siegel

Posted by Authors, Stephen D. Mumford 5 Feb 2012

There is a growing consensus among international public-health leaders that the gains made by their earliest practitioners are about to be lost as a result of overpopulation. The hideous scourge of premature death in Africa that we have been witnessing on our television screens for the last decade is spreading throughout the continent along with civil war. Somalia is presently the focus of our attention, but there [...]

Overcoming Overpopulation: The Rise and Fall of American Political Will

Posted by Authors, Stephen D. Mumford 5 Feb 2012

The 1960s saw a rapidly increasing American public awareness of the world population problem. The invention of the contraceptive pill in 1960 stimulated broad public debate on birth control and the need for it. When Pope John XXIII created the Commission on Population and Birth Control in the mid 1960s, he gave hope that the church was about to change its position on birth control. After all, why study the issue if the church [...]

NSSM 200: World Population Growth And U.S. Security

Posted by Authors, Freedom of the presss, Stephen D. Mumford 5 Feb 2012

From his first days in office, President Nixon understood the grave dangers of high rates of population growth—more than any other president. He responded appropriately when he perceived that his people and their way of life were gravely threatened. Seven months into his first term, in a rare move for a president, he delivered his Special Message to the Congress. The message set forth a far-reaching commitment to limiting population growth. [...]

Vatican control of World Health Organization population policy: an interview with Milton P. Siegel

Posted by Media, Videos 24 Jan 2012

This interview with Dr Milton P. Siegel, who for 24 years was the assistant director general of the World Health Organization, was recorded in 1993 by Dr Stephen D. Mumford, President of the Center for Research on Population and Security. This is the first time that it has been made available to the public. [...]

The Domino Effect: Small Variations in Fertility Mean Major Differences in Population

Posted by Population Stress 19 Sep 2011

Source: Population Services International. Population is on the world’s radar as we near the October 31 milestone of a planet with 7 billion people. Experts and agencies like the United Nations, World Bank and Population Reference Bureau (PRB) cite startling statistics on future trends in population growth. Developing countries are adding more than 80 million to the population every year, according to PRB.

Infallibility and the Population Problem

Posted by Authors, Papers, Population Stress, Stephen D. Mumford 10 Nov 2010

I have been asked to speak about what the Catholic Church has been saying and doing in its opposition to family planning. I want to be clear from the outset that I am talking about the Vatican hierarchy and not the Catholic laity. As many of you know, studies show that American Catholic women use contraception and abortion at slightly higher rates than non-Catholic women. My research has been devoted to the Vatican’s [...]

Feeding the world means hogging less grain

Posted by Population Stress 9 Nov 2010

Source: Grist, 10 November 2010. BY Lester Brown. After several decades of rapid rise in world grain yields, it is now becoming more difficult to raise land productivity fast enough to keep up with the demands of a growing, increasingly affluent population. From 1950 to 1990, world grainland productivity increased by 2.2 percent per year, but [...]

Scientists to Speak Out in Wake of Republican Gains

Posted by Climate change, News 9 Nov 2010

Source: Mother Jones, 8 November 2010. Last Tuesday, as Americans across the country headed to the polls, a group of climate scientists gathered in Denver to discuss strategies for fighting back against right-wing attacks on global warming science. Their timing couldn’t have been better. With the ascent of the Republicans, climate science—and scientists—will be a [...]

Our crowded planet

Posted by Climate change, Opinion, Population Stress 18 Oct 2010

Source: McClatchy, 17 October 2010. Why is this planet so darn crowded? When I was in grade school in the 1950s, the earth held 1.5 billion people. Today that number has quadrupled to six billion. And another three billion are on the way by 2050 – nearly all of them in the world’s poorest countries. [...]

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