By NumbersUSA
California’s population has doubled over the past five decades,” said Leon Kolankiewicz, an environmental planner and the report’s lead author. “That growth naturally led to sprawl, as developers constructed new homes, roads, and office parks to meet demand. In fact, our analysis shows that population growth drove 91% of the total loss of open land.
By NumbersUSA
Lionel Shriver’s new novel “A Better Life” is both engaging fiction and a provocative thought experiment. It invites reflection on who bears the costs of immigration policies, and whether those costs are being equitably shared. For that reason, it comes highly recommended — as an absorbing novel and as a book worth sharing.
By NumbersUSA
The strategy to reduce pressure at the border by opening up new immigration channels outside of the system created by Congress has failed. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reports a record 304,162 nationwide illegal immigration encounters in August, breaking the previous record set just last December. The 304,000 encounters is the equivalent of a Newark, … Continued
By NumbersUSA
In some positive news, our country’s overall aggregate water usage has decreased over the past few decades despite our population growth. Yet, this has not changed the sobering reality that we are continuing to deplete our finite water supply. Ultimately, growing demands are being placed on an already strained commodity. Our National Sprawl Study reports: … Continued
By NumbersUSA
Exorbitantly high levels of immigration driving population growth, ultimately affecting quality of life issues, is not unique to the United States. Concern for job opportunities, housing, the preservation of natural resources, as they relate to one’s well-being, are expressed in a recent article by Clare Foges titled, “How much immigration can Britain sustain?” This article, … Continued
By NumbersUSA
Auditory overload is an increasing public health concern, and it has been shown repeatedly that it is detrimental to our physical and mental health. Now, the problem has been recently linked to serious cardiovascular problems as it has been discovered that one in twenty heart attacks in cities can be linked to noise pollution. It … Continued
By NumbersUSA
From the vantage point of my desk, I observe people on the street walking with lunches from nearby restaurants, chatting on their cell phones, and toting packages or shopping bags. These mundane day-to-day activities are done without much thought, as they are part of our regular routines, but what we consume is a feature of … Continued
By NumbersUSA
Satellite data show that in the last nine years, as a powerful drought held fast and river flows plummeted, the majority of the freshwater losses in the Basin — nearly 80 percent — came from water pumped out of aquifers. The decrease in groundwater reserves is a volume of water equivalent to one and a … Continued
By NumbersUSA
Annually, the Global Footprint Network “measures a population’s demand for and ecosystems’ supply of resources and services” to inform us when during the course of a year we’ve reached overshoot – the point when we’ve used up what the Earth’s ecosystem has to give. That date this year is March 13 for the United States, … Continued
