Voices of the Planet

· The Sunshine Revolution is an introduction to the many issues associated with the position that solar energy provides the cheapest, cleanest, safest source of power available to us. The scope of the book is international with data organized into color charts, graphs, illustrations and underscored with beautiful photographs from across the globe. The photographs and quotations generously presented throughout the book make an emotional appeal to the reader to support solar energy for current development and on behalf of the world's children, we recommend this visually attractive, easily readable book. The Sunshine Revolution by Harold N. Rostvik is Available for order by fax at Sun-Lab Publishers, Stavanger, Norway, Fax #47- 51- 524062

· WIT was represented at the NGO Forum to launch the International Year of the Family. The conference held in Valletla, Malta in December focused on the central idea that the family is an essential unit of society that must be supported and maintained where it is in danger. Speaker after speaker called for governments to support the family by public and private action. By doing so we may expect to deliver to our children a reasonable future as district from one characterized by poverty, environmental deterioration and political instability.

SOURCE: M.B. Trofimenko WIT Regional Director for Canada who attended the conference.

· An International Conference on Population and Development will be held in Cairo, Egypt from September 5 to 13 this year.

The conference mandate is clear, In the organizers words the political leaders and decision - makers from every country will be trying "to forge a new international consensus that population concerns should be at the Center of all economic, social, political and environmental activities."

Attempts to reduce exploding population growth are of paramount significance since although the world's annual population growth rate is expected to decline from the current 1.7 percent to 1.0 percent over the next 30 years, the United Nations projects that world population will reach 8.5 billion by the year 2025, up 2.9 billion from the present 5.6 billion. This is according to the medium fertility assumptions contained in the newly released World Population Prospects; The 1992 Revision. If the U.N.'s high fertility assumptions come true, world population will explode to 9.1 billion by 2025 well before children born today have reached middle age. And even the low fertility projection from 1992 data points to a staggering 7.9 billion people on the Earth just 25 years into the fast- approaching next century.

Of the world's present 5.6 billion people, 4.3 billion live in the less developed regions, and that disparity in population size is reflected in growth rates and becomes dramatically more exaggerated in the future. While the United Nations medium projections show that the population of the developed world will increase by 179 million over the next 32 years, less developed regions will post an increase of 2.8 billion. In other words, over the next 33 years, developing countries will shoulder the burden of 94 percent of world population increase, while developed areas will absorb only 6 percent of the total growth. Of the 88 million babies born each year between 1985 and 1990, 8 million were born in industrialized nations and the remaining 80 million opened their eyes in the developing world.

Between 1985 and 1990, the populations of 53 countries were still growing at the high rate of 3 percent per year, and in 1990 those countries were host to a total of over 585 million people-or 11 percent of the world's population, according to the U.N.'s 1992 Revision. Of those countries, 24 are in Africa, 17 in Asia, 7 in Oceania, and 5 in Latin America. On the other hand, 66 countries or areas had annual population growth rates or less than 1 percent between 1985 and 1990, making up 1.1 billion, of 23 percent of the world population- Most of these countries are in Europe. In 1992, more than half the world population was living in Asia, with the two largest countries in the world-China and India- accounting for 64 percent of Asia's population and 38 percent of the world population. Africa makes up 12 percent of world population; Latin America, 8 percent; Europe, 9 percent; North America and their former USSR, 5 percent each, and Oceania, 0.5 percent.

Copies of the World Population Prospects: the 1992 Revision, which contains official United Nations demographic estimates and projections, along with extensive information on related issues, ate free to anyone in the developing world and cost US $85 for those in developed countries. To find out how to obtain the publication, write to the United Nations, Documents Distribution, in either New York, NY 10017 U.S.A. or 1211 Geneva 77, Switzerland.

· The Health and Environment Task Force of the Working Group of Women's Health held a Conference on March 9, 1994, during the preparatory meetings of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

The guest speakers were Dr. Patrich Madden, Executive Director of the World Sustainable Agriculture Association who discusses the effect of pesticides of human health; Dr. Kazuo Nitta, Executive Director of the MOA Foundation, who spoke of a cure for a topic dermatitis, a disease, believed to be caused by toxins in the environment. Dr. Bernard Bihari, co-foundor of Community Research Initiatives, engaged in research on HIV/AIDS therapies, who spoke on unconventional AIDS therapy; and Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a renowned researcher on radiation and public health, who discusses damage to human health caused by various forms of radiation exposure including the Chernobyl Accident.