By 2050, an estimated 10 billion people will live on earth. How are we going to provide everybody with basic needs while also avoiding the worst impacts of climate change? In a talk packed with wit and wisdom, science journalist Charles C. Mann breaks down the proposed solutions and finds that the answers fall into two camps -- wizards and prophets -- while offering his own take on the best path to survival. November 2018

Trailer for movie End of Suburbia. Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.  Entire movie here on YouTube.

A brief (3-minute) presentation by Rick Rybeck of Just Economics to the Center for State Innovation about smart growth and dumb growth. "Value capture" is discussed as a technique for funding infrastructure and creating jobs while making housing more affordable and development more sustainable. See also ShelterForce.

Scott Warren Provided Food & Water to Migrants in Arizona; He Now Faces Up to 20 Years in Prison.

Democracy Now! Published on May 29, 2019

An Arizona humanitarian aid volunteer goes to trial today for providing water, food, clean clothes and beds to two undocumented migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona. If convicted, Scott Warren could spend up to 20 years in prison. Warren, an activist with the Tucson-based No More Deaths, is charged with three felony counts of allegedly “harboring” undocumented immigrants. For years, No More Deaths and other humanitarian aid groups in southern Arizona have left water and food in the harsh Sonoran Desert, where the temperature often reaches three digits during summer, to help refugees and migrants survive the deadly journey across the U.S. border. Warren was arrested on January 17, 2018, just hours after No More Deaths released a report detailing how U.S. Border Patrol agents had intentionally destroyed more than 3,000 gallons of water left out for migrants crossing the border. The group also published a video showing border agents dumping out jugs of water in the desert. Hours after the report was published, authorities raided the Barn, a No More Deaths aid camp in Ajo, where they found two migrants who had sought temporary refuge. We speak with Scott Warren and his fellow No More Deaths volunteer and activist Catherine Gaffney in Tucson.

#DemocracyNow

See our new report, Interference with Humanitarian Aid: Death and Disappearance on the US-Mexico Border at www.thedisappearedreport.org.

Deadly Apprehension Methods: The Consequences of Chase and Scatter in the Wilderness.

Part 1 of a three-report series, Disappeared: How the US Border Enforcement Agencies Are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis.

In this first report, we find that people who cross the border and are never seen again do not merely go missing, they are disappeared by the US border-enforcement system. Using surveys conducted in Nogales and data from Derechos's Missing Migrant Crisis Line, we find that the Border Patrol routinely chases border crossers into remote terrain causing them to scatter, become lost, and often die or disappear. 

To read the full report, go to www.thedisappearedreport.org.

Published on May 27, 2016