Michael Cook
 Michael Cook likes bad puns, bushwalking and black coffee. He did a BA at Harvard University in the US where it was good for networking, but moved to Sydney where it wasn’t. He also did a PhD on an obscure corner of Australian literature. He has worked as a book editor and magazine editor and has published articles in magazines and newspapers in the US, the UK and Australia. Currently he is the editor of BioEdge, a newsletter about bioethics, and MercatorNet. |
Bangladesh endorses one-child policy
Michael Cook | 5 Jan 2010
Bangladesh is going to introduce a voluntary "one couple, one child" population planning policy by 2015 to curb its growing population.
John Lennon on the population bomb
Michael Cook | 5 Jan 2010
Arguments from authority are very weak indeed, but when the authority is John Lennon, what the heck.
Will the one-child policy wreck China’s economy?
Michael Cook | 14 Dec 2009
China’s rapid economic development and America’s evident vulnerabilty
after the Global Financial Crisis could make the Chinese a bit smug.
But as leading demographer Nicholas Eberstadt points out in a
frightening article in the Far Eastern Economic Review, China faces gigantic economic problems as the legacy of its one-child policy.
An "odious, zombie-like Malthusian" organisation has a plan to save the world
Michael Cook | 10 Dec 2009
Not even the journalists reporting from the Copenhagen summit on
climate change understand all the complex economic and technological
strategies for reducing the world's carbon footprint and averting
catastrophic global warming -- let alone the rest of us. There's cap
and trade, emissions trading schemes, carbon taxes, discount rates and
a phonebook of acronyms. But there is one equation which could be a
very easy sell to save the world: fewer people = fewer carbon
footprints.
MercatorNet exclusive -- poetry by Al Gore
Michael Cook | 9 Dec 2009
Al Gore’s latest book has just hit the bookshops. Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis is a lavishly illustrated handbook for climate-change activism -- with his first public poetry. It's awful.
Will Ethiopia become a Muslim-majority nation?
Michael Cook | 7 Dec 2009
As Army shrinks, South Korea to recruit women soldiers
Michael Cook | 4 Dec 2009
From 2011 South Korea may start recruiting women volunteers for its Army to make up for its growing shortage of young men.
Japan's new government seeks to boost birth rate
Michael Cook | 3 Dec 2009
Japan's new government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, seems to
be taking its population problem seriously. The world's number two
economy is set to shrink from about 127 million to 95 million by 2050.
This means that the number of workers available to support retirees
will fall from 3 to 1.5. Because Japanese are notoriously hostile
towards increased immigration, the government's options are limited. It
is racking its brains for schemes to increase the birth rate. Here are
some mentioned in an article by AFP:
South Korea reluctantly becoming more diverse
Michael Cook | 3 Dec 2009
With the world's second-lowest birth rate and a gender imbalance to
boot because of sex-selective abortions, South Korean men are going
overseas to find brides. The growing number of mixed marriages is
creating worrying social problems for the goverrnment. According to the
New York Times, hundreds of thousands of women have migrated in recent
years, mostly to marry men in rural areas. Most of them come from
China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
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