Laurie Mazur
Laurie Mazur is a consultant on population and the environment for the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and the urban resilience editor for Island Press, which publishes expert writing on environmental issues.
Over the years, Laurie has written extensively about environment, health, and social justice issues. She is the editor of A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge and Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption, and the Environment. With Michael Jacobson, she co-authored Marketing Madness: A Survival Guide to a Consumer Society. Laurie also founded and, for several years, directed the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health, and Rights.
Twitter: @LaurieAnnMazur
Email: LMazur@IslandPress.org
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The Making of a Tragedy: Inequality, Mistrust, Environmental Change Drive Ebola Epidemic
›October 9, 2014 // By Laurie Mazur
In August, armed men stormed an Ebola clinic in Monrovia, Liberia, releasing infected patients and stealing contaminated bedding. The following month, eight health workers were attacked and killed in a Guinean village as they tried to educate residents about the deadly disease; their bodies were found in a village latrine. Days later, Red Cross workers in western Guinea were assaulted as they tried to collect and bury Ebola victims.
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To Build Resilience Through Development, Learn From Population, Health, and Environment Programs
›May 19, 2014 // By Laurie MazurIn an era defined by climate change and other disruptions, “resilience” – the capacity to survive and thrive in times of crisis and change – is increasingly essential.
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The Future of Population Funding in the U.S.: Mixed Prospects for Foundation Support
›May 12, 2014 // By Laurie MazurWorld population continues its steady climb, surpassing 7 billion in 2011 and heading to somewhere between 8 and 11 billion by midcentury. But funding to address population-related issues is moving in the opposite direction.
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Our Last Best Hope? Family Planning and Women’s Empowerment
›January 7, 2014 // By Laurie MazurThe original version of this article appeared on the Aspen Institute blog.
When journalist Alan Weisman proposed a new book on the challenges posed by human population growth, his editor said, “That one’s a live wire; don’t touch it.”
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African Leaders Urge Action to Meet (and Succeed) MDG 5
›As world leaders gathered at the UN for a special event on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) last month, there was much to celebrate. Some of the MDG targets – on poverty reduction and safe drinking water, for example – have been reached ahead of the 2015 deadline. But on MDG 5, which addresses maternal mortality and reproductive health, progress lags shamefully behind.
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Surprises Ahead? Population-Environment Dynamics and Tipping Points
›May 21, 2013 // By Laurie MazurToday, the Sahara Desert is a vast, nearly lifeless expanse of sand and rock. But ancient cave paintings tell of a time when it was fertile grassland and bands of human hunters chased aurochs and antelope.
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Once-in-a-Species Opportunity: For a World Free of Poverty, Seize the Demographic Dividend in Africa
›April 11, 2013 // By Laurie MazurA world “free from the stain of poverty” is within our grasp, declared World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in a speech at Georgetown University last week. Kim then announced a plan to virtually eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
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On Building a Better (and More Resilient) World: Complexity, Community, and the Precautionary Principle
›April 3, 2013 // By Laurie MazurFrom the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to Superstorm Sandy, the last decade has seen an incredible array of natural disasters. Of course, disasters of all kinds are nothing new, but, thanks to the growing scale and interconnectedness of the human enterprise – and the damage we have done to the natural world – the frequency, scale, and consequences of today’s calamities are truly without precedent.
