In his 2007 best-seller, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman explored what would happen to the planet if the human race suddenly vanished – the gradual deterioration of the built environment, the geologic fossilization of our everyday stuff, and the ecological processes that would rebound and thrive without continual and growing human pressure. [Video Below]

As climate change upends established patterns of life, resilience – the ability of social and ecological systems to mitigate, endure, and adapt to short-term shocks and long-term stressors – has become a buzzword in development and humanitarian circles. [Video Below]

“A world in which a quarter of humanity is denied full enjoyment of their rights is an unjust world,” said Kate Gilmore, deputy executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). “It’s a world without the building blocks for human progress, for human peace, for human security.” [Video Below]

“We cannot ignore the new reality that climate change has become a major foreign policy issue in the 21^st century,” a new film by Hal and Marilyn Weiner concludes.

Water is a key ingredient for peace, especially in the Middle East. The Jordan River, which forms the border between Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, and Jordan, is central to the interrelated political and environmental challenges facing the region. Addressing these challenges requires not only high-level diplomacy but also direct, people-to-people engagement, which can form lasting relationships that go beyond water, said experts at the Wilson Center on October 17. [Video Below]

The Pangani River in Tanzania is important for many reasons: its three major dams provide 17 percent of the country’s electricity; it sustains thousands of farmers and herders living in the basin; and its flow of fresh water supports humans, industry, and ecosystems. But most interesting might be the innovative water policies that govern withdrawals, infrastructure projects, and ecosystems along its banks.

With UN demographers more certain than ever that global population will reach between 10 and 12 billion by the end of the century, the challenge of building a sustainable future seems daunting. But according to Wolfgang Lutz, founding director of the Vienna-based Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital, these projections miss one crucial variable: increasing levels of education. [Video Below]

“Sub-Saharan Africa’s young people are in effect the global labor force of the future,” said Jack Goldstone at the Wilson Center on October 15. “Whether they are productive, how large that cohort turns out to be, whether they find work or not, is going to have a bearing, I think, on all of us.” [Video Below]