• International programs for population and food have reached the most extraordinary degree of  unreality and failure to face the issues.
• Much of Africa is demographically trapped, and parts of  Asia almost certainly are also.
• Entrapment is  the combination of a community exceeding the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem, and having nowhere to migrate to, and  having an economy which will not produce sufficient exports to exchange for the necessary imports, especially food.
• The end result of entrapment is starvation and slaughter (malignant uproar).
• We argue that the  alternative is vigorous argument (benign uproar)  which will be followed by  fertility change in the South and lifestyle change in the North.
• 'Disentrapment' is getting out of the demographic trap, the major means is 1-child families.
• There is a tight taboo (the Hardinian taboo) on even thinking about the problem.
• The Hardinian taboo is held in place by a variety of  factors (called here the foundations of the taboo, and for recently its Demons), of which the problem of 1-child families is only one.
• In the interests of equity, 1-child families  should ideally apply to everyone, North and South until populations stabilize. More recently A 1-or-2-child world' may seem a more practical target, although there is still much to be said for 'A 1-child-world'.
• UN programs for disentrapment probably only possible in the context of a global policy for 'A 1-child-world' (or A 1-or-2-child world'?).
• If equity is accepted as an ethical premiss, reduction in Southern fertility has to be linked to moderation in Northern lifestyle.  If it is not accepted, there is no such link.
• The link with moderation of the Northern lifestyle  has major implications for the market economy globally, and  for  employment.
• The United States has been orchestrating global population policy  so as to maintain a tight population policy lockstep and  keep the Hardinian taboo tightly closed, presumably lest its own resource consumption be criticized. In effect it has been policing the Hardinian taboo in respect of entrapment. See. By doing its best to prevent the dialogue opening it is actively preventing humanity from solving its greatest problem - population.

                We see our use of the word 'starvation'  and Sen's use of the word 'famine' as synonymous - not enough food getting into the mouths of the hungry. Sen argues that in some of the major famines of this century there has been adequate food in the community, but that it did not get into the mouths of the hungry  - that is there has been famine without FAD, which is  food availability decline.  We agree with Sen  that this might  indeed happen,  although the extend to which it  actually happened in the   six famines studied by Sen in his book  Poverty and Famine  has been contested.  Irrespective of whether Sen  is proved right or wrong by the data,  we see his thinking as complementary to  ours and not in conflict with it.

                Famines have complex causes and  be the result of an interaction of  any interaction of  the following variables.

                1. The weather, too much rain or too little, especially a run of bad  years.

                2. The number of people to be supported, and the land available to support them - carrying capacity problems.

                3. The pattern of agriculture, especially  whether
there is a single crop (a monoculture)  or a variety of  crops, especially drought  resistant  ones.

                4. Crop diseases, locusts, etc.

                5. The food stores of the people and what class of people own them.

                6. The social stratification of the people. Is there a large 'underclass' of the poor, or is everyone much the same?

                7. The purchasing power of various sections of the population, especially as this enables food to be brought in from outside the famine area.

                8. The ease with people can migrate out of the famine area.

                9. The availability of money in private or government hands  with which to buy food from elsewhere.

                10. Civil strife interfering with the agricultural cycle, the transport of food, or the economy.

                11. Anything which may interfere with the timely arrival of food aid.

                Given that famines have such complex causes, we think that there could well be famines with no FAD - plenty of food in the stores of the relatively rich, but the poor without the purchasing power to buy it.

                We also argue that there are   conditions of severe FAD in which the carrying capacity of the land has been exceeded, and the poor have nowhere to go, and there is nothing to exchange  for food from elsewhere  - that it the community is trapped.

                We are much concerned with communities which are expected to exceed the carrying capacity of their local ecosystems, but have not yet done so. In comparing our thinking with that of Sen,  let us forget this aspect of our thinking and consider only the present exceeding of carrying capacity.

                That Sen describes what he considers to be 'FAD-free famines' whereas we are concerned with  'severe FAD famines'  appears to be due at least in part to the fact that we are concerned primarily with Africa,  whereas  all four of his supposed FAD-free famines  were in India. {check}

              Sen thinks primarily of India, where  (i) an area in surplus, such as the Punjab, can feed an area in deficit, such as Bihar. (ii) If the Biharis have money they can pay for it.  If they don't the government  the government  provides  provide  food aid,  or  food for work.  Also, if food gets a bit short, and too expensive for the poor, if the purchasing power of the poor can be increased temporarily, the poor can get by. (ii) They can also migrate within India.  Also India does have the foreign exchange to import food if necessary. However, (i) if India's population doubles, as it is projected to, while (ii) its food production does not, mostly because of increasing water shortage, and (iii) India has difficulty competing for sufficient food  on the world market, which is possible, but much less likely than in the case of Africa, India as a whole is trapped.

              We think primarily of those parts of Africa where (i) land holdings are particularly small (Malawi, Rwanda), (ii) there are no areas in obvious surplus, (iii) the governments  would not be good at collecting and distributing surplus, even if there was one, (iii) there is virtually no economy and therefor no foreign exchange for imports, (iv)   Population is set to quadruple, not merely double, as in India. (v) Mining of the soil nutrients is falling, so that carrying capacity is falling. (vi) Migration is generally more difficult.

(piece of text missing)
because it does not However, there have  been doubts about this. We start by quoting Dyson, footnote 21, page 74.

         There is a misleading impression in much of the literature that a seizable  proportion of modern famines do not avoid a food availability decline (FAD). This belief has arisen partly due to Amartya Sen's influential analysis  of five famines in his book Poverty and famines (Sen 1981). In two cases - the Sahel famines of the early 1970s and the 1974 famine in Ethiopia - Sen acknowledges that FADs occurred. But  in the remaining three cases - the famines in Bengal in 1943-44, Bangladesh in 1974-75 and Wollo (Ethiopia) in 1972-1973 - Sen contends that there was no FAD.  (See Sen 19981, p154; 1990, p.37).  However several  detailed studies have cast considerable doubt on  Sen's conclusion.  Goswami's very careful analysis for Bengal  shows convincingly that 'food availability in 199433 was less than inn 1941, contradicting  Sen's findings  that FAD could not have been important'.  See Goswami (19900, p 457).  Basu's reanalysis of the Bangladesh crisis concludes that  the total availability of food in the year of the famine was not far from normal cannot be true.  See Basu (i984, p.295).  Finally, Kumar writes of Wollo that 'Insofar  as a binding transport  limitation accentuated the chronic food shortages  caused by drought in the province, then, food availability decline has to figure as the major explanatory factor  in the famine'. See Kumar (19900, p. 184). In conclusion, while they are far from being complete explanations, FADs were probably involved in all five of Sen's famines.

               However, let us assume, for the moment (i) that  Sen is correct, and (ii)  that our definition of entrapment is confined only to limits to carrying capacity,  migration, and  the exchange of exports for food now, and not  to the likelihood of this happening in the future, because population is increasing.

                Let us think also of the setting of our arguments.

 ...to be completed

---

                The following is for the moment a fragment only, and derives from a contribution recently made to An Anthology of Christian Thought. In the event, the late Adrian Hastings rejected it! Is it too much for the Catholic Magisterium* , as it is at present.

                If loving one's neighbours, both born and unborn, is second only to loving one's God, a loving and rational response to demographic entrapment is now the supreme challenge to all Christians because of :

               1. The scale on which love of a very special kind is needed.

               2. The gravity of what can be expected to happen without it - which is massively progressive starvation and slaughter.

               3. The magnitude  of the changes in conscience and lifestyle that are needed.

                4. The conflict of that love with recent accretions* to the Catholic magisterium.*
 

                Either the Hardinian taboo is lifted as a prelude to changes in policies and lifestyles, or it is not and slaughter and starvation progress. The power of the forces keeping it in place  is such that it can only be comprehended in Christian terms  -  as overpowering evil - the 25 Demons - with the reassurance that there is no aspect of the Christian message which is not in part an answer to that evil.

                Although a Christian response to demographic entrapment does not challenge the depositum fidei* of the Catholic Church, it gravely challenges its magisterium, particularly Humanae Vitae*and Donum vitae, *  in respect of family planning. The most urgent task facing the magisterium, and indeed all Christians, is to come to terms with the reality of demographic entrapment, and all that it implies for fertility in the South, and for lifestyles in the North.  Far from being a human and ecclesiastical tragedy, the recognition of entrapment should be seen as a God-given opportunity for Christian renewal, for the 'greening* of the magisterium', and for what should be the Christian injunction to lead a sustainable lifestyle - in short for the power of the living Christ.

                I argue that both disciplines are now corrupt are, but that 'the colleagues' are not, since it is almost impossible for anyone working inside either discipline to throw off the Hardinian taboo and confront demographic entrapment. It is much easier for an outsider like myself,  and even so it has taken  ten years to  reach the present understanding. My former colleague, Charles Elliott out of deference to colleagues, declined to discuss corruption. I alone 'take the rap'* for what follows.

                I argue that, if   for any reason, a discipline consistently fails  to deal with a major problem within its  expected purview, and one that outsiders would assume that it would deal with, not because it is technically difficult, but because it is 'politically inconvenient', its integrity is so gravely flawed,  that  it is corrupt.  The following diagram  suggests  that:  (i) In  dealing with entrapment, demography and development economics overlap. (ii) That entrapment  should  be of equal importance to both of them. (iii) That in failing to deal with it, there is something missing from both of them.

               Lady M    I think that you are being rather kind. After all entrapment is, or should be, the major challenge to  both disciplines.  It is not as if a little corner was missing from both of them, but rather that  the central core of both of them is now rotten  - a  rottenness policed by the US State Department.  I would prefer that you drew it like this:

MHK. You forget that it is very difficult to know which of the 25 Demons are active in enforcing the Hardinian taboo, and in what combination.

               I (MK) spent 20 years in Africa and returned to the University of Leeds in January 1985. In 1986     I was asked to lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on 'Medicine in Africa'. I accepted the invitation, thinking that it would be easy, and that all I need to was present the accepted ideas on 'Primary Health Care', 'Health for all by  the Year 200', etc. When I came to prepare my lecture I was horrified to be confronted with communities in Africa exceeding the carrying capacity of their local ecosystems.

                Unfortunately, I cannot now remember what it was that forced this horror upon me. I say 'horror',  because I realized  immediately that I had stumbled on a  taboo  which orthodoxy dare not think about.  I gave the phenomenon my own temporary name - 'Eldred's dilemma' after Eldred Parry, with whom I had discussed it, and  who seriously wondered if Ethiopian orphans should be kept alive, since orphanages were so foreign to the Ethiopian way of life.

                In   1989  I discussed 'Eldred's dilemma' with Jack Bryant who was then Professor of Public Health at the Aga Kahn University in Karachi.  "Ah", he said, "What you mean is demographic entrapment".  I felt duly ignorant! Beyond commending the principle of equity, he said no more about it.

                Over the following year I set about writing a paper on entrapment which came to be called 'Health is a sustainable State'    I  sent  the 41st draft  to The Lancet.  Since it  merely stated the dilemmas I was told - justifiably - to 'get off the fence' and take up a position - which I did.  The paper had apparently caused considerable discussion inside its offices.  The draft they eventually printed was the 75th.

               The key paragraph was this:

                The demographic and ecological implications of public health measures must be understood at all levels, especially by the community. If these are desustaining (sustainability reducing), complementary ecologically sustaining measures, especially family planning and ecological support, must be introduced with them. If no adequately sustaining complementary measures are possible, such desustaining measures as oral rehydration should not be introduced on a public health scale, since they increase the man-years of human misery, ultimately from starvation. However, the individual doctor must rehydrate his patient. Surprisingly, health services may not be a priority for these communities (Seaman, personal communication). Mother Theresa has reminded us that the world's poorest need our love and compassion. Tragically, such programs may not necessarily be part of that love.

                It is a  tortured paragraph. What it is really trying to say is that in a tightly trapped community  public health measures for child survival can make the human condition worse.

                In an accompanying editorial, The Lancet quoted the key phrase, without describing the dilemmas on which it was based.  The following day the Guardian newspaper, whose reporter had presumably read the editorial,  but not the article, carried a banner headline saying 'Doctor says let sick children die '.  Retrospectively, I suspect that I  was 'set up' by the Lancet, although at the time I was too terrified to suspect them of any such thing!  They were however kind enough to warn me that I was about to get a 'trouncing' from the media - I did!  I had a very uncomfortable day indeed and ended up on Sky television.

                I  got a 'wry' smile from the Vice Chancellor but that was all -  a wonderful tribute  to academic freedom in this university, and so much for 'political correctness' - or rather its absence in the University of Leeds.

                The paper was widely discussed,  had quite an impact, and has often  been used to promote discussion among students. I had some encouraging letters  letters of support, but nobody  to committed themselves to print.

                I had in my mind's eye a severely trapped community, in which one more child mouth to feed was less for someone else. At that time:

               1. I was still much to much in awe of the Hardinian taboo (although it had not yet been specifically named) to think radically about 'fertility control'. It was not until early 1994 that it seemed not totally irrational  to think about  'a 1-child world'.

               2. The way that the ethical dilemmas  relating to child survival change in the process of entrapment had not at that time become clear. In effect,  in the earlier stages of entrapment when child mortality is low, changes in it make little difference to subsequent population  population  growth. In the later stages  when one more child mouth to feed really is less for someone else,  the dilemma between in the interests of the child and his community become acute.

                Retrospectively, the discussion over 'Doctor lets sick children die' did much to promote discussion of entrapment.  However the fact that I was reckoned to have 'got it wrong' (I would prefer to say 'got it incomplete'!) has encouraged some to think that entrapment itself does not exist, and therefore there is no need to pay it any more attention. Would that they were right!

                Needless to say, were I starting again, knowing what  I now do,  I would not start with the conflict of the child with his trapped community.  This merely a particularly fraught* corner of a very fraught problem.

                The 'Hardinian taboo' was only so named by Paul Demeny in early 1997.

                It was also only in early 1997 that the the evidence that we give for the central role of the State Department in holding down  the Hardinian taboo taboo on entrapment  became  apparent.  The several pieces of evidence  which had previously been part of a disordered jig-saw puzzle   then  fitted  together immediately. See

What particularly concerns me at present is:

                1.  The need for some African government to ask the UN agencies: "What is entrapment, can you advise us?"  This would lift the taboo rapidly.

                2. The role of the US State Department in policing the Hardinian taboo on entrapment.

                3. What I see as the corruption of demography and development economics - but not the colleagues!

                4. The role of UNDP, as the senior UN agency.

                This website should perhaps be dedicated to Thomas Robert Malthus, since it embodies the   Malthusian fear, that  essentially "people are  increasing faster than food".  We are  strongly 'neomalthusian', whereas demography, development economics and the UN agencies are  at present strongly antimalthusian.  Until the Hardinian taboo lifts, they will  remain so.

                Malthus was not the first person to suggest that population  might grow faster than the food supply,  and that this might limit population size by raising death rates.  In 1789 he published anonymously An Essay on the Principle of Population, which has come to be know as his First Essay.

                He wrote:

                :...Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence [principally food] increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second.

                By that law of nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.

                This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence.  This difficulty [of providing sufficient food] must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind..."

                He argued that the balance between population and food was mostly maintained by increases in the death rate, and that this 'absolutely necessary consequence' was primarily caused by hunger,  starvation and disease.  Should these not be enough to restore the balance, then

        "...gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world..." ...

                Paul Demeny points out that he should properly be called Thomas Robert Malthus, and that : "...calling him an 18th c. demographer is not right either. Malthus, vintage 1798, was hardly a demographer - he was a cross between an English-Style political economist, and a French-style philosophe. Hence his elegance and rather misguided model. By 1803   the demographer label also fits; he studied the evidence and realized that people make rational choices in seeking to improve their lot: This is best spelled out in his Principles of Political Economy..."

AIDS and population growth.  There is a widespread misconception that  HIV/AIDS is going to control population growth in Africa and hence that there is no need to worry. Here is a  table from Zaba and Gregson to show that the effects of  HIV are multiple, and that some of them increase population growth.  They state that

    "...there is a feeling in some quarters that the AIDS mortality crisis has dampened population growth to such an extent that fertility regulation is no longer a priority matter. The latter is a dangerous misconception.  [Our bold type, Ed.] Population growth will certainly be curtailed (although in most African countries it will continue at such a rate that problems of under-employment and natural resource shortages will remain) [notably  the acute pressure on land due to entrapment Ed], but a mortality crisis does nothing to solve the many other problems associated with high fertility (e.g., maternal and child health)...

             Although  HIV  has many effects, such as reducing fertility, and increasing foetal loss,  which reduce population growth, it has many other effects which increase it.  Modeling these complex effects is difficult. Some factors are direct, such as the reduction in fertility by HIV. Others are compensatory, in that they are what the community does in response to HIV.

            Factors which   increase population growth include:

                Changes in its age structure, because a  stable population with high HIV mortality would be younger (because older women would have died)  and thus have a higher fertility (stability has yet to occur).

                It  increases mortality among the infertile, an so potentially replacing them by a greater proportion of the  fertile.

                Switching to condoms, which are often used less effectively,  from hormonal methods which are generally used more effectively.

                A reduction in  breast feeding (for fear of infecting a baby) and thus of its family planning effect.

                Reduced  postpartum abstinence (husbands impregnating their wives rather than less fertile prostitutes).

                 It has been calculated that, for Malawi "Under the worst scenario of the pandemic, the annual population growth rate  will slow down from 3.3 to 2.1 % per annum".   [2]   As a general rule it is probably safe to say that AIDS at its worse will  knock a  percentage point off the growth rate (e.g. from 3% to 2%), but will not turn it negative, unless  fertility is falling also,  under which circumstances it might become negative.  In view of  major problems with carrying capacity,  this is not wholly without its advantages. See

1.  Zaba Basia. Gregson Simon.  Measuring the impact of HIV on fertility in Africa.  AIDS 1998, 12 (suppl):S41-S550.

2. Situation analysis of poverty in Malawi.  UN in Malawi Lilongwe 1993.

Joel Cohen  has recently written a beautiful scholarly book called "How many people can the earth support?" (1995 WW Norton). Quoting   from Robert Cassen, Entrapment is dismissed (p 150)  on the grounds that the arguments for it  are egregious (outstandingly bad OED).  Although there are some unexceptionable suggestions, such as 'the need to develop institutions which balance the goals of efficiency and equality' (p380), there are no concrete recommendations, of the kind we give here, which  remotely address what Africa's  most eminent demographer sees as its near total entrapment, or the fact that the rate of increase of global grain yields is now  less than that of population. Overall,  it gives the impression that 'everything in the garden is lovely', that there is nothing to be done, and that  academia has thoroughly addressed reality. Altogether, it is the last word in political correctness.

Cassen, Robert, and 15 contributors. Population and development. Old debates, new conclusions. New Brunswick, N.J./Oxford UK. Transaction publishers.

My lifestyle in Switzerland has been criticized (1993-2001).     I once worked for WHO 'in the field'. We never wanted to return to HQ, or made any attempt to do so. As I 'retired' from Leeds, my wife said "I've  been offered a job in Geneva, Are you coming?"  I replied, "You followed me round the world, I follow you'. We shall return, quite possibly to the developing world, just as soon as her job in WHO ends.  For the moment,  I do the 'housekeeping'. See.

My warmest thanks  are due to Jane Adam, whom of all my students, I felt outclassed her teacher. She made me aware of the size of the problem. Also to several kind 'informaticiens'  for unraveling the arcana of their calling: Jeremy Harmer and Martyn Delbeke of Leeds;  Francisco ('Henry') Cardenas and Lancelot ('Lance') Lundberg of WHO;  Constin, Jeremy, and Myers of 'Vobis Computers'; and of course 'that nice Monsieur Aymon'   of  'Iprolink' for his 'hotline' at CHF 4.2 a minute!

Academia, the university or academic world.

Accretion, addition.

Asceticism, abstaining from luxurious consumption

...barrel, 'over a barrel'. To  'get someone over a barrel', is to have him thoroughly in your control.

Blackball, to be thrown out from a club or society.

Blue-eyed boy, favourite

Boggles, "my mind boggles..."  I am astonished.

Catch the eye, be seen, be noticed

Circa, about

...clothes'. 'UNDP has no clothes'.  This is a reference to the following fable (story).

            "Once upon a time there was an  Emperor who was very vain (fond of fine clothes).  He called for his tailor and said. "Tailor, make me the most beautiful set of clothes in the world". The tailor was away a long time and when he came back he held out his arms as if he were carrying a set of very beautiful clothes, but actually his arms  were empty. He said to the Emperor:  "Here, see what beautiful clothes I have made you, and what a magnificent  cloak  - only stupid people cannot see how beautiful they are".  The Emperor, fearful lest he should be though stupid,  took off the clothes he was wearing, and put them on. Magnificent in his  his new outfit, he went out to see his people - naked. We argue that UNDP's ideas also leave it naked - however substantial it may itself think them.

Cloud-cookoo-land, a place of nonsense,  and unreal imaginings.

Cricket, a ball-game first played by the English, and which has strict rules.     Cricket?' implies that the rules might be being broken.

Deus volens, God willing.

Depositum fidei (deposit of faith) of the Catholic Church. Its ancient core doctrines.

Donum vitae, a papal encyclical ('official circular letter')

Elide, remove, crush out.

Earthlings, humans, people on earth.

Factotum, someone, usually a servant who does everything.

Fall about one's neck, to express delight, virtually 'to hug'

Fraught, difficult tense

Greening,  concerned with ecologically sustainable lifestyles.

Hang-ups, illogical blocks  in our thinking which prevent us dealing with a  problem rationally.

Hegemony, leadership, power dominance.

Humanae vitae, a papal encyclical ('official circular letter')

Ill at ease, unhappy

Liebensraum,  'living space' for a community or nation,  which is more than merely the minimal carrying capacity.

Lockstep "...A mode of marching in very close file, in which the leg of each person moves with and very closely behind the corresponding leg of the person ahead ".

Magisterium,the  additions to the  teachings of the  Catholic Church, mostly decreed by the Popes of the last 150 years.

Malthus,  see

Malthusian ceiling.  This  is the  idea that there is a maximum number of people (or animals) that a particular ecosystem can support, and that when this is exceeded, the excess dies off  until the ceiling is reached once more.  Although this is a great simplification, it is useful none the less. Return

Makerere, The University of Makerere, Kampala, Uganda.

Milch cow, a cow in milk.

M.Phil.  'Master of philosophy', this is the most difficult, beautiful and glorious of Oxford Degrees [This is Maurice King teasing Charles Elliott! Ed]

'Nailed' for something...  Firmly convicted of some wrong-doing.

OED Oxford English Dictionary.

Ombudsman   a respected authority to which the public can appeal, usually in respect of the mistakes of a bureaucracy.

Orthodoxy, the common,  accepted or standard way of looking at a particular field or problem.

Photon-efficient diet, a diet which converts the energy of the sun into calories of food energy with the greatest efficiency. It is a diet which gives each hectare of  the land  that produced it a high carrying capacity for humans. It is a diet low in animal products, since animals waste many calories in converting  grain in to meat milk,  etc.  Stall-fed beef is particularly wasteful.  A photon efficient diet does not preclude the occasional eating of meat on festive occasions.   It is one of the essential of a sustainable lifestyle.  Since 'vegetarian' has so many other meanings, it is necessary to invent a new term.

Paradigm,    a way of looking at the world, conception of reality.

Political correctness, a  new US term which means sticking to the political norms of the community you are in.  It is commonly used in respect of gender (sex). For example 'Chairman' might be considered 'politically incorrect', whereas 'Chairperson'  would  be  correct'.  Here, 'political correctness' means what the US State Department would agree with.

Poring over, to pore over, to examine very carefully

Proactive,  taking  active steps to anticipate and deal with events (usually bad), instead of being  Reactive and waiting for them to happen.

Ruritania, an imaginary country in a book 'The Prisoner of Zenda'  by ??? approximating to pre 1914 Austria-Hungary, where politics and intrigue are the order of the day. Derived from ruris,  the Latin for country and -ania, as in Mauritania, etc.

Shari, 'your shari...',  'your business...', 'your affair...'  A  useful Swahili word, for which there is no exact English translation.

'Shoot oneself in the foot',  to unintentionally do oneself or one's cause damage.

'Something the cat brought in', an object of great distaste.

Sustainable lifestyle. A way  of living that makes the smallest 'ecological footprint; and leaves the worlds ecosystem  in exactly the same state as one found it.  Strictly speaking this is almost impossible,  since any consumption of fossil fuel adds to global warming. It is a lifestyle with the minimum use fo fossil fuel and non-renewal resources. It is a 'cycling and recycling'  lifestyle.

'Take the rap',  take the blame.

Tenor, the general drift (meaning) of a document or speech

Tottering, about to fall.

Triad, a group of three things.

UNDP United Nations Development programme, the 'senior' of the UN agencies.

UNFPA United Nations Fund for Population Activities.

'Waiting to come out of the woodwork',  waiting to appear

Way out. Unusual.