________________ Overview If present beliefs and policies continue, the world in the 21st century will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable economically and ecologically, and more vulnerable to violent disruption than the world we live in now. Serious stresses involving inter-religious relations, the economy, population, resources, environment, and security loom ahead. Overall, Earth's people will be poorer in many ways than they are today. For more than a billion of Earth's desperately poor humans, the outlook for food and other necessities of life will be no better. For many it will be worse. Life for billions will be more precarious in the 21st century than it is now--unless the faith traditions of the world lead the nations and peoples of Earth to act decisively to alter current beliefs and policies. This, in essence, is the picture which emerges in Global 2000 Revisited: What Shall We Do? This picture is based on projections of probable changes in the world economy, population, resources, and environment. Although these projections are drawn from the most reliable sources available, they do not predict what will occur. Rather, they depict conditions that are likely to develop if there are no changes in beliefs, public policy, and practices. A * keener awareness of the prospects for the 21st century, however, may induce significant changes in beliefs, policies, and practices. Principal Findings Rapid growth in the world's population cannot continue through the 21st century and will come to an end either by human decision and action or by an uncontrollable increase in deaths. Over the past 70 years--roughly one lifetime in many countries--the human population grew from 1.8 billion to 5.3 billion. For every person alive 70 years ago, there are now three. Such rapid growth cannot continue for even another generation. Fertility must decline, or mortality will increase. But for now the growth continues. Currently the world's population is growing faster than ever before. Each year, 90 million people are added to our numbers, the demographic equivalent of another Mexico. Just a lifetime ago, we were adding only 15 million people per year.
