How has the world done in the last 33 years?

The UN conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972.  Since then the world has seen dramatic changes in population and the pressures that humanity puts on its natural resources.  Fill in the data to identify trends that face us as we start the 21^st century.

	1972	2004
World population	3.84 billion	6.37 billion
Annual increase in population	67 million	73 million
Proportion in developing countries	72%	81%
Urban population – percent of whole	38%	48%
Mega-cities (over 10 million inhabitants	3	19
Number in developing countries	One	22 in 2000
Military spending	$680 billion (1988 prices)	$956 billion (in current dollars)
Refugees fleeing war	About 3 million
Nuclear reactors	100 in 15 countries	443 in 31 countries 1997
Annual release of CO2	16 billion tonnes	24.5 billion tonnes
Atmospheric CO2 concentration	327 ppm	~370 ppm
Atmospheric chlorine concentration	About 1.4 ppb	About 2.5 ppb
Ozone layer depletion	Not recognized
World numbers of motor vehicles	250 million	808 million
Tropical rainforest cumulative destruction	33%
Annual rate of destruction	100,000 km^2	310,000 km^2 : an area larger than Poland
Fisheries annual catch	56 million tonnes	122 million tonnes in 1997

World Urban Population, 1950-2000 with Projections to 2020 (in billions)
Source: United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2001 Revision.

By 2005, Tokyo - the world's largest city - will hit nearly 27m. São Paolo in Brazil will reach just under 20m and Mexico City 19m. Sixteen other cities are expected to exceed the 10m mark, including Bombay (Mumbai) 18m, and Dhaka in Bangladesh, 15m.   Two cities in Africa are expected to go mega - Lagos in Nigeria and Cairo in Egypt. Close to 50 per cent of the population now lives in cities. Indeed, the latest estimates predict that urban dwellers will outnumber the rural population for the first time by 2007.

In 1950 New York City was the only one of the world's cities with more than 10m inhabitants. By 1975 that number had grown to five. By 2015 it is estimated there will be 21.  It has been a process driven largely by Asia - the continent boasting 10 mega cities by 2000, while North America had managed three (Mexico City, New York City and Los Angeles).

World distribution of nuclear reactors in 2002

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the United States' electricity and is its number one source of emission-free electricity.
103 Commercial nuclear reactors with operating licenses at 64 sites in 31 states