Debate over the world’s future

How many people can the earth hold? Will birth and death rates continue to 1 decline? Can food production keep pace with population growth? Can technology I supplement or replace today’s resources? What are the long-term effects of pollution 1 on health, climate, and farm production? Debate over such issues has spawned I many volumes, as scholars look to the future with varying degrees of optimism and 1 gloom. In a lecture titled “The Terror of Change”, Patricia Gulas Strauch cited three I aspects of our future about which there is little disagreement: the speed of change I will accelerate; the world will be increasingly complex; and nations and world issues I will be increasingly interdependent. Today’s problems – which face Third World 1 megacities in particular – cannot be ignored by developed countries. We cannot look I to the past for solutions as there is no precedent for such growth. We are in 1 uncharted, challenging waters.