Regarding wealth in the United States, the gap between rich and poor has grown. Now, the top 1% (2.7 million) will have as many after-tax dollars as the bottom 100 million.

The ratio has doubled since 1977 (when the top 1% had as much as the bottom 49 million).

The poorest one-fifth of households will average $8,000, down from $10,000 in 1977.

Since 1992, the world has lost 10% more of its tropical forest (about a million square miles).

Since 1992, population has increased by 1 billion while energy and material consumption have soared -- and Co-2 emissions and temperatures continued to climb. Now 40% of the total productivity of the planet are used by humans at the expense of other species and habitats.

Since 1992, another 100,000 species have gone extinct. (It would take only 10% of the world's military spending -- and new thinking, of course -- to fix many of the problems.)

The use of fossil fuels has multiplied by 5 in 50 years. Oil consumption has multiplied by 8 -- today the world uses in 1.5 months the amount of oil used in one year in 1950.

The growing land per inhabitant has been cut in half 50 years -- and in 2000 1/3 of the world's children less than 5 suffered from malnutrition.

The world's use of water has multiplied by 5 times since 1940 (while the world's population has doubled since then). The average Kenyan uses 1.24 gallons of water a day; the average New Yorker uses just over 180 gallons per day. One billion people do not have access to potable water (up from 250 million a decade ago.

The average American produces 1,540 pounds of trash per year -- the average person in France half that.

The Earth's astmosphere absorbs 1/3 of the carbonic gasses produced every year -- the remaining 2/3 build up (greenhouse effect) an off-balance climate that generates natural disasters such as floods, storms, droughts and fires.