And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990529/V000502-052999-idx.html ===================================================== Group Says World Hotter, Stormier By David Briscoe Associated Press Writer Saturday, May 29, 1999 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The world is getting hotter and Mother Nature madder, sperm counts are sinking in the United States and Europe, and the use of wind power is soaring, a millennium-ending snapshot of global trends finds. Worldwatch Institute's annual eclectic compilation of facts and figures, ``Vital Signs 1999,'' offers a little something for everyone making predictions about where the planet and its inhabitants are headed in the next century. An assessment by Worldwatch president Lester Brown in the report released Saturday is that the latest data underscore big problems, with the average global temperature, weather-related damage and people displaced by storms all going ``off the charts.'' The earth registered a record annual average temperature of 14.57 degrees Celsius (58.23 degrees Fahrenheit). The cost of damage from storms was up ``a staggering 53 percent'' to $92 billion for 1998. And 300 million people were driven from their homes by storms and flooding -- a statistic that researchers pulled together for the first time this year. Brown said in an interview that much of the data is positive, however, including a continued strong growth in the use of wind power, up an average of 22 percent a year over the last decade; increases in solar cell usage, up 16 percent a year; and rapidly growing cross-cultural communications over the Internet. The number of Internet users has been increasing by about 50 percent a year since 1995 and reached an estimated 147 million people. The most rapid hooking up of new users is occurring in surprising places: an eightfold increase in Nigeria last year, a quadrupling in Namibia, while the rest of Africa saw only modest growth. The regional leader in new Internet hookups is Latin America, which almost doubled the number of host computers last year, Worldwatch said. ``How we think about mobility and how we think about development are beginning to change,'' Brown said. For instance, he said, the Internet brings the content of the world's museums and libraries to people around the globe, and Internet commerce is exploding. Worldwatch, a nongovernment research group funded by grants and sales of its publications, has been compiling ``Vital Signs'' for eight years and adds new categories each year. Among new subjects this year is the look at dropping sperm counts in industrial countries. Pointing to environmental pollutants as a possible cause, the report cites a 50 percent decline in male sperm counts among those studied since the late 1930s. The data are gleaned from a variety of studies in the United States and Europe -- 61 since 1938 -- and offer no comparison with Third World sperm counts. It also makes no attempt to provide a demographic cross-section of males. Additional study of sperm counts is under way in four U.S. cities, four European cities and Japan. Underscoring a mixed bag of trends, other data cited in the Worldwatch study includes: --Global economic growth slows and world trade declines as spending on advertising and fast-food consumption go up. --Production of automobiles and bicycles declines as world air travel soars. --The number of wars is up as U.N. peacekeeping expenditures and nuclear arsenals decline. --World population swells and life expectancy is up as new AIDS cases continue to set records. --Grain harvest and meat production slow as the use of irrigation expands. --Burning of fossil fuels and nuclear power generation decline as wind power and solar cell production grow by double digits. Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
