City dwellers poised to take over the world

Alert Focus: The Mystery of Lawlessness / Creation Groans Genesis 11:1-9 Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words. It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. THE INDEPENDENT - By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor - December 31, 2006 -- Humanity is about to undertake the greatest change of habitat in its entire history. Authoritative international reports to be published over the next months will show that, for the first time, we will soon be a predominantly urban species, with more people living in towns and cities than in the countryside. Official United Nations figures show that the world's urban population has more than quadrupled over the past 50 years. Almost half of us inhabit towns and cities: within a quarter of a century 60 per cent of us will do so. London, some 200 years ago, became the first city since ancient Rome to reach a million inhabitants: now, there are more than 200 such cities. About 20 of theseare "megacities" exceeding 10 million, and one, Tokyo, has become a "metacity", with more than 20 million. Reports by Washington's Worldwatch Institute, published next month, and by the UN Population Fund, due in the summer, will describe the imminent transition and grapple with how to cope with the rapidly swelling cities. The task is all the more difficult and urgent as 95 per cent of the increase is in developing countries, partly through births, but also through migration from the impoverished countryside to swelling slums that are home to a billion people. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2114489.ece FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.