20070904 Atlas changes maps reflects the abrupt changes of the world

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Images showing how Lake Chad has shrunk: Left 1972, right 1987 The Atlas claims that the world population is becoming increasingly urbanised and that within the next year people living in towns and cities will outnumber those living in rural areas for the first time. • Due to its increasingly dry climate and the extraction of water to support the growing population, the mouth of the Yellow River has changed shape. • China is the world's second biggest consumer of energy - behind the USA. • Demand for renewable resources has exceeded the earth's capacity to provide them since the late 1980s. • Over one per cent (1.23 million km) of tropical forest is destroyed every year mainly to clear land for food crops. • Up to 40 per cent of known coral reefs have been destroyed or degraded in the last few decades.