In sum: contemporary globalization has dramatically increased global wealth, through innovation and joining new capital to massive labor forces; it has also produced a distribution system that promotes inequality on a scale previously unseen. Stunning innovations in productive capacity, communication, and transportation have imposed new technologies throughout the world. World populations have increased in number and concentration as the world has rapidly urbanized; ecological imbalances have been intensified and with them the conditions for the spawning and transmission of new diseases increased. Contemporary patterns of global industrialization create profound ecological challenges from resource depletion.