Scarcely a day goes by when we are not reminded by the media of the ongoing struggle for survival that is being waged in all the far-flung corners of Planet Earth.
Headlines tell of a flood in Bangladesh, a famine in Ethiopia, an earthquake in Guatemala.
We read of war in Bosnia, terrorism in the Middle East, and religious strife in Northern Ireland. But, some of the most important news items never appear under datelines, because they are so pervasive, so insidious, so continuous. For example, the escalating growth of the world's population and the seemingly inexorable deterioration of the earth's environment. In a world so shrunken in distance and time that you can almost instantly communicate with any other city on any other continent, and in which you can fly to virtually its remotest corner in a matter of hours, a knowledge of differing peoples and places can no longer be considered the luxury of a few but is, instead, a necessity of every individual. Our interdependence is now so complete that business decisions taken in Tokyo or Singapore have repercussions in Copenhagen and Peoria.