Predicting the future is dangerous. Past and present trends hint at what might be. How should these mould Christian ministry in obedience to the Great Commission? Population growth is one of nine factors that will impact our world.
The population disparities are huge. Two-thirds of the world’s population live within 500 km of a coast. This has benefits for wealth generation and trade, but there are dangers in more low-lying areas if climate change causes a significant rise in sea levels.
Often, the threat to the world’s more populous, fertile and civilised regions has come from its apparent wildernesses. Great empires have been overthrown by invaders such as the Medes, Goths, Huns, Mongols, Arabs and Turks. Is it from the ‘wastes’ of North Africa and Central Asia that destruction might come in the 21st century?
