Among other things, the 20^th century will be known as the bloodiest century of them all so far, and there is no end in sight to the carnage and warfare that bedevil us. How come we have learned so little from our suffering and pain? In some ways, we are very intelligent; we are creative and imaginative, but in others we are very stupid and wasteful, and can destroy, very quickly, what it has taken us so long to build up.

     It will also be known as the century of the Refugee. We have witnessed the phenomenon of the international refugee on an unprecedented scale, as people fled their homes and countries in search of peace, freedom and happiness, which they felt were unattainable where they lived. The consequent intermingling of people of diverse races, cultures and religions, coupled with the ease of travel today, has caused the World to shrink considerably; we are no longer shut off from each other by national boundaries, and hopefully, we are moving towards the time when people will consider themselves as members of the human race, instead of the many categories that they insist on dividing themselves up into.

     The global Environmental Crisis we are involved in recognizes no frontiers, checkpoints or passports, and concerns everyone. Slowly, we are coming to realize that the Earth, and everything on it, is endangered. Whether we shall be able to halt, or even to slow down the destructive and destabilizing processes we have started, only time will tell, but we can never hope to succeed without cooperating on a world-wide scale.

     This Crisis, if it awakens us to the necessity of overlooking the differences between us and cooperating, could have some very positive effects.