From economic growth to sea-level rise, Vital Signs 2011 documents the trends that are shaping our future in concise analysis and clear tables and graphs. This volume makes it clear that the Great Recession affects many of the world's leading economic, social, and environmental trends, but that the impact can be very different by country. This volume reveals, for example: Gross world product increased by just 0.3 percent in 2009, a substantial slowdown from the 2000-2008 average yearly increase of 6.6 percent. But China's economy grew by 9.1 percent, and India's by 7.4 percent. From 1993 to 2009, sea level rose 3.0 millimeters per year as warming melted polar and glacial ices, much faster annual rate than the 1.7 millimeter annual average for the preceding 118 years. Solar photovoltaic capacity increased by 20 percent in 2009, and solar thermal electric power plant capacity increased by 26 percent. Global wind power capacity grew more than 31 percent in cumulative installations, the highest rate in the last eight years. Natural gas consumption dropped by 2.1 percent, the largest recorded one-year decline. The planet's biodiversity continued to suffer, with the addition of 365 species to the "threatened" category of the Red List maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a 2.1 percent increase.