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In China, so many villagers have left their homes that a population the size of Japan’s is wandering from city to city in search of work and a better life. The destabilising effect on China’s economy of this huge internal migration has yet to show up on international economic indicators, but when it does it will probably appear first in Vital Signs: 1995-1996 (World Watch Institute/Earthscan, £12.95 pbk, ISBN 1 85383 276 6). Forty key indicators from the decline of grain stocks, the jump of 22 per cent in wind power use, the continued rise of Third World debt – now at $1.3 trillion – to global computer processing power illuminate the state of the world. A unique collection of indicators enlivened with short essays, it’s a swift take of the world’s pulse.