The "Global 2000 Report" was a major environmental study ordered by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 by the Council on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Department of State under the direction of Gerald O. Barney. The report had the purpose to measure global trends in population growth, resource depletion, and environmental impact through the year 2000. This study projected the expected impacts of these trends if there were no significant modifications in public policy or technological advances.
The Global 2000 Report, published in 1980, was intended to address a number of global sustainability issues, including widespread environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and growing poverty and instability in developing nations that were extant at the time and forecasted to be magnified in the future. It warned also of acid rain dilemmas leading to serious concerns of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution-along with alarming increases in population. The findings indicated that, if left unaddressed by decided international attention, the global ecosystem could be set upon an unprecedented course of risk regarding economic stability.
Download a copy of the Global 2000 Report here
The report engendered relatively little immediate action, however. Upon taking office in 1981, Ronald Reagan's administration largely ignored these recommendations in favor of economic growth sans environmental reform. In many ways, this represented a broader balancing of economic policy with environmental responsibility, at a time when, within the Cold War context, economic strength was part of the greater national agenda.
The Global 2000 Report was one of the early major calls for global efforts to achieve sustainability, and it influenced subsequent environmental research and policy discussions, laying the ground for later environmental agreements and international cooperation on climate issues.
You can find detailed information about the Global 2000 Report and related documents from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
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