Lessons from the Maya

Abstract

In 1977 concern for the long-range effects of policy-making prompted President Carter to direct the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State to study the “probable changes in the world's population, natural resources, and environment through the end of the century.” The projections of that commission, as detailed in The Global 2000 Report to the President (Barney et al. 1981), foresee a growth in the world's population of as much as 70 percent, combined with staggering increases in demand for the world's resources of water, minerals, soils, and forest products.