State of the World 2000: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Towards a Sustainable Society

State of the World 2000 shines an intense light on the great challenge our civilization faces: how to use our political systems to manage the difficult and complex relationships between the global economy and the Earth’s ecosystems.

The newest volume in the annual series that has become the bible of the global environmental movement--and indispensable for anyone concerned with the future of our world. State of the World 2000 provides national leaders and concerned citizens with a comprehensive framework for the global debate about our future in the new century. This annual survey by the award-winning Worldwatch Institute has become an invaluable analysis of negative environmental trends and a guide to emerging solutions. The book shows how our current fossil-fueled, auto-centered, throwaway economy is steadily destroying the very ecosystems that form the foundations of our lives. The great challenge we face in the next century is making the transition to a sustainable economy that reuses and recycles materials, is powered by renewable energy sources, and has a stable population. The authors argue that meeting this challenge will offer some of the greatest investment opportunities in history. Written in clear and concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World 2000 presents a view of our changing world that we, and our leaders, cannot afford to ignore.

The Worldwatch Institute is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit research and publishing organization dedicated to fostering the evolution of an environmentally sustainable society.

Lester R. Brown is the founder of the Earth Policy and Worldwatch Institutes. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and twenty-five honorary degrees. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Hilary F. French is vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C.

Sandra Postel lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she directs the Global Water Policy Project. She is a Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment and a former vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute. Her previous book, Last Oasis, now appears in eight languages and was the basis for a PBS television documentary.