Public Opinion Revolving Around Sustainable Development

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This paper highlights the public opinion revolving around sustainable development and how it has changed over the last 50 years. It incorporates factors like the Brundtland report, Kyoto Protocol and proposed projects to help make a sustainable future.

‘’Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’ (Purvis and Grainger 2004) is the most common definition of sustainable development. Over the last fifty years there have been many variations on public and government opinion of sustainable development as a worldwide community and there are many factors that have influenced these attitudes.

Maintaining a bio diverse world is important in sustaining a healthy ecosystem because ‘’There is a growing scientific consensus that species are disappearing at rates never before been witnessed on the planet.’’ (The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) When intensive farming and monoculture occurs, vital species can be wiped out. This then causes other species that rely on the extinct species to also become extinct as they have no nutrients to live on. When species are dying out then the ecosystem is no longer diverse. To be a sustainable environment we need to harness our resources in a way which makes no impact on future generations. An example of an island that did not manage to utilize their resources successfully is the inhabitants of Easter Island. On this island there was a culture that carved their gods faces into stone and worshipped them but because they were a small island and the trees that grew there where only small and there was not much yield, they over used their resources and they started to diminish rapidly. Soon a civil...

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