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Topic about sustainable development
SUSTAINABLE development topic overview
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Environmental degradation is an enormous problem that is affecting every corner of the globe. World leaders have banned together to debate and decide on effective strategies for achieving a sustainable lifestyle. With varying interests and opinions from numerous countries and regions, discussions are extremely complex and progress is oftentimes slow. In the book, Equity and Sustainable Development: Reflections from the U.S.- Mexico Border, Jane Clough-Riquelme and Nora Bringas Rábago attempt to portray the implications that the 2002 World Summit may have on the issues of equity and sustainable development in the U.S.- Mexico border region. This area serves as an excellent example because the two subnational regions are in the industrial and developing world stages where problems reflect the current economic paradigm and the common obstacles to achieving a sustainable development.
It wasn’t until 1972 that the world’s leaders seriously discussed the correlation between prevailing economic models of industrial expansion, reduction of the world’s natural resources, and the health and well being of humanity. Ten years later, the United Nations finally assembled in order to decide what actions could be taken to make economic development compatible with protecting of the environment and improved quality of life worldwide. The result was the creation of the World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, which provided a framework for sustainable development. In the following years, two global environmental summits have taken place in an effort to intertwine the three pillars of the sustainable development: economic prosperity, environmental protection, and social equity. These two summits included the Rio Summit in 1992 and the...
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...ls are still yet to be accomplished. The first step to solving a dilemma is recognizing that there is a problem. With this said, the world has taken the initiative to realize its problems and has started to implement solutions. For example, one of the goals set at the Johannesburg Summit was the development of a set of precise goals to reduce world poverty by half within the next decade. This goal set the bar extremely high and only time will tell if the world is able to come together to achieve its objective. As always, the future remains unclear. As someone who as taken an interest in sustainable development, it is clear to see how essential sustainability is, however, many people still do not understand the severity of the issue. For the sake of future generations, I hope the current generations are able to get a handle of sustainability before it is too late.
Some environmentalist doomsday scenarios have already saved our lives -- for example, the alarm sounded about the ozone layer. Environmental science is like any other branch of science; it is a human activity that finds consensus on powerfully-supported theories, and disagreement on weakly-supported ones. That some conservatives would take only the disagreements that later proved wrong, compile them into a list and provide this as "proof" that environmentalists are conducting "junk science" is highly disingenuous.
The sustainability issue I am addressing is one of the most important issues we are facing today. This issue involves one of the most precious resources to man. We are composed of it, we require it to survive and we use it to create new things every day. I am referring to water, simple H2O. It is infact more valuable than gold or diamonds because without it we would be a long extinct species.
There are many things we need to change in society to become sustainable for future generations. One thing is for certain, we all need to do our part to contribute to this effort, and there is no time like the present to change our ways.
Therefore it is important that individuals, corporations, and nations all start to look at the future impacts of their actions and to plan more. This can give them various profit opportunity as well as giving future generations a chance to sustain themselves in a way that they think is right with the tools that were given to them by the investments made today. As a result, in order to successfully create a sustainable entity, it is important to now only look at the now, but the future as well as the past and learning from previous mistakes, and
1998-1999 World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment. Environmental Change and Human Health. A Joint Publication by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the United Nations Development Programme. Oxford University Press, New York, NY 1998.
In The Development of Environmental Regimes: Chemicals, Wastes, and Climate Change, the authors provide a simple framework to analyze the development of global environmental regimes (GER) which ultimately addresses why states sometimes agree to cooperate on global environmental issues despite divergent interests. The chapter is divided into five subsections but begins with an introduction to explain the five processes involved in the development of GERs. The authors address questions such as who forms GERs and how are they formulated. Next, they apply the processes involved in the development of GERs to four case studies that are linked to global environmental issues: ozone depletion, hazardous waste, toxic chemicals, and climate change, respectively. The authors conclude that states and non-state actors can come together to address global environmental issues but not without obstacles.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) The Declaration of Rio on Environment and Development [Online] Available at: http://www.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=78&ArticleID=1163
This persuasive speech was given in Rio de Janeiro, and was a plea to the individuals in attendance at the United Nations Earth Summit to recognize how they are contaminating the environment with hopes that these audience members will revise their future proposals.
Have you ever questioned the world in which your children and grandchildren will live, have you managed to understand that it is the responsibility of everyone to be aware that what you do today affects tomorrow? A current social problem that deserves the utmost attention is the environmental issue. It is the responsibility of us as individuals who are part of a society to take care of the place where we inhabit so that we can provide those who come after a clean and pure world.
Over the past few decades there have been discourses both in favor and against Globalization’s capacity to guarantee a sustainable future. Authors attest societies and businesses’ inability to account for ecological and environmental limits when dealing with economic growth, examples of this are some of the traditional business metrics used by most global companies, and nations’ measure of wealth (GDP); both sides heavily resting on economic factors, fail to account for societal and environmental concerns (Byrnea & Gloverb, 2002). Other researchers point at the intensive use of resources, especially by global corporations; such as the increasing and careless consumption of fossil fuels, water, precious metals, etc. leading to a rise in GHG (Starke, 2002) (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2000). Most fervent opponents go as far as to call ‘sustainable development’ an oxymoron (Ayres, 1995).
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If we follow this definition, it becomes easy to see that the vast majority of the “developed” world has not, and is not developing sustainably. The idea of sustainable development requires us to consider how our action of developing will affect other countries, and future generations. Many people believe in “the butterfly effect”, where the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of t...
(7) Adams, W. M. The Future of Sustainability: Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century. Rep. The World Conservation Union, 22 May 2006. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
In class we discussed what sustainable development meant to us; each group had its own definition. Our group’s definition was that sustainable development is for the long term for future generations, for the basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and job. The basic will increase over time and our resources will diminish, which why sustainable development is important. Sustainable development is important for future generations so that they end up with a world better than ours. Sustainable development is achievable if society works together to meet everyone’s basic needs and create a better world.
‘Development that meets the needs of the present with the ability for the future generation to meet their own needs.’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) Sustainable development requires three key components: economy, society and environment, sustainable development can be success through striking balance in those factors. These three components are indispensible, they compel to depend on each other. On the other words, we can only gain a decent and energetic environment and society if the economy is strong with a healthy a stable growth rate.
I believe that we have several responsibilities towards future generations, including sustainable energy sources, managed resources, conservation, and to impart knowledge of environmental sustainability in a widespread way. I believe that must fulfill these obligations for the continuation of the human species survival in the future.