Essay on The Implementation of Sustainable Development

The growing disconnect between modern civilization and nature has reshaped our roles and responsibilities to the natural world. Our relationship with our planet continues to transform. In order to preserve the natural world we must recognize what role it plays in our existence and re-evaluate our ethics towards our ecosystems. Like all living things, we are engineered to survive, and if our environment is slowly becoming inhospitable, then our efforts to reverse our negative impact should be second nature. However, an extreme disconnect between humans and the natural world has resulted in widespread dissociation with factors such as global-warming, diminishing resources, and pollution. This dissociation with the state of our planet, in part, has to do with the fact that these issues do not feel immediately threatening to a large percentage of the population. Recent efforts, however; have begun a movement to reverse our negative impact and promote a more environmentally sustainable way of life. Now, more than ever, we must realize how are species has negatively impacted the natural world and begin to modify our way of life to preserve the environment, the life it supports, and its breadth of virtues.

The biologist E.O. Wilson estimated in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all plant and animal species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years. In a survey in1998 conducted by the New York’s American Museum of Natural nearly of 70% of the 400 biologists interested believed that the Earth is currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction, known as the Holocene extinction. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20% of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). Probably these predictions are too catastrophic and is quite impossible to claim the mass extinction in a short term, but these are clear advises of how much deep and negative is the interference of the Humans in the environment and in the life of the other cohabitants of this planet. I believe this evidences required changing in the life style of the world population, especially from the most industrialized countries as Europe, North Americas and part of Asia even if they represent a small part of the world population are the cause of the biggest part of the global pollution.

In 1992, the Rio Earth Summit declared “The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations” and in order to create sustainable development the mindset of the individual would need to be changed (Jick & Peiperl, p. 473). When organizations are open to new ideas and welcome transformation it enables them to meet the demands of the current and future environment, (Abbas, 2014). Thus, in 1998, before the merger of PwC and Coopers and Lybrand an opportunity was given to two alums of AIESEC, Middelburg and Shaw to deliver the following initiatives.

We renewed our commitment to do so during this G20 Summit. As our planet becomes increasingly interconnected, we need to promote strong, sustainable economic growth that works for everyone, and embrace the need to be socially and environmentally responsible. This is about creating jobs and opportunities for everyone, and building a healthier and more prosperous tomorrow for our children and grandchildren.”

Never in the history of the human species have we been in such a rapidly changing environment. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have been making social, economical, scientific, and environmental changes and advancements at an unprecedented rate. Societal advancements, while much appreciated by the average Joe, have been detrimental to our environment. Every days forests are cut, rivers polluted, and once ecologically important areas are cemented over to compensate for our rapidly growing population. As the status of our natural world becomes more critical by the year it is important that we look at the driving factors and reasons for this destruction of the natural world. While pollutants and globalization are the driving

Did you know that there are 13 species of animals who we may have to say goodbye to in 2015, or an estimated 2.2 billion tons of waste is yearly dumped into oceans? There is no need to research the litany of environmental changes; news such as global warming, air pollution, or resource scarcity that choke environmental problems to appear daily on TV screens and in newspapers. Even with these particularly cautions, many of us are still facing environmental catastrophes with overly optimistic attitudes, ignoring how serious the matter is. This form of the unrealistic expectation is similar to the blind development in our technological society that engenders a series of environmental and economic problems. Paul Ehrlich, [1] a Stanford University

The Anthropocene is an era increasingly defined as, current and beginning with homo sapiens becoming the dominant force upon Earth’s ecosystems, geology, and climate. Human activity has had and continues to have a measured effect, in major extinction events. Scientists believe this will increase in severity as a consequence of climate change (Thomas et al., 2004; Root et al., 2003). Minter (2012) discusses the traditional westernised desire humans have towards manipulating and controlling the environment. As humans strive to become ‘masters of nature’, we threaten the integrity of the organic systems we live off. Putting a low collective value on our ethical responsibilities with respect to our consumer behaviour could very well lay the flagstones on the path to our own extinction on this planet.

Rapid unfolding of devastating changes in the ecosystems, historically high air and water temperatures, resulting in escalating number and frequency of natural cataclysms, prolonged droughts and record rainfalls leading to massive floods, raising sea levels, exponentially increasing levels of air and water pollution - all these factors should prompt us to stop and reconsider the role of our contribution to the environmental chaos in the universe. Acknowledging all the emerging scientific data, the preservation of our environment becomes our principal personal duty not only to the future generations but even more so to ourselves. The gruesome perspective of the fulminant development of the destructive consequences of ever-rising consumerism,

This book is the story of an opportunistic approach to remedy and adapt to the drastic changes humanity has caused to the Earth while also embracing the role humans play in the Anthropogenic era. Humans will always continue to build environments, but the concern now is how are we going to build better environments. These issues will challenge humanity and question our values. How we build the environment around us in the future will be based on whether or not embracing the Anthropogenic era will indeed lead to a sustainable planet or just be a quick fix to the deeper issues of human behavior that have led us astray from maintaining a sustainable planet.

In general, this report discusses the successes and failures overall, analyzes sustainable development, institutional gaps, and also a call to action. Both Lomborg and The Brundtland Report agree that “...infant mortality is falling; human life expectancy is increasing; the proportion of the world’s adults who can read and write is climbing; the proportion of children starting school is rising; and global food production increases faster than the population grows.” (Brundtland 93) In conjunction with all the positive actions being taken; there are also environmental trends that threaten to radically alter the planet, that threaten the lives of many species upon it, including the human species. There has also been a growing realization in national government and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environmental issues. Nevertheless, “humanity has the capability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland 95) Furthermore, the goal for sustainable development and the integrated nature of the global environment/development challenges pose problems for institutions. “There is a growing need for effective international cooperation to manage ecological and economic interdependence.” (Brundtland 97) Last but not least, “To achieve the needed changes, we believe that an active follow-up of this report is imperative. It is with this in mind that we call for the UN General Assembly, upon due consideration, to transform this report into a UN Programme on Sustainable Development.” (Brundtland 99) There are many environmental issues occurring to our beautiful planet right now and will

In the decade of the 1970s, the United Nations organized several important meetings on the human environment to study a very serious problem . We humans are destroying the world around us . We are using up all of our natural resources . We must learn to conserve them, or life will be very bad for our children and our grandchildren .

The environmental movement has drastically changed over the last few decades, encompassing science, political activism and our social conscience. It is one of the fastest growing political and social movements in the world. Since the mid 1970s, this international movement has engaged the global community indluding many countries, the business world, media, and non-governmental organizations, all who have pushed for increased regulations and compliance towards protecting the environment. Nations within and outside of the UN have been pressured into pursuing a more sustainable future.Our ability to adapt, as well as to compromise, will direct the result of how we will survive in the future. States will have to cooperate and understand problems other nations are facing, and be able to commit to wanting a sustainable earth. Environmental norms are changing due to the overwhelming social push to reduce global warming, causing people to bandwagon to fight for environmental sustainability. Unfortunately, the motives for this movement are not always clear. While citizens of developed countries appear to have the right justifications for saving our planet and are attempting to address, global warming resulting in climate change, this heated political issue has provided NGO’s, governments (state actors) and corporations a platform to demonstrate interest in social issues, but also an opportunity to capitalize of for their own financial or political gain.

We are taught about the relation of human beings with their environment from the early days of our schooling. But what we have achieved is failure in protecting our environment.We have not, as a species, come to grips with the explosive events that have changed our relationship with the planet. For most of human existence, we lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers whose impact on nature could be absorbed by the resilience of the biosphere. Even after the Agricultural Revolution 10,000

Sustainability development has three components: environment, society, and economy. If you consider the three to be overlapping circles of the same size, the area of overlap in the center is human well-being. As the environment, society, and economy become more aligned, the area of overlap increases, and so does human well-being. Therefore, education for sustainable development (ESD) is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability. Simply put, ESD is a way to make the world a safer, healthier, and more livable place for us and future generations (McKeown, 2002, pgs 7-9).

The concept of sustainable development has become a major topic among intellectuals from various fields. Sustainable development has gone through various changes in its definitions and at present does not have a commonly accepted definition. The origination of the concept of sustainable development is debatable. In 1974 at a conference on Science and Technology for Human Development by the World Council of Churches the concept of a “sustainable society” is believed to have been first noted. This early concept focused on equitable distribution of scarce resources and the need for democratic decision making. In 1980 the currently used term of sustainable development emerged in the