Study guide for an exam - Essay Example

The current global footprint is exceeding the potential of the planet to sustain itself. However, with time, there will be a number of issues, which might help to bring the global footprint down and make the existence of humans on the planet sustainable. According to Wackernagel and William (32), sustainable developemt is the kind of developent, which meets the needs of today’s popualtion without compromising the needs of future generations. The first is the fact that technology is increasing the ability for the planet to sustain itself.

Technology will help in producing manufacturing systems, which, in turn, produce less waste for the same level of production. At the same time, technology can be used to develop ways for the planet to help refresh its resources faster as artificial genetic modification of plants will make it easier for plants to grow faster. The second important fact is that people will get more aware about the issue of sustainability, and this may help in making sure that people and societies can start living in a more sustainable way.

This will, however, depend on how aggressively the campaign for sustainability is going to be accomplished. Section II Q 3: Tragedy of the Commons Tragedy of the Commons refers to the overuse and sometimes abuse of a common resource by different individuals who act independently in their exploitation of a natural resource. A good example of a common, which is being depleted by different parties, is the oceans. Different countries are depleting the oceans in a number of ways, without knowing that they are doing it.

Nations such as China, the USA, European Union countries and other big nations are depleting the oceans at quite an intense pace. The oceans and seas are all interconnected and when depletion happens in one area, the effect is being felt in many other areas. For instance, overfishing is becoming a major problem as fish reserves are being depleted around the world. There is a reason why depleting fish reserves in one area of the planet affects any other area. First of all, most fish and marine animals, such as whales, sharks etc.

, always travel for long distances, and this means that when these fish and mammals are depleted in one area, the rest of the fauna will still be affected. In this regard, it becomes clear that seas and oceans are one of the commons, which are being affected by different nations of the world, thus, depleting the resources. Another way in which the seas are depleted is by the rising the number of cruise ships, which are increasingly overburdening the seas with waste that is hard for the seas to absorb or assimilate.

The main issue with this is the fact that these cruise ships are causing massive deaths in the seas because they produce a lot of waste as they keep going. The USA, Canada and China are leading this type of pollution with their increasing number of cruise ships that take to the open sea for long periods of time, thus, spilling a lot of waste into the water. The waste produced by these nations has led to disasters in the marine life with many marine animals being reported as dying or having serious health issues caused by these wastes produced.

Q4: Triple bottom-line Triple bottom-line is a concept of accounting, which argues that firms should look at various issues when