Science and Policy for Sustainable Development - Article Example

Sustainable development One of the most discussed issues of recent times has been the changes prevailing in the global environment. The environment is subjected to a lot of assaults and this is directly impacting the human lives, as both of them coexist. Loss of biodiversity, scarcity in supply of fresh water, ozone depletion and drastic changes in climate has a direct effect on human health. Adding to this, global warming has already affected many lives and poses to endanger many more in the future, if failed to act. So, it is high time that every one should understand their responsibility in creating a better environment, both for the present and future. It is necessary to understand how each action taken by the current generation bears a consequence on the environment and in turn, how the changes affect not only them but also the future generations. This aspect of caring for the present as well as future and acting accordingly only constitutes sustainable development. The article, What is Sustainable development? Goals, Indicators, Values and Practice written by Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz focuses on this aspect. This paper by reflecting on the concept of sustainable development, featured in the article, will discuss how environment is being destructed by human activities and how sustainable development approaches could avert or even minimize the destructions, and thereby protect humans themselves. According to the authors, environmental impacts are one among the four themes which has raised the collective concerns of sizable sections of the population all over the world. “In the last half of the twentieth century, four key themes emerged from the collective concerns and aspirations of the worlds peoples: peace, freedom, development, and environment.” (Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz 2005). With peace and freedom actualizing in majority of the parts of the world in the post World War and Cold war periods, only the themes of development and environment is raising collective concerns. Development is taking place due to heightened economic activity, but ironically this development is indirectly impacting the environment. That is, development is happening or visible because of the increase in industrialization as well as increase in other materialistic things like automobiles. Among the many steps that countries take for economic development, most of them lead to Greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) or particularly carbon emissions, one of the major causes of environment destruction. That is, starting from constructing new infrastructure to electrifying the infrastructure all the economic development based activities emit carbon emissions. During the construction phase, carbon dioxide is emitted by the materials used in construction. Cement, which is the primary component of concrete, is a major contributor of carbon dioxide emissions. Electrical power is one of the main needs to sustain or accelerate the economic development. For that crucial electrical power, USA is focusing on the main Carbon emitter, Coal as the primary source of electric generation. CO2 emissions from coal-fired electricity generation comprise nearly 80 percent of the total CO2 emissions produced by the generation of electricity in the United States. With Coal having the highest carbon intensity among fossil fuels, coal-fired plants have the highest output rate of CO2 per kilowatthour. (eia.doe.gov). As the current and further economic development will only lead to further emission of environment damaging carbon, environment and the people in those countries as well as in the other countries will face dangerous repercussions particularly health defects like difficulty in breathing, increase in heart attacks, cancers, etc. These dangerous repercussions, caused because of economic development, raised a lot of concerns among the policy makers and importantly among the common people, with voices calling more sustainable development. That is, they wanted economic development to be carried out in a sustainable way, without pushing the limits. As stated by the authors, Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz, the first step in sustainable direction took place in early 1980’s with the setting up of The World Commission on Environment and Development by the UN General Assembly. Chaired by then-Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland and thus earning the name the “Brundtland Commission”, this commission put forward the basic tenets of sustainable development. The Brundtland Commissions brief definition of sustainable development as the “ability 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”( Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz 2005) As a solution to this issue or how sustainable development can be carried in correlation with economic development, the authors put forward the tenets of the Johannesburg Declaration. The Declaration created “a collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development—economic development, social development and environmental protection—at local, national, regional and global levels.” (Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz 2005). That is, they viewed sustainable development as a combination of economic and social development, and importantly environment protection. So, this can be achieved with the fullest cooperation or actions of all the people of the world. Sustainable development can be viewed as a social movement—“a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals.” (Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz 2005) So, companies as well as the common people, government machineries, etc should all play their part in promoting sustainable development in all spheres. One of the steps that can reduce CO2 emissions is planning and constructing buildings which incorporate sustainable designs. To sustain an environmental friendly ecosystem, industries has to make better choices in designing structures that put into perspective the importance of the environment, even while focusing on their economic goals. These sustainable designs are mainly incorporated in waste and water management plans. Also, the energy sources for their constructions have to be made eco-friendly by going for renewable and safe energies. That is, industries as part of their management strategy should install turbines and solar panels to generate energy. Thus, with these initiatives, Industries can become Carbon neutral in the near future, so it does not contribute towards environmental destructions and at the same could carry on with the economic development. References eia.doe.gov 2000, Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States, viewed on November 19, 2010 http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html Kates, Parris and Leiserowitz 2005, What is Sustainable development? Goals, Indicators, Values and Practice, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 8-21. Read More