Author Note
Earth
The human relationship to nature will deteriorate in the future because people have been overexploiting natural resources. Economic development, urbanization, increased population put too much pressure on the environment, thereby leading to encroachment of natural resources to satisfy human needs (Harris & Roach, 2013). Fewer people embrace the environment and nature in the contemporary world as compared to the populations exploiting the earth's resources (Jhariya et al., 2019). Unless all humans take the call to conserve nature, the relationship between the environment and nature will worsen. People have realized that they must protect the earth and its resources because they heavily depend on it for survival (Jhariya et al., 2019). Nations are encouraging people to adopt a green economy to prevent or minimize human-environment conflicts to achieve sustainable development. Natural phenomena disrupt human life leading to deaths and property destruction. Humans are adopting measures to conserve nature and its constituents, and therefore, there will be fewer occurrences of natural disasters like draughts, flooding, and wildfires (Harris & Roach, 2013). Technological developments will help humans detect the likelihood of natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and famines. Therefore, humans prepare for the phenomena before they happen by practicing healthy coping strategies such as relocating dangerous human activities in unpopulated areas.
The earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity in a sustainable future will be appealing to human beings. Biodiversity favors the productivity of the ecosystem because all species in the new world will positively contribute to achieving sustainability (Harris & Roach, 2013). The earth will host vegetation, animals, and humans. Nature allows these species to live harmoniously and play their essential roles in the environment. In the contemporary world, people are taking measures to prevent plant and animal species from becoming extinct. Activists continue to pressurize nations to take conservation approaches such as criminalizing pouching and hunting, reducing pollution, and protecting natural endowments and forests to ensure a sustainable future (Harris & Roach, 2013; Jhariya et al., 2019). Human beings are supporting biodiversity by protecting endangered species in animal orphanages, game parks, and neighborhoods. Besides, people have been organizing themselves to clean the communities, beaches, reserves, parks, and oceans to prevent interference with natural ecosystems (Harris & Roach, 2013). These activities help to protect wildlife and marine life. Humans and their governments are putting in place restrictions to hinder overexploitation of natural resources and pollution. For example, humans are reducing the use of plastics by making it a routine to carry small bags to shopping. Human activities are helping to create a world with sustainable ecosystems and biodiversity.
Agricultural production will be highly mechanized to enable farmers to serve the high demands for food and raw materials in agriculture-based industries. Humans will invest more in green agriculture and increase plant-based diets and foods, reducing the likelihood of suffering from lifestyle diseases (Jhariya et al., 2019; Singh & Kumar, 2017). Humans have developed new ways of improving soil fertility to enhance food production throughout the year. These innovations will help to ensure high agricultural production in the future. However, humans will experience environmental problems associated with organic farming, such as eutrophication of water resources and increased pollution (Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Establishing the connection between issues such as resource management and population growth has enabled people and governments to consider investing in agricultural production while conserving the environment (Jhariya et al., 2019; Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Therefore, nations will produce a surplus to feed themselves and export to other countries with climates that are unconducive for agriculture. In the future, livestock producers will capitalize on technological ways such as such use of robots in milking and poultry farming. People in the contemporary world have become worried about the pollution of soil, air, and water, forcing them to change to environmental-friendly farming methods (Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Therefore, new farming technologies will help to improve agricultural production in a sustainable future.
The scarcity of clean water can be a threat to sustainable development. Nations continue to encourage people to conserve water resources by reducing pollution. The current measures of managing water resources include banning deforestation and reducing industrial pollution to avoid the greenhouse effect that can result in increased hot climates, thus, drying up water bodies (Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Reducing deforestation will also prevent the surface runoff from sweeping the topsoil layers into oceans. Plastic pollution in water resources is a significant concern among ecologists, environmentalists, and other stakeholders (Singh & Kumar, 2017). These foreign matters contaminate water bodies and put the lives of humans, animals, and marine species at risk. Reducing plastic consumption is a preventive pollution measure that applies to the current and future world. If humans adhere to the measures to curb climate change, people will experience fewer floods in the future. Investing in water recycling techniques will help manage water resources in the current and future worlds (Singh & Kumar, 2017). People will protect water bodies through water treatment and participation in activities that restore oceans and inland water bodies (Singh & Kumar, 2017). The current challenges related to water bodies, such as the presence of microplastics in the food chain, will teach the importance of influencing their communities to protect water resources in the future.
People have realized that exhaustible energy sources like natural gas, fossil fuels, and coal will become extinct because of the current overexploitation of these resources (Jhariya et al., 2019; Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Therefore, people are slowly switching to renewable energy sources such as tidal, solar, biomass, geothermal, wind, and hydropower. People living in the new world will capitalize on the use of renewable energy sources to ensure continuous power supply to meet household and industrial demands (Jhariya et al., 2019). These renewable sources will assist future generations in reducing the greenhouse effect and reliance on imported fossil fuels. Renewable energy will help people to maintain habitable atmospheres and climate by preventing problems related to other sources such as mining of coal and crude oil (Singh & Kumar, 2017). Changes such as the shift to renewable energy sources will enable humans to maintain healthy atmospheres and reduce pollution. Solar such as solar, wind, tidal and hydropower are readily available, and therefore, people will not have to interfere with the natural environment to tap the resources (Singh & Kumar, 2017; Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). These inexhaustible resources are ecofriendly because they do not pollute the atmosphere. Humans incur low maintenance costs because gadgets to tap inexhaustible energy, such as wind turbines and solar panels, are money-saving.
Management of solid waste is a global problem affecting humanity in the contemporary world. People continue to produce heaps of bulky and smelling wastes daily (Jhariya et al., 2019). Industries are improving their efficiencies to reduce waste production. Future waste management will focus on improving production lines' efficiency to reduce solid wastes dumped as landfills (Jhariya et al., 2019). People will also be minimizing volumes of fluid waste released to water bodies. People will capitalize on the use of robotics technology in manufacturing and processing factories (Jhariya et al., 2019). Robots will help to save lives because people there will be fewer people working in sections emitting pollutants. People in the new world will focus on capitalizing on effective waste disposal and collection methods. These techniques will help manage recyclable materials efficiently and consider converting organic substances into synthetic matter (Jhariya et al., 2019; Sridevi & Thangavel, 2015). Waste management of electronic matter will be a concern because of the increased use of electronic devices. In the new world, humans will increase biodegradable plastics to help preserve ecosystems (Jhariya et al., 2019). Other changes that are likely to occur in the future include the use of wastewaters for energy productions. This technique will reduce pollution, serve as an alternative energy source, and provide clean water for domestic use.
Humans must establish a balance between environmental and economic sustainability. People will have to overcome the barriers to reduce their inefficiencies in operations. Humans must create policies that help sustain operations during severe and unexpected events like hard economic times (Jhariya et al., 2019). Therefore, people will develop measures to tap natural capital from ecological systems. Economic policies emphasize productivity to create economic gains while addressing the environmental impacts linked to their activities (Jhariya et al., 2019). People must overcome political barriers, such as inefficient plans, policies, and monitoring systems that can hinder the tracking of progress (Singh & Kumar, 2017). Governments will assess the socio-economic and environmental impacts of development strategies to fasten the arrival of a sustainable future. Challenges to attaining global sustainability include instability such as disagreements between countries, strategy implementation problems, and political barriers that hinder the transformation of development initiatives into sustainable, lasting operations (Jhariya et al., 2019; Singh & Kumar, 2017). Social obstacles, such as population growth and migration associated with unsustainable production and consumption arrangements. Humans must choose to achieve economic sustainability at the expense of nature or creating shared (social, environmental, and economic) sustainability (Singh & Kumar, 2017).
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