Sustainable Development In The Environment

9 Pages 2364 Words

Since 1962, with the publishing of the seminal work "Silent Spring," the assumption that the environment had an infinite capacity to absorb pollutants was first shattered. The book brought together research on toxicology, ecology and epidemology to suggest that agricultural pesticides were building to catastrophic levels, and that this was linked to damage to animal species and to human health. It served as a turning point in our understanding of the interconnections between the environment, economy and social well-being.
Concerns about the environment and development are certainly not new. However, more recently the ongoing global dialogue has formed around the strategies needed to address the interrelated challenges of building healthy societies, economies, and environments. This dialogue has its roots in the gradual merging of the environmental movement and the post-World War II international development community. Over the past fifty-five years, blind optimism about the creation of a modern technological utopia has been replaced by a more realistic understanding of the forces contributing to the world's problems.


# What is Sustainable Development?

The idea of "sustainability" as we know it emerged in a series of meetings and reports during the 1970s and 1980s. Sustainable development means different things to different people, but the most frequently quoted definition is from the report "Our Common Future" also known as the Brundtland report: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In other words, it strives to make the pursuit of economic development compatible with reducing its negative impacts on our environment and our health, because by degrading natural resources future development is compromised.
Sustainable development focuses on improving the quality of life for all of the Earth's citizens wit...