Sustainable Development In The Environment

9 Pages 2364 Words

hout increasing the use of natural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply them indefinitely. It requires an understanding that inaction has serious consequences and that we must find innovative ways to change institutional structures and influence individual behavior. It is about taking action, changing policy and practice at all levels, from the individual to the international.
Sustainability stems from the growing awareness of the problem of the finiteness of resources, causing a demand to "make more form less." It also is caused by the advancement of modern science, which makes it possible to implement new technologies to manipulate out situation and avoid problems in our environment.
Because there are countless instances that natural resources have to be preserved, sustainability is a very broad term that blankets a whole range of ideas from agriculture to population growth to city planning. The variety of the term "sustainablity" is a result of the term's ability to integrate, which often causes uncertainty for definition, depending on which subject and understanding the user is approaching from. The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development has identified four aspects of sustainable development: social, economic, environmental and institutional. In this paper the environmental aspect of sustainability will be of primary concern.

# Ancient Problems of Sustainability

The first problems in dealing with the environment - which one would now qualify as sustainability problems - occurred in Mesopotamia. The dangers inherent in the delicate irrigation system that was used there ultimately caused its collapse. Processes such as accretion and salination (which particularly affected the topsoil and, consequently, also the roots of crops growing there) eventually caused insurmountable difficulties. The decrease in yields could not be compensated by switching to other species of plant that were less...