how can people play their role in sustainable development
Answers
Answer:
As a society, we are beginning to recognize and understand the detrimental effect of our actions on the natural environment. We are less aware how ever, of the harmful effect of those actions on each other. The term Sustainable Development has been used in many different contexts and consequently has come to represent many different ideas. Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations.
Sustainable development means that the richness of the earth’s biodiversity would be conserved for future generations by greatly slowing and, if possible, halting extinctions, habitat and ecosystem destruction, and also by not risking significant alternations of the global environment that might- by an increase in sea level or changing rainfall and vegetation patterns or increasing ultraviolet radiation – alter the opportunities available for future generations.
Origin Of The Sustainable Development:
The concept of sustainable development has been developed through the different phases of environmentalism. Basically there are three phases of environmentalism and those are discussed below:
First phase: The environment protection action has been taken by the people of Europe at the time the Industrial Revolution in 17th century, which gave rise to modern environmental pollution as it is generally understood today. The emergence of great factories and consumption of immense quantities of coal and other fossil fuels gave rise to unprecedented air pollution and the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. The first, modern environmental laws came in the form of the British Alkali Acts, passed in 1863, to regulate the deleterious air pollution (gaseous hydrochloric acid) given off by the Leblanc process, used to produce soda ash. Environmentalism grew out of the amenity movement, which was a reaction to industrialization, the growth of cities, and worsening air and water pollution. The common people took initiative for the protection of the environment.[i]
Second phase: In the United States, the beginnings of an environmental movement can be traced as far back as 1739, when Benjamin Franklin and other Philadelphia residents, citing "public rights," petitioned the Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. In US it is seen that great poets and other literary scholars protested against the environment destruction through their work. The US movement expanded in the 1800s, out of concerns for protecting the natural resources of the West, with individuals such as John Muir and Henry David Thoreau making key philosophical contributions.
Thoreau was interested in peoples' relationship with nature and studied this by living close to nature in a simple life. He published his experiences in the book Walden, which argues that people should become intimately close with nature. Muir came to believe in nature's inherent right, especially after spending time hiking in Yosemite Valley and studying both the ecology and geology. With the initiative of common people first two National Parks were established in US to save some wildlife and those were Yosemite and Yellow Stone National Park.
Third phase: then in 1960’s an incident which turned the whole situation was, spraying of DDT in the farms of America. In 1962 Silent Spring was published by American biologist Rachel Carson. The book explained in details the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the countryside farms of US and which contained large amount of chemicals, causing harm to the migratory birds that usually came to have the crops. The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife as well as to the human beings.
Then in the 1970s, the Chipko movement was formed in India; influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, (actually he was influenced by Henry David Thoreau) they set up peaceful resistance to deforestation by literally hugging trees (leading to the term "tree huggers"). Their peaceful methods of protest and slogan "ecology is permanent economy" were very influential.
International Approach Of Sustainable Development:
All these environmental movements have led to the United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, it is famously known as Stockholm Declaration. In this conference the concept of Sustainable development had given a wider interpretation. In Principle 21 of Stockholm Action Plan it is mentioned that it should be obligatory for the human being to use its natural resources in that manner by which his future generation can also avail all those resources. Individual has to play an important role for the protection of the environment. [ii]
Answer:
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development has continued to evolve as that of protecting the world's resources while its true agenda is to control the world's resources.
We can contribute to sustainable development by following ways -
- Reduce the material intensity of goods and services;
- Reduce the energy intensity of goods and services;
- Reduce [the potential for] toxic dispersion;
- Enhance material recyclability;
- Maximize sustainable use of renewable resources;
- Extend product durability
I HOPE ITS HELPFUL TO YOU.