Achieving Sustainability In Entering A New World

Dr. Forsyth implements plenty of evidence as well as proven statistics to back up his outlook on these issues. The growth of human population is happening at an exponential rate, implying that in a short period of time population growth will double. “We find it difficult to comprehend exponential growth, but it may prove to be our fatal blind spot” [3]. When analysing the world’s population over a long period of time, it took roughly 19,000 years for the world’s population to go from 5million people to 500 million people in 1500 A.D. [4] With an estimated population of 7.5 billion people [5], for a period less than 1000 years, population increased more than 1500 times its size than it was in the 1500’s. In addition, on a more minute scale of time, in 1950 the world’s population was roughly 2.5 billion people [6] in merely 50 years the world’s population has tripled. With these statics, it is evident that the world’s population is increasing at an incomprehensive rate. With populations at their peak, overconsumption is another problem this world faces, as Dr. Forsyth affirms “humans consume far more than their fair share of the Earth’s natural productivity.”[7] Due to this over consumption of resources, there is a vast demand for cheap food which results in the clear cutting of large forest to generate room for new plantations of food. When doing so, humans destroy habitats that

Sustainability is currently a global concern. In recent years scientists have publicised theories that the Earth will not be able to cope with the exponential growth of pollution and resource consumption.

Population is a major reason as to why sustainability is important. This is an argument brought up in both articles. As our population grows, we must continue to have resources and food, which is stated nicely by Weisser in “Sustainability”:

While using resources is a good thing, it is important to balance short term needs with the needs of future generations by taking care of the environment (179). By this definition, we can see that sustainability is a complex issue that requires much thought and planning in order to protect the future.

As much as we direct the environmental dialogue on fuel emissions and renewable energy, we shift focus from a topic that is mother to all of ecological issues: the earth wasn’t intended to sustain the human population as it is and definitely not as it would be according to most estimates. Although talks of curbing the population through widespread viral pandemic or mass extinction maybe a slightly radical yet efficient approach, a serious discussion on overpopulation and its ecological effects needs to be had in the near future. An article on the state of the world by Wuliam Halal and Michael Marien, titled "Global MegaCrisis: Four Scenarios, Two Perspectives," appeared in The Futurist magazine for May-June 2011. It paints an impending global crisis, a perfect storm resulting from a congruence of the problems afflicting the world today, including climate change, environmental destruction,

In order for sustainable development to be achieved, humans need to reduce their effect on the environment by consuming less in terms of resources, and living more lightly on the planet. As difficult as this may sound, there are a number of ways in which this is easily achievable. One of the most effective ways to do this is to alter the way in which we function day-to-day, and to begin to change our homes to make them more efficient in terms of resources. In addition, sustainability is not only about ensuring a future in which we can sustain our society without impacting negatively on our environment, but also but ensuring that everyone can have access to this. Therefore we must look at the triple-bottom line approach and align our movement towards sustainable development with this.

“Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations” (The Brundtland Report). Professors and intellectuals have been creating solutions, one I found interesting was an argument for creating a reserve fund for future generations through the taxation of non-renewable sources of energy put forward by professor Dieter Helm in his talk at the London School of Economics. (Helm) This method corroborates with Deborah Sik’s Payments for Environmental Services Approach (PSE) (Sik) While (PSE) and reserve fund approaches have their merits they provide incentive for monopolization and the dislocation of people that do not have property rights even if they have been using the land for generations. Deborah Sik criticizes the (PSE) system as it does not address the actual problem of unbridled growth, it merely attaches a new condition to capitalism that does nothing for the poor. Deborah Sik’s approach has merit because

For me sustainability is like a family house. Since I was a baby I have known that I have to take care of it, that I have to keep it alive, just like I have to take care of the community and its surroundings. To some extent, over the years the sole fact of its existence became something obvious, something that simply has to be present. However, simultaneously, every day, I am learning that there is always something more to do, to improve the current state. For example, just like fixing a faulty roof, lately our community improved the heating system in our neighborhood – we managed to convince the board to switch from gas-based to solar-based one. Not much later we’ve gathered enough money to build new bike lanes, then to introduce new bus line,

The old adage, “But what can I do I’m just one person?” is an easy way to deny that we all have responsibility for the care of mother earth. Whether we are an individual, a community, or a corporation, everyone must take responsibility in caring for our environment before we have nothing left to care about. Caring for the environment has three main components; economic, social and environmental. Economically, we cannot afford a large portion of the world’s population to make a living off of nonrenewable resources nor by destroying the environment to create new products, or through harmful byproducts of poor business practices. Socially, we must strive to make the entire population aware and responsible for using sustainable practices. This can be done by all individuals as well as corporations. We must also attempt to alleviate the resulting poverty of those who make a living off of destroying their surrounding environment. Lastly, we must be considerate of environmental factors. We cannot afford to destroy the rainforests, clear land for farming, overfish the seas, and pollute the air at our currently alarming rates. So, what am I doing as an individual to do my part to live a sustainable lifestyle?

I want to discuss how our modern society continues to contribute to this increase in greenhouse gases. How individual users acting independently and rationally according to their own self-interests behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource. How these resources are depleting and greener options are available and how the new sustainability advantage is a better and profitable option.

As Paul Erlich puts it, “the balanced planet is limited and limited resources are on a direct collision course with population growth.” (Sabin) Research indicates that the earth could support 50 billion people but they would survive on substance living such as “bread”. But is that living? Resources are limited, especially if there are 50 billion people roaming the earth. All that the average family could live off of and afford would in fact be bread. Mintz’ shows in ‘Sweetness and Power’ how when a thing like sugar is not readily available, it becomes wildly expensive. The same thing would occur once again in the world;

Every living being are directly or indirectly depend on natural environment. Sustainability helps to balance financial, social, and environmental factors to facilitate responsible business decision making over the immediate and long term. . Sustainability refers to meeting the needs of present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Oxford University press 1987, p.43). Sustainability is also being protective and aware of use of natural resources and development that meets the need of present and everything that is need for our survival and well being depends, directly or indirectly on our natural environment. According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sustainability is

The average human being, multiplied by the Earth’s population, would need to have about four Earths just to supply enough resources (Footprint Calculator). Thinking of people around the world, the people of the United States seem to take a lot of their life for granted. Many people when they hear of the polar ice caps melting wave it off and either don’t believe in it or believe it is not their problem. Well it is their problem and if we don’t jump on the issue soon we will not be giving our future generations much of a life. This brings me to the idea of sustainability. A simple description of the word means that what we have today we will also have tomorrow, next week, next year, or even the next lifetime. Although that is the modest version sustainability is much, much more than just that. Sustainability is derived from three main parts of the human life: environmental, social, and economic. Each being just as important as the other. Environmental is the most well-known aspect of sustainability in human life, but both social and economic take their place in keeping this Earth sustainable.

Sustainability is the aptitude to proceed with a characterized conduct for an uncertain period. Summon of the term as spread for all way of human acts and needs demonstrates that sustainability has expanded wide acknowledgment as an ached for, if wrongly comprehended, condition of being. Sustainability means taking the long haul perspectives of how our activity impact future era and verifying we don 't diminish assets of reason contamination at the rates quicker than the earth has the capacity restore them. The monetary reasonably is frequently seen

In today’s society, the environment is constantly being poorly affected by humans and their actions. Environmental issues are defined as problems that the planet’s systems face due to humans not treating the Earth properly. These issues can occur from simple actions such as someone throwing their trash on the ground, people overpopulating an area, or even someone driving their car. The importance of this essay is to address these many issues that the Earth is facing along with explaining how we can put an end to these problems.