The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”, i.e. without stripping the natural world of resources future generations would need.
All too often, development is driven by one particular need, without fully considering the wider or future impacts. We are already seeing the damage this kind of approach can cause, from large-scale financial crises caused by irresponsible banking, to changes in global climate resulting from our dependence on fossil fuel-based energy sources. The longer we pursue unsustainable development, the more frequent and severe its consequences are likely to become. Climate change is one of the hotly contested debates of our times. Studies have shown that at many places around the
Earth, climate change has already started and wreaked havoc on the surroundings. The reason behind such drastic effects is the human claim on the Earth’s resources. Human civilisations have been around for a paltry 12,000 years barely a few seconds on the geological clock. In that short amount of time, we’ve managed to create quite a ruckus, etching our dominance over Nature with our villages, towns, cities, megacities. The rapid increase of human populations has left us battling with other species for limited resources, and the unmitigated burning of fossil fuels has now created a blanket of carbon dioxide around the world, which is slowly but surely increasing the average global temperature.
The time is right to ask ourselves “Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?” If we want to undo the mess that we have made on this Earth, then we need to follow the ideas of sustainable development. Sustainable development promotes the thinking that social, environmental and economic progress, all are attainable within the limits of our Earth’s natural resources. All definitions of sustainable development require that we see the world as a system — a system that connects space; and a system that connects time. When you think of the world as a system over space, you grow to understand that air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia, and that pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of Australia.
Sustainable development constantly seeks to achieve social and economic progress in ways that will not exhaust the Earth’s finite natural resources. The needs of the world today are real and immediate, yet it’s necessary to develop ways to meet these needs that do not disregard the future. The capacity of our ecosystem is not limitless, meaning that future generations may not be able to meet their needs the way we are able to now if we continue to deplete the resources at an unforgiving pace, for growth that is unmanaged and not sustained will lead to increased poverty and decline of the environment.
If one goes deeper into the issue then at one point it will surely be realized that the increasing number of humans on Earth is the main reason behind the destruction of its resources at a rate that cannot be sustained. Therefore, population management has a major role to play before the concepts of sustainable development can truly be realised. And in a country like India, with the second largest population of the world having millions under the poverty line, sustainable development takes a back seat when the question of meeting one’s daily needs arises. No doubt, there are many issues that need to be resolved but if we want to see our progeny on this Earth, we need to take some active and urgent steps and sustainable development is the first step that needs to be taken. If we want to see our future generations progress then we must remember the words of Mr Lester R Brown, who once said:
“We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from our children."
