There is no better example of humans’ relationship to nature than idea of sustainable development. It is imperative that we develop in a sustainable manner if we wish to live in harmony with nature. Unfortunately, we have been developing in the opposite direction. For many years the west has been able to get away with using more than their fair share of resources because the less developed nations don’t have the technology to utilize these resources for themselves. If this trend continues it poses a serious problem to global sustainability. Rapid development in nations like India and China have pushed their resource consumption levels up, closing the gap between third and first world. With such a high rate of consumption in the developed countries, there is not much room for the third world to develop without depleting our resources to unsustainable levels. The entire world cannot live the same wasteful life enjoyed by the many developed countries. If nothing is done, the south will catch up to the western level of consumption and we will no longer be able to sustain life for generations to come. After researching this issue it is apparent that the best solution is to develop the west to a level of sustainability that is universally applicable and allows the less developed nations to eventually live the same lifestyle as the west without compromising the livelihood of future generations. This essay will go on to explain how the western way of life is not a viable option for everyone to live by and how developing nations are in fact already following the path of these western nations.
The Western Ways
The alarming rate of consumption in the west does not get the attention it deserves. With 22 percent of the world’s population l...
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...ss” to sustain us for a limited time.
Conclusion
It is just a matter of time before we start to see this problem become more of a reality. Developing nations are rapidly advancing on the western level of development and in no way is it sustainable. If nothing is done there will be too many people trying to live the extravagant lifestyle of the west and not even close to enough resources to accommodate them. We must have the already developed nations reach the 6th stage of post-material society before the less developed catch up. When the less developed do finally reach the level of the west the earth will be able to sustain us all far longer than if we all lived the wasteful lives of modern day western citizens. It is far more beneficial for all mankind to allow all people to share a common level of development instead of having a double standard of living.
Look at the civilized, beautiful capital cities in every developed country all around the world which is the central of high fashioned and convenience facility. To live in the city, it seems like the nature surrounding is not important to us anymore. In “The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature” David Suzuki presents the connection between human and the nature and how we depend on the surrounding environment. However, within the past century, most of our modern technologies have been developed in order to provide people needs of goods and products (63). Many of the products we made are causing much more harm to the environment than the value that products provide. Technological development has damaged our environment to the point
As small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle, they mastered both agriculture and animal domestication. These small settled groups quickly evolved into cities and towns that encompassed the entire globe. Today the estimated population of the world is over 6.2 million people.1 As the population has grown, it has had several deleterious effects on the Earth. These include climate changes, the spread of diseases, declining food production, deforestation, and environment pollution (particularly air pollution). As people have become more conscious of these harmful effects, they have begun to devise strategies to combat this problem. Among the suggested responses include a switch to renewable energy, a call for zero population growth, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
Fewer people are becoming increasingly 'successful' and wealthy while a disproportionately larger population are also becoming even poorer. The developed nations, by systematic spoliation of the non-renewable resources of the world, are also destroying the ecosystem. Around the world, inequality is increasing, while the rest of the world is further globalising. In many cases, political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. Historically, politics and power play by the elite leaders and rulers has meant that people and their land can be controlled, which has further increased poverty and dependency.
America’s current standard of living is going to cause our demise. Consumerism is a problem throughout Americans culture since mass production began in the late nineteenth century. The obsession with consumerism has led to mindless wastes of resources, a diseased society and economic instability. Rick Wolff, a professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, states “economics of capitalism spread consumerism—now uncontrolled, ecologically harmful, and fiscally disastrous—throughout the United States”. Wolff’s viewpoint on consumerism aligns with mine. Believing that an economy based on promoting endless consumption is volatile and unsustainable. Consumerism can be analyzed and seen to be embedded by corporations and politicians.
The necessity of food has created one of the most powerful diseases in the health of today’s nation. According to the resent documentary (Silverbush 2012) it shows how obesity and hunger are closely related to one another. Obesity today has over taken what we know of most of the United States population. This phenomenon of unhealthy eating starts in children even before they start going to school. A large amount of today’s population is found living in the middle to lower class, creating complications when trying to support family’s with insufficient funds. When it becomes comes time to buy healthy foods for their family it becomes overlooked due to the high prices of fruits and vegetables. Times of scarcity lead the average American to buy cheap, unhealthy, quick and easy food products due to government subsidies. With food being an essential aspect to living it makes eating a necessity one cannot live without. Americans with low budgets are forced to buy products that are mass-produced. The high demand for food has caused a process in which food production has become degrading to the environment, the animals, the quality product itself, and the consumers. Large livestock farms create large amounts of animal waste that in turn producing noxious air emissions, water pollution, and potentially spreads risk of infections to humans. Billions of tons of polluting pesticides and fertilizers have destroyed waterways, are responsible for causing cancer, food-born illnesses and obesity, and are one of the many causes of global warming (Kallen, 2006). Many Americans are forced to go against the functional aspect of sociology and conform to eating products that are in turn dangerous for them resulting in multiple health issues. Due to t...
Still today inequality of income and power means that almost 870 million people are chronically undernourished, and more than a billion people live below the poverty line. If current growth trends continue the planetary boundaries will be reached and this will cause rapid environmental change. This will be devastating for people living in poverty who depend upon natural resources as a livelihood. It is possible to change the current trends so that every person has a social foundation and live within the planetary boundaries. I will discuss what the Anthropocene is and what ecological and environmental effects it has. I will show you how through sustainable development we can both eradicate poverty and do this within our planet’s boundaries.
For instance, within a mile where I live, there are more than seven fast food restaurants, and most of people that I know consume fast foods at least once a week. Since we all live under the same atmosphere, if the fast foods industry had negative impacts on the environment, it would affect the well- being of the whole society. For this reason, this is a topic that matters to people all around the world. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to learn more about the subject matter, so hopefully I could adjust my eating habits, and influence my friends to adjust their eating habits in order to protect the environment.
Think about this: if food were scarce and overconsumption was a problem, we would not have obese people and well-nourished people. Although hunger does in fact remain a problem in some parts of this world, and some people are in fact obese as well, does not mean that consumption is at all a problem. The problem is, again, the hearts of the human people. We have more than enough food, resources, and everything else that we need for all of the people of this world need to survive and live good lives. In the article by Mark Sagoff, Do We Consume Too Much?, Sagoff writes, “The world has the wealth and the resources to provide everyone the opportunity to live a decent life” (Sagoff). There are enough resources to provide for the entire population of this world and the problem is not overpopulation nor consumption; the problem is people and still then, we are not as bad off as people
"The science of human sustenance is inherently a social science. Neither physics nor chemistry nor even biology is adequate to understand how it has been possible for one species to reshape both its own future and the destiny of an entire planet."(Overpopulation Is Not the Problem By Erle C. Ellis Sept. 13, 2013) Modern technology gives us the opportunity to start an Environmental Revolution. This revolution consists of innovative green technology. Humanity has already taken a step toward this change implementation of solar powered energy and smart cars are only a few examples. The goal that plans to be reached are more efficient advancements of technology, smarter planning both in urban and regional areas as well as policies that support industrial
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If we follow this definition, it becomes easy to see that the vast majority of the “developed” world has not, and is not developing sustainably. The idea of sustainable development requires us to consider how our action of developing will affect other countries, and future generations. Many people believe in “the butterfly effect”, where the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of t...
Throughout history, many individuals wish to discover and explain the relationship between nature and society, however, there are many complexities relating to this relationship. The struggle to understand how nature and society are viewed and connected derives from the idea that there are many definitions of what nature is. The Oxford dictionary of Human Geography (2003), explains how nature is difficult to define because it can be used in various contexts as well as throughout different time and spaces. As a result of this, the different understandings of what nature is contributes to how the nature society relationship is shaped by different processes. In order to better understand this relation there are many theorists and philosophers
Though several people see large rapidly growing populations in developing regions as the primary culprit in environmental decline, we need to focus on the costly environmental outcomes of overconsumption among the gradually increasing populations of the developed nations. These differing emphases naturally point to fundamentally different solutions: slow population increase in less-developed nations or change destructive consumption and production patterns in the more-developed nations. This debate, however, assumes a one-step answer to the complex problems created by population pressures on the environment. Both population size and consumption ...
Humans have become a threat to our own way of life by consuming more resources than needed, blind to the consequences that we may face in the future. As of 2016 the world population is at 7.4 billion and it is estimated to be at 11.2 billion by the year 2100. However 10 billion is the maximum population that can be sustained in terms of food security, only one of the many factors to global sustainability. Due to the fact that human consumption exceeds the amount of resources available, the United Nations “recognizes that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge” in A/RES/70/1. Sustainable development is not only required to fulfill the necessities of the present but to guarantee the capability for future generations to satisfy theirs.
As a famous quote by Doug Floyd: You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note. This clearly shows that every individual has to play their own role in the society to unite the nation. Looking around the globe, we have numerous of countries of different ethnicity and tradition. Malaysia is the land of multilingual, multiracial, multicultural and multi-religious societies. However we still live in harmony without any conflicts and bloodshed. For example, Malaysia is a nation well-known for the diversity of its people. The people live together in peace under one nation despite the differences of religion, culture, language and more. In this case, it is proven that harmony in diversity is an essential ingredient to create a scrumptious