United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
Introduction
As our understanding of global ecosystem functioning continues to increase, so does the knowledge and awareness that the effects of human behavior on the environment are no longer confined to localized microcosms. Humans are not only responsible for impacting the ecosystem in which they directly inhabit, but are now joined as a global community where collective, individual actions are changing planetary ecosystems. Thus, environmental policies developed at an international level to address global problems, such as climate change, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain, must cross several cultural, economic, and political boundaries – far from a simple task.
This paper will look at the process of implementing international environmental policy objectives at a local level. The primary focus will be on the formation of Agenda 21, outlined at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. More specifically, the analysis will examine the policy mechanism for implementation in local communities known as Local Agenda 21 and the role of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).
ISSUES
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio was just one of several international conferences on the environment assembled since the early 1970’s. In 1972, the United Nations conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm to address acid rain and regional pollution problems of northern Europe. This was the first international gathering to recognize environment and development issues. Other issues soon followed regarding international management of environmental resources. In 1975, the Convention on Internat...
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It was in the 70s, that environmental issues made their appearance in the global theatre and were presented as challenges. Mainly, it was during UN Conference on Human Environment in 1972, when countries decided general principles to fight environmental degradation.
Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian scientist, is said to be the father of the periodic table. In 1947 Mendeleev, while working on a textbook, began to organise the 63 elements that were known at the time in groups that displayed similar properties. Mendeleev found it difficult to classify certain alkali metals and metals, and while trying to find a way to classify them he began to notice that the properties and atomic weights of halogens and alkali metals shared similar patterns. He then began to investigate extensions of these patterns within the other elements. Mendeleev created a card for each of the known elements that sh...
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
Because of human and nonhuman connections to specific places including knowledge, experience and community, using a sense of place and permanence as a green transnational multilateral initiative could be a successful step towards green democracy and ecological citizenship. Robyn Eckersley offers the suggestion of a constitutionally entrenched principle that would enhance ecological and social responsibility: the precautionary principle. I suggest connecting localized, place-specific boundaries with the principle. This addition is meant to aid in fostering ecological citizenship, expanding the moral community, and creating a responsible society. This addition would also be meant to unite a transnational issue that all nations could agree upon. This would create a binding multilateral principle that would be thoroughly accepting of specific ecological needs and characteristics of specific places.
Four-hundred years ago, scientists began identifying substances now know as elements. They began recognising patterns in the properties as the number of know elements grew, leading to the beginning of classification schemes that would come to devise the periodic table as we know it today ("The Periodic Table", n.d.).
There is no hesitation when it comes to whether humans impact the global environment. However, it is questioned in whether human’s ecological footprint is either negatively or positively impacting. In clear perspective, humans share from both sides and their ecological footprint is noted towards whether it will benefit or harm the environment around them. Topics such as overpopulation, pollution, biomagnification, and deforestation are all human impacted and can harm the environment, but some include benefits into helping the world around us with solutions to their problems.
In an effort to create a sustainable global environment a significant area of focus needs to be on the interrelationships that contribute to this goal. As with the relationships associated with globalization our actions are interconnected with one another, one nations decisions in a particular geographical area can often times impact those in another geographical areas. The same cause and effect theory applies to environmental interrelationships. An area that this can be most prevalent...
present. By 1000 BC. Ancient civilizations used a lot of different technologies that helped eventually form the different branches of chemistry. In my discussion about the history of chemistry, I will answer four questions that are very questionable. Such as, What was society like before the discovery of chemistry? How did natural resources limit or advance chemistry? How is chemistry affecting society today? And finally, what impact does chemistry have on the future?
The history of chemistry dates back to the time of ancient history to now. Ancient civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry by 1000 BC. For example, they were extracting chemicals from plants to make medicines. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics. Chemistry is very important to our world today. Without it, we wouldn’t be near as advanced as we are. Let’s take scientists for example. The scientists at St. Jude children’s research hospital; everyday they are working to find the cure to various types of cancer by mixing different chemicals and making various compounds to somehow help all the children with the big C word today. Chemistry plays a big role in things we would never think of.
The development of environmental regimes involves a five-fold process. The first process is the agenda setting and issue definition stage, which identifies and brings attention to an issue to the international community. Secon...
Wilcock, D. A. (2013). From blank spcaes to flows of life: transforming community engagment in environmental decision-making and its implcations for localsim. Policy Studies 34:4, 455-473.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) The Declaration of Rio on Environment and Development [Online] Available at: http://www.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=78&ArticleID=1163
These differing emphases naturally point to fundamentally different solutions: slow population growth 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 influence environmental change and are among the many factors that need to be combined into credible policy debates.... ... middle of paper ... ...