Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
activity in progress since the Earth Summit of 1992 is insufficient to alter
alarming global developments, it says. It argues that four major agents of
change acting synergistically could drive the paradigm. Three are global
actors -- intergovernmental organisations, transnational organisations and
spiritual communities. The fourth is less tangible but is critical:
wide public
awareness of the need for change and the spread of values that underscore
quality of life, human solidarity and environmental sustainability
. As the
Global Scenario Group says:
In the critical years ahead, if destabilizing social, political and
environmental stresses are addressed, the dream of a culturally rich,
inclusive and sustainable world civilization becomes plausible. If they
are not, the nightmare of an impoverished, mean and destructive
future looms. The rapidity of the planetary transition increases the
urgency for vision and action lest we cross thresholds that irreversibly
reduce options - a climate discontinuity locking-in to unsustainable
technological choices and the loss of cultural and biological diversity.
Postponing the rectification of how we live together on this planet
could foreclose the opportunity for a Great Transition (Raskin 2002).
This is what the rest of this topic is all about.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2002). 'Measuring Australia's Progress', Catalogue 1370.0,
Commonwealth of Australia.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2003). 'Environment by Numbers' Commonwealth of
Australia.
Australian State of the Environment Committee. (2001).
Australia State of the
Environment 2001.
Independent Report to the Commonwealth Minister for the
Environment and Heritage.
CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Department of the
Environment and Heritage, Canberra.
Brundtland, G.H. (1987).
Our Common Future
. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Collignon, P. (2000). Antibiotics. In
(Eds B.
Furnass and S. Haygarth). pp. 43-47. Nature and Society Forum, Canberra.
<www.natsoc.org.au>
Collignon, P. (2002). Antibiotics, livestock feed and human health. In
Bad Bugs - People and Infectious Diseases.
Good Grub - Food
for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet
. (Ed. B. Furnass). pp. 93-95. Nature and
Society Forum, Canberra. <www.natsoc.org.au>
