Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
capital). The look of the surrounding countryside is largely the product of our inter-
active social relationships with each other and the 'natural' world. Consequently,
what many sustainability practitioners argue is that as citizens we must start taking
responsibility for our actions as they impact on the wider environment, which will
necessitate moderating our behaviour and altering our ideas, predispositions and
preferences accordingly.
Human behaviour has had detrimental, and frequently dire, effects on our natural
capital and the ecosystem services upon which our economies, livelihoods and lives
depend:
•
We are using up many finite resources - minerals and fuels - which cannot be
replaced, and destroying renewable ones, like our forests and fisheries, upon
which our economy, our standard of living and our quality of life depend.
•
Many production processes create waste, much of it toxic, causing serious
pollution of rivers, land and the air we breathe. Increased CO
2
in the atmosphere,
the consequence of burning fossil fuels like coal and oil, is a cause of global
warming (the greenhouse effect), leading to unpredictable weather patterns, sea-
level rises, floods, droughts, heat waves, freezes and so on.
•
Modern methods of industrial production and technological innovation have
given rise to a new range of risks, which affect people in their everyday lives
but which cannot be fully known, understood or even anticipated. Thanks to
the depletion of the ozone layer, sunbathing is now recognized as a direct cause
of skin cancer. New 'more efficient' farming techniques have led to animal
diseases which have jumped the species barrier and bring fears over food security.
•
Species extinction and habitat destruction have relentlessly increased as economic
development has meant more roads, more towns and more material consumption.
•
Genetic modification of plants, animals and indeed of human beings exposes us
to potential future harms (and benefits) which we have little understanding of
and perhaps even less control over.
If we shift our focus on sustainability from the abstract or global to the local
level, these implications and changes may be seen, and felt, more immediately. Many
discussions of fashioning a 'sustainable society' or a 'sustainable world' are meaningless
to most people if they require understanding abstract constructions that are not
relevant in daily life or part of their practical consciousness. The locality, the village
or the urban neighbourhood is the level of social organization where the consequences
of environmental degradation are most keenly experienced and where successful
intervention is most noticeable, and there tends to be greater confidence in government
action at the local level. The combination of these factors arguably creates a climate
of understanding more conducive to the kind of long-term political mobilization
implicit in the term 'sustainable development'. Moreover, as Yanarella and Levine
(1992: 769) observe, sustainable community development may ultimately be the
most effective means of demonstrating that sustainability can be achieved on a
broader scale, precisely because it places the concept of sustainability 'in a context
within which it may be validated as a process'. By moving to the local level, the
potential for generating concrete examples of sustainable development are increased
and, as these successes become a tangible aspect of daily life, the concept of sustain-
ability will acquire the widespread legitimacy and acceptance that has thus far
