Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
development' (process). There is perhaps less confusion or dispute over the former.
Indeed, Robinson (2004: 370) prefers the term 'sustainability' to 'sustainable
development', as it 'focuses attention where it should be placed, on the ability of
humans to continue to live within environmental constraints'. Married to this, and
coming from a phenomenological perspective, Stefanovic (2000) argues for more
'meditative thinking' - that is to say, more thoughts orientated towards investigating
complexity and the relations between things, engaging with values, listening to the
limits that our life-world brings forth, and recognizing that different cultures and
histories have different rhythms of development and must therefore devise different
policies. A human being, and indeed the planet, is far more than a resource. Indicators
must, and will inevitably, reflect and articulate our values, enabling us to recognize
that life is far more than being busy, accomplishing more and more concrete tasks,
or securing more and more goods. The quality of life becomes more important than
the commodities our economy produces and we consume. Human life and the
environment are not two separate entities: we are on and of the world. We must
think and act wisely.
By analysing many published definitions, institutional goals and established
indicators, measures and values as expressed in the UN Millennium Declaration,
their replacement in the SDGs or in the actions and negotiated compromises of social
movements, businesses and NGOs, Kates
et al
. (2005) show there are a number of
ways in which sustainable development may be understood. Some of the successes
of sustainable development are the grand but workable compromises that have
emerged in Rio, Kyoto and Johannesburg between competing, and sometimes
ideologically opposed, environmental, economic and social interest groups. This is
why many agreements on sustainable development necessarily include dialogue and
open, and hopefully transparent and democratic, decision-making. It is part of the
practice. Much of the power, potential and resonance of sustainable development is
therefore derived from a certain, perhaps intentional, 'creative ambiguity', allowing
people to engage in a multitude of ways and at a multitude of levels, from the local
to the truly global. The concept is therefore adaptable. It can be, and is, applied to
the planning of cities, the fashioning of a new art of living, agriculture, architecture,
construction, fishing, business, education - in fact, to every field. Sustainable develop-
ment also has a set of core guiding principles that will adapt and change as time
passes, as people discuss and as the world inevitably moves on. Dialogue and critique
must be key to such a process, although many people will inevitably find their own
ideas, assumptions and ways of living being examined, challenged and contested.
Development and modernization has undoubtedly improved diets in many parts
of the world, but the increase in meat eating and cattle rearing not only further
stresses the environment and may lead to new problems - for example, obesity
among certain more affluent groups within India - but also lead directly to increases
in greenhouse gas emissions. Ruminative animals produce a lot of methane and 7.1
gigatonnes of CO
2
per annum, or 14.5 per cent of human-induced GHG emissions,
as a consequence of their natural digestive processes (Gerber
et al
., 2013). Having
said that, Leiserowitz
et al
. (2005), in their thorough multinational study of global
attitudes towards the environment, technology, the human-nature relationship,
economic growth, income equity, consumerism and much else, concluded that in
general the global public basically supports the main tenets of sustainable development.
However, the authors certainly found many contradictions, not least in the differences
between what people say, both as individuals and as groups, and what they actually
