Environmental Engineering Reference
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and preserving environmental vitality, also keeping in mind the interests of future gen-
erations. Figure 15.3 illustrates a comparison between the progression underlying inap-
propriate development and sustainable development, as two descending and ascending
systemic spirals, respectively.
Resources required to fulill a community's luxuries are far greater than the resources
required to fulill basic needs, as Mahatma Gandhi's ubiquitous quote “Earth can pro-
vide for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed.” A distinction must also be made
between luxurious living and cultural development. Cultural development implies a posi-
tive societal development, when the community has time beyond that required for basic
survival, and the time is devoted toward art, architecture, literature, music, and other
activities involving the betterment and reinement of human intellect and skills (Vinayak
1989). A luxurious life, on the other hand, need not be sustainable, as it does not necessar-
ily imply a positive societal development. Crime, drugs, and violence are indications of an
afluent society going wrong (Mani et al. 2005).
As in basic sustainability , the link between plants and animals are essential to sustain life
on the planet (see Figure 15.2). If one looks at this interdependence, one can clearly see that
everything in this planet is interlinked and everything is cyclic. There is nothing that is
not a part of a cyclic process and nothing that is completely independent. The only thing
that should be realized is the time scale of a cycle, from cycles lasting as low as 10 −22 s, for a
boson (God particle) (Wikipedia 2013a), to cycles that last as high as 10 18 s, which is the time
taken from the “big bang” to the “big collapse” (Wikipedia 2013b). As illustrated in Figure 15.4,
the resources in nature also are part of a cycle that are expended and replenished over
e descending spiral
Inappropriate
development
Environment
Impacts
Health
Undermines
Inhibits
Development
Degrades
e ascending spiral
Sustainable
development
Makes possible
Health
Increases
Development
Improves
Environment
Sustains
FIGURE 15.3
Comparison between inappropriate development and sustainable development. (From UNEP, The State of the
Environment: Environmental Health . UN Environment Programme, Nairobi, 1986.)
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