Environmental risks and impacts - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 212

Figure 8.8 Economy, social needs and environment: growing importance of the environment.
metals and chemicals are increasing. The rate of extinction has shown a steep increase
in the last 30 years (Wilson, 1992).
There is an evident conflict between humans' and the ecosystem's interest, but the
scale of the problem will vary according to where the pointer of the balance rests. The
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 2013) summarizes the new
view, which is necessary to harmonize economy, social needs and ecology (Atkinson et
al., 2007; Adams & Jeanrenaud, 2008). As a summary, Figure 8.8 shows an expressive
drawing based on the publication of Adams (2006).
The optimal balance of economic, social and environmental interest is symbol-
ized by three equal rings, a situation when sustainability equally stands for economic
development, increasing human welfare and natural conservation.
Historically, to increase humans' well-being, industrial production, mining and
industrialized agriculture have been enhanced, which led to a considerable deterio-
ration of the environment, atmosphere, waters and soils. In the past, not only the
environment was deteriorating at the expense of economical increase, but also the
people: both workers and users of the environment. The cost to the environment and
humans has been too high in comparison to a squandering consumption. In addi-
tion to the present “non-equilibrium'' situation, we are burdened with many inherited
environmental problems, industrially contaminated sites, hundreds of mining sites,
polluting agriculture, legal, but risky waste disposal and illegal discharges.
In addition to the ecological off-balance, social inequality decreases and poverty
increases significantly. Environmental deterioration is closely related to social deterio-
ration in every case at local, regional and global levels.
We could start with a more or less clean slate only after a radical “spring clean-
ing'', not only at former industrial regions but also in our heads. We must change our
thinking, integrate sustainability into our attitude, actions and ethics, we need a real
new enlightenment on all walks of life. While eliminating past pollutions, we have to
improve the situation step by step as shown in Figure 8.8 from the “present'' to the
“future'' to achieve the optimal equilibrium of economy, ecology and human (social)
interest.
The apt wording, which is nowadays applied to our future task is “decoupling''
economic growth and environmental deterioration and reach the optimal rate of