Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
objectives of development and growth paths that are sustainable, with
those of global environmental sustainability. Global mandatory compli-
ance to regulate environmental excesses is still a long way off. Notably,
the less powerful and disenfranchised and their 'sustainable develop-
ment' are not being considered seriously by policymakers in the global
North or South. The Millennium Goals (see Chapter 1.5), that sought to
bring about less global inequality, more social justice and better liveli-
hoods for the poor majority, have not been incorporated into contempo-
rary 'environmentalist blueprints'. Therefore, the plight of the global
South's poor majority does not feature prominently among the global
goals of contemporary sustainable development.
key
points
•
Sustainable development as a global objective is replete with ambigui-
ties, because it has to reconcile two very different growth trajectories,
short-term hard growth and long-term environmental sustainability.
•
Neoliberalism's persistence as a dominant global economic faith
prevents environmental sustainability from being pursued.
•
Globalization's many destructive and unruly tendencies have con-
tributed to the maintenance of unsustainable patterns of resource-use,
ecosystem exploitation and human impoverishment.
108
further
reading
Two complementary texts, Jennifer Elliott's
An
Introduction to Sustainable
Development
(2006)
and Peter Rogers et al.'s
An Introduction to
Sustainable Development
(2008), provide much more complete cover-
age of sustainable development's many challenges - in which the sig-
nificance of place, difference and cultural diversity are given
considerable emphasis. For example, concerns for sustainable urbanism
and sustainable rural livelihoods in an increasingly diverse global South
require dramatically different development solutions. George Monbiot's
Manifesto for a New World Order
(2004)
,
and
Heat: How to Stop the
Planet from Burning
(2007), are equally challenging 'blueprints' that
contain detailed arguments around how our unsustainable ways must
be stopped and how a sustainable future might be possible if the world
acts sooner rather than later - or most pressingly, right now.
