Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
economic disparity indeed has to be addressed. Growth, however, can still
be accommodated within environmental accords that make large
concessionstothedevelopingworldtoallowthemto“catchup”inindustrial
development. This has been demonstrated in the Montreal and Kyoto
Protocols, crafted with major concessions that differentiate the
commitments of the developing world and the developed countries.
It is the notion that economic development is necessarily pitted against
environmental health (Caccia, 2001) that has resulted in the exploitation of
the commons and spawned outrageous incidents of social injustice across
the globe. If growth and environmental well-being were really antipodes,
a path toward sustainable growth cannot exist. It was the Rio Conference
(UNCED, 1992) that recast this debate in a different light, proposing that
successful business expansion and healthy environmental policies can
coexist. But this can only be in the context of a more liberal definition of
sustainable growth (Crittenden et al., 2011).
The best “sustainable growth” can hope to achieve in practice is a strategy
that allows the environmental goods and services to survive in a form
somewhat close to their present state, for as long as possible into the future.
Arbitrary durations of 500 years (Hansen et al., 2007) or 1000 years
(MacKay, 2009) have been suggested in lieu of the “as long as possible”
above. Will the future generations beyond this duration then be necessarily
destined to live in a “dead” world? The expectation is that this “time
window”boughtatthecostofourenvironmental prudencecanthenbeused
to come up with lasting solutions to the impending situation, so the future
generations can still be served. Given the human innovative acumen, this is
not an unreasonable expectation.
2.1.1 Objectives in Sustainability
Environmental sustainability is a component embedded within the
overarching objective of the sustainability of civilizations. The larger goal
calls for global management of material flows and energy expenditure to
achieve equitable distribution and efficient allocation. Among its goals are
not only the preservation of the ecosystem but also the growth of the global
economy and achievement of social equity. In fact, early discussions of
overall sustainability in the post-Rio years focused more on the latter goals.
Environmental sustainability, however, is very much a key aspect of recent
discussions on the subject, and the emergence of ecological economics
