Sustainable Options
(Michael Pidwirny and Tracy Gow )

1. Introduction

Reviewing the information discussed so far in this course, one may develop the opinion that the future is quite bleak for life on planet Earth. The world is now facing exponential population growth, a growing inequality of income between the rich and poor, insufficient supplies of energy, food shortages, air and water degradation, habitat destruction, and massive species extinction. However, there is a growing consensus among scientists, resource managers, and politicians that many of the problems that we face can be solved. The solution, they believe, lies in the sustainable development of this planet.

The concept of sustainable development was first introduced in the 1987 United Nations report Our Common Future . In this report sustainable development was defined as " meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs . " Sustainable development in a typical MDC would require a much less resource consumptive lifestyle. For people in LDCs it may mean that the citizens of these countries will never be able to enjoy some some of the wasteful activities common in MDCs. Some people view sustainable development as an impossibility, and suggest that the act of development is inherently destructive on the environment. Proponents of sustainable development are convinced that it can work.

In a paper titled " Asking how much is enough " (In: State of the World 1991: A WorldWatch Institute Report on the Progress Toward a Sustainable Society , L.R. Brown et al. (eds.). W.W. Norton and Company, New York. Pp. 153-169) Alan During probed the question how much does the human population need to consume. The paper suggested that the over consumption of natural resources by humans is the primary reason for the deterioration of the global environment. During also points out that the world's 4.2 billion people who live in developing countries want the same lifestyle as individuals in MDCs. This added consumption of resources could not be supported without severe global calamities. To stop future environmental deterioration each citizen must learn to consume less, especially in the developed world. During goes on to argue that human happiness is not a function of wasteful consumption of resources and that humans can live rewarding lives with less. Economist John Stuart Mill (1857) had a similar conclusion more than a century ago when he wrote... " It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement."

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