Start with the ultimatum of no compromise. We must not compromise the ability of tomorrow. Now unpack ability. We see natural resources and human capability. Then, imagine the space of tomorrow and plant those two nodes. Finally, attempt to translate the dynamical systems of today to tomorrow. Now, that is difficult. We would need to freeze time. At best, we assume very short intervals of time. But we are talking policy. We are talking decades. Sudden, we need organisational structures for incremental and reflexive action. That is expensive. The world cannot afford it. So, what have we done? We have created platitudes on sustainability. Where is the rescue?
What with the economic, environmental, and social challenges the world faces it is easy to become lost in the complexity of sustainable development. But, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them", Albert Einstein is alleged to have said. There is a "shifting the burden" archetype to our discussions: demanding superman qualities from leaders (or institutions) absolves us of responsibility for developing capabilities more broadly in (or among) ourselves. Conversely, let us not turn a blind eye to the fact that "ordinary" people work with remarkable success all over the world and contribute in sundry small (and larger) ways to sustainable development without advertising superhuman characteristics. The point is not to feel defeated or paralyzed: the world will change when we truly change our minds.
- https://www.researchgate.net/project/Understand-The-Sustainable-Development-Goals
- https://www.researchgate.net/project/Environmental-Resource-Management-2
On climate, the societal forces are strong. However, cognitive capabilities across the world are weak. So, we have a lot of platitude in the name of sustainability.
Now, go back to 1987. Find Natural Step, and Karl-Henrik Robert, motivating Brundtland report. Think of the science and the outreach. Where is that underpinning of dynamical systems? How did platitude sweep the space? So, how do we rescue sustainable development?
We don't need to rescue Sustainable Development. We need to rescue our future generations. And this can be done by focusing on Absolute, rather than Relative, Sustainability. Sustainable Development will follow along in the end.
There are a plethora of existential issues affecting people today, and the only way to mitigate/remediate/adapt to all of them at once, and not introduce new ones, is to achieve sustainability at a community scale, in an absolute sense. Once a plan is in place on what is required to be sustainable, then we can work towards it. That will threaten the idea that all development is good, and it will mean that some kinds of development will be sustainable in specific communities while not being sustainable in others.
We must start with the definitions of Sustainability, rather than rely on the descriptions provided by so many authors (hundreds exist) - we should be able to derive the units and the relationships between the units from those definitions. And those units start with quality of life and negative ecological impacts - we are trying to maximize the one while minimizing the other.
A sustainable community would have the ability to meet all of the needs of all of it's people, using only the resources and ecological services that come from the land that they are stewards of, and the skills of the population, beyond any planning horizon.
I think Sustainability has no meaning in isolation of the community setting - sustainable business, buildings, lifestyles, products, processes, projects - all of these only make sense when considering the role these play in supporting a sustainable community. Snow, for example, is a fine seasonal building material in Baker Lake, but is terrible in Death Valley. Context is critical.
It is entirely possible that sustainability requires planning at multiple community scales at once. So a city and it's supporting rural land may be a logical community scale, but it is part of a regional economy and ecology, and that is part of a provincial and national setting, too. Nested scales of sustainability... tricky, but not impossible.
Development of the country's is most precious one but it would be sustainable.
We know the problem, and we understand the consequences. It is now time we focus on the solutions which we know exist. Let's develop our own moral and ethical values first aligned with SD objectives. As per my opinion it is the key behind specific solution related with every concern within SD initiatives.
Hark back 1968. We find McNamara’s nexus (cf. paper below). His inaugural speech that year rolled out the tapestry of development. In 1972 we had the Environment Summit in Sweden. And the present thrust on climate emerged in 1987 (Brundtland and Natural Step). So, this green movement has been building and Natural Step gave it a grounding of science (dynamical systems). Yet today, the terminology (SD) seems lost in a parlance removed from that science. Therefore, we must ask, how did we lose it and how do we rescue it?
On McNamara’s nexus: Preprint Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Africa: Harking the Holonomic
Dear Colleagues and Friends from RG,
YES, more and more people agree that sustainable ecological development is a must. However, still few pro-ecological activities are undertaken to increase the possibilities of achieving fully sustainable pro-ecological economic development conducted in accordance with the green economy philosophy. In my opinion, sustainable ecological development is a must. It is a key challenge of the 21st century. In connection with the growing pollution of the environment, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the accelerating process of global warming, if humanity is interested in protecting life on Earth, maintaining biodiversity for subsequent generations, the 21st century should be the age of technology development and innovations, including ecological ones, and economic development should be implemented according to the principles of green economy, in order to achieve sustainable ecological development in the shortest possible time.
Climatologists and scientists from other fields of science, conducting research on climate change and its effects, develop long-term forecasts of these changes. These forecasts show that the continuation of the global warming process over the next few decades may lead to the thaw of permafrost at the Arctic Circle and the release of millions of tons of frozen methane. Then the global warming process will accelerate and the Antarctic meltdown will be unstoppable. The areas in which man will be able to live and live due to the melting of all glaciers and due to the drying of many areas currently covered with vegetation or used for agriculture in the tropical and subtropical zones will decrease. It is also possible to increase Earth's seismic activity, increase in volcanic eruptions. The reason may also be an increase in solar activity over a period of several dozen years, because the current solar activity is low.
The intensification of these processes in the second half of the 21st century is probably already inevitable. Is human therefore also an endangered species due to the increasingly rapid global warming process? If the average temperature at the Earth's surface by the end of the 21st century increases by another min. 3-4 degrees C is the scale of climate change, weather anomalies and climate disasters will be so large that the human species will be classified as endangered species.
However, humanity should try to slow down the process of global warming, the more that since the acceleration of the process of global warming since the nineteenth century, i.e. since the industrial revolution based on the invention of the steam engine man is responsible. The period of the next dozen or so years, especially the period up to about 2030, is the most important, key for the implementation of necessary pro-ecological reforms, including the transition of the entire energy sector to renewable energy sources. In addition, the development of electromobility, improvement of waste segregation and recycling, development of ecological agriculture, afforestation of areas degraded by industry, irrigation of drought areas, etc. are indispensable elements of pro-ecological activities that are important elements in achieving sustainable ecological development, including the transformation of classic economics in green economy.
In my opinion, since the end of the 19th century, i.e. since the end of the industrial revolution and the beginning of the second technological revolution based on electricity, the development of pro-ecological technologies has been neglected. Sustainable ecological development should be built from the 19th century and not over 100 years later. At the end of the 19th century, the first electric battery technologies were developed. The first motor vehicles, the first Ford cars were electric and instead of developing electromobility at that time, combustion engine technologies began to be developed. Military operations of the 20th century only consolidated these unfavorable trends in the development of combustion technology. And now we are starting to experience a faster and faster global warming process, which is the result of greenhouse gas emissions increasing since the 19th century. For more than 100 years, humanity has neglected the development of pro-ecological technologies, including primarily energy based on renewable energy sources. If sustainable economic development based on green economy began to develop from the nineteenth century, now the world would look completely different and in the twenty-first century there would be no serious problems related to man-made climate change.
When economics arose many years ago as a separate field of knowledge and science, the precursors of classical economics believed that in the future the world would develop in a nearly balanced way thanks to full free competition operating nationally and internationally. Unfortunately, it happened differently. Civilization development is increasingly diverging from sustainable. Therefore, the question now arises whether it is possible to return to fully sustainable ecological growth in national, international and global terms. Is the level of imbalance already so high that perhaps it is not possible to change towards the implementation of fully sustainable pro-ecological economic development?
I believe that it cannot be said that this will never be possible. Regardless of the current state of economic development in the world, the scale of environmental degradation, the progressing global warming process, the increasing diversity in the income and standard of living of citizens, many industries need to be reformed and the free development of markets on a national and international scale should be developed, and sustainable ecological principles should be implemented development to business processes. Large, supranational manufacturing, service, financial, etc. corporations, which often have a large impact on globalization processes and on the development of individual countries, should also be subordinated to these principles. Sustainable ecological development is the biggest challenge to be implemented in the 21st century. The implementation of sustainable pro-ecological development in economic processes will allow to change traditional classical economy into green economy. The most important question that arises in this matter, the key question for humanity in the 21st century: Will man manage to change traditional classical economy into a green economy before the global warming process, which is progressing faster and faster, deprives most of the land surface of life for humans and flora and fauna?
Economic development according to classical economy should be transformed into sustainable pro-ecological development according to green economy. In the context of increasingly faster climate change processes, increasing pollution of the natural environment, it is necessary to implement the principles of sustainable pro-ecological development as soon as possible in accordance with the green economy philosophy and to finance pro-ecological reforms from green finance sources. Time is short. It is not certain that humanity will completely reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. It is also not certain that if humanity succeeds, the global warming process will cease to deepen. However, implementing the principles of sustainable pro-ecological development is a necessity and the biggest challenge in the 21st century. Therefore, high economic growth should no longer be a priority, but just the implementation of sustainable development principles in line with the green economy philosophy and financing of green reforms from green finance sources. Grants should be awarded for research projects in the field of biodiversity protection. Domestic and international financing systems should be developed for the creation and implementation of pro-ecological innovations and pro-ecological reforms in many branches of modern economies, primarily in energy through the development of renewable energy sources. National and international systems for financing pro-ecological reforms in the green finance formula should be developed.
In line with the above, in my opinion, the pursuit of fully sustainable ecological development should become the greatest challenge for humanity and the # 1 development of the 21st century civilization.
Best wishes
Dariusz Prokopowicz
We need more case studies on how the climate challenge is tackled at the local level. How do different societies adapt to the challenge? What is the dynamics? Cf. Working Paper The Green Force and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Afr...
SD is a concept only but the feel is that we have to work around the resources available to us and usage of them have to be very effective and for the right purposes only.. Largely, masses have to be educated about the alarming situation prevailing around us and use of resources should be done while keeping them sustained.
Sustainable Development is not suitable Developing countries. I think it is not priority.
Perhaps the current pandemic SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (causing Covid-19 disease) and the increasing scale of the negative effects of climate change (record-high historically drought and forest fires in 2020) will increase awareness of the role, importance and need to increase the scale of sustainable, green implementation development for various economic processes in individual countries and on a global scale. It is also necessary to increase international cooperation in order to increase the scale of coordination of activities to carry out the necessary pro-ecological reforms, e.g. in energy through the development of renewable energy sources, reduction of environmental pollution, improvement of nature protection systems and other elements of sustainable, pro-ecological development carried out according to the concept of green economy / circular economy.
Regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
Abdulrahman Alkhaldi I am afraid that developing countries are too poor to act against sustainable development, actually, they should invest more into natural environment protection and renewable energies, restrict foreign concern to exploit their natural resources and stan on their very own. If not the foreign corporations with real political power can take control of these countries.
Fred Amonya I think we can teach people how to listen, act and observe and listen again, to change their methods of decision making and to make things differently - this is innovative thinking. Thinking out of the box is something that business likes a lot so, let us change approach for a decision making. We can at least try to do it, every action starts with the intention - goal why we are doing something... If we have some Sustainable Development Goal to achieve, maybe we can reach it?
Yes if there's a responsible consistent behaviour of all the earth's humans
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