Sustainability and Sustainable Development
"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
— from the World Commission on Environment and Development’s
(the Brundtland Commission) report Our Common Future
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
This is one of the big concepts or ideas in Geography at the moment and links to the Environmental and Physical nature of the subject. Sustainable means an action that can be kept going for ever, something that can continue to be done without it having damaging consequences that might limit that activity in the future. This is best considered through examples. At present the human race extracts huge amount of crude oil, which is a store of carbon from the ground. We process that crude oil so that we can extract petrol and other chemicals for plastics etc. When we do so the crude oil is gone forever, and on human time scales will not be replaced. This is an UNsustainable activity, because the resource being used in NON-RENEWABLE and our use of that material has damaging consequences - Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere and waste products such as plastic into landfill sites.
We can make the use of crude oil MORE sustainable by recycling plastics or by driving Hybrid cars this reducing the amount of petrol used, but this is still unsustainable in the long run. To be totally sustainable we would have to not use cars that run on petrol and find alternatives to using plastics - paper bags for your fruit and vegetables for example. We could also try to use more renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and tidal power.
Sustainable development leads on from the idea of sustainability. It hopes that regions and countries can continue to make products, secure an economy and make money without damaging the environment, using up non-renewable resources and damaging the planet for future generations (your kids and grand kids!).
Is this feasibly possible? Is there a conflict between meeting our needs whilst preserving the needs of future generations? Already we are living well beyond the ability of the planet to cope. You may have seen many news stories about how we are extracting too much freshwater, we have put incredible pressure on the Earth's soils, we use the ecosystem and in many cases abuse it (e.g. Tropical rainforest destruction), we have depleted fish stocks, we pollute the planet (e.g. Exxon Valdez, Carbon Dioxide emissions causing global warming), we ruin the countryside, we have extracted too much coal, oil, gas minerals etc. This does not happen evenly across the globe, some people are living more sustainable lives than others. You can calculate your ecological footprint, to see how much land area you need to sustain your lifestyle. Some of the internet calculators will even tell you how many Planet Earth's we would need if everyone lived like you!
Watch a fantastic video at footprintnetwork.org
Find out what your ecological footprint is with BOBBIE BIGFOOT (loving this site!), record this and 5 ways that you could reduce your ecological footprint.
Play it's a green life from CBBC
Find out more about sustainability from Newsround, CBBC
The World Bank Development Web site
Go to Ollie's World and join him on an adventure to explore sustainability through games and movies.
Take a minute and jot down five to ten needs that you have in your own life. Are they sustainable or not? How could you make them more sustainable?
Play Sustainable Development Games and Quizzes
Go to Planet Slayer to play games and link sustainability with global warming
Play some renewable energy games