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Module-1 Sustainability - in - Community - Development

sustainability_in_community_development

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58 views14 pages

Module-1 Sustainability - in - Community - Development

sustainability_in_community_development

Uploaded by

shashank365d
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Edited by Rhonda Phillips and Robert H. Pittman JQ Routledge Tylor 6Francs Group LONDON AND NEW YORK eee! Stephen M. Wheeler ‘The aim of this chapter is to provide some basic background on the concept of sustainability and how it may apply to both the practice and content of community development. It statts with a brief overview of the history and theory of this term, then examines its implications for a number of areas within the context of community development, There is substantial agreement in the international literature on many of these implications; however, there is no single ideal of "the sustainable community,” nor any examples of such places. Rather, there are many strategies that can potentially improve the long-term health and welfare of communities by working with local history, culture, economy, and ecology. Every existing community has some features that others can learn from as well as many challenges to be addressed. For any given place, the task for professionals is to develop creative strategies and processes that will work within the local context and with its constituencies to improve long-term human and ecological welfare i print for Survival, written by the staff of The Ecologist ‘The reasons why sustainability has become a leading theme worldwide are well known, Concerns such as climate change, resource depletion, pollution, loss of species and ecosystems, poverty, inequality, traffic inadequate and loss of community and social capital are ubiquitous. ‘These problems for example, global warming emissions are caused in part by inefficiene congestion, housing, are interrelated; cransporcation systems and land-use patterns, poorly designed and energy-intensive housing, and eco- nomic systems that do not internalize the costs of resource depletion “he fags anyone has bean ale o ell, ee term “sustainable lev ment” was Anca for che first time Conroe ema ces led by Donella Meadows (Meadows et al, 1972), and Blue~ nd pollution. magazine (Goldsmith et al. 1972). The Meadows report in particular was significant in that it used newly available computer technology co develop a “systems dynamics” model predicting fucure levels of global resources, consumption, pollution, and popu- lion, Bser_scnaio chat theta nto the model showed the global human system” crashing ‘mid-way ehROUgKthe-twenty-irseeesuicy, and so the researchers concluded that hunmancivilization was approaching the limits growth on a small But planet, This prediction was highly conerovetsia —revisiting the model in 2002, with three additioriat decades of actual dats, The Feary cometet that ies initial projections had been relatively accitace and that humanigy Ta cnvered- taco perioc of ~over- shoot arwhtetrtcis-wett beyond the planets ability Yo syst OWT TA ). Geter events ta Phe T9TOS aS Belpeeeacalyze concera about the sustainability of human develop- 340 CC ———EE =< —< mene patterns ithe fist United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Seock= holm in September, 1972, brought together researchers and policy makers from around the world to explore humanity’s firure on the planet. ‘The energy crises of 1973 and 1979 raised global con- cerns about resource depletion and broughe these concerns home to millions of Americans at the gas pump. Public attention to the need for sustainable development received further boosts in the early 19905 as a tesult of United Nations conferences, such as the “Barth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and in the early 2000s as knowledge spread abou the threat of global warming. Although for ‘mat “ars “sustainability” was dismissed as «~ Siete _Pr even enuy ica xe el ‘established tse pode in aap ame Worle Perspectives Several perspectives on sustainable development emerged early on that have chasicterized_ debates ever since (Whecler 2004)f Oe of these viewpoints is that of global ensisonmentalise which has focused on resource depletion, pollution, and species and habitat loss (Brown 1981; Blowers 1993). Some, such as the so-called “deep ecologists,” have even argued that other species should be given the same rights as humans and that human population overall is coo large and should be substantially reduced, pre- sumably through wise family planning in the long ran (Devall and Sessions 1985), = in fact directly oppos- she which juman ingen ‘will be able to conquer environmental problems, Although: above. 0 these A somewhat different set of perspectives, also CY

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