Sustainable Development, a Crucial Concept for the Poorest of Poor
I came across a news article about Manila by Jenny Kleeman of The Guardian titled "Manila: A megacity where the living must share with the dead" as I scrolled to research megacities. Considering this article was written in 2010, everything written still holds true to this day. I was gutted.
The world has become a complicated place. We face unprecedented environmental challenges with a soaring population of 7.2 billion people today, and still growing.
But how do we make the world both prosperous, fair, and environmentally sustainable so that our population and economy don't overrun the physical planet? How can we think through this crowded 21st century in a world of massive divisions of wealth and poverty and a world of unprecedented environmental stress?
We are talking about a complicated, interconnected set of relations of a world economy that now spans all parts of the world that connects all people, all businesses, and technologies in flows of trade, finance, ideas, advertising, and production systems, but also connects us with the physical Earth, in unprecedented ways. We must understand this complex world. We have to develop sensible goals for this interconnected planet to survive and where sustainable development plays an important role. And we have to do it now.
But what exactly is sustainable development? It is all about changing our behavior. That's the aim of why we need to educate ourselves on the climate crisis. To understand the world and, of course, to help improve the world by changing our ways.
Sustainable development is not only an analytical approach, or one that takes a holistic view of society, but also a normative or ethical approach in identifying goals for society. It is not just about you or me; it is about us.
It is about solving the problems we have created collectively, where humanity is the cause of the changing climate, changing what species survive on the planet, changing the ocean's chemistry, changing the air's safety, changing the access and availability of fresh water and so on.
It's an unprecedented situation. It's a fascinating situation.
We must have a holistic vision of what a good society should be: ideally economically prosperous, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable.
Ask. Are we even close?
Let's look again at a remarkable country, mine, from the Philippines. A great country in many ways, but crowded beyond belief—the city of Manila. You see a crowd's hustle and bustle and a dense commotion you can hardly find anywhere else.
I've experienced and lived it - it's astounding to ride in a public transport, a tricycle, or one of the buses on an incredibly crowded path.
You see thousands and thousands of people walking to and from work.
Life out on the streets. What do we see here?
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We are seeing one of the top most crowded places in the world. We are seeing an example of the incredible rise of the global population.
Imagine living in Manila where the infrastructure has completely overrun due to the population increase.
But my Philippines is not the worst. You can name more over-populated cities than you can imagine, of countries like Bangladesh, India, or China.
This overpopulation puzzle has four dimensions: economics, society, the natural environment, and government systems. We must also take a holistic view of society and focus on social inclusion, the widely shared economic well-being among different groups, and being a good steward of the natural environment because sustainable development can help us understand these complicated challenges and offer solutions.
But sustainable development is not just about theory; it's about practice. Again, about our behavior.
How do we achieve sustainable growth, especially in a low-income and crowded place for a low-income country vulnerable to climate change?
We must embrace the complexity of what is sustainable for a single country and recognize that there is no one answer for all, a straightforward formula, or even one explanation.
We must consider the economic, social, environmental, political, and cultural differences that fit together in this complicated and interconnected world.
Sustainable development is the challenge of this generation. We need to care about the well-being of our planet, our fellow human beings, and future generations.
We cannot continue on a path that fundamentally changes the Earth's climate and destroys our natural environment. We must act now and prioritize sustainable development in all areas of our lives.
The essence of sustainable development is problem-solving—to create a prosperous, fair, and environmentally sustainable world and leave a legacy for future generations.
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President and CEO at CDC Holdings, Inc.
1yWe live in an unequal world, where the lack of food and other necessities is a symptom of deeper systemic issues. Attempts to solve global environmental challenges must consider the nature and scale of human need around the world. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution, and other aspects of global environmental change are not only environmental problems; they are also economic and social ones.
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1ySustainability, however, is also about people and our survival as individuals and cultures. It is not "simply" a matter of the environment, economic justice, and development. It is, most significantly, also a question of whether and the way in which diverse groups of people will continue to endure.
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1yWe must confront the fundamental dilemmas facing the development community today. Traditional approaches and models have not resolved the problems for the vast majority of the world's population, which lives in poorer conditions today than in recent human history. While the trickle-down approaches to economic progress enrich a few and stimulate growth in "modern" economies and sectors in traditional societies, they have not served to address most people's needs; furthermore, they contributed to depleting the world's store of natural wealth, to a deterioration in the quality of our natural environment, and to enriching the wealthy. The broadening gap between rich and poor within nations and on an international scale offers stark testimony of the social inadequacies of this unfortunate model of economic development.