Note: I gave a speech on Sustainable Development during my college days and here is the transcript.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Food has to be produced, packed, transported, sold, cooked, eaten, and disposed of. And the same has to happen every day in every city, every state, country on earth.
In this context Mahatma Gandhi rightly said
The topic that I will be discussing today is “Sustainable Development”. And I presume that you know what sustainable development means if not let me help.
Sustaining means to support or to maintain. And development means to build on. So Sustainable Development means developing or building but still maintaining a balance of course in the environment.
Sustainable Development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
It contains within it two key concepts. And it is often interpreted as mutually advancing the goals of prosperity, environment, and society.
When we think of the world as a system over space, we grow to understand that air pollution from America affects air quality in Asia and that pesticides sprayed in Argentina could harm fish stocks off the coast of Australia.
When we think of the world as a system over time, we start to realize that the decisions our grandparents made about how to farm the land continue to affect agriculture practice today. And the economic policies today will have an impact on urban poverty when today’s children are adults.
In other words, sustainable development means developing a city and using all the natural resources but yet saving the natural resources for future generations.
The guiding rules are that people must share and care for the earth. The goal of environmental sustainability is to minimize environmental degradation. Sustainable development encourages three general policy areas Economic, environmental, and social.
