Social Issues and the Environment

6.1 FROM UNSUSTAINABLE TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Until two decades ago the world looked at economic status alone as a measure of human dev e l o p m e n t . T h u s c o u n t r i e s t h a t w e r e

economically well developed and where people

were relatively richer were called advanced nations while the rest where poverty was widespread and were economically backward were

called developing countries. Most countries of

North America and Europe which had become

industrialized at an earlier stage have become

economically more advanced. They not only exploited their own natural resources rapidly but

also used the natural resources of developing

countries to grow even larger economies. Thus

the way development progressed, the rich countries got richer while the poor nations got

poorer. However, even the developed world has

begun to realise that their lives were being seriously affected by the environmental consequences of development based on economic

growth alone. This form of development did not

add to the quality of life as the environmental

conditions had begun to deteriorate.

By the 1970s most development specialists began to appreciate the fact that economic growth

alone could not bring about a better way of life

for people unless environmental conditions were

improved. Development strategies in which only

economic considerations were used, had begun

to suffer from serious environmental problems

due to air and water pollution, waste management, deforestation and a variety of other ill

effects that seriously affected peoples’ well being and health. There were also serious equity

issues between the “haves and the have nots”

in society, at the global and national levels. The

disparity in the lifestyles between the rich and

the