The world is entering another millennium. Amidst the situation of dramatic revolution In technology in almost every sphere of life, humankind Is probably preparing It to face the new challenges of the coming millennium. Though many challenges are yet to be Identified, their number Is not at all encouraging and It Is difficult to set priorities. 2. The most challenging is probably the population boom. Because, together with this problem comes many other problems of which none is less important.
The problems of food, shelter, health, education, Job, recreation and many other, all Increasing In dimension. Again, all these problems together are Glenn rise to another very important challenge to be overcome that is environmental hazard. 3. Though environment encompasses everything that surrounds us including ourselves, it is the humankind, which is mostly responsible for the changes that take place In environment. It Is already established that there is a direct relation between human actively and environmental change.
It Is encouraging that people have started becoming aware of the environmental situation. However. The question that remains unanswered is, “Is it too late, too It is almost certain that our way of paving is not sustainable. We are probably heading towards extinction of human and other races unless we adopt a simpler way of life. 4. This paper will address the environment In the context of ecosystem and environmental resources for human development. The logic behind the economic growth will be discussed while addressing economic development.
Later, it will discuss the relationship between two elements of the topic: the environment and the economic development. The effort will be directed in promoting a general awareness to the environmental threat inherent in any human activity with special emphasis on economic development activities. Some measures that may be undertaken in making the development sustainable and how to balance those measures will be discussed also. Aim 5. The alma of this paper Is to highlight the relationship between the economic development and environmental changes and discuss the ways to achieve Environment 6.
Components of Environment. The dictionary meaning of the term environment is the physical surroundings, conditions, circumstances, etc, in which a person lives. Another meaning is the totality of the physical conditions on the earth or a part of it, specially as affected by human activity. From these definitions, we see that the components of environment are actually everything that surrounds us including ourselves. Broadly, we can divide this into two components: physical and biological. 7. Resources of Environment.
Resources of Environment are also components of environment, but they are more specific and help in understanding the interaction between them. They are mainly of two types: natural and human. The natural resources are land, water, natural vegetation, livestock, minerals, etc. They provide a platform from where human interact with the environment. Man is the pivot element in the entire process of resource utilization for economic development. Besides, he also intervenes into the whole ecosystem. 8. Ecosystem. Ecosystem concept is fundamental to the examination of human impact on environment.
It provides a way of looking at the functional interaction between life and environment which helps us to understand the behavior of ecological system, and predict their response to human or natural environmental changes. The definition of ecosystem is given by, “an energy driven complex of a community of organisms and its controlling environment”. 2 This is the central concept in environmental science. The basic feature of all material use in ecosystem is cycling. Without cycling, ecosystem functioning would rapidly come to a halt. To understand the ecosystem certain terms are used which are discussed below: a.
Energy. To run the ecosystems some form of energy is required. This energy can current, etc. B. Biosphere. Biosphere is the zone in which life is located, in a shell around the planet. It extends from at least 0. 5 km below the floor of ocean into the atmosphere. Life has been detected up to 6. 5 km above earth’s surface. Thus, it is no more than 0 km thick. 3 It can be shown as the following diagrams: c. Exosphere. It is the biosphere together with biotic (physical) environmental life support system. D. Cycles.
Cycles that operate in the ecosystems are hydrological cycle, nitrogen cycle, oxygen cycle, carbon cycle, phosphorus cycle, etc. Artificial resources that cannot be recycled are not environment friendly. Development 9. What do We Mean by Development ? A. Old Theory. In strictly economic terms, development has traditionally meant the capacity of national economy to generate and sustain annual increases in its gross mommies product (GAP) or gross national product (GNP). B. Present Theory. Development is about improving the well being of people.
Raising living standards and improving education, health, and equality of opportunity are all essential components of economic development. Ensuring political and civil enabling development. 10. Resources for Development. The physical resources for development are land, water, plantation, livestock, minerals and other raw materials. Considerations for human resources are number of people and level of their skills. Economic Development. This is capitalistic approach. The pursuit of profit and 11. Capital accumulation brings forth development and change.
The fundamental impulse that sets of the economic growth comes from new consumers’ goods, new methods of production or transportation, new markets, and new forms of industrial organization. As a whole, we can say that the reason of economic growth is to meet increasing demand for human comfort. However, all development processes add to the environmental changes. 12. Human Influences. There are now about 6000 millions individual humans. This large population not only affects all other species with which we share exosphere, but also threatens the support systems for all of life on earth.
Most intensive agricultural activity is a deliberate attempt to modify ecosystem function for the maximum benefit of humans; while nearly all pollution is accidental as few humans actually want to foul their own nests. Many impacts occur much more quickly than the ability of natural ecosystem functioning to restore the system to a similar state to that before those impacts. This time lag in system reaction means that change is hard to reverse. Thus, all human development has an environmental cost. 13. Concept of Sustainable Development. The dynamic nature of ecosystems can cope with a certain amount of impacts.
The human existence depends upon the ability to utilities the resources that are part of ecosystem. The trick that humans must learn is to use the resources without compromising the ability of ecosystems to maintain their integrity. The definition of sustainable development is given by Borderland Commission as “development, which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need”. 6 Development economists have adopted the term sustainability in an attempt to lariat the desired balance between economic growth on the one hand and environmental preservation on the other.
Destroying this balance indiscriminately in the pursuit of short-term economic goals penalizes both present and, especially, future generations. The Nature of the Future Challenges of Environmental Hazards 14. By the middle of the next century, almost one-third of the world’s population will live in countries with a population density of more than 4007 per square kilometer. Together with economic growth, this would lead to severe environmental degradation. If the environment is not preserved then the health and productivity of environmental damage are tabulated in the next page. 5. Policies and Institutions. Without technologies and policies that can be applied at reasonable cost, environmental improvement is difficult. They are also difficult for national governments to introduce. If institutional obstacles to addressing national environmental problems are large, they are even greater for international problems such as greenhouse warming and the preservation of biodiversity. It may also be difficult to reach agreement among many different countries, each of which may receive its national interest differently. 16. Water pollution.
Access to safe water remains an urgent human need in many countries. The problem is contamination. This is compounded in some places by growing water scarcity. Each year, diarrhea alone from contaminated water kill about 2 million children. 8 Where industry, mining and the use of agricultural chemicals are expanding, rivers become contaminated with toxic chemicals and heavy metals. These pollutants are hard to remove from drinking water with standard purification facilities. Ground water aquifers do not have the self-cleansing opacity of rivers and, once polluted, are difficult and costly to clean.
