What Is Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development to me means that development of the earth and society are kept balanced with regards to the use and replenishing of non-renewable/renewable resources. By this occurring, future generations will have the opportunity to use these resources to meet their own needs. Resources need to be used for everything as it is basically impossible to create a product without relying on a resource present on this planet. The key concept to this though is to being able to make sure that the resource used is accounted for and/or used in a way that can maximize the lifespan of it. An example of this is the use of trees for creating plywood that would be used for building construction. The organization/company responsible for the use of the natural resource should be held accountable to make sure that the portion that they used would be replenished. So, the company would plant trees in order to sustain the amount they used for the creation of the plywood. By doing this, sustainable development would occur. What is used is replaced so that future generations can have the opportunity to use it and continue the cycle.
If this actually was the case and everything that was used was taken in account for and made sure to be replaced back into the earth, everything would run remarkably smooth. There would never be a shortage of a renewable resource, a non-renewable resources existence would be maximized and made to last as long as possible, and technology as a whole would develop and evolve. The world would advance readily and develop for future generations while maintaining a balance of the resources used.
To me, this scenario seems farfetched. Companies and corporations as a whole do not follow the term “sustainable development”. The majority are looking at making the most profit by doing as little as possible. A good example of this is major oil companies, whom make many promises that they will do many great things for the areas in which they work in and the communities that surround these areas. Millions and millions of dollars are spent this way, which is good and helps out the communities greatly. However, this is “sugar-coating” the actual reality of the situation. They are not seeing the whole picture. Oil production has hit peak oil, which is where production has exceeded known reserves found. This should set off an alarm and make the companies reevaluate their protocols. By seeing this startling reality, I feel that these oil giants should maybe reflect more on how they can minimize the need of oil and try to research and find a different resource that could be used in place of oil. By doing this, the future of their company would be more secure as well as oil production would be slowed down which would make the resource last a lot longer for future generations. All the blame cannot be put on the companies however. It is a large cycle that revolves around the supply and demand of oil. Many companies are dependent on oil for their products to work or be made. Society in general is taking this non-renewable resource for all it has to offer and is not slowing down and re-evaluating what can happen once all of this resource has been used up.
This blog post has ended up to be revolving largely around oil and oil production. I didn’t really intend to finish it like that, however I feel that the use of oil is a major concern and needs to be changed. Society, government as well as oil companies should look at ways in order to minimize the need for this resource. It is a non-renewable resource and at the rate it is being extracted and consumed is not following my idea of sustainable development. If this does not get re-evaluated, future generations will not have the opportunity to use this resource to further better themselves and advance technologically within their own generation.
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