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