Sustainable development

Dr Revika Arora
The first principle of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development states that “Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development they are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”, which highlighted the challenge to all of us to define the objectives of sustainable development and to provide scientific, technological and social tools to achieve those objectives. We do not have to look too far back to see how a society could lose its sustainability. The rise and decline of Easter Island, discovered by Polynesians around 400 A.D is an excellent example. Its population reached a peak at perhaps more than 10,000 far exceeding the capabilities of the local system. Core sampling from the island has shown deforestation, soil depletion, and erosion resulting in over population, food shortage, and ultimately the collapse of the society. Thus, the history of Easter Island indicates that the sustainability of our civilization depends on whether we can supply the rapidly increasing population with enough energy, food and chemicals simultaneously without compromising the long term health of our planet.
The role of chemistry is essential in ensuring that our next generation of chemicals, materials and energy is sustainable. Worldwide demand for environment-friendly chemical processes and products requires the development of novel and cost-effective approaches for preventing pollution. The most important goals of sustainable development are to reduce the adverse consequences of the substances that we use and generate. Foremost among the fundamental changes this calls for, is the shifting of the production of energy and carbon based chemicals from fossil fuels to renewable resources. While it is difficult to predict the exact date of depletion of fossil fuels, the transition to renewable materials should be accelerated because of the frequently and unexpectedly changing political/ economical environments resulting in limited access and rising costs. But perhaps equal significance is the need to deal with toxicities that are threatening the welfare of essentially all living things in real time. At the apex of these predicaments sits the need of the chemical enterprise to adjust to the threats of anthropogenic chemicals that disrupt the chemical signals controlling cellular development i.e. the so-called “endocrine disruptors.”
It is a challenge before chemists to develop synthetic methods that are less polluting i.e. to design clean or ‘green’ chemical transformations. Industries and scientific organizations have put clean technology as an important R & D concern. The area of chemistry which is particularly directed to achieve such goals is termed as ‘green chemistry’. Green chemistry is a central issue, in both academia and industry, with regard to chemical synthesis in the 21st century. Without this approach, industrial chemistry is not sustainable. Our health and daily life relies on man-made substances such as pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, synthetic fibres, and plastics which are produced by multistep chemical conversion of petroleum or biomass based feedstocks. Many existing chemical processes, though beneficial produce unwanted wastes along with target products and inefficient recovery of solvents causes environmental problem. Thus, the development of environmentally benign and clean synthetic technology is a goal of research and industry.
Basically, the environmental scenario of India is very wide. Ours is a highly diverse country climatically, geologically, geographically, floristically, faunistically, ethnically, linguistically, socially and economically. Environmental problems in India can be classified into two broad categories. One arises as the negative effect of the very process of development and the other arising as a result of conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. The first category has to do with the impact of efforts to achieve rapid economic growth and development. The poorly planned developmental projects are usually environmentally destructive. The second category has to do with the impact on health and integrity of our natural resources such as land, soil, water, forests, wildlife, space, etc. as a result of poverty.
We have to develop but the development has to be sustainable. The spot light should be on utilization and not on exploitation. The resources available to us are finite and there is also a limit to the growth of living organisms. Thus resources are to be used in wise manner. Sustainable development aims at utilization of resources not only by the present but also by the future generations in a manner that utilization (and not exploitation) is balanced. Utilisation of resources for development is always associated with some negative impacts. Thus efforts are to be made to contain or minimize them. The future has to be planned with visions, creativity and fantasy, including really new approaches and the exploration of the unknown.
(The author is Assistant Professor Department of Chemistry Govt. PG College for Women, Gandhi Nagar Jammu J&K)
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