Who do you think should decide if development should go ahead?

Sustainable Development

"Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" according to Gro Harlem Brundtland in his 1987 book, "Our Common Future". It means that when we need new housing or a new road or a new hydroelectric dam, or even a new golf course, we need to consider their impact on our future and our descendants' future. Some would argue that the needs of the poor should be met before additional requirements of those who are already comfortably off. It recognises that there is a limit to how far our technology and our society can continue meet our present and future needs while we continue to increase our populations and rape and pollute our Earth.

Others would go further. For example, in "Planning for a Sustainable Environment" edited by A Blowers (1993), it gives the following definition: "To promote development that enhances the natural and built environment in ways that are compatible with:

• The requirement to conserve, even increase overall the stock of natural assets
• The need to avoid damaging the regenerative capacity of the world's natural ecosystems
• The need to achieve greater social equality
• The avoidance of passing additional costs and risks to succeeding generations

So, when a plan is proposed for new housing development to house our burgeoning population, there are a lot of things to be considered. Will it be affordable by the people who need it? Will it be near enough to there work? Will there be enough water, jobs, roads, sewers, schools, hospitals, and many other amenities that people feel they need, not just now, but in the future - for example, when they have families? Will the air be clean, or will the houses be built on contaminated land, such as estates built on naturally occurring asbestos at El Dorado Hills, California.

Once satisfied on those points, it is necessary to conduct an environmental impact assessment, which looks at the impact the development will have not just on the immediate environment, but further afield, and looks into the future. Are there any endangered species on the land? Would felling trees, say, and replacing them with houses cause there to be a lot more run-off from a hill, with consequent erosion and pollution? Where will the water come from, and is there likely to be enough during the lifetime of the estate? Will there be fire risk?

Some of the questions will differ depending on the kind of development. If it is industrial, there may be pollution both during the lifetime of the project but also afterwards. How will nuclear waste be disposed of? How will the chemicals used in mining be kept out of the groundwater? How will the land be left after extraction?

Countries and districts differ as to the breadth and depth of environmental impact assessment required, how much local people are consulted. How broad do you think they should be, or do you believe that a developer has the right to do whatever they want on their own land, and hang the consequences?

There are also differences as to who carries out the environmental impact assessment, and who should pay. Do you think that the developer who will benefit from the project should be the one to measure its impact?

The mechanisms for people to challenge the environmental impact assessment also vary. Do you think that a court of law is the appropriate place for sustainability to be judged?

Recent news stories involving Sustainable Development include:

• Officials Want to Wire Earth, Check Signs April 18 2005
• Gorbachev Calls for Global Water Treaty April 16 2005
• NGOs Say World Bank Policies Harm Forests April 14 2005

Calif. Judge Sides With Conservationists

A judge has ruled to block a plan allowing for construction of thousands of homes north of Lake Tahoe.

Please see the following message for the remaining stories.

A quote from the article Gorbachev Calls for Global Water Treaty "Mikhail Gorbachev is pressing world leaders to adopt a treaty guaranteeing clean water and sanitation for their people, a task he says is more daunting than ending the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. Dwindling water supplies and political resistance have hampered efforts to bring fresh water to poor people around the world, the former Soviet leader said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press."

I've heard it said that, in the not-too-distant future, the competition for fresh water resources will be even more fierce than the fight over energy resources and that as much as a third of the fresh water resouces in the U.S. are polluted. That said, it impresses me (and confuses me) to no end that it is Gorbachev leading this effort. Where is our American leadership?

Other examples in my Water article. There have been major disagreements between countries over the plans of one to extract water from upstream of another, or where one pollutes the water used by another. A large percentage of poor people around the world already do not have access to clean water.

The poor in this world are at greatest risk in many ways, and this is just another example. Meanwhile suburban America blythely water its lawns, fills its swimming pools and remains utterly ignorant of the plight of hundred of millions of fellow human beings. What a great, compassionate country we are!

I'm not American, but I do wonder if our modern political systems are any use for producing leaders. So often politicians seem to have to spend a lot of time just getting money to campaign with, and use information supplied by lobbyists, rather than being people who really know the issues and who have strong principles.

Socrates said that the best man for the job of leading a country is the one who doesn't want the job. I'm inclined to agree. The people who would work to improve conditions for those in the worst situations don't want the job. The people who care most about the environment don't want the job. Politicians most often seek the position for the personal power it conveys, not for the power it gives them to make things better in the world. It's a sad commentary on human nature.

Perhaps we need leaders who are not career politicians, and we need to persuade politicians to co-operate with non-profit non-government organizations which really care about the environment, or poverty, etc. Perhaps we are investing too much power in hierarchical government. Of course, the NGOs are not democratically elected. I'm not sure how it would work, but maybe if we made it clear that we wanted politicians to outsource certain responsibilities to experts who were not in it for profit, things might work better. What do you think?

It will take a lot to force politicians to give up their power. Even more to rein in the corporations that seemingly more and more control the politicians. NGO's will be only as good as their leadership. As they acquired more control, I fear their leadership would succumb to the temptations of power as well.

Maybe a lottery system would work to solve the problem of corruption. Each citizen would have an equal chance, and all would be required to train for the job before taking it. Have them work with the poor to give our leaders an understanding of the desperation the poor feel. Have them work at environmental clean-up sites to let our leaders see the extent of the devastation poor environmental policy causes. It's going to be a long haul to reach the point where human nature can be overcome or modified enough to allow true "enlightened self-interest" to guide our progress into the future.

Didn't Ancient Greece have a lottery system for voting?

I believe you're right, although I can't say for certain. It just strikes me as a sensible step to take in light of all the electoral woes we've experienced here recently.

How about inheriting wealth? Do you think that is detrimental to being a good citizen?

That's not a question for which I have a ready answer. Offhand, I'd say some limitations need to be placed on the amount of wealth that is passed along. Recognizing that wealth as the result of far more than just the efforts of the person passing it on, I can't help but feel that it would serve society as a whole much better to place some restraints on how much wealth a person has a right to inherit.

I think that we need accounting systems for our corporations that take into account the full cost of their products from cradle to grave of the project; from extraction of raw products to disposal of finished ones and every aspect in between.

I agree. We need to know the long-term effects of their actions, especially at the extraction and disposal ends of the production cycle. Clear-cut logging and mountaintop removal are a couple of the more egregious examples of disastrous actions taken by corporations to access raw materials. The results, as are now becoming evident, are affecting many people over a large area.

The recent debate over the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada exemplifies the lack of foresight that has been used up to this point in our history. It is understandable that some consequences should go unrecognized prior to undertaking production, but a system such as you suggest would allow more people to be involved in the entire decision-making process, start to finish. That could only be to our benefit. As is, with all these decisions based wholly (or nearly so) on economic factors, the cost in human terms is under-represented and, often, ignored completely.