Environmental unsustainability: characteristics & lessons

One of the most disturbing news that has been making the rounds globally—and particularly in the world of science—is that, based on scientific evidence, mankind is living unsustainably; also, this generation is the only one to have lived at such a high degree of unsustainability. There has been an accelerating rate of waste generation and depletion of natural resources—especially non-renewable ones. The term that best describes the negative impact caused by a combination of these activities and other related ones is known as “environmental degradation” or “natural capital degradation”.
Over the past few decades, information gathered from different parts of the world has revealed that—amongst other negative impacts—a lot of soils are eroding, the sizes of many forests are drastically reducing, and nutrients in farmlands are not replenishing fast enough. Coupled with these impacts are the increases in global warming, melting of ice, rising sea levels, forest fires, droughts and floods. Furthermore, in many parts of the world, rivers are not yielding as much water as they used to, and populations of various species of fish and other types of animals are becoming extinct at a rate that’s about a hundred times faster than it was before the age of “homo sapiens” (the species to which modern man belongs).
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These incidences rose to such an extent that in the year 2000, the UN (United Nations) Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan, called for an assessment (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment: MEA) of the impact of human activities on the environment. The assessment was formally launched in 2001 and conducted within 4 years by 1,360 experts from 95 countries. At the end of the assessment (2005), the UN published a report which revealed that human activities had degraded about 60% of the Earth’s natural services, especially within 50 years prior to 2005 (i.e., between 1955 to 2005).
Many statements attributed to UN and scientists worldwide have acknowledged that human activities are straining the natural functioning of the Earth, and the ability of the Earth’s ecosystems to sustain future generations is under serious threat. At the same time, UN and scientists also acknowledged that mankind has the knowledge/technologies to conserve natural resources and prevent further degradation of the Earth’s natural capital (resources).
Lessons learnt from cases of environmental unsustainability
- Most people don’t have any intention to degrade their environments.
- Most people have degraded their environments without realizing it.
- As human populations are increasing in number, everybody has been looking for ways to satisfy their needs by using more resources; in so doing, people have increased the amount of waste littered in the environment.
- Environmental problems are still prominent in countries and societies where leaders have done their best to conserve natural resources by maintaining and expanding their economies.
- Some parts/regions of the world have achieved high standards of living, sound economic growth, and provided more goods and services for their citizens. However, there has been lack of enforcement of regulations or policies that could prevent waste of natural and man-made resources, pollution, and environmental degradation.
The UN classifies countries into “more developed countries”, or “less developed countries”, and does so on the basis of each country’s respective average income per person. The United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and most European countries are more developed and generate high income. On the other hand, many other nations (in which 81% of the world’s population live) are classified as less-developed; they include countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Another category not previously mentioned is the “middle-income” (i.e., not more developed, and not less developed) or “moderately-developed countries”; some of them include China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, and Mexico. According to information from UN and World Bank data, the “more-developed countries” (which have about 19% of the world’s population) use about 88% of all the Earth’s resources and produce about 75% of the world’s pollution and waste.
Generally, information from UN points to at least two things:
- A country could be more developed but environmentally unsustainable because of its ineffectiveness in combating factors that cause environmental degradation.
- A country could be “less developed” or “moderately developed”, but still be environmentally sustainable if it effectively combats factors that cause environmental degradation.
Nice one
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Thanks a lot for visiting, reading and leaving an encouraging comment.
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Unfortunately greed, power & politics will continue to destroy our world unless there’s radical changes made to the global economy & our consumption levels.
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Very informative post! Thanks for sharing 😊
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Your welcome, and thanks a lot for reading and making an insightful comment
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Ash, I agree with you. the deep wounds of unsustainability are the result of all the things you highlighted, and probably more: greed (wanting too much, even when too much of it is unnecessary), intoxication of power (especially after making useless promises to citizens), and politics (inexperience or otherwise), etc.
Thanks for adding some flair to the article.
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Very well written Godwin. Informative and thought-provoking as well
My great grandmother as we are told now in her times used to consume a minimal amount of water wherever possible as she uses to say that we(humans) will have to pay the price in future. today I wonder when she at a time when climate change, icebergs melting, all this wasn’t an issue, could think of so much ahead, then what has made us so insensitive today? it’s really sad that humans who call themselves so civilized do the most uncivilized things…
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Hi Himani.
Thanks so much for reading and leaving behind an encouraging remark that is so motivating.
It’s surprising that probably decades ago, your great grandmother had such vision and insight that cant be seen by many people in our present era/age, except when catastrophe is around the corner as it seems to be now with environmental degradation, global warming et al looming. It’s even more surprising when these issues were not so prevalent during her time, but she still had that perception.
Its sad to see how things are today,especially when so-called civilized people do things that domestic animals, or even some wild animals, might not even think about doing.
Thanks once again, and happy blogging.
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Very interesting, I learned a lot
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Nice to hear that. thanks for not only visiting and reading, but leaving an positive comment.
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Take a look at the article on Greenland melting. It’s up today on my FB wall if you want to friend me; Lisa (Roskam) Townsend. Devastating.
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ok. I will check out the article, and also send a friend request from “Godwin T. Ihagh”. thanks for reading
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I sent you a friend request. I post environment stuff often on FB and Twitter. @townslis on twitter
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so you post on environment as well. thanks alot. I will accept the friend request on Facebook and follow you on Twitter
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You are so right, this generation generates more waste and pays less attention to the environment, I keep on hoping that they will wake up
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I also hope and pray for God to assist the world to remove itself from the deplorable environmental conditions that especially present generations have pushed the world into. thanks for the comment.
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Informative… I wonder when the world will be full of plastics where will we live…
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😀😀😀… funny, but brilliant observation… If everybody can think or reason this way, our world will be on the way to solving the problem because this reasoning would make everyone aware that consistent pollution of environment with plastics could make everybody and a every animal homeless or fully exposed to pollution in the future …
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Reblogged this on The End of Poverty: Together, We CAN Do It!.
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👍👍👍…Craig, thanks a lot for appreciating the article and reblogging for a larger audience—deeply appreciated
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Great post. If we don’t change our way of living and of course thinking, the situation will get worse. We must consume less
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agreed… you’ve made a very striking point which is just the obvious truth: if we don’t change, the inevitable will happen
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Godwin, thank you for sharing this discussion. The researched statistics bear witness to the magnitude of how our ecosystems are struggling to maintain a sense of order and preservation.
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thanks for such a great and unique observation 👍…the stats are bold in informing mankind about the difficulty the natural ecosystem is facing in remaining natural
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Love it
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thanks… I deeply appreciate your your inspiring words
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Hey There. I found your blog using msn. This is a very well written article. I will make sure to bookmark it and come back to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I’ll certainly return.
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you’re welcome…thanks for reading
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