Opportunities and Challenges for Environmental Sustainability: A Socioeconomic and Political Analysis

Abstract

The instrumental value of biodiversity has been the cornerstone of major debates over its loss, which, without doubt, will negatively impact our environment by either reducing or doing away with ecosystems services that most of us relish, so much so that our well-being depends on it. Nevertheless, all living things on this planet have been subject to an unprecedented assault at the hand of humanity. The assault is both direct and indirect. Direct because we drive vulnerable species to the brink of extinction by overhunting and overfishing them. Indirect because some of our activities causes the climate to change, thus affecting both land and marine flora and fauna. And this has been going on for centuries – at least since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Added to our insatiable desire to continuously alter the environment, is population growth, which has been a catalyst in the degradation of the environment for more people means more food, thus, more land for agricultural use and more land needed for accommodation and to build cities. The past century was marked by population size increase and technological capabilities of our species, two factors that put the extinction of other species on the fast track. That has prompted scientists to talk about the sixth great extinction wave, which is, of course, different from the first five because they were caused by natural events and not by intelligent species’ activities. This report has for goal to consider the chances that our environment will be sustainable or viable in the future and the potential obstacles it might encounter at three different levels: social, economic, and political.