DB2 ESS- Assignment 1

DB2 ESS- Assignment 1

Introduction

The environment has, in recent decades, attracted greater attention and interest across the globe. Since the 60s, environmental degradation and its relation to the style of economic growth were already the object of study and international concern. In the 70s and 80s, with environmental disasters of Bhopal (spill in a pesticide factory) and Chernobyl (nuclear reactor explosion in the former Soviet Union), there was an increasing awareness in the European countries as well as the United States on environmental and social sustainability. Also, according to (Ropke, 2005), environmental issues of the 80s became a focus of great interest in the face of ecological disasters, turning into a part of our everyday apocalyptic predictions. Without these first two aspects, the environmental issue could hardly have a better routing for your understanding and attempted solutions. This improved knowledge of environmental issues that we have today is the result of several scientific studies over time and the growth of environmental awareness.

Discussion

Environmental and social sustainability issues are complex and, therefore, require a holistic and systemic approach. It is necessary that the perception of the whole is used, that identifies changes in the design of linear cause-effect, to see the causes, their relationships and their interrelationships (Ropke, 2005, p. 264). This linear design is explained as being the result of the division of areas of knowledge and its consequent specializations which, when made, cause a loss of much of reality. It becomes necessary, therefore, to understand the complexity of environmental issues, and recognize that there will be no acceptable technical solution without solving the political and social problems associated with it (Clark, 2007, p. 1737).

A majority of the impact on the environment are attributed to the industrial development that took place in the last centuries. The Earth is 4.6 billion years. During the last fractions of a second geological history of our planet, Homo sapiens industrial interfered with natural cycles that led millions to billions of years interacting dynamically to form the current living conditions to which we have adapted (Clark, 2007, p. 1737). Such human interventions have often translated into problems like species extinction, climate change, pollution, resource exhaustion useful to man and other issues that we are now quite familiar.

In summary, the use of the environment by man occurs through three basic functions: as a supplier of resources, supplier of goods and services and how waste assimilation. The appropriation of natural resources stemming from the environment gives to man the materials and energy needed to produce goods and services used for the maintenance and development of life (Clark, 2007, p. 1737). Besides the traditional classification of natural resources, there is another proposition that identifies four categories: hardly renewable assets (such as the elimination of a natural forest), inexhaustible goods (as with radioactive minerals used in thermonuclear energy generation), recyclable goods, and permanent assets (fundamental to life, such as air and water).

Historically, natural resources were in the service of human beings to meet their needs, which in turn generated an increase in production, in the sense of ...