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Sustainable Development

1. Read the following text and listen to the corresponding audio several times.

2. Call attention to PRONUNCIATION, VOCABULARY and GRAMMAR structures present in the text. 

To study Grammar and Vocabulary points, review the spotlighted

elements chosen for this lesson in the Complemento Gramatical booklet attached.

Grammar and Vocabulary booklet  (Complemento Gramatical)

Verbals Impersonal Verb forms

pp. 54-55

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

pp.51-53

Passive Voice

pp. 56-63

Online Dictionaries:

3. Complete the assigned tasks specified in the

Week 12 brochure.

The best definition of Sustainable development was presented by the report Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report):

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Sustainable development is thus the ability to meet the needs of the present while contributing to the future generations’ needs. It focuses on two goals:

  1. To improve the quality of life for all of the Earth's citizens.

  2. To stop using up the natural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply them indefinitely.

Green development is generally differentiated from sustainable development in that Green development prioritizes what its proponents consider to be environmental sustainability over economic and cultural considerations. In addition to that, sustainable development has underlying concepts: the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs. There is an additional focus on the present generations' responsibility to improve the future generations' life by restoring the previous ecosystem damage and resisting to contribute to further ecosystem damage.

Sustainable development requires action on the part of world states, governments and people. The detrimental situation of the environment, the enormous stress upon our natural resources and the huge gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, necessitate practical strategies to reverse the trends. The World Commission on Environment and Development suggested seven critical objectives for environment and development policies that follow from the concept of sustainable development:

  • Reviving growth

  • Changing the quality of growth

  • Meeting essential needs and aspirations for jobs, food, energy, water and sanitation

  • Ensuring a sustainable level of population

  • Conserving and enhancing the resource base

  • Reorienting technology and manage risk

  • Including and combining environment and economics considerations in decision-making

These recommendations are still valid; not to do things differently is dangerous and condemnable. Slow actions would be detrimental.

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