Issues and Concerns on Environmental Sustainability - Article Example

ISSUES AND CONCERNS ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: INDIA VS IRELAND This paper aims to tackle relevant issues and concerns on environmental sustainability of India and Ireland. Also, it intends to raise recommendations and shed light to lessons which could possibly be learned from the environmental policies implemented by the two countries. India, an Asian country, ranks 101 out of the 146 countries on the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), while Ireland is on the 21st rank. (Esty) ESI ranks countries according to their ability to protect the environment based on measures as health, governance, technology, and international cooperation. There are 76 data sets integrated to fully assess the likelihood of a certain country to preserve effectively its environmental resources. These data sets include tracking natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, and its capacity to improve its environmental performance. The broad range of environmental issues being faced by each country falls into five categories: environmental systems, reducing environmental stresses, reducing human vulnerability to environmental stresses, societal and institutional capacity to respond to environmental challenges, and global stewardship. Despite of the continuous urbanization process in most countries, Ireland is maintaining its rural character. An evident decline in the rural population was observed in 1901 when the rural population fell from 72 to 43 percent. Surprisingly, the country experienced a boom in rural population growth in 1981 and 1996. This rural growth is characterized by isolated houses in the countryside or cluster of houses outside towns and villages. The expected reason for such phenomena is the obvious importance of agriculture to the livelihood of the people. However, this is not the case. The observed rural settlement growth took place at a time of stagnating agricultural economy and a turn down in agricultural employment. Studies were able to establish that there is a strong relationship between changes in rural settlement and the trends in car ownership. There was a 140 percent increase in car ownership in Ireland between 1970 and 1994. Presently, the country is experiencing 5 percent annual growth in car ownership. Due to this, people are more capable to choose residence in one place and be employed in another; they become the so called commuters. (McGrath) The growth of rural settlements and the increase in the working population whose residences are situated in a place far from work, give way to the issue of car dependency. The majority of the rural population being car dependent contributes to certain environmental problems whose scopes are wider and whose effects transcends beyond the communities of the involved people. The issue of motor car dependency, therefore, is being linked as the main reason to more serious environmental issues. The motor car is tagged as environmentally unsustainable and less efficient mode of everyday transport. A car consumes twice much energy as a train and five times greater than a bus. Aside from this, it is a main contributor to air pollution, a problem which is of great global concern nowadays. A motor car's carbon dioxide emission, measured as grams per passenger kilometer, is 50 percent higher than a train and four times higher when the bus is the mode of transportation. The bottom line, Ireland, its people being dependent on private cars for personal travels is relatively unsustainable on transport related environmental grounds because of the per capita levels of energy consumptions and vehicle emissions (McGrath). Such is the main findings of the Dublin study. Luckily, the current state of our Science and Technology is far advanced from what we can and what we have in the past. Right now, innovations and discoveries are becoming a usual part in this fast-pace world. Ireland's mode of transportation has a lot of potential of being modified and improved so as to avoid the further risk of subjecting the environment into degradation. If Ireland should be concerned on its being dependent to motor cars as their means of transportation, India on the other hand is mainly concern on its fast booming population - that is, how many people can be squeezed in a limited area without compromising a healthy and productive lifestyle. India is on a fast road of high population growth rate, despite the fact that is land is only 2 percent of the world's land area. It accommodates 16 percent of the world's population. India embarks on its quest to stabilizing its population. In 1970, policies which include voluntary sterilization component were implemented. However, these policies earned negative feedbacks, leading to some democratic crisis in the country. At the 1994 International Conference of Population and Development held in Cairo, there had an affirmation for the adoption of a voluntary program aimed to educate women, and supports access to contraception. In 2000, a National Population Policy was adopted too - this promotes the use of contraceptives among couples, to improve women's health as well as the health of the children in the family. Still, this did not pass to the perspectives of many. When the issue is environmental development, all other things like technology, will be in vain if there will be no strong implementation of policies. And this is an aspect that needs to be addressed by the government of India - the need for an effective environmental governance program. India's improving economy leads to a higher demand for a better environmental quality from the growing urban communities. Despite that democracy is well practiced in the country, holding regular elections being a proof to this, India is unable to establish widespread mechanisms for public participation. Factors such as poverty, distance barriers, language differences, poor literacy, and other social factors, prevents many group of people from taking part in environmental endeavors. Sadly, corruption also hinders the realization of goals which aim to support environmental sustainability in a country like India. There is no way that the implementations of environmental policies will be successful if it lacks public participation. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an instrument on environmental policy which aims to analyze the impacts of actions taken towards the environment. It holds the belief that local people knows best what their own needs are and understand well the impact of environmental degradation to their own lives - that is public participation defined. India is prepared to adopt such policy, democracy being already a part of its culture. Another weakness in Indian environmental policies is its failure to address other issues such as forest degradation and waste disposal. Another is that it is incapable of enforcing policies through its government institutions. Litigation becomes the primary means of enforcement. Imposing social pressures also become an alternative in implementing environmental policies, making use of negative media coverage or direct community action. ( Goffman) While there are multiple issues and endless concerns of environmental sustainability, it is appreciating to know that from this aspect where some countries fail, lessons are waiting to be learned and afterwards systems could be adopted and existing policies can then be implemented effectively. For example, the issue of car dependency of Ireland, can be of help to other countries in realizing that technologies should not put into compromise the fate of our environment and globalization must not lower environmental standards. Also, it is worth taking note that the existence of rural communities situated far from urban areas where most employments and industries are located is another cause of environmental sustainability. A study entitled " Sustainable Urban Forms :Their Typologies, Models, and Concepts by Yosef Rafeq Jabareen" successfully identified four types of urban forms capable of being sustainable. This includes the neotraditional development, the urban containment, the compact city, and the eco-city. A compact city is characterized by high density and heavy compactness. Compactness of urban space, according to studies, contributes to the minimizing of energy expended for transportation, lowers water consumption, and contributes less to pollution levels. The eco-city on the other hand is characterized by urban greening, diversity in both culture and ecology, and passive solar design. Neotraditional development emphasizes sustainable transportation, diversity, compactness, mixed land uses, and greening. It focuses much on style and design coding. Urban containment is focused on the emphasis of compactness policies. (Jabareen) The concerns of sustainability gave way to the rising of questions regarding the contributions of different urban forms in preserving the environment such as lowering energy consumption and lowering pollution levels. Thankfully, the state of our technology is well advanced and so our mode of transportation and most importantly our source of energy must not be confined. Technologies are available so that we could reduce, if not totally eliminate pollution. An example is the utilization of wind and solar power, biofuels and even catching rain in order to recycle water. Most importantly, each country must learn the effective identification of agencies and institutions that will be responsible in encouraging the use of these kinds of technologies. (Goffman) Many environmental problems are believed to originate in ineffective governance and institutional failures. Environmental management needs to address adequate property and users rights, sufficient information and opportunities for local stakeholders to take part in decision making, and strong monitoring and enforcements of standards. Governments must struggle to develop fair at the same time effective systems in managing global resources such as the recent issue of climate change. Environmental problems such as deforestation, overgrazing and overfishing should also be addressed by implementing effective and practical policies where the environment and the people will both benefit. The government must help local people to have the capabilities of managing the environmental resources where their livelihoods depend. Studies also found out that strengthening the women sector of the community has a positive impact to effective governance since women are more dependent to environmental sources for their livelihood. The government must make effort in making environmental sustainability as a crucial part of all sector policies and that it should be considered in policy making. More scientific advices and knowledge is an assurance that the environmental needs of a certain country is well understood, thereby giving it the ability to address issues on environmental sustainability in more effective ways. One way of doing so is by encouraging economic analysts to let their findings reach the sectors of government involve in policy making. It is also suggested that sector policies be assessed, whether they are indeed effective or if some improvements are needed. National frameworks, such as strategies for sustainable development should guide the making of policies that best address the country's specific resources, needs, and concerns. Each year India adds more people to the world's population than any other country. In 1997, there were almost as many babies born in India, about 25 million, as in all of Sub-Saharan Africa and more than in China, about 21 million (Adlakha). How is population relevant to environmental sustainability It is an obvious fact that population is a key factor in environmental degradation. More people means higher needs for food consumption, a higher need for land area, and at the end a greater increase in waste production. Nevertheless, given the right mix of technology and policy, India can do much to offset the impact of its growing population. Scientific studies of the natural world are of great value in understanding the real state of our environment. And because a great amount of environmental issues and concerns remain a puzzle and stays unknown to researchers, the effort must carry on. In terms of technology, since not all technological inventions are doing well to our environment, people must be open-minded in embracing technological changes, in the mode of transportation for example, and the needed support for these changes must be imparted by us. In terms of population factors, there is the need for everyone to be fully aware of the grave consequences if a country's population is growing in a high rate and its resources is unable to provide for the people's needs. One obvious problem caused by overpopulation is the age old poverty in economy among many nations. There is the global concern of addressing the natural resource scarcity for many of the world's poor countries. Environmentalists, economists, and world leaders, need to see that there is this link between environmental problems and extreme poverty. In poor rural areas, concerns of high infant mortality, high fertility, and high population growth lead to extensive forest degradation. Environmental degradation, on the other hand, is magnified due to poverty. Peasants cut down trees, and clear out forests for firewood and new farmlands in order to meet their needs for food. Therefore, countries could implement policies which will reduce child mortality rate thereby lowering population growth and extensive deforestation. The end result will be the protection of the world's nonrenewable natural resources. However, as of the moment, there is no single system capable of tracking the continuous ability of our ecosystems to produce the goods and services we are doing well to our environment re greatly in need of. The need for a reliable forecast and environmental data regarding human-induced environmental changes is valuable for policy makers to be responsive to the arising needs of each country's environment. We need to think that the world is not our own, if we will do so, we will feel obliged to take care of it while we are temporarily making it our home. And that each country cannot exist without being connected to other nations, each community will not survive without associating with other societies, and every individual is connected to a hoop that never endsand the environment makes possible the continued existence of every living species. Thereby, it is but right to contribute, initiate, make a difference, support, implement, createthere are just too many things we can do to attain environmental sustainability. The choice is ours to make. References: 1. Adlakha, Arjun. "International Brief, Population Trends: India". April 1997 2. Goffman, Ethan. Discovery Guide. "India and the Path to Environmental Sustainability". 2008 3. Esty, Daniel C., Marc Levy, Tanja Srebotnjak, and Alexander de Sherbinin (2005). 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index: Benchmarking National Environmental Stewardship. New Haven: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. 4. McGrath, Brendan. "The sustainability of a car dependent settlement pattern: an evaluation of new rural settlement in Ireland". The Environmentalist 19, 99,107. 1999. 5. Jabareen, Yosef Rafeq. "Sustainable Urban Forms: Their typologies, Models, and Concepts. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 2006 Read More