Your Questions About Green Living

The Expert answers:

The benefits are mostly for us, human beings. People benefit most from developing sustainable urban environments.

An urban environment is a challenge to natural limits–lighting for the night, water piped into the desert, reinforced concrete to withstand earthquakes.

Specific benefits–

“Sustainable” means being able to carry on business-as-usual for a long time. I think it means keeping our high and relatively wasteful (compared to the rest of the world) standard of living.

That’s a cynical view.

An optimist would say that we are keeping human civilization going. I believe this also.

Without reliable supplies of fresh drinkable water, non-smoggy air, 24×7 electricity at your fingertips, fully-stocked grocery stores and jobs, how long would your city be livable?

If you want the tree-huggy answer, the “environment” benefits from having less human-caused pollution. Clean air, clean water, less soil erosion, more animal species are able to live, more open space for non-human animals to use. But relaly, we humans are the ones who benefit most from these.

It’s not about saving the planet. It’s about saving ourselves and our own environment! Not sh*tting where you eat, sleep and live.

The Expert answers:

I think I can answer this question with an example…

Developing countries almost always need infrastructure – say for instance schools.

So if you are a volunteer, or charitable organization trying to bring development to these countries by establishing a school, you cannot just give money and help build a school building, equip it with necessary supplies and call it good.

The school has to be sustainable, means continue to operate even after you are gone from the picture. You will have to ensure there is a system through which the school supplies are ensured, bldg is maintained and teachers are paid. Above all, almost always you will need to build a system where parents are made aware of the importance of an education for their children and should be willing to send their kids to school rather than to work for a day’s labor.

Many teachers in rural Indian schools end up going to their students houses and making sure their parents are allowing the kids plenty of time to study and do homeworks after school, sometimes even to make sure that students are not absent from school only to go work in the fields with their parents.

Hope this helps.

The Expert answers:

More taxation versus growth and job creation… All while trying to maintain and improve the welfare system. Taxes are decreasing competitiveness by scaring away companies and investors. In the future there are going to be too many old people and not enough people to take care of them. There are also too many people healthy enough to work, that aren’t working.

Denmark

The Expert answers:

Development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs

Efficient use of natural resources, efficient waste management so rivers and the air isn’t polluted, development and integration of renewable energy sources in our societies…are a few ideas…

The Expert answers:

Sustainable development is what countries strive for: It is economic growth and development, without compromising the environment.