Environmentalists

Environmentalists

Sustainable development is defined as the current generation consuming in such a way as to not leave the future generations in any worse environmental and social position. In my opinion, it seems as if one of the harder aspects of monitoring business and social practices with regards to the notion of sustainable development is the actual measurement of the amount of degradation being done to the environment as a result of these practices. However, an even harder aspect of monitoring such practices is the goal that is aimed for with regards to levels of consumption and degradation. Once the levels of consumption and degradation are measured, a set optimal level of each must be agreed upon or else the findings are rendered useless.

How to set these optimal levels and how to measure the physical impacts of our activities is discussed in the two articles, "Satellites Support Businesses for Sustainable Development," and "Equity, Frames, and Hierarchy." The second article discusses what it means to be fair. This is relevant for if we intend to not leave future generations in any worse shape than us, it is implied that we are being fair towards future generations. The article compares the idea of equal treatment no matter what the beginning attributes of a subject versus separate treatment of the subjects in order to achieve equal results. This is important for it guides us in our decision making process of how we should handle our environment. Should we try to consume only the interest in order to leave the environment for the future the way we got it, or should we continue to consume and innovate in order for the future generations to not have an identical environment, but an equal one?

The next question, once the previous has been answered, is how do we keep track of whether or not we are following the goal set forth above? That is what the first article