ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS AND

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The Contemporary World
Jan Lorenzo G. Alegado
 Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. Discuss the origins and manifestations of global environment
crises;
2. Relate everyday encounters with pollution, global warming,
desertification, ozone depletion, and many others with a
larger picture of environment degradation, and;
3. Examine the policies and programs of governments around
the world that address the environment crisis.
Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World
 The World’s Leading Environmental Problems

According to the Conserve Energy Future website:

1. Land and water pollution caused by industrial and transportation toxins
and plastic;
2. Changes in global weather patterns;
3. Overpopulation;
4. Exhaustion of world’s natural non-renewable resources;
5. Waste disposal catastrophe;
6. Destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 The World’s Leading Environmental Problems

7. Reduction of oxygen and the increase in carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere;
8. Depletion of the ozone layer;
9. Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion;
10.Urban sprawls that continue to expand;
11. Pandemics and other threats to public health; and
12.Radical alteration of food systems.
Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World
 Human-made Pollution

▪ Humans exacerbate other natural environmental problems.

▪ WHO (2014) declared Riyadh (in Saudi Arabia) as one of the most
polluted cities in the world.
▪ Greenpeace India reported that in 2015, air pollution in the country was
at its worst.
▪ WHO warned that the exposure of Nigeria’s population (at 94%) to air
pollution has reached a dangerous level.
▪ Aerosol is tagged as the culprit in changing rainfall patterns in Asia and
the Atlantic Ocean.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 Human-made Pollution

▪ According to Scientific American (2016), pollution contributes to more

than half a million premature deaths each year at the cost of hundreds of
billions of dollars.
▪ The International Agency for Research on Cancer blamed air pollution for
223,000 lung cancer deaths in 2010.
▪ It has been the poor who are the most severely affected by these
environmental problems.
▪ In Metro Manila, 37% (4 million people) of the population live in slum
communities, areas where the effects of urban environmental problems
and threats of climate change are also most pronounced.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 Catching-Up

▪ These massive environmental problems are difficult to resolve because

governments believe that for their countries to become fully developed,
they must be industrialized, urbanized, and inhabited by a robust middle
class with access to the best of modern amenities.
▪ In the desire to develop and improve the standard of living of their
citizens, countries like China, India, and Indonesia will opt for the goals
of economic growth and cheap energy.
▪ How is environmental sustainability ensured while simultaneously
addressing the development of poor countries.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 Climate Change

▪ Governments have their own environmental problems to deal

with, but these states’ ecological concerns become worldwide
due to global warming, which transcends national boundaries.
▪ The greenhouse effect is responsible for recurring heat waves
and long droughts in certain places, as well as for heavier
rainfall and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in others.
▪ Since human-made climate change threatens the entire world,
it is possibly the greatest present risk to humankind.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World & Google Image
 Combating Global Warming

▪ In 1997, 192 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol to reduce

greenhouse gases, following the 1992 United Nations Earth
Summit where a Framework Convention for Climate Change was
finalized.
▪ In December 2015, the Paris Accord was signed seeking to limit the
increase in the global average temperature based on targeted
goals.
▪ Social movements, however, have had better success working
together, with some pressure on their governments to regulate
global warming.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 Combating Global Warming

▪ The University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute sent teams

to India to work with government offices, businesses, and
communities in coming up with viable ground-level projects
that strike a balance between urgently needed economic
growth and improved air quality.
▪ When these local alliances between the state, schools, and
communities are replicated at the national level, the success
becomes doubly significant – e.g., Pollution Diet of Japan in
1970s.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World

 Conclusion

▪ Perhaps no issue forces people to think about their

role as citizens of the world than environmental
degradation.
▪ In the fight against climate change, one cannot afford
to simply care about his or her own backyard.
▪ There is no choice but to find global solutions to this
global problem.

Source: Claudio, L. E. and P. N. Abinales (2018): The Contemporary World