Question

Analyse the issues that necessitate sustainable development for the future.

Hint:

Build the answer on the overuse of groundwater, the exhaustion of non-renewable resources such as crude oil, and environmental damage, and connect each to what the next generation will be left with.

Answer 1

Concept:

• Sustainability of development means that development should take place without damaging the environment, and without compromising the needs of the future generation.
• It has become necessary because several resources are being used far faster than nature can replace them.

Step 1: Groundwater is being exhausted.
Groundwater is a renewable resource, but if we use more than what is being replenished by rain the resource is overused. In many parts of the country the water table has fallen sharply, and 300 districts have reported a drop of over four metres in the past twenty years.
About one third of the country is already overusing its groundwater reserves.

Step 2: Non-renewable resources are running out.
Crude oil, coal and minerals are non-renewable. Once used they are gone, and the known reserves of crude oil in the world would last only a few decades at the present rate of use.
Since modern industry and transport depend on them, their exhaustion threatens development itself.

Step 3: The environment is being damaged.
Industrial growth has brought air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of soil fertility and the destruction of habitats. Money cannot buy back a pollution free environment or a disease free life once these are lost.

Step 4: The future generation has a claim as well.
Development that exhausts resources and poisons the environment leaves the next generation worse off than the present one. Scientists have therefore warned that the path of development being followed cannot continue indefinitely.

Final Answer: Sustainable development is necessary because groundwater is being overused, non-renewable resources such as crude oil and minerals are being exhausted, the environment is being seriously damaged, and continuing on this path would leave nothing for the generations that follow.