Marshaling Technology for Development Proceedings of a Symposium (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Sustainable Development: Mirage or Achievable Goal?
Sustainable Development: Mirage or Achievable Goal?
Pages 237-244
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From page 237... ...
Indeed, the phrase "sustainable development" has become the global environmental watchword, capturing the idea that economic development can be environmentally sustainable. Moreover, this concept suggests that sustainable development not only is a desirable goal, but also is necessary to prevent eventual global, societal, and environmental collapse.
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From page 238... ...
The green revolution has turned food-importing nations into food-exporting nations, and the future promises continued quantum leaps in food production as genetic engineering yields greater and more resilient crop strains and promises to multiply key aspects of animal productivity. Energy supplies have systematically increased despite predictions that reserves of fossil fuels will decline.
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From page 239... ...
Predictions of the future that assume an unchanging response by society are doomed to apocalyptic conclusions. Historically, scientific discoveries and technological developments have serendipitously ameliorated environmental deterioration or have produced unanticipated deleterious effects.
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From page 240... ...
. cover a wide spectrum of engineering activities that embrace, among other things, the technologies for avoiding pollution or other kinds of environmental deterioration; the technologies for monitoring and assessing environmental conditions or the release of pollutants and effluents; the approaches to controlling industrial processes in order to minimize pollutants entering the environment; and the approaches to restoring environmental ecosystems.
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From page 241... ...
But advances in energy production, storage, and use now make the entire energy supply and demand system more efficient and less demanding of fossil and other fuels. Combined-cycle gas turbines, new emissioncontrol systems, improved technologies for suppressing auto emissions, increased use of less-polluting fossil fuels such as natural gas, increased use of renewable energy sources, as well as a host of new demand-side energy technologies such as more efficient lighting, appliances, and insulation are conscious attempts to mini .
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From page 242... ...
This small industrial city is home to a Statoil Corporation oil refinery; Denmark's largest power plant, Asnaesverket; a plaster board manufacturing plant, Gyproc; and Novo Nordisk, a biotechnology plant that produces 45 percent of the world's insulin and 50 percent of the world's enzymes. In this city, which is surrounded by a farming community: refinery wastewater is used for power plant cooling; excess refinery gas and sulphur recovered by the refinery is used by Gyproc to produce plaster board; biological sludge from the pharmaceutical plant is used by farmers; steam from the power plant is used by the pharmaceutical company; fly ash from the power plant is used by cement manufacturers in a different town; and waste heat from the power plant is used by the municipality for its heating distribution system, as well as for fish farming.
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From page 243... ...
It is now time to enhance industry's ability to mimic natural ecosystems, thereby helping today's complex industrial society reach an acceptable level of sustainability. A vision of the environmental future essential to the survival of humanity is now emerging, and it is within society's power to make the choices and marshal the efforts necessary to travel this road.
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