From silent spring to the sustainable development goals: on the development-environment nexus

Abstract

The conceptualization of development has changed over the years. However, it is only recently that environmental concern emerged as a dimension of development. This paper examines the trend in this paradigm shift. Development has been traditionally conceptualized in terms of income and well-being. Even when human development conceptualization emerged in 1990, this emphasis did not radically change. The fact that the environment is the basis of human well-being was hardly appreciated. However, indications of a change emerged at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, particularly with the follow-up World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission). Whereas the Conference marked the formalization of global concern for environmental development, the seeds of this concern date back decades. The seeds first germinated in the United States of America (USA) where environmental clubs, such as the Sierra Club, emerged as early as the nineteenth century. In spite of such early attempts, it is the impact of the publication of Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 that effectively generated widespread environmental interest in the USA, which later diffused to other parts of the world. The impact of the environmental movement was such that when the paradigm of sustainable  development emerged as part of the Brundtland Report, it readily became an organizing principle for development. Thus, the discourse and action on world development that followed clearly took into consideration the environmental aspects of development. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are prominent and typical examples. Thus, in many respects, there is a shift from conceptual development strictly in terms of human beings to one which clearly recognizes the central role the environment plays in human existence and welfare. Such conceptualization is reflected particularly in the emergent Human Sustainable Development Index, as distinct from the Human Development Index. This increasing focus on the environment is the result of the three intertwined factors of the spectre of resource depletion, the environmental movement and the global environmental summits.

Keywords: Development, Environment, Paradigm shift, Human Welfare