Essay Globalization Consumerism And Sustainable Development Environmental Sciences Essay

Essay Globalization Consumerism And Sustainable Development Environmental Sciences EssaySustainable victimization has been a globally paradigm in different areas. Citizens modus vivendi has an important relationship with the sustain ability of a city. In living environment area, earthly concern-wide experts book adopted the order of business 21 and tried to find the discriminate way to achieve a sustainable living lifestyle. According to Agenda 21, the major cause of the continued worsening of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of utilisation and production, particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalances. However, as the global population increasing, how to balance the relationship between resources supply and demand is still a research oral sex. For communities and man-to-mans, special attention should be paid to the demand for natural resources generated by unsustainable consumption and to the efficient use of those resources consistent with the goal of minimizing depletion and reducing pollution. In other words, the communities and individuals should look for an appropriate living style towards achieving sustainable goal. Although government has been draw much efforts to encourage lot to do some reduction of pollution, reduction of efficiency consumption, and waste recycling, actually there is still a long blank space to reach the goal of sustainability, and there should be a series of fundamentally changes for individuals to adopt to pursue a green, sustainable society.GlobalizationGlobalization agent quite an different things to different people. In general, globalization is a process that promotes world-wide exchanges of national and cultural resources. It includes frugal globalization, social cultural globalization, and environmental globalization. In recent decades, the world markets have be keep abreast increasingly integrated. As Lindert and Williamson 2011 pointed out, world market integration is not a new phenomenon, but it has steadily increased since the 1820s if we exclude the layover between the two World Wars. A long-term correlation between the globalization of international markets and environmental degradation is quite obviously. The globalization of markets also brought about(predicate) the globalization of environmental problems. Global climate change, ozone layer, reduction of biodiversity, over consumption of natural resources, desertification are all global environmental degradation brought after the economic globalization. The industrial revolution use large amount of natural resources as materials in the process, as well as the deterioration of their quality as a consequence of pollution. The acceleration of economic growth led to the increasing of world population that promoted the deterioration of environment.Lifestyle and sustainabilityConcept of sustainable developmentThe theory of sustainability means tha t something is maintained for a period of long age. The concept of sustainable development came out of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972.() Since the way out of the UN Brundtland thrill reportOur Common Futurein 1987, the concept of sustainability has be begin associated with the integration of economic, social, and environmental development to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The conference was held to let all nations agree to act to reduce pollution together to share the resources equally. Since 1972, it has become clear that what we do has an impact on the environment, from the climate change, desertification, and the destruction of forests to the disappearance of species. By introducing the word sustainable, the discussion on environmental development got a social and economic dimension, particularly by the inclusion of the North- South dialogue and discussion of the rights of future generations. This finally led to the world residential area holding the United Nations Convention on gentility and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 where the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Framework on Climate Change, the Rio Declaration and 38 of the 40 chapters of Agenda 21 were agreed. The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was set up to review progress in the implementation of Agenda 21 and other UNCED documents. The Commission meets every year and more than 1,000 N.G.Os are accredited to participate in the Commissions work.Concept of lifestyleThe concept of lifestyle comes from social science and refers to a bundle up of practices or ways of behaving that are meaningful for individual as well for the community. Lifestyle includes different ways of socializing with others and different types of consumption of everything, from houses to clothes, food, and leisure time activities. Lifestyle could reflect individua ls attitude and values and at the same time signals these to others with visible, or conspicuous, consumption. Sustainable lifestyle git thus be define as bundles of practices that are tied together by attitudes related to sustainable development, or as ways of living that in practice lead to sustainable development.In 1992 at the UN Conference in Rio de Janeiro, there was an international agreement on promoting sustainable development and thus also promoting sustainable lifestyle. Following the nisus of the Brundtland report, the conference reached consensus on the so-called Agenda 21 programme, which contains detailed guidelines and objectives, in a nonlegally binding language, and advice on how NGOs, citizens, and other actors can be involved in the process. The slogan was act local -think global and during the 1990s Local Agenda activities were initiated in many countries by both authorities and NGOs. In 2007-08 such initiatives true renewed interest, with global climate be ing high on the political agenda. Local Agenda 21 was no longer a catchword, though the concept of sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles was then used together with climate discussions. The processes of Local Agenda 21 build on the idea that changes must come from below, from changes in the everyday life of ordinary consumers.Current lifestyleWhen talking about living lifestyle, tobacco use, poor nutrition, obesity, elevated stress, and suboptimal sleep will come into ones mind, these are major contributors to the pandemic of lifestyle-related conditions, morbidity, and premature death (E dean) Preventable lifestyle-related conditions such as ischemic heart disease, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema (largely smoking related), hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and some cancers, are not only leading causes of disability and premature death in high-income countries, but increasingly in middle- and low-income countries.(stop) Compared to the impact of environm ent brought from lifestyle, the naughty lifestyle seems to have much effect on individuals health. However, from long-term sight, bad lifestyle will bring waste of resources, pollution of environment and at conclusion hinder the development of society.When talking about the lifestyle related to consumerism, green consumerism should be advocated. What is green consumerism? In short, who and why buy. current global directs of domestic energy consumption and waste production have been acknowledges as important contribution to detrimental environmental change (United Nations 1998) Political and academic interest in this region of sustainable development implementation has stimulated debates in post-industrial nations concerning the social practices of contemporary consumerism (Macnaghten and Urry 1998) and how we will live in the future (De Young 1993) n response there has been a call for the development of national policies and strategies to encourage changes in consumption pattern s (UNCED 199264). One approach has been the promotion of environmentally-friendly lifestyles which often take the form of media or community campaigns (for further analysis see Hobson 2001). These campaigns encourage individuals not only to decrease the amount consumed, but also to alter the nature of goods consumed (lUCN/UNEP/WWF 1991 Librova 1999).Changing Lifestyles Towards SustainabilityFrom a insurance perspective, it is relevant to discuss how to promote more sustainable lifestyles. Changes can be initiated from the bottom-up, where people experiment with ever-changing lifestyles, or from the top-down, where authorities make initiatives to promote changing lifestyles. Authorities can promote changes by political initiatives such as economic incentives or green taxes and through information and labeling of green products and campaigns focusing on changing attitudes. Furthermore, authorities can focus on establishing the physical infrastructure which supports sustainable lifesty les public transportation, renewable energy production, recycling waste system, and so on. What follows describes, first, the people who have made radical changes to their lifestyles and, second, evaluations on initiatives to get ordinary people to change their lifestyle in a more sustainable direction.In the wear couple of decades, some citizens have chosen more radical lifestyle changes and have joined so-called eco-villages. Some of the catchwords of this approach are closed cycles and self-reliance water and waste should be recycled, energy locally produced from renewable resources, and the technologies organised in neighborhoods to strengthen and revitalize local social life. The ecological vision is followed by the social vision of a holistic everyday life a life that is not split between work, family, and home. In this sense, the eco-villages follow in the footsteps of the state-controlled movement of the 1960s and 1970s and are a reaction against the lifestyle in detached suburban houses. Furthermore, in some of the eco-villages there is a weird relation with nature and an ethical concern for future generations. The people deciding to build and live in these eco-villages thus establish other physical, social, and cultural structures around their everyday life as part of living a sustainable lifestyle. In the environmental debate, it has been questioned to what extent this type of experiment is part of a broader dissolver to sustainable development or whether these structures are only isolated pockets. Some of the alternative technological solutions, such as solar heating or meander power, had their hesitant first beginnings in these alternative environments. However, some of the eco-villages and other grassroots experiments had such alternative visual expressions that might have frightened the not-so-dedicated others from choosing sustainable lifestyles. This raises the question of whether sustainable lifestyles are only for those who want to li ve an alternative life or whether they should be mainstreamed and made available for a broader audience. In the twenty-first century, however, this debate might seem less topical, as grassroots approaches and more mainstream approaches to sustainable lifestyles appear to convergeMany public initiatives have tried to deviate citizens to live a more sustainable life, and there are also examples of studies following the extent to which these types of efforts have an effect. In general, social science approaches dealing with these issues can be divided into psychological and sociological approaches. As an example of the psychological approach, a study performed by Abrahamse and others in the Netherlands followed the effects of an Internet-based tool that used a combination of tailored information, goal setting, and feedback on households direct and indirect energy consumption. An evaluation after 5 months showed that households gained a earthshaking direct energy saving of 5%, wherea s there was no measurable effect on indirect energy consumption. It is thus possible to document a small but significant relation between knowledge and action.From a sociological approach, the UK campaign Action at home, which is part of the Global Action Plan that originally developed in the United States during the late 1980s, has been evaluated by Hobson, and this evaluation questions the simple relation between knowledge and change of behavior. The Action at home campaign was a 6-month intended programme where households were provided with information, support, and feedback in a local setting enabling local support and networking between participants. An evaluation based on qualitative interviews suggests rethinking the ideas on information, barriers, and behavioral change. Information should be seen as a much more constructivist approach, where people use and develop arguments through conversations with others, rather than by receiving objective knowledge. The focus should be on the whole array of social structures sustaining specific behaviors, rather than on only barriers to action, and finally the understanding of behavioral change should rather focus on how debate can bring unnoticed routines that are never consciously thought of.Though there are disagreements in the understanding of behavior and the berth of information between the social and the psychological approach, it is possible to draw some general recommendations on how to best persuade people to change to a more sustainable lifestyle Communication should be as specific and personalized as possible, and information should be as adjusted to the lifestyle of the citizens as possible, thereby making the advice meaningful and useful for the citizens attitudes and practices.With climate change high on the political agenda, especially before the climate summit conference in Copenhagen in 2009, sustainable lifestyles have gained renewed interest among the public, politicians, and academics. Will this interest be a short bobble followed by resignation? Will it be the straggle of mainstreaming sustainable lifestyles so they spread and become the norm? Or, will there continue to be a development fuelled by the tension between initiatives by different actors? Sustainability is a contested concept, and developments in the structures and practices of everyday life continue to change and thus provide new challenges for what a sustainable lifestyle is or should be. In the future, there is also a need to continue experimenting, debating, and developing new approaches to sustainable lifestylesLinking lifestyle and climate change literatureThe concept of lifestyle in the behavioural sciences has been studied in connection with social class 31,81,64 -66,86,87,47 , culture-specific consumption patterns 22,30,52,79 as well as individual choice 25,7,6 . Social theorists have described how the disappearance of norms and economic limitations, mass consumption and themarket have gradually removed restrictions and made the individual lifestyle a more appropriate way to describe differences in action, world views and consump-tion. Research suggests that the consumption behavior of individuals constitute a more or less coherent con-sumption pattern because individual tastes and prefer-ences conform to socially determined structures 13,19.The fact that conspicuous consumption 17,77 is seen asa status symbol of wealthy people makes the less afflu-ent aspire to simulate this lifestyle 5 . Individuals useconsumer goods to preserve their position in the socialhierarchy 12. A convergence of lifestyles has beenaccelerated by homogenisation in the homo system overtime and space due to the globalisation of the builtenvironment, occupations, industry, trade and advertis-ing. Lifestyle is also described in an operational sensethrough the correlation between the level and pattern ofconsumption and socio-economic and demographicparameters such as age, family size, occupation, i ncome,gender, education and ethnicity. Consequent energy andemission outcomes vary widely ( plug-in 1) calling for moreinclusive action strategy to avoid leakages. The focus ofchange needs to be on the hotspots and patterns of energyconsumption. Attempts to change energy consumptionpattern are likely to lead to a change in energy consump-tion behaviour that make up the complete pattern. In theenergy literature in the late 1980s, the energy researchersintroduced the lifestyle concept into the study of energyconsumption and established a positive correlation be-tween better lifestyle and high-power consumption forboth households and individuals. Kaya identity 34 hasbeen used to show how both the individual and aggregateconsumption pattern are an important driver of emissionlevel along with the technology choice. Recent literatureSuggestion