Global Environmental Issues Essay

1825 Words8 Pages

What challenges do ecological concerns present to traditional theories of international relations?

The environmental challenges throughout the world are numerous and complex. Most governments and institutions now clearly realize that environmental issues are now directly related with other social/ cultural and socioeconomic issues. Promoting sustainable growth and assuring the protection of biodiversity on the planet is the only path forward for human survival.

Decades of environmental mismanagement have created a severe scenario that is affecting negatively all living beings on planet. The main environmental issues faced by humanity today are related to climate change, scarcity of recourses, unsustainable economic and social growth, pollution and depletion and exploitation of biodiversity. …show more content…

The use of cost-benefit analysis continues to be the preferred way of demonstrating this and of determining the value of environmental policy measures, despite the controversy surrounding its use and the way such assessments apportion value.” (Newell, P., 2008, page 523)

“Here the most obvious contradictions in the global politics of our times become very evident. The violence involved in trying to control the petroleum trade is in fact a violence to perpetuate the production of a substance that is a direct threat to the stability of the planet’s climate. Thus America is at war in the Middle East in part to protect an unsustainable global society; it is fighting to maintain a way of life that is imperilling all our futures.” (Dalby, S., 2009, page 61)

Another issue in the international level of sustainable development is that developing countries seem to be following the same unsustainable model of economic growth that developed countries have enjoyed despite the clear signs of the impact that this growth will further cause to the

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