Challenges of Sustainable Development

About: This paper examines some of the building blocks of sustainable development. Economic growth is seen as having contributed to global prosperity in the postwar period, but there are emerging concerns that growth may soon conflict with environmental constraints. The role of and the interactions among conservation, technology, international cooperation, and human values are analyzed. Whether we find the collective will to act now to stem the tide of future crises or we wait for catastrophe to force change upon us is seen as the central question of our time. A move toward sustainable development could well usher in a new stage in the evolution of the human race, one likely to involve a quantum leap forward in terms of our collective achievements as a human family.