Sustainable Development, the Path Yet Not Taken Seriously! Part I

Arun Narayan Toké, KalimNews, October 31, 2024 : An in-depth look at the issues surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals for the world.

Sustainable Development goals

I was born and raised in the city of Indore in the central part of India. We lived in a three-story apartment complex, right in the heart of city, on the main street.

We had hot and dry summers. Afternoon temperatures soared past 100°F for 50 to 60 days, and over 110°F for at least a few days. Since the city is located about 500 meters from the sea level, it cooled off somewhat at night, so we slept outdoors during the hot months. Most families had no a/c units, televisions, or refrigerators back then.

I saw a sea of bicycles–thousands of bicycles–every morning, rain or shine, going toward the industrial area that boasted seven large cotton mills. Tens of thousands of workers would be on their way to the mills for their 7 a.m. shift.

When I was in Primary and Secondary schools, Indore had a population of about 3 lakhs. The city now has grown almost ten-fold, approaching 30 lakhs (three million). Many of the trees, green spaces and parks are long gone. The streets have become over-crowded. Cars, motorcycles and mopeds have largely replaced the bicycles. I was told that half of the mopeds are battery-operated. Horse carriages and the noisy three-wheeler taxies that emitted black and blue diesel smoke are no longer allowed. There is no room to walk on sidewalks for they are used unlawfully for parking vehicles.

Indore now has a new beltway around it for faster auto traffic and a rapid bus transit system in some parts. Slick buses with standing room only run every 5 or 10 minutes in that limited corridor. But people complain because the fenced-off bus lane is empty for much of the time whereas adjoining regular lanes are too congested, and traffic moves at a snail’s pace during the rush hours.

Fifty years ago, telephones were a luxury item, now cellphones are as common in India as anywhere in the world. The same can be said of television sets and personal computers. Technology has exploded similarly in many other countries.

During my recent visits to India, I rarely saw blue skies. Smog and haze due to vehicle and factory exhaust, construction dust, agricultural burns, and cooking fires routinely color the sky gray in most urban regions. Many people on mopeds wear homemade masks or face-coverings in an attempt to reduce the ill effects of air pollution on lungs. Automobiles are everywhere. Often, well-to-do people employ drivers because of the traffic congestion and lack of parking spaces in the cities.

Both my older brother and I were trained as electrical engineers. Like many other developing countries in those days, the Indian government promoted careers in engineering, medicine, sciences, and technologies to bring the country into the modern age. My brother worked with Western Railways for decades helping India modernize and electrify its vast railway network.

After attending graduate school in the United States, I taught electrical engineering technology at Vermont Technical College during the early 1980s. Having read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson1; Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher2; Soft Energy Paths: Towards a Durable Peace by Amory B. Lovins (1977), and several other thought-provoking  books, I wanted my students to gain an awareness of sustainability, energy-efficiency, and the environmental impacts of the resources we consume and the technologies we use. All fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural and fracked gas, diesel, tar-sands oil, etc.), nuclear power, as well as renewable energy resources (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, wood, etc.) that we employ to power our industries, agricultural and transportation sectors, as well as our built environment, all have environmental, cultural, and social impacts.

I proposed an elective course called “Energy and Society” at the technical college where I taught and coauthored a textbook, Energy, Economics and the Environment (Mills & Toké, 1985), with Prof. Russell Mills in the General Education department. In the book, we tried to bring into focus not only environmental impacts of energy technologies, but also their political, social, economic, and cultural connections and implications. This elective course was enormously popular and Prof. Mills continued to teach it for over a decade, even after I had moved on to a different career path and no longer taught at the college.

During 1985-1986, I worked at the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) in New Delhi on a low-energy scenario for India. CSE understood very well that protecting the environment, improving the energy efficiency, and going big on renewable energy resources (like solar, wind, micro-hydro, and biogas technologies) were absolutely essential for the future of India. Unfortunately, the research and findings of groups like CSE have a very limited influence on government policies.

Then, about 37 years ago, I founded Skipping Stones magazine as a forum for multicultural and nature awareness for today’s youth. The idea of Skipping Stones as a forum for youth was conceived at a Gandhian Ashram (community) in Gujarat, during an international peace conference. We felt that to have peace in the world, we need to live in harmony with each other and also with the natural world. We promote multicultural and international awareness, as well as celebrate diversity, and discuss many pressing social issues. We encourage appreciation of nature, and an understanding of ecological issues like climate change, pollution problems, loss of wilderness and wildlife, and energy efficiency and resource conservation. We try to be holistic in our approach. During the past 36 years, we have published creative writing, art, and photographs by over 5,000 youth (and hundreds of adults) from over 50 countries in our 150 plus issues so far. We welcome submissions in Spanish as well.

In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the year 2030. It’s a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. The SDGs were built on decades of work by many countries and the UN after recognizing that we were falling short in many, if not all of the areas. The quality of life experienced by billions of people on the planet was less than desirable and it was not getting better!

In this two-part article we will explore the long and difficult journey that humanity has launched. I start from the time when I was a child because back then, in the 1960s, the focus of many developing nations and their governments was on development as a means to eliminate poverty and bring welfare through technological and infrastructure development.

While I am not an expert on sustainable development by any means, it is my belief that sustainable development can only be achieved only through societal resolve and governmental actions, coupled with intense public education efforts. We educators, therefore, have an important role to play! The value of education—in its broadest sense—cannot be underestimated.

The 17 SDGs for the Year 2030, Adopted by the United Nations in 2015.

1. End Poverty in all its forms everywhere.
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries.
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
15. Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.

As we can see these goals are definitely admirable and worth working on. The questions that come to mind are: Where are we as we approach 2025; and how achievable they are, given where we are and how our economic, political and global systems operate.

Notes:

1.During societal upheaval, Rachel Carson stood against corporate culture and her perception of its war on nature.

2. Originally published in 1975, in 1995, The Times Literary Supplement called Small Is Beautiful one of the 100 most influential books published since World War II and Time magazine hailed the 350+ page volume as an eco-bible.

(To be continued in Part II of this article).

REFERENCES:

Clark, Helen Clark, & Awa Marie Coll-Seck (Commission Co-Chairs), Anshu Banerjee, Stefan Peterson, Sarah L. Dalglish, Shanthi Ameratunga, Dina Balabanova, Maharaj Kishan Bhan, Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, John Borrazzo, Mariam Claeson, Tanya Doherty, Fadi El-Jardali, Asha S. George, Angela Gichaga, Lu Gram, David B. Hipgrave, Aku Kwamie, Qingyue Meng, … Raúl Mercer. (2020, February 18). A Future for the World’s Children? WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission. The Lancet, 395, 605–658. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(19)32540-1

Designing Healthy Communities by Dr. Richard J. Jackson (2011). John Wiley & Sons. Also available is Designing Healthy Communities, a four-part DVD series by Harry Wiland and Dale Bell, Media Policy Center. Video Project. Hosted by the author Richard Jackson, it takes a comprehensive look at the impact America’s built environment has on public health, and at the people and communities working to turn things around through innovative solutions.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. (2020). Poverty and shared prosperity 2020: Reversals of fortune. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1602-4

United Nations (UN). (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN General Assembly A/RES/70/1. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E

United Nations (UN). (2017). SDG indicators: Revised list of global sustainable development goal indicators. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-list/ (available inEnglish, Spanish, and other world languages. I read them in English.)

United Nations (UN). (2018). About the sustainable development goals. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2019). Disability and development report realizing the Sustainable Development Goals by, for and with persons with disabilities 2018. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2019/10/UN-flagship-report-on-disability-and-development.pdf

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2020, July 7). Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020. https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/publication/sustainable-development-goals-report-2020

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2014). Sustainable development begins with education: How education can contribute to the proposed post-2015 goals. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002305/230508e.pdf

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2016). Regional Consultation Meeting on SDG4-Education 2030: Europe and North America Region, Paris, 24-25 October. https://www.gcedclearinghouse.org/resources/regional-consultation-meeting-sdg4-education-2030-europe-and-north-america-region-paris-24

Arun Narayan Toké, born and raised in India, Arun N. Toké received his Electrical Engineering degree from University of Indore in India, did his graduate studies in electrical and electronics engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Notre Dame, and University of Vermont. He worked as a design engineer and energy auditor, and then taught at Vermont Technical College where he coauthored a textbook, “Energy, Economics and the Environment” with Dr. Russell Mills (Prentice Hall, 1984). At Aprovecho Institute in Oregon, he was the editor and publisher of CookStove News, and in 1988, he founded Skipping Stones magazine. For the last 36 years, he has been the editor and publisher of this multicultural, literary magazine for today’s youth. He has traveled extensively on three different continents and speaks four languages, including Spanish.

Arun was a founding board member and a co-president of the Interfaith Prayer Services International (IPSI) in Eugene, Oregon. He has also served on several nonprofits, including as the Human Rights Commission of the City of Eugene. He is a recipient of the 2002 Writer Award. He has been recognized by the Educational Press Association and National Association for Multicultural Education for his distinguished achievements, and by the City of Eugene with their 2011 Dr. M. L. King, Jr. Award for Community Leadership.