Human Development and Environmental Discourses

Abstract

After visiting the far distant future, it is time to return to the reality of the current problems regarding human development and the environment from local to global scales. The human development concept used here encompasses all its aspects but is mostly centred in the educational, social, political, and economic components. There is a strong, although far from universal, convergence of opinion to the effect that there are troublesome difficulties at the present time concerning global economic growth and its impact on the environment. This fairly generalised perception is an important step in defining the problems we are facing, from which it should be possible to construct appropriate strategies to address them. A point to bear in mind from the outset is that the challenges of human development and the environment are closely related and hence inseparable.