Sustainable well-being

Publication Year: 2007

Author(s): Rajendra K Pachauri

Abstract:

Economic progress achieved since the advent of industrialization has resulted largely from advances in science and technology. Yet even as society benefits from S&T through choices that we have come to take for granted, decisions on its future are increasingly being questioned and scrutinized. The current path of economic growth deviates from the objectives of sustainable development. It is not only society at large, spearheaded by leaders of public opinion, that is expressing concers, but also the scientific community itself, which is looking for ways to promote the sustainable well-being of all humanity. This microscopic analysis of science and its applications emanates from several valid concerns: the role of science in the development and extensive use of lethal weapons; the continuing existence of widespread poverty, with over a billion people in the world remaining virtually untouched by the benefits of modern S&T; and the threat of serious environmental externalities from unprecedented levels of production and consumption of goods and services.

Source: Science 315 (5814): 913p.

Publisher/Organisation: www.sciencemag.org