You are here: Home: Environment, planning and building: Sustainable development

Sustainable development

Why protect the environment?

In today’s world, we often think of ‘the environment’ as something separate from ourselves – a term that describes wildlife, waterways or landscapes that we can see and enjoy, but to which we are not otherwise greatly connected. In fact, ‘the environment’ is everything on the planet - including us!

Humans, animals, plants, land, water and air are inextricably linked, and each element contributes something to the ability of the others to exist and regenerate. Human beings, the dominant animals on the planet, have now reached such a peak of activity within their own species that the other elements which make up the world are being damaged by it. Inevitably this damage has repercussions for human beings themselves, who rely on these other elements for their survival:

• Global temperatures are rising faster then ever before recorded, bringing chaos to weather systems across the world
• If we carry on burning fossil fuels at present rates, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will increase by 50% within 15 years – risking catastrophic climate shifts
• Over 100 million Europeans and North Americans live in cities where the air is unsafe to breathe
• Over the last 10 years, environmental disasters have caused over $600 billion worth of damage - more than in the previous four decades combined
• More and more of the world’s population are now facing acute shortages of fresh water, slumps in food production, devastating floods for some and disastrous droughts for others.

The good news is that everyone can help improve things by making small changes. In these pages we outline how the Council’s Sustainable Development team is helping, and provide some ideas about how you can play your part too.

back to top