Sustainable Prosperity
Key Question: What is sustainable prosperity?
Learning Goal:
Key Terms: sustainable prosperity, sustainable development, knowledge economy, privatization, global climate change
Learning Goal:
Key Terms: sustainable prosperity, sustainable development, knowledge economy, privatization, global climate change
Like the word "globalization", the term "sustainable prosperity" is defined differently depending on a person's point of view and reason for using the term in a particular context. For some, sustainable prosperity means practicing stewardship of the environment and resources for future generations. Their goal is to balance environmental, social, and economic factors. What do you think it means to have prosperity that is sustainable? How can people sustain this prosperity in a globalized world?
- How would your life be different if you were one of the young women carrying water in Kenya?
- How would the difference affect your future prosperity - your economic future?
- What would prosperity mean to you if you were one of those young women?
The young people in the two photographs live very different lives. Their prosperity and sense of safety, comfort, security, and health - the factors that contribute to quality of life - are affected by the communities and countries in which they live. In the dry northern part of Kenya, young women spend hours every day carrying water from wells and rivers to their family homes. Because they are helping to keep their families alive, they do not have time to go to school. The water they collect is often polluted, and this contributes to Kenya's high death rate from water-borne diseases. In North America, young people spend hours every day at school, where they prepare themselves for the future. They can go to a fountain for a drink of clean water and to a cafeteria to eat lunches they have either brought from home or bought in school.
impacts_of_manufacturers_closing_in_salaberry.docx | |
File Size: | 12 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Measuring Prosperity
Groups and organizations use various measures to try to develop an accurate picture of how countries are sharing in sustainable prosperity and of how the sustainable prosperity of a country has changed over time. Some of these measurements are based on the standard of living: how well the people in a community or a country live and the number and quality of goods and services they enjoy. The more money a country has, the higher its standard of living.
measures_of_prosperity.docx | |
File Size: | 12 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Human Development Index
The Human development index (HDI), was created by the United Nations Development Program to measure quality of life in UN member countries. The HDI is used to classify countries as developed, developing, or underdeveloped and to measure how economic policies affect the quality of life of a country's people. |
Jeff Parker
Award winning editorial cartoonist whose work appears in Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, and Florida Today.
|
Phil Fontaine
Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, spoke out about the need for government and First Nations leaders to find a solution to First Nations 'water systems'.
If these conditions were being experienced by the general population, there would be a national outcry and an immediate response...Canada is not a poor country and these conditions should not be allowed to fester in our communities. There are moral, political, and legal reasons that compel the government to work with First Nations on a new approach to safe drinking water.
|
Marq De Villiers
Canadian journalist and writer. This excerpt is from his book Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resources.
The trouble with water - and there is trouble with water- is that they're not making any more of it. They're not making any less, mind, but no more either. There is the same amount in the planet now as there was in prehistoric times...Humans can live for a month without food but will die in less than a week without water. Humans consume water, discard it, poison it, waste it, and restlessly change the hydrological cycles, indifferent to the consequences: too many people, too little water, water in the wrong places and in the wrong amounts.
|