Page 11 - Environmental_Ecology

11

Chapter 2

Clean energy & green building

2.1 From Silent spring to the 2030 agenda

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, provides a
shared vision for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and in the future. At its core are the
17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) , which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed
1
and developing - in a global partnership. They recognise that ending poverty and other deprivation must
go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequalities and stimulate
economic growth - all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests, which
is so obvious and necessary today.

In particular, Objective 7 aims to „Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for
all” and Objective 11 aims to „Ensure sustainable patterns of production and consumption”. Yet this has
not always been the case in human history and political choices. We have to go back to the not so distant
1962, when Silent Spring, written by what was called the „mother of environmentalism”, Rachael Carson
2
was printed in the United States. At that time the word „environment was not part of any political
challenge” (cit. Al Gore, intro to the text Silent Spring), and began to take shape thanks to Rachael Carson’s
denunciation of the massive use of pesticides and the danger they cause to flora and fauna and to human
health itself - an obvious connection between population and exploitation of resources. Data on ecological
and biological mechanisms began to be monitored.

Source: https://www.treehugger.com/happy-th-anniversary-silent-spring-4855112

1 https://unric.org/it/agenda-2030/
2 https://www.rachelcarson.org/