TWC lesson 3

Brief overview/summary

This lesson touched a lot on sustainability and how we can acheive that. I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of reading material we had to do before class, but it makes sense as sustainability is such a big issue nowadays and background knowledge pertaining to the area is definitely vital. The first article touched upon how Europe was the leader in sustainable technology and that it is actually profitable for their country. The advantages of backwardness was also an interesting topic regarding how countries that are lagging behind are actually advancing at a rapid rate due to the absence of need for risk and R&D cost.
The second part of the lesson touched upon technology and innovation management. We were taught about the transition of products from the innovation process to the market and the difficulties it will face. The two differences of the drives of innovation was particularly interesting

Interesting observation and ideas

The cyclical process of development seems to be the key to sustainability in the future. With countries in Europe enforcing laws and policies to curb down such linear processes, our future looks promising as development might very possibly be done without destroying our environment. However, cyclical processes of development is often expensive and the technologies are mostly out of reach to developing countries.
 Hence, this will give rise to a lot of complications in transforming this idea to a world wide scale. Developing countries nowadays are pressured to cut down on high polluting production methods and move on to less polluting, more cyclical types of production. Furthermore 20-30 years ago, the developed countries today once made full use of linear methods of development without any regards to the environment. Most of the climate problems and pollutions are caused by developed countries today like America, with their coal factories and what not from the industrial revolution. To worsen the issue, these pollutions are mainly causing major climate problems in such developing countries(evidence). So not only is developing countries suffering from the detriments of the developed county's pollution, the developed countries are pressuring them to spend millions more to bring their economies into a greener state. If i was in the shoes of these developing countries, I would definitely feel that there is a lot of injustice present. I'm not saying this whole sustainable future is bad, it is without a doubt imperative for our future. However, I believe there is much more the developed countries should be doing. In my opinion, these countries should clean up their own mess(the pollution) and aid these countries transit into a more sustainable economy for a better future of our planet.


Key Takeaways

I would agree with Prof that we should not just try to answer Yale's question, but to move further into understanding how we can solve this inequality question. There is only one earth for all 6 Billion of us and sustainable development is the only way for us to ensure that everyone has a basic standard of living. It does not make sense how USA( 5% of gloval population) is using up 30% of the earth's resources. Everyone has equal rights to live and although total equity for everyone (e.g. the venus project from jolene's presentation) is definitely not feasible(Due to the various factors we discussed in class, lack of motivation etc etc), we should at least strive to give everyone some basic form of living conditions.


Issues for further discussion

Should European countries make their sustainable technology free for developing countries? There's an obvious benefit of the world becoming more sustainable, despite profitability issues.


Personal rating

I would rate this class 9/10 as the discussions are comprehensive and our time in this lesson is managed very well.