Green Technologies for Environmental Management and Sustainable Development

Technologies of the 20 century promoted rapid socio-economic development and improved the quality of life of the people. But it was not without a price. All the basic life-support systems on earth–air, water and food-started getting poisoned in the wake of material development threatening our sustainability and survival. This called for a change in the strategy of development and the technologies applied. Sustainable human society on earth ‘good quality of life for all’ can be achieved either by persuading people to change their behaviour and attitude to life and give up the culture of consumerism or by promoting sustainable development programmes with appropriate environmental technologies that ‘allow people to enjoy the same quality of life and standard of living, but with a significantly lower environmental cost.’ Given the difficulties of changing people, the best hope for civilisation lies in the development of environmentally sustainable technologies for development. This book precisely discusses some of those technologies to protect our life support systems on earth, make our living and movement more sustainable and also salvaging all the wastes produced by us as a by-product of living.