IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jchals/v13y2022i2p44-d906300.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning from the Past: Lessons from the First United Nations Report on Problems of the Human-Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Farshad Amiraslani

    (School of Geography & Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life & Health Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine BT52 1SA, UK)

  • Andrew Cooper

    (School of Geography & Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life & Health Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine BT52 1SA, UK)

Abstract

The 1969 UN Report “Problems of the Human Environment” was a seminal work that first highlighted environmental problems at a global scale. This report underpinned a series of subsequent international summits and conventions of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the subsequent three global conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification. We assessed the report half a century after its publication to track changes in vocabulary and highlight critical lessons that could have been learned. The assessment contains several strengths and weaknesses that are pertinent to modern global-scale analyses. Many issues of that day have declined in importance or been superseded, and several major environmental problems (including climate change and plastic pollution) were not foreseen. Most of the report’s predictions proved to be much more conservative than proved by reality (a criticism that has also been levelled at contemporary IPCC reports). The report, however, did forewarn of global pandemics and stimulated thinking on a global scale that led to identification of the current climate crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Farshad Amiraslani & Andrew Cooper, 2022. "Learning from the Past: Lessons from the First United Nations Report on Problems of the Human-Environment," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jchals:v:13:y:2022:i:2:p:44-:d:906300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/13/2/44/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/13/2/44/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farshad Amiraslani, 2021. "Tackling Rural Health, Energy, … and Technological Issues All at Once: A Call for a Global Interdisciplinary Platform for Strengthening Rural Setting Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-3, June.
    2. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    3. Colby, Michael E., 1989. "Environmental management in development : the evolution of paradigms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 313, The World Bank.
    4. Jacqueline Noga & Gregor Wolbring, 2013. "An Analysis of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) Discourse Using an Ability Expectation Lens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(9), pages 1-25, August.
    5. Peter D. Gluckman & Anne Bardsley & Matthias Kaiser, 2021. "Brokerage at the science–policy interface: from conceptual framework to practical guidance," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Stavros Tsiantikoudis & Eleni Zafeiriou & Grigorios Kyriakopoulos & Garyfallos Arabatzis, 2019. "Revising the Environmental Kuznets Curve for Deforestation: An Empirical Study for Bulgaria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-16, August.
    7. Carsten Østerlund & Kevin Crowston, 2019. "Documentation and access to knowledge in online communities: Know your audience and write appropriately?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 70(6), pages 619-633, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Herzer Dierk, 2022. "Semi-endogenous Versus Schumpeterian Growth Models: A Critical Review of the Literature and New Evidence," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 73(1), pages 1-55, April.
    2. Michal burzynski & Christoph Deuster & Frédéric Docquier, 2018. "The Geography of Talent: Development Implications and Long-Run Prospects," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2018002, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Heemsbergen, Luke & Molnar, Adam, 2020. "VPNs as boundary objects of the internet: (Mis)trust in the translation(s)," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(4), pages 1-19.
    4. Michael A. Clemens & Claudio Montenegro & Lant Pritchett, 2016. "Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers," Growth Lab Working Papers 67, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    5. Jerzmanowski, Michal & Tamura, Robert, 2019. "Directed technological change & cross-country income differences: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen & Heidi Williams, 2019. "A toolkit of policies to promote innovation," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    7. Timur Natkhov & Natalia Vasilenok, 2019. "Technology Adoption in Agrarian Societies: the Effect of Volga Germans in Imperial Russia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 220/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Böhm, Sebastian & Grossmann, Volker & Strulik, Holger, 2021. "R&D-driven medical progress, health care costs, and the future of human longevity," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    9. Traeger, Christian, 2021. "ACE - Analytic Climate Economy," CEPR Discussion Papers 15968, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Andergassen Rainer & Nardini Franco & Ricottilli Massimo, 2018. "Innovation, specialization and growth in a model of structural change," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Cole, Stephen J. & Milani, Fabio, 2021. "Heterogeneity in individual expectations, sentiment, and constant-gain learning," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 627-650.
    12. Dao, Thu Hien & Docquier, Frédéric & Parsons, Chris & Peri, Giovanni, 2018. "Migration and development: Dissecting the anatomy of the mobility transition," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 88-101.
    13. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman & Ezra Oberfield & Thomas Sampson, 2017. "The productivity slowdown and the declining labor share: a neoclassical exploration," CEP Discussion Papers dp1504, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Sangmin Aum & Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2018. "Growth Facts with Intellectual Property Products: An Exploration of 31 OECD New National Accounts," Working Papers 1029, Barcelona School of Economics.
    15. Clemens, Michael & Pritchett, Lant, 2016. "The New Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment," Working Paper Series rwp16-054, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    16. Krenz, Astrid & Prettner, Klaus & Strulik, Holger, 2021. "Robots, reshoring, and the lot of low-skilled workers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    17. José De Gregorio, 2018. "Productivity in Emerging Market Economies: Slowdown or Stagnation?," Working Papers wp471, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    18. Gregory Casey & Ryo Horii, 2019. "A Multi-factor Uzawa Growth Theorem and Endogenous Capital-Augmenting Technological Change," ISER Discussion Paper 1051, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    19. Verme, Paolo & Schuettler, Kirsten, 2021. "The impact of forced displacement on host communities: A review of the empirical literature in economics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jchals:v:13:y:2022:i:2:p:44-:d:906300. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.