Tuesday 18 November 2008

Sustainable Development

Well well well.. uhmm.. its been ages since I last wrote anything here, but here I am back again, I know people missed me and stuff but life is tough, deal with it!

Anyways, sustainability, something I stumbled on I believe it was during April of this year when I first saw the youtube video of the Masdar Initiative in Abu Dhabi which I posted earlier on this blog. Since then my interest only grew and I am currently doing a postgraduate degree in this miracle called sustainability! But I really do think that everyone in the middle east should know something about this, not only is this concept beneficial but it is extremely important as developed countries are taking the concepts of sustainability and applying it to each and every development, every policy and regulations placing sustainable development as the focal point in the future development of those countries.

As a muslim, I find some concepts of sustainable development very familiar to what Islam teaches, sadly enough we have not taken advantage of what we already know.

The definition that is most widely used for sustainable development (SD) is the one given by the Brundtland 'Our Common Future' Report which defines SD as "meeting the needs of the present generation without comprimising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" concentrating on three main aspects which are Environmental, Social and Economical development. I'm not going to go into details with this just wanted this to be an introduction to this wonderful series that I have also stumbled upon; the e2 series, a series which gives different examples from across the world of sustainable design of different developments. I hope everyone watches these videos and tell your friends to watch them too. Enjoy!

6 comments:

Maysaloon said...

I read your comments on that My Fog blog and well done. I was amused by the type of comments that were being left and it was so refreshing to see some proper rebuttals. I'm just a bit surprised, considering your position, why you'd put a link to Forward Magazine. Was it just because it is Syrian?

MJ said...

hey thanks! enjoy reading ur blog.. got it linked too!
always up for a good argument just before i sleep. Well, i think so yes, plus they have good articles that people who aren't syrian can read..a difference in opinion is not a big disaster you know.. what is your position?

Maysaloon said...

Hi Jabz,
I'm extremely wary of it, I guess there are good articles that one could enjoy but it's up to everyone what they like to read so I was just curious to know if you were aware of their position, that was all :)

MJ said...

actually im not aware of their position.. what is it?

Maysaloon said...

I suppose it is more of a general outlook which I find myself at odds with. For example:

http://fwmagazine.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/syrian-media-activists-make-a-difference-on-obama%e2%80%99s-website-%e2%80%93-a-forward-magazine-scoop/

I don't know where to begin with an article like this.

Maysaloon said...

In addition, Sami Moubayad was one of three Syrians who had been prepared to go and speak in front of AIPAC in the United States.