Sustainability science

The pessimism of some environmentalists and environmental chemists is often blamed. A look at the state of the world today certainly leads one to this view. The will and wisdom that man has used to exploit the Earth's resources and to degrade it is being used to preserve our planet and its resources and to make it healthy and fit for human life. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (BruntlandCommittee) issued a report on sustainability and sustainable development development is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs." The key to sustainable development is to maintain the carrying capacity of the Earth, that is, to maintain human activities and resource consumption at acceptable levels that can be sustained over time.

In an interview in February 2009, Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who had just been appointed secretary of Energy in President Barack Obama's administration, listed three major areas where major breakthroughs in sustainable development were needed: solar energy, batteries, and research into new crops that could be turned into fuel. He believes that the efficiency of capturing solar energy and converting it into electricity generated by renewable means should be increased by several times. New and improved batteries can be stored to power electric vehicles. The biomass in the new crop would need to be more efficient than current crops at converting solar energy into chemical energy. The prospects for development in this field are very great, because most plants genetically engineer the sun they absorb through photosynthesis, and the conversion rate can be increased several times, and the conversion rate of biomass energy to chemical energy is less than 1%. Sustainable development will make exciting gains in the coming decades and production will increase significantly. Obviously, relying on high-tech results.