Environmental Health And Standard Of Living

Introduction

Our planet is continuously attempting to reach the “smart” living standards of the developed world due to which there is a widespread concern that this is negatively impacting the environment. The struggle to reach this higher standard of living has become the cause for over consumption of energy. Fossil fuel is one of the most important sources of energy and the indiscriminate burning of it is thought to be a major contribution towards global warming. Global warming and the endless burning of fossil fuels has resulted in increasing of sea levels, droughts in the tropics and further environmental damages from tornadoes. All such resulted natural phenomenon are producing irreversible damages and assisting in the development of diseases among those affected by such conditions. Desperately humans are searching for solutions, however it has been observed that with attempts to enhance standard of living there has been drastic degradation inflicted upon the environment that seems to be inevitable with the goals that have been set out for ourselves.

Information and Practicality

Information on the current topic is gathered from credible sources that are research based and peer reviewed. Therefore, the sources used in this written piece (context has a completely different meaning than what you were attempting to convey) will be solely based on articles published in esteemed scholarly journals. For example, journal articles from IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, Global Environmental Change or Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, can be considered as highly credible sources of information. Along with scholarly article, government sites and reports will be of much use as policies that are based around the environment generally contain the cause and effect which are important for the research of this topic. Such articles are easily available, and their credentials provide strong support for this report. The main objective of this proposal is to understand the relation between environmental damage and standard of living. Therefore, to prove that this deep concern is worthy of intellectual discussion and review it is important to evaluate the consequences of enhanced standard of living and its effects on the environment. Focusing specifically at the carbon emissions in relation to urbanization, global energy scenario and equating prosperity with environmental sustainability. Keeping objectives in view, the prime issue is the practical application of these measures. For gathering information, credible scientific methods will be applied and using STIRPAT guidelines the impact of urban development on carbon dioxide emissions will be investigated during the time stretching from 1970Q1 to 2011Q4. The reasoning for this period is because studies have shown that between these 41 years the standard of living has drastically increased.

Literature Review

To understand the overall issue and to assist in finding the correlation between standard of living and environmental health, three prime areas were identified. In terms of the carbon emission in relation to urbanization, Shahbaz et al. (2016) and their research in Malaysia provide a great amount of information that can strengthen the stance of this written piece. The scientific tests available in their works can show that economic growth is one of the prime causes for carbon dioxide emissions. With energy consumption, the intensity of emissions spikes is given a boost by capital stock. The free trade market is able to cause affluence resulting in consumption becoming much more desirable and thus hiking up the amount of harmful emissions of carbon dioxide. The diagram understanding the relation between the spreading of urban footprints and carbon dioxide emissions can be visually represented as U-shaped. Initially urbanization brings down these emissions but after evaluating certain levels it shoots back up.

Research done by Bose (2010) is also a helpful source that offers material and study in the area of global energy scenario and environment deterioration. The objective is to find out what the role of power electronics has in finding an answer. It promises a generation of clean energy while providing massive electricity storage and efficient utilization of energy which is anticipated to be the key that links national policies across the globe. According to preliminary calculations, implementing widespread improvement in energy efficiency will save as much as 20% of the global demand for it. Waste prevention through observation of conservation methods will save 20% more. Even with strong research, this data is futile without the full participation of these urban communities. The third area of investigation, or equating prosperity with environmental sustainability, can be found in the research by Fritz and Koch (2016). Herein prosperity connotes social inclusion, ecological sustainability and living standards. For practical implementation 138 countries were chosen and bracketed into four segments – rich, emerging, developing and poor. Looking at the welfare of a country in relation to its environmental damage and environmental sustainability will assist in asserting whether these two demographics directly affect the other.

The literature under review aptly presents the problems and maps an outline on how to best address it, however, all research materials are within the last 8 years and therefore can be enumerated as latest. Nevertheless, the challenges faced by countries in delivering prosperity vary from one country to another. Research has indicated that prosperity increases with the marching of the economy, but the sustainability of the environment ultimately worsens. Analysis of studies show that under varied economies and institutions the cohesion within society can become stronger while carbon emissions decoupled from conditions linked to prosperity can be achieved technically.