Trends in Human Development

• Well-being is intrinsically valuable to human beings.
• Efforts to improve well-being must focus on understanding what factors form the basis of human well-being.
• Understanding these factors allows us to determine if activities can sustain well-being and devise solutions for ensuring sustainability.

Trends in Human Development

• Homo sapiens sapiens have been a successful species.
• Global population is estimated to increase from 7.2 billion to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion by 2100.
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a popular, but criticized, measure of societal well-being, representing the monetary value of all goods and services produced.
• The Human Development Index (HDI) is a more comprehensive measure of well-being that factors in health and education, in addition to income.
• HDI emphasizes that assessing a country's progress should consider people and their capabilities, not just economic growth.
• The health dimension of HDI is assessed by life expectancy at birth.
• The education dimension of HDI is measured by mean years of schooling for adults and expected years of schooling for children entering school.
• The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita, using the logarithm of income.
• The HDI simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails as it does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc.
• Life expectancy at birth increased from 48 years in 1955 to 65 years in 1995 and 71 years in 2010.
• By 2025, it is expected that no country will have a life expectancy of less than 50 years.
• Child mortality rates have almost halved since 1990.
• Extreme poverty is declining; 1.22 billion people live on less than $1.25 per day, down from 1.91 billion in 1990.
• There are still 1.22 billion people living in extreme poverty.
• 1.6 billion people live without access to electricity.
• 1.1 billion lack adequate access to water.
• 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

What Does Human Well-Being Depend On?

• Constituents of human well-being include material needs, health, education, opportunity, community, and security.
• Broadly, human activities and well-being depend on three categories of goods and services: economic, societal, and ecological.
• Economic goods and services include equipment, energy supply, market for products, waste treatment, food, and transportation, which have monetary value.
• Societal goods and services include labor, educational institutions, intellectual capital, the legal system, government, and culture; and involve individuals or groups.
• Ecological goods and services come directly from nature (minerals, water, air, sunlight, biomass, ocean and river currents, wind, pollination, soil formation, carbon sequestration, and disease regulation) and usually have no monetary value.
• The three categories of goods and services are also known as the triple bottom line or triple values.
• Economic activities transform ecosystem goods and services into economic goods and services.
• Without goods and services from society and nature, economic activities are not possible.
• Societal well-being requires goods and services from nature because people need natural amenities, thus both societal and economic activities rely on ecosystems.
• Ecosystems can thrive even without societal or economic goods and services, but neither societal nor economic activities are possible without ecosystem goods and services.
• Ecosystem goods and services form the foundation for economic and societal goods and services.
• Biosphere 2 showed that there was no substitute for Biosphere 1, which is planet Earth.
• Entire societies and civilizations have collapsed owing to the loss of goods and services from nature.
• Sustainability is ultimately about ensuring the availability of ecosystem goods and services for present and future generations.

Ecosystem Goods and Services

• Ecosystem goods and services are the benefits that humans derive from nature.
• They are the flows derived from natural capital and provide the foundation for all human activities.
• Natural capital includes natural resources such as minerals, fertile soil, forests, and wetlands.
• Ecosystems play a vital, but bigger role in society than is usually ignored in our decisions.
• Industry also benefits from the aesthetic and cultural aspects of ecosystems
• A lot of goods and services provided by nature may be categorized.
• Provisioning services are products from ecosystems such as food, fresh water, fuel, ornamental resources, genetic resources, biochemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
• Regulation and maintenance services are benefits from the maintenance of ecological processes by the regulation of air quality, water quality, climate, soil fertility, pests, and diseases.
• Cultural services are the non-material benefits that people get from nature in the form of spiritual and religious values, cultural diversity, educational values, aesthetic values, sense of place, social relations, and recreation and ecotourism.
• Ecosystem goods and services provide security, basic materials for a good life, health, and social relations, and enable freedom of choice and action.
• Ecosystem services have a direct impact on health and the feeling of well-being and are also known to reduce overall mortality and cardiovascular disease.
• Exposure to green spaces and biodiversity reduces the occurrence of modern diseases and allergies and also enhances the resilience of communities to extreme events.
• Sustainability is ultimately about human beings and the well-being, not just in the short run, but in the long run as well.
• Human well-being is strongly dependent on healthy ecosystems, so sustaining ourselves does require saving the planet.