Textbook for students of the 10th and 11th grades
Society, Environment, Economy:
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
Education through action
By Vadim Kalinin and Dmitri Yermakov
2d edition. Moscow, “Drofa” Publishing House, 2007 (in press). 300 pp.
Introduction
Since yesterday the world has changed.
Dear students,
We congratulate you for the start of the new course “Sustainable
Development” and we are eager to begin working with you. The objectives of the
course “Sustainable Development” are to help answer the following questions:
 How do you plan your life and achieve your goals?
 How do you take into account multifaceted, conflicting interests of many
people and organizations to achieve success and changes for the better?
 How can you go about your daily activities while inflicting minimal
damage to the environment and helping to solve the complex problems
facing society?
 While going to school and after finishing it, what can you do to raise the
quality of life in your home, village, community, micro district?
For some of you the course “Sustainable Development” will be the
continuation of studying the sciences of your surrounding environment. However, the
subject material of this course goes beyond biology, ecology, geography and social
sciences and covers a wide range of issues about prediction, management, economics
and systems theory.
The need for this course stems from:
 The necessity for being able to orientate oneself in a rapidly changing world
 The growing complexity of processes occurring in society and in the
environment which have been observed in the last decades
 And, consequently, the need to understand the processes occurring in
society and nature and the need to master the skills necessary for
management of social-economic processes
The course which you are about to begin is in many respects unique. On the
one hand, the majority of the lessons do not provide long explanations of the new
material by the teacher. Lessons proceed through dialogue, and sometimes even
through action. Such a form of study will allow you to better grasp and remember the
fundamental ideas of the course.
On the other hand, the content of the book opened before you is also unique.
Most textbooks try to precisely and, whenever possible, simplistically explain the
world. However, the world is so complex, inconsistent and ambiguous; within it there
is so much mystery that it cannot be placed in the format of a normal textbook. There
are no answers to many important questions even from the most outstanding scientists.
In modern science many critical problems have yet to be solved.
Thus, a unified, generally accepted systems theory – and an examination of the
behaviors of systems makes up the basis of this course – does not exist. Information
about extremely ancient mankind is in many respects inconsistent. This concerns
mainly chronological dating and, on a whole, numerical characteristics of old events.
Even the origin of the first modern species of humans, our direct ancestors (CroMagnon men), to this day has not been explained. There is no confirmed theory of
their descent from Neanderthals.
As for the questions concerning the future of mankind, even well-founded
opinions are of merely a hypothetical nature. Scientists and specialists express
different, sometimes contradictory ideas about what awaits us in the future.
Aside from that, as you know not only fashion and weather but also the
political and economic situation and other conditions of our lives constantly change.
Mankind’s knowledge about the world is continually redefined. Information becomes
partially outdated. Thus, it is completely natural if also some information included in
this textbook doesn’t correspond to the latest ideas.
So, despite the fact that the textbook helps in understanding the many
questions of the past, present and future, it does not explain the world. And this should
not be surprising; you live in a world in which every day you must tackle questions
for which there is no one to ask the answer. The course “Sustainable Development”
will help you find your bearings in life and find answers. The world is not known, but
it is knowable. And only each of you, reading the textbook, participating in the
lessons, carrying out tasks, will be able to create your own world, one that you choose
yourself, one in which you will live. The choice is yours. You either choose a world
enclosed on the dark side of reality or one that is open for development and assistance
to other people.
With what would you like to begin the course so that it is practically useful for
you and that the received knowledge and skills will be useful to the rest of your life?
Let’s have a peak into tomorrow and begin with an analysis…of the future.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1. The foundations of sustainable development
Chapter 1. The unpredictable and predictable future
§ 1. Responsibility for the future
§ 2. Prognostication of the future
§ 3. Growth and development
Chapter 2. A changing world
§ 4. Classification and the basic properties of systems
§ 5. Self-regulation and development of dynamic systems
§ 6. Management of dynamic systems
Chapter 3. Nature, society, economics
§ 7. Socio-ecological-economic systems
§ 8. Socially significant activity
§ 9. Structure of society
§ 10. The features of future society
Chapter 4. Sustainable development
§ 11. The concept of sustainable development
§ 12. The indicators of sustainable development
§ 13. Levels, instruments, stages of sustainable development
Chapter 5. Planning and management of projects
§ 14. Strategic planning and social marketing
§ 15. Fundamentals of managing sustainable development of socio-ecologicaleconomic systems
§ 16. Environmental management and policy of corporate responsibility
Part 2. Realization of sustainable development
Chapter 6. Local agenda 21
§ 17. My agenda 21. Sustainable development and family
§ 18. Agenda 21 for my school
§ 19. Local agenda 21
Chapter 7. Sustainable development of Russia and the world
§ 20. Strategy of sustainable development of the Russian Federation
§ 21. Sustainable development of the world community
Conclusion
Glossary
 Vadim Kalinin, Tatyana Gaivoron, Dmiti Yermakov, Svetlana Lapshina
 The “Drofa” Publishing House
E-mail: web at_the online.ru
Internet: a-s-e-k-o.narod.ru