With changes needed, our society needs to confront the future development of sustainability in this country. We need modifications in our behaviors, institutions, and technologies. As defined by The United Nations (UN) sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs” As stated by The UN “This requires the integration of its economic, environmental and social components at all levels by continuous dialogue and action in global partnership.” We need to find a way to balance environmental goals, social goals and economic goals. The World Conservation Union says that we are currently out of balance and heavy in economic and social goals and deficient in realistic and working environmental goals. The World Conservation Union also remarks “development decisions by governments, businesses and other actors do allow trade-offs and put greatest emphasis on the economy above other dimensions of sustainability. This is a major reason why the environment continues to be degraded and development does not achieve desirable equity goals.” The report goes on to say that the integration of economic, environmental and social components cannot be treated equally because the economy is an institution that emerges from society and that they are virtually one. The same as society creates rules to mediate the exchange of goods or value. The environment on the other hand is not created by society and tradeoffs are limited in regards to human activity.
In 1992, Edward Wilson noted that human activities have increased 'background' extinction rates by between 100 and 10,000 times. 'We are’, he said, ‘in the midst of one of the great extinction spasms of geological history”. The Millennium Assessment (MA) which was implemented by UN secretary Kofi Annan in 2000, to assess the consequences of