The United Nations has designated the first Monday of October every year as World Habitat Day. This year the day falls on October 4. The day isintended to remind the world of its collective responsibility for thefuture of the human habitat.
After floods, fires and recordbreaking temperatures in 2010, human habitation has become an even morepressing concern. In Pakistan alone millions of people had their homeconsumed by rising flood water. According to the UN Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), floods have affected 20.25million people in the country.
As people continue to flock tourban centers, cities in both developed and developing countries, areincreasingly feeling the effects of climate change, resource depletion,food insecurity, population growth and economic instability.
According to the UNHCR statistics there are 36 million displaced people and morethan one billion people around the world who are without a simple,decent home. Another widely reported study has claimed that globalwarming is already causing 300,000 deaths a year.
World Habitat day underscores the importance of sustainable urban planning.We can no longer push responsibility for habitation down the road forfuture generations to deal with. We need to consider housing that canmanage the effects of climate change while substantially reducing theenvironmental impacts.
We need to share the best solutions aswidely as possible so that we can do a better job of planning a strategy of global coexistence with our environment.
Richard Matthews is a consultant, eco-entrepreneur, sustainable investor and writer. He is the owner of THE GREEN MARKET, one of the Web’s most comprehensive resources on the business of the environment. He is also the author of numerous articles on sustainable positioning, green investing, enviro-politics and eco-economics.