An article by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Project Syndicate – New York, The Jakarta Post.

A half-century ago, John F. Kennedy observed that, “man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life”. Those words speak to us today with special urgency.

Our generation can indeed end the ancient scourge of extreme poverty. Yet it can also destroy the earth’s life-support system through human-induced environmental devastation.

By necessity, then, we have entered The Age of Sustainable Development. So I am enormously excited to be launching a free, global, online university course by the same name in January 2014. I hope that people all over the world will join the course — and then join the generation-long quest to achieve sustainable development.

Sustainable development is both a way of understanding the world and a way to help save it. As a method of understanding the world, sustainable-development practitioners study the interactions of the economy, the environment, politics, and culture and how they influence prosperity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Students of sustainable development must therefore learn about a wide range of subjects, including economic development, education, health care, climate change, energy systems, biodiversity and urbanization, among others.

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