| Summary: | The idea of sustainable development as a three-way relationship with the environment, the economy, and social considerations all occupying different points of the triangle emerged between 1970 and 1990. The synthesis occurred as the economic situation of the developed world slowed, and the developing world collapsed. This collapse gave the push for a fundamental rethink on matters of free trade, debt, aid, and transnational corporations. At the same time, a host of new problems emerged, from the nuclear accident at Chernobyl through to the shrinking ozone layer over Antarctica. Despite these very bleak events, the international community began to rally and started to create a new generation of laws and policies, which for the first time in decades started to make progress in confronting the difficulties at hand.
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