University of Basrah President Speech
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, who bestowed upon us the blessings that made Iraq a country of abundant natural resources and made it a part of this developed world. Since we live in a modern world, it ostensibly may seem civilized, but, it daily depletes a lot of natural resources without sufficient awareness of rationalization and maintaining for those resources. In our cities, we point out that the consumption in city centers is much more than what we find in the countryside. For example, the lights in cities remain used even at sunshin; equipments, electrical appliances, heating and cooling appliances and other equipment that require various kinds of resources are used without taking into account their use only when needed.This leads to the need of urgent developments of plans and programs to manage the consumption of natural resources, which ensures their preservation and sustainability as much as possible and to find ways and means to get environmentally friendly alternatives that serve same purposes. Therefore, the need for sustainable living be high requirement grade in our responsibility. Certainly, the goal is not to focus just on cities which means sustainable living is a necessity only for cities. Nevertheless, enhancements must be made in ways of living everywhere in the world (unfortunately, it is estimated that we consume about 40% more resources annually than we can bear). This requires changes our behaviors to maintain the sustainability of the natural resources. Therefore, the concept of sustainability is one of the most vital topics that are being discussed at the present time at all levels. Thus, in order for the university to advance and take its real role in society, one of its most important duties is to increase the awareness of individuals about the effects of our daily practices leave on the environment around us, as well as the depletion of the planet’s natural resources unwisely
Prof. Dr. Saad Shaheen Hammadi
President of Basra University