Climate change has been the forefront of international news and how leaders will take specific measures on tackling environmental challenges. China has faced much pressure and criticism, domestically and internationally with their actions or lack thereof on the environmental crisis. China is the world’s leader when it comes to the release of carbon emissions. Approximately, one third of all accountable greenhouses gases that are emitted from the planet is due to China’s activities. China is home to sixteen of the world’s twenty most polluted cities (Xu 1).
The contribution of severe contamination, air pollution, and scarcity of land deterioration has led to the decrease of life expectancy in the north by 5. 5 years. According to the World Bank, the cost of environmental degradation of the country is an estimated nine percent of its GDP. Confucius Philosophy/Influence In the book, the River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s future states that the Confucian roots are what shaped the policies that promoted man’s exploitation of resources.
Economy writes, “China’s current environmental situation is the result not only of policy choices made today but also of attitudes, approaches, and institutions that have evolved over centuries,” The Book of Rites is a classic Chinese text contributed by Confucian scholars that has instructions to not leave untapped resources alone (Economy 4). Confucians argued the exploitation of the wealth of nature is needed for the duties of the states to provide the livelihoods needed for the people.
Some took this as legitimate reasoning to exploit and manipulate the environments for the ‘glory of the states’. However, this view only accounts for one school of thought. Another aspect of Confucian teachings contains ethics promoting both development and conservation. Mencius, the second great Confucian thinker, thought that the proper management of resource was crucial for people’s subsistence. He encouraged the thought that limiting harvests was vital to ensure resources would still be available.
He wrote, “if you allow hatchets and axes to be used in the woods only in person season, they will be more lumber than people can use” (Economy 5) In the Ming and Qing dynasties, families made woodland conservation a central point to their Confucian ethics. They did so to properly respect their ancestors by protecting the woodlands that surrounded their graves. Which has persisted to become the state’s core “ecology forests” in the 50s and 60s (Economy 7).
However this conservation tenet of Confucianism was in contradiction to the other mission of providing for the people’s livelihoods. In the recent decades China has been growing their economy to provide for their people. This delicate balance of environmental protection and human needs has been a great challenge for China throughout its history, even before industrialization. Public Opinion/Perception: People have the thought that being ‘a green person’ is something they already partake in, and conclude that their lifestyles are reasonable sustainable.
Their view of sustainable development of being green is normalized through activities such as not using plastic bags, recycling, walking to shops, careful driving, etc. However, people’s grasp of the understanding of sustainable development is less than they think (Scott 239). They think this way because they are being told it is being effective, however it is not. No one including the government really explains the issues to them. People do all the little easy actions, but absent is the acknowledgement of the scale of these changes that will most likely be need.
Broadly speaking, it reveals the concept of green behaviors a conceptual morass. The support for bans of behavior is especially high in countries with existing authoritarian cultures and centralized governmental institutions. But support for interventions of those behaviors decreases as the force for an intervention increases. An example, the provision for information and incentives is particularly popular, contrary to legislative approaches which are less so.
This is especially true when freedoms and rights are lost and taken away. The report concludes that people expect businesses and government to take on a greater role in the push towards more sustainable living. This was a clear message that was done from the research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Horton & Doron, 2011). Their needs to be a sense of being able to recognize the issues, understand potential benefits, effectiveness of any proposal, and an acceptance of the action.
The report states that due to this need of preparedness, there needs to be a close understanding of the issue and also of the cultural context. There was no single factor that will result in a desired change of a specific behavior, and that understanding the public’s opinion is crucial for knowing what to do, and when to do it. Climate change has become one of the most important and severe challenges to sustainable development of the global social economy, widespread concerns have been made across the international scene.
On the other hand, China’s, the world’s largest emitter, emissions reduction plan is under an enormous amount of pressure from the public (Hao 460). In recent years, the number of incidents from environmental groups occurred more frequently and was noted to be a serious social problem in China. Since 1996, the number of environmental protests have been growing by 29% every year, and over 300,000 petitions have been collected on environmental issues during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period (2005-2010) (chinadialogue 2012).
It is necessary for China to father the public and make relevant strategies and policies to respond effectively to climate change activity. Survey that examined climate change issues of China’s public, and the data was used to obtain China’s attitude and public perception to deal with climate change, and to carry out publicity activities to promote the public sphere and the CHinese government to address climate change more effectively (Yu 461).
According to the investigation, the result was 71% of respondents believed it was their responsibility to take actions to curb climate change, and 78% believe that it does harm residents and society. However the seriousness of climate change and the impact it has is still not generally understood. Health/Safety/Ag (impact of soil heavy) Toxic substances as a result pollute the soil cough find its way reaching humans through a variety of absorption pathways such as: of ingestion, diet through soil-food chance, dermal contact, oral innate and inhalation.
In a soil-grain system, diet was the number one reason for the pathway of these heavy metals to humans (Zhang 4,5). Soil is an important source for heavy metals in vegetables and crops, because of the plant’s roots that absorbs these toxins and pollutants from the sol and then is transferred to the seeds. In addition, the rapid reduction of arable land, coupled with soil contamination by heavy metals are often times overlooked but underlines a critical threat to China’s food security (Zhang 1-3).
