Protecting and improving the ecological environment and realizing the sustainable development of human society are urgent and arduous tasks facing all mankind.
Therefore, environmental protection and sustainable development are two-in-one and two-in-one tasks.
Protecting the environment is the premise of realizing sustainable development. Only by realizing sustainable development can the ecological environment be effectively protected. Protecting the ecological environment and ensuring the harmony between man and nature are the premise of further economic development and the guarantee of the continuation of human civilization.
Keywords: environmental protection; Sustainable development; Harmonious development
1 the essence of sustainable development
Sustainable development not only meets the needs of contemporary people, but also does not harm the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Sustainable development contains two important connotations: first, need, that is, to meet the basic needs of human beings and improve the quality of life, with special priority given to basic needs; The second is restriction, that is, human development and demand are limited by the carrying capacity of the earth's resources. Development is coordinated and restricted through human technological progress and management activities, and the ability of the environment to meet immediate and future needs is restricted to adapt to the natural environmental capacity.
Development without restrictions is unsustainable.
Ecological sustainable development is the guarantee of sustainable development, economic sustainable development is the means of sustainable development, and social sustainable development is the ultimate goal of sustainable development.
With the emergence of environmental problems, it is urgent to advocate the sustainable development model.
Nowadays, the world is facing a series of major problems in population, resources, environment and development.
The concept of sustainable development is put forward on the basis of human's deep understanding of the sustainable ability of environment and resources.
It comes from environmental protection.
Man is a part of nature and an inseparable whole. In order to survive, people must live in harmony with nature.
Improper production and lifestyle is one of the most serious problems facing the earth's environment.
Since the industrial revolution, especially after the Second World War, western countries have been competing for high-speed economic development, promoting rapid economic growth and maintaining a high consumption level by consuming a large number of non-renewable resources.
Although industrial production has increased dozens of times, there are social contradictions such as population expansion, resource shortage, environmental deterioration, ecological destruction, increasing poverty and unbalanced development in all countries.
It can be seen that the sustainable development of economy and the harmonious development of society, and the protection of the environment are the key ideas of sustainable development, which not only involves the future and destiny of mankind, but also is a consumption economy model with high consumption and high growth. Regardless of the bearing capacity of nature, it promotes economic development by consuming a lot of natural resources, resulting in disharmony between man and the natural environment.
Sustainable development is to apply the universal laws of material immortality and energy conservation in nature to human beings and natural environment systems as an organic whole.
Meeting human needs is the center of social development.
On the basis of minimizing resource consumption, human beings are required to improve the utilization rate of resources, achieve more output with less input, promote the growth of renewable resources, and make the conversion rate of material energy achieve the best effect under the condition of mutual coordination within the system to meet people's needs.
At the same time, people are required to use it as much as possible while consuming, so as to reduce the natural load and keep the system structure and function in good condition, which has become a new sustainable development model in harmony with human beings and the natural environment.
2 environmental functions and environmental problems
The development of human society is inseparable from the surrounding environment.
Environment is often one of the necessary conditions for social development. The promotion or delay of environment to social development reflects the continuous improvement of productivity and the continuous development of natural resources, and the relationship between society and its surrounding environment is deepening day by day.
Environment is the foundation of human survival and development.
It is also the object of development and utilization.
Its main function is to (1) provide all kinds of natural conditions and resources necessary for human activities.
Environment is the source of material and energy for human production, and it is also the basic and important condition for the survival of all kinds of creatures.
Humans mine coal, oil, natural gas, etc. Starting from the natural geographical environment, we use land resources to produce grain, thus producing a series of economic activities.
Therefore, the quantity and quality of environmental resources determine the scale and speed of economic activities.
When the speed of human demand for resources exceeds the capacity of natural supply, it is difficult to maintain and sustain development.
(2) Consume and assimilate the products produced by human activities, and at the same time, some by-products that are not used for a while will be discharged into the environment and become waste.
However, human metabolism and consumption activities also produce various wastes and return them to the surrounding natural environment.
When the waste discharge exceeds the self-purification capacity of the environment, the environmental quality will decline.
(3) To satisfy the spiritual enjoyment of human existence.
Environment can not only provide material resources for human beings, but also meet people's requirements for comfort.
Clean air and water are the basic elements of agricultural production and the needs of people's healthy and happy life.
Beautiful and comfortable environment makes people feel relaxed and happy, which is conducive to improving the quality of human body and promoting the sustainable development of social economy more effectively.
The purpose of environmental protection is to promote the sustainable development of social economy.
Faced with many environmental problems, we must strengthen environmental protection.
Environmental problems refer to any changes in environmental structure and state that are not conducive to human survival and development. The reasons are both man-made and natural.
Its essence is the contradiction between unreasonable social and economic activities of human beings and sustainable development of the environment.
Environmental problems have become one of the severe challenges facing mankind.
It mainly includes primary environmental problems and secondary environmental problems.
(1) The primary environmental problem is called the first environmental problem, which is caused by the change of the natural environment itself, with little or no human factors involved.
This kind of environmental problem is naturally induced. Only after a long period of natural accumulation, or mainly under the control of natural forces, people lose their control ability and cause certain damage to human society.
These environmental problems include earthquakes, volcanic activities, landslides, mudslides, typhoons, floods and droughts.
Faced with these problems, we can prevent and reduce the damage during the day.
(2) Secondary environmental problems are environmental problems caused by human activities acting on the surrounding environment, also known as secondary environmental problems.
It is mainly the problem of environmental decline caused by unreasonable utilization of resources by human beings and the problem of environmental pollution caused by industrial development.
(1) environmental damage, environmental damage, also known as ecological damage.
It mainly refers to the ecological degradation caused by human social activities and the related environmental effects derived from it, which leads to the changes of environmental structure and function and has a negative impact on human survival and development.
Environmental damage is mainly caused by human activities violating the laws of natural ecology, seeking quick success and instant benefit, and blindly exploiting natural resources.
Forest coverage rate is sharply reduced due to excessive logging, grassland is degraded due to overgrazing, many animal species are on the verge of extinction due to indiscriminate killing, farmland area is reduced due to blind land occupation, deforestation causes soil erosion and desertification, over-exploitation causes groundwater funnel, causes ground subsidence, and other unreasonable development and utilization destroys geological structure and landscape.
(2) Environmental pollution and interference. Environmental pollution refers to the phenomenon that harmful substances or factors enter the environment, and spread, migrate and transform in the environment, changing the structure and function of the environmental system and adversely affecting the normal survival and development of human beings or other organisms.
Mainly refers to the degradation of environmental quality caused by human activities.
Such as air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution and radioactive pollution.
This threatens human health.
Environmental interference refers to the energy emitted by human activities entering the environment, which has a certain degree of adverse effects on human beings.
The environmental crisis has aroused people's general anxiety and widespread concern because it not only affects the quality of life of contemporary people, but also threatens the survival of future generations.
This must be linked with sustainable development that encourages economic growth. It not only attaches importance to the increase of quantity, but also requires the quality of delivery to improve efficiency, save energy, reduce waste, change the traditional production and consumption mode, and implement clean production and civilized consumption.
It is based on protecting nature, controlling environmental pollution, improving environmental quality, reducing ecological damage, maintaining the integrity of the earth's ecosystem, making sustainable use of renewable resources, and keeping the development of species within the carrying capacity of the earth.
It aims to eliminate poverty and improve the quality of human life, and it should adapt to social progress.
Although people's understanding of happiness may be different from ours in the future, as human beings, we must first meet some of our basic needs (such as clean air, clean water, healthy and stable ecosystem).
Therefore, when allocating the limited resources on the earth, we must use the intergenerational principle to deal with the relationship between contemporary people and future generations.
We should not only leave a set of advanced production technology and mature economic development model for future generations, but also leave them with a stable and healthy ecological environment.
3 Environmental protection and sustainable development
If a civilization takes plundering and conquering nature as its own value, then environmental pollution and ecological crisis are inevitable; The current environmental crisis facing mankind does not stem from the fact that the speed of providing resources by science and technology is slower than that of human consumption.
Compared with the past history, the technology that human beings have at present is undoubtedly the most advanced, but the environmental crisis is produced under the background that we have such unprecedented technical strength.
Therefore, the environmental crisis cannot be solved by purely technical means. Acknowledging the limitations of technical means in environmental protection does not mean denying the limitations of science and technology in environmental protection. This does not mean ignoring the important role of science and technology in environmental protection, but requires us to break through the limitations of technological determinism and put environmental protection and sustainable development under the background of civilization transformation and value recasting.
Recognize the intrinsic value of nature, regard man and nature as an inseparable whole, pursue the harmony between man and nature, and respect and maintain the integrity, beauty and stability of the ecosystem.
No matter from the global scope or from the actual situation in China, human civilization has developed to the stage of protecting the ecological environment.
Ensuring the harmony between man and nature is the premise of further economic development and the guarantee of the continuation of human civilization.
Achieve the goals of environmental protection and sustainable development.
We need to do a lot of things. We should adjust the relationship between man and nature, between contemporary people and future generations, and between contemporary people and contemporary people.
To truly solve environmental problems, we must first change the current development mode and road of mankind.
Development cannot be limited to economic development, and social and economic development and environmental protection cannot be separated, let alone opposed.
Development should be the coordinated development of society, economy, population, resources and environment and the all-round development of human beings.
The Declaration on Human Environment was adopted at the 1972 Human Environment Conference, or it was a turning point in human environmental protection. Environmental problems are not just environmental pollution.
On a global scale, the ecological environment has been destroyed and the environmental pollution has become more serious.
Only by breaking through the narrow concept of environment, closely linking population, resources, environment and development, and coordinating the relationship between man and environment, development and environment, can environmental problems be solved as a whole.
Whether contemporary people can fairly distribute the costs and benefits of environmental protection and establish a set of institutional arrangements to encourage people's environmental protection behavior directly determines the realization of the goal of harmonious coexistence between man and nature; If contemporary people can't achieve some minimum justice, then we can hardly expect them to really care about the interests of distant future generations. Therefore, contemporary collective efforts and everyone's choice are the key to achieving the goal of sustainable development.
Our Common Future pays special attention to meeting the basic needs of the poor.
This is because people's basic needs are met, which is the basic right that people enjoy as human beings.
Poverty is the deprivation of this right, which makes the value of human behavior not realized.
At the same time, poverty and environmental damage are often mutually causal.
Therefore, eliminating poverty and narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor are the inherent requirements for achieving intra-generational equality and the basis for achieving sustainable development.
To sum up, in order to achieve the goal of coordinated and sustainable development between human beings and the natural environment, we must protect the environment.
People have the right to use nature and meet their own survival needs by changing the material form of natural resources, but this right must be limited to not changing the basic order of nature; People also have the obligation to respect the existence of nature, maintain the stability of natural laws, and give corresponding compensation to nature while developing nature.
Of course, determining the scope of rights and obligations in this way is based on the premise of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, while sustainable development is aimed at the reality that the harmonious relationship between man and nature has been seriously damaged.
In fact, the scope of human rights and obligations to nature must be adjusted accordingly.
Before reaching a new harmony, the way and depth of human development of nature should be strictly limited; While changing the material form of natural resources, people should provide more compensation to nature to restore its normal state.
Make people and the environment develop harmoniously and realize the goal of sustainable development.