Since the end of the 20th century, mankind has been faced with serious resource crisis and environmental crisis. The demand for resources and environment generated by economic development and population growth has exceeded the supply capacity of the earth's ecosystem. The depletion of resources, especially the depletion of oil and natural gas, will face extremely severe challenges to the survival and development of mankind. 1968, the scientists of the Club of Rome published The Limit of Growth, which aroused strong repercussions in the academic and political circles around the world. Since then, international organizations, governments and scholars have had heated discussions on the crisis of resources and environment and sustainable development, and reached many consensuses on the strategy of sustainable development.
So far, the theories and strategies of sustainable development put forward by academic circles and governments have the following contents: first, the basic principles of sustainable development are put forward: the principle of fairness, including intra-generational fairness and intergenerational fairness; The principle of sustainability, emphasizing the sustainable utilization of resources and the sustainability of the ecological environment; * * * Same-sex principle, emphasizing that achieving sustainable development is the common morality and responsibility of mankind. Second, the material basis of sustainable development is the sustainable utilization of resources. In order to realize this sustainable utilization, the minimum safety standard is put forward, that is, the speed of social utilization of renewable resources must not exceed the renewal speed of renewable resources; The speed of social use of non-renewable resources must not exceed the development speed of resources as substitutes; The speed at which the society discharges pollutants shall not exceed the absorption capacity of the environment. Thirdly, in terms of sustainable development strategy, except for a few developed countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway and Germany, all countries put environmental protection in the priority position of sustainable development strategy, and emphasize the use of economic, administrative and legal means such as environmental tax and property right definition to protect forests, fresh water, cultivated land, oceans and atmosphere from all kinds of toxic substances. Fourth, I believe that market incentives and scientific and technological progress can automatically solve the environmental problems and resource substitution problems faced by sustainable development. It is believed that the market mechanism can reflect the scarcity of resources through the change of resource prices. Once the resources are exhausted, the rising price of resources will prompt people to look for alternative resources, and scientific and technological progress provides technical means for resource substitution. Fifth, implement the cleaner production strategy in the industrial field. The so-called clean production means that in industrial production, the production waste is minimized through scientific and reasonable links such as product design, raw material selection, technological transformation, technical management and internal recycling. Recover the waste discharged in production, turn waste into treasure and reduce pollution. Sixth, establish a sustainable development accounting system to evaluate the sustainable development status and capabilities of countries.
The above summary of the world sustainable development thought and strategy may not be comprehensive, but it does not prevent us from evaluating its main aspects. Due to the lack of a correct understanding of the nature and root causes of the global resource and environmental crisis, the sustainable development strategy represented by the West has the following defects: First, the main root cause of unsustainable development is that the large-scale industrial production mode dominated by private capital interests makes economic growth based on predatory exploitation and demand for resources, and economic development adopts a development model of high growth, high input, high consumption and high pollution, resulting in serious ecological imbalance and environmental damage. Although countries have criticized the production mode of high input and high consumption and the wasteful high consumption mode, they have no will and ability to transform this production mode and consumption mode. On the contrary, governments around the world are still focused on pursuing economic growth and trying their best not to destroy the current production and consumption patterns. Second, the core issue of sustainable development is to establish the resource and environmental foundation of sustainable development. Countries attach great importance to environmental problems, but underestimate the possibility and severity of resource crisis, fail to establish a credible resource substitution strategy or intergenerational distribution plan, and lack specific countermeasures for sustainable utilization of resources. The U.S. government's resource strategy is only to develop a powerful high-tech military force to ensure its own resources and energy security. Recently, the Bush administration ignored the general opposition of the international community and launched a war against Iraq with the aim of controlling the world's oil resources in order to dominate the world and ensure its own energy supply. The EU's sustainable development strategy is resource-colored, but it is limited to reducing the consumption of non-renewable energy (oil, natural gas, etc.). ) and the development of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind energy. Only the protection of important resources such as biodiversity is emphasized, but there is no comprehensive resource substitution strategy to deal with the resource crisis. This shows that the west has neglected the possibility and reality of the resource crisis at a certain stage and at a certain technical level. Third, blindly believe that spontaneous scientific and technological progress can solve the resource and environmental problems faced by sustainable development, but ignore the two sides of the impact of science and technology on resources and environment. On the one hand, it is the ultimate means to solve the problems of resources and environment. On the other hand, when scientific and technological progress completely obeys the interests of capital, it will promote the development of productive forces and the growth of social wealth, and at the same time, due to its huge leverage, it will quickly consume a lot of valuable resources and cause serious pollution to the environment. One-sided understanding leads to blind optimism in practice, and governments around the world lack scientific and technological development strategies and development plans to deal with the crisis of resources and environment. Fourthly, the sustainable strategy of developed countries ignores the pressure of the world population growth on the global ecosystem, especially the huge poor people in developing countries-1/3 of the world population-make a living by planting, collecting or catching food, which directly destroys the ecological environment for their own survival and development and becomes an important reason for the ecological crisis. Developed countries and their leading international institutions have not given enough aid to developing countries in poverty alleviation and development, and have not paid enough attention to the control of world population growth. It not only ignores the developing countries' right to development, but even promotes ecological (environmental) standards, setting various trade barriers to the development of developing countries, damaging their development and weakening their capacity for sustainable development.
Some scholars in China believe that knowledge economy is the fundamental way to achieve sustainable development. Obviously, whether it is knowledge industries such as education, scientific research, consulting and planning, or a large number of high-tech knowledge-intensive industries bred by information technology, biotechnology, new material technology, new energy technology and aerospace technology, the utilization efficiency of resources will be greatly improved, and there is huge room for development. However, knowledge economy can't replace material economy to make mankind enter the virtual economy era. They are interdependent and independent parts. With the expansion of population and the increase of human material demand, and with the process of eliminating poverty and promoting industrialization in developing countries, the scale of material production departments such as agriculture and industry in the world will continue to expand, and the consumption of resources and environment will continue to increase. Knowledge and technology can only save the use and consumption of resources and delay the arrival of the crisis. In other words, knowledge-based economy is only an important way to achieve sustainable development, and it is impossible to completely deal with the resource and environmental crisis faced by human beings only by developing knowledge-based economy.
In a word, the existing sustainable development strategy represented by the west is short-sighted, negative and one-sided. It is also negative and dangerous to take the road of developing knowledge economy as the fundamental way of sustainable development strategy. Mankind needs to formulate a more active, far-sighted and comprehensive strategy in order to tide over the difficulties effectively.
2. Making the sustainable development strategy of science and technology is the ultimate means to solve the crisis.
The role of science and technology in realizing the strategy of sustainable development is irreplaceable. It is the means and way to finally solve the crisis of resources and environment and realize sustainable development. In the face of the coming energy crisis, we must formulate a sustainable development strategy of science and technology to make full preparations for solving the crisis.
First of all, science and technology are the primary productive forces and the main source of modern economic growth. Scientific and technological progress will improve the utilization efficiency of resources and expand the possibility boundary of production. Such as energy-saving technology, material-saving technology, water-saving technology and scientific planting and breeding technology, will save all kinds of resources and energy and reduce waste emissions. The low consumption of resources and energy will delay the arrival of resource crisis and reduce the pollution of waste discharge to the natural environment. Scientific and technological progress will also lead to the birth of a large number of high-tech industries, the development of knowledge industries such as education and scientific research, and expand the space for industrial development. For example, the development of information technology has promoted the manufacturing and development of microelectronics, communication products, computers and other electronic products, promoted the development of software, information dissemination, information consultation and information service industry, and become the leading industry to promote rapid economic growth. Biotechnology will separate more than ten kinds of technologies, such as bio-agriculture, bio-chemicals, bio-materials, bio-energy, bio-pharmaceuticals, bio-food and bio-information, which will give birth to many bio-industries. New energy technology, new material technology, aerospace technology, etc. It is a high-tech similar to information technology and biotechnology in 2 1 century. The development of these high-tech industries and knowledge industries will not only have broad development space and become the most promising leading industries in 2 1 century, but also promote the transformation of resource-consuming economic system into resource-saving economic system.
Secondly, the material basis of sustainable development is the sustainability of resources. When the resources on which economic development depends, especially non-renewable resources, are exhausted, we must find alternative resources in time, especially replacing non-renewable resources with renewable resources. In the long run, non-renewable resources will eventually be exhausted, and the resources and energy on which material production depends will eventually be transformed into renewable resources and energy. Scientific and technological progress is the ultimate means to find alternative resources and realize sustainable economic development.
Finally, protecting the ecological environment and controlling environmental pollution depends on science and technology. The development of science and technology such as environmental chemistry, analytical chemistry and ecology provides scientific basis for human beings to understand environmental problems. However, ecological technology, clean production technology, separation technology of various toxic substances, and energy-saving and material-saving technology have greatly reduced all kinds of wastes and toxic substances discharged in the production process, or directly provided technical means for environmental governance. In addition, earth science and space remote sensing technology have great application prospects in detecting natural resources, monitoring natural disasters and environmental degradation.
The strategy of sustainable development of science and technology must put the development of new energy technology and biotechnology in the first place. Because, in 2 1 century, the most urgent resource crisis that has a vital impact on human survival is the biochemical energy crisis. The exploitable time of biochemical energy such as oil, natural gas and coal is not long. Once exhausted, renewable energy sources such as hydropower, wind power, geothermal energy, tidal energy and biomass energy, which can replace petrochemical energy under the existing technical conditions, are far from meeting the energy needs of modern industry, agriculture, transportation and urban and rural residents. However, new energy sources with great potential such as solar energy, hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion energy are far from mature and commercialized. For example, solar energy is the last and most potential renewable energy on earth, and its large-scale utilization technology, especially its storage technology, can not be developed in a short time. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development and solve the energy crisis, we must vigorously develop new energy technologies. In addition, fossil fuel (fossil energy) is the main cause of global warming, frequent disasters and ozone layer destruction. If mankind can develop environmentally friendly new energy utilization technologies, including solar energy, hydrogen energy, nuclear fusion energy and biomass energy, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the environmental situation of the earth will be fundamentally improved.
Oil, natural gas and coal are also important chemical raw materials. At present, about 1/3 of the global biochemical resources are used as chemical raw materials, not power raw materials or fuels. All kinds of industrial raw materials, such as important chemical fibers and chemical materials, as well as fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural films widely used in agricultural production, depend on chemical raw materials such as oil, natural gas and coal. The exhaustion of biochemical resources not only hit the development of energy supply and chemical industry, but also led to the interruption of fertilizer and pesticide supply, large-scale agricultural production reduction, global food crisis and famine. The development of biotechnology can not only extract various biomass raw materials from biomass to replace petrochemical raw materials, but also meet the needs of industrial raw materials; We can also meet the needs of agricultural development by developing various bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides, such as planting nitrogen-fixing crops, developing nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, and using biotechnology to suppress crop diseases and insect pests. Therefore, to prevent agricultural crisis, especially food crisis, we must rely on the development of biotechnology. The development of biotechnology will also make mankind get rid of the road of petroleum agriculture represented by large-scale agricultural machinery and make agriculture embark on the road of sustainable development.
In a word, the sustainable development of ecology, economy and society is ultimately inseparable from science and technology. According to the needs of resources, environment and economic development, the scientific and technological strategy of sustainable development should be formulated, and new energy technology, biotechnology and clean production technology, resource recycling technology and ecological environment technology should be developed with emphasis to ensure the sustainable development ability of human beings.
Third, break through the restrictions of capital interests and establish a regulation mechanism for sustainable development.
The adjustment mechanism of sustainable development is planned adjustment mechanism.
The market regulation mechanism based on private property rights can effectively realize the rational allocation of resources, ensure the allocation of production factors to the most needed departments and regions and the most competitive enterprises, and form a reasonable industrial structure and efficient use of resources. At the same time, the market economy system based on private property rights system can encourage people to work hard for their own interests, stimulate people's creativity to the maximum extent, stimulate the innovative development of enterprises, and thus promote the development of productive forces. Therefore, the market regulation mechanism is by far the most effective mechanism to promote economic prosperity and progress.
However, the market regulation mechanism based on private property rights has serious limitations in realizing sustainable development: it can effectively encourage private enterprises to improve production efficiency, but it can't effectively solve the externalities brought by private enterprises' economic activities and their impact on the environment. Private capital is usually eager for quick success and instant benefit. We don't care about the long-term and overall problem of sustainable development, and pursue our own interests at the expense of plundering resources and sacrificing the environment. Monopolizing large capital in order to safeguard its vested interests often hinders the efforts of the international community to protect the environment, leaving mankind in a backward and passive state when dealing with the global resource and environmental crisis.
In the long run, with the progress of science and technology, with the development and utilization of new alternative resources and the emergence of production methods with less damage to the environment, the carrying capacity of the earth for population and the carrying capacity of resources and environment for economic activities will continue to expand. However, the speed of technological progress does not always keep up with the consumption of resources and environment by economic growth. Because technological progress is limited by people's cognitive ability. The invention of some technologies takes only a few months or years, while some major technological breakthroughs may take decades or even longer. Therefore, the spontaneous development of scientific and technological progress may not be able to replace resources in time to ensure the resolution of the crisis. On the contrary, in a certain period and at a certain technical level, the carrying capacity of resources and environment has an unbreakable limit. At this time, in order to protect mankind from the crisis, the government must implement the plan to adjust.
First, in order to ensure the sustainable utilization of resources, it is necessary to use planning means to allocate the total available resources in a planned way between years. The purpose of planning adjustment is to prevent the excessive consumption of renewable resources or the excessive exhaustion of non-renewable resources, so as to ensure the sustainable utilization of resources.
First of all, for strategic non-renewable resources, according to their replacement speed, planned allocation and limited mining will be implemented in a certain period of time to ensure that these resources can meet the needs of economic development in a certain period of time. The total amount of resources mined and invested each year is determined according to the plan. A licensing system is implemented for the exploitation of resources, so as to facilitate the supervision and control of the government. At the same time, the government intervenes in the production process and strictly restricts the development of industries that consume a lot of these precious resources to ensure that resources are used where they are most needed. For example, when oil and natural gas resources are increasingly exhausted, on the one hand, the government should allocate petrochemical resources between generations according to time and restrict exploitation year by year; On the other hand, oil and natural gas are the most important energy sources and the most important raw materials for producing fertilizers and pesticides. Give priority to the production of industrial necessities, transportation and food production, and limit the energy consumption of high-energy-consuming industries. Secondly, for renewable resources, such as forest resources, water resources, fishery resources, etc., according to the scale and speed of their renewal, planned adjustment and limited exploitation are implemented to ensure that the consumption speed of these resources does not exceed the speed of their renewal and recovery. For example, according to the growth rate of trees, the maximum annual cutting amount is planned, and the system of fishing and rest in breeding season is implemented to save water resources, and at the same time, unified scheduling and fair distribution are carried out among regions.
However, planned regulation is mainly total regulation, which does not deny the role of market regulation. When resources are put into limited use year by year, the allocation of these resources among departments, enterprises or residents and consumers is generally regulated by the market. Planning adjustment is to realize the intergenerational allocation of resources and reflect the requirements of sustainable development; Market regulation can ensure the rational distribution of internal resources in power generation and improve the utilization efficiency of resources. First there is planned adjustment, then there is market adjustment; The first is intergenerational resource distribution, and then intra-generational distribution. Market regulation must first obey the planned regulation.
Second, forests, grasslands and other vegetation are the core of the ecosystem. In order to ensure the balance and stability of the ecosystem and restore the ecological balance, it is necessary to use planning means and provide various preferential measures by the government to encourage returning farmland to forests and grasslands in areas with damaged vegetation, and returning farmland to lakes in flood storage and detention areas; Develop ecological forests and economic forests and carry out ecological construction. Reform the property right system of resources, clarify the property right of resources, and promote the protection, restoration, construction and rational development and utilization of resources.
Third, adjust production by means of planning, implement cleaner production strategy, reduce the discharge of various wastes and realize the recycling of resources. Adjust the industrial structure and restrict the development of automobiles, air-conditioning products and industries that consume a lot of resources and energy. The population of western developed countries represented by the United States only accounts for 1/4 of the world, while energy consumption accounts for 3/4 of the world. The reason is that these countries have a large number of cars and need to consume a lot of petroleum products. How long can the world's energy resources be mined if the developing countries also popularize family cars?
Adjust production, vigorously develop high-tech industries, knowledge industries and service industries with low resource consumption, and establish a resource-saving economic system. The knowledge and human capital that these industries rely on are renewable resources, and at the same time have the effect of increasing income. Their development not only makes economic development based on knowledge, labor resources and other renewable resources, but also reduces the consumption of natural resources, expands the space for industrial development, improves the employment level and is conducive to the fair distribution of income.
To adjust production, we must vigorously develop renewable energy industries such as hydropower and wind power generation, and reduce the proportion of non-renewable energy. At the same time, vigorously develop agricultural biotechnology and ecological agriculture. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are replaced by biotechnology, that is, biological nitrogen fixation or biological fertilizer is used to supply crop fertilizer, and biological technology is used to control crop diseases and insect pests. Develop ecological agriculture, make full use of land, water, light and heat resources in agricultural production, and realize multi-level comprehensive utilization of agricultural resources and recycling of agricultural residues. Biological agriculture and ecological agriculture not only provide non-toxic and harmless green products for human beings, but also provide biomass energy (alcohol, methanol, etc.). ) and industrial biomass raw materials to meet the needs of some industries for energy and raw materials. Biological agriculture and ecological agriculture will become the most promising emerging industries and leading industries in 2 1 century because of their high technology content, high added value and green products. The food crisis will also be solved and the income level of farmers will be greatly improved. Rural areas and agriculture will be reversed from the decline in the process of industrialization and urbanization. A new city-agricultural mall, which provides various technical services and personnel training for agricultural products production, processing and trade, will become one of the most dynamic agglomeration economies in the process of urbanization. It is possible for developing countries to eliminate the dual economic structure on the basis of emerging industries and realize urban-rural integration.
Third, use planning means to adjust income distribution and consumption. In the capitalist world system, countries have unequal possession and distribution of wealth. The total amount of earth resources is limited. If human beings have unequal possession of resources and wealth, then the existing resources will never meet human needs, especially the needs of the poor. Establishing a fair income distribution system and social security system through planning means can not only meet the basic material needs of all mankind, but also restrain people's endless pursuit of wealth and plunder and greed for resources and environment.
The consumption pattern dominated by capital interests is a high consumption pattern that wastes resources. Here, people desperately pursue enjoyment and material wealth. Consumption is not only to ensure the reproduction of labor force, but also to meet the needs of personal development. Here, consumption serves the expansion of capital and the development of market. Especially when the social demand is insufficient, governments all over the world will use Marxist policies to stimulate consumption and start demand, regardless of whether the object of consumption is necessary or whether resources are wasted. Consumption fully embodies the interests of capital. To regulate consumption by means of planning, we must first change the consumption concept centered on material wealth, and use economic means to prevent products with high energy consumption and high consumables such as automobiles from entering the private consumption field, so that after people meet the basic consumption such as clothing, food, housing and use, high-level consumption will turn to service consumption with less resource consumption and energy conservation, and develop education and training consumption, medical and health care consumption, sports consumption and cultural and entertainment consumption that can increase the accumulation of human capital and improve personal ability and quality.
Carry out family planning, control population growth and promote poverty alleviation and development in developing countries.
One of the root causes of the global resource and environmental crisis is the explosive population growth since the industrial revolution. With the spread of the industrial revolution, the increase of material wealth and the improvement of food and medical and health conditions, the population of the world, especially the population of developing countries, has increased rapidly in the last two hundred years, putting increasing pressure on the global ecosystem.
According to statistics, the world population quadrupled in the 20th century 100, reaching 6 billion, and is still increasing at the rate of 80 million to 90 million per year. By 2025, the world population will exceed 8 billion; By 2 100, it may exceed14.9 billion. The rapid growth of population will inevitably exceed the carrying capacity of natural ecology and accelerate the arrival of resource and environmental crisis, energy crisis and food crisis. Especially in developing countries, capital and technology are lacking, traditional agriculture accounts for a large proportion in the economy, and there are many poor people. They can only rely on simple labor, traditional technology and small plots of land to survive, and directly rely on nature to provide food and fuel. As a result, deforestation, deforestation, overgrazing and overfishing plundered forests and grasslands, destroyed the natural ecological environment, and led to forest disappearance, vegetation destruction, soil erosion, land desertification, grassland degradation, species reduction and depletion of aquatic resources, forming a vicious circle of population growth, poverty and ecological degradation.
Therefore, population growth must be controlled through family planning, so that the population size can be controlled within the limits of resources and environment. While controlling the population, vigorously develop education and medical care, increase the accumulation of human capital and improve the quality of the population; Through poverty alleviation and development, we can eliminate the vicious circle of poverty and ecology and provide good social conditions for sustainable development.
In short, the crisis facing the world economy and human survival shows that to achieve sustainable development, we must formulate positive and comprehensive
A comprehensive and far-sighted sustainable development strategy-not only a far-sighted scientific and technological development strategy, but also a planned regulation of population growth by the government. Obviously, even if the western world can eliminate the externalities of market operation and reduce environmental pollution through policies and legal means, it can't get rid of the shackles of capital interests, limit production and unreasonable high consumption, and realize the planned adjustment and intergenerational fair distribution of total resources; Blindly believing that market mechanism and scientific and technological progress can automatically solve the problem of resource substitution proves how negative and short-sighted they are: once technological progress cannot solve the problem of resource substitution and energy substitution, a crisis will break out. The American government's position on global sustainable development and environmental issues shows that it only obeys the immediate interests of big capital and has no long-term vision, which also proves that the western world is unable to solve the crisis of industrial civilization. China's socialist market economic system adheres to the plan to regulate economic development while not denying the advantages of market regulation and resource allocation. Facing the crisis of the 2nd/Kloc-0th century, I firmly believe that the government of China, and only the government of China, can transcend the shackles of private capital interests and have the ability to shoulder the heavy responsibility of sustainable development.