New Rational Era: Reflections on Developing a Harmonious Society with Environment

Author: Gan Feng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Today, we are all facing the same issue: building a harmonious society. However, whether we have our own research perspective on the same issue is crucial. The author of this book takes "Earth Environmental Economist" as the starting point for a new rational era, incorporating Earth's life into an open and stable complex system. On this basis, he explores the path to achieving a harmonious society—a great proposition. This research angle significantly determines the depth of the study. The author's innovation lies in approaching the issue of building a harmonious society—a topic we are all collectively concerned about today—from a completely new perspective and a brand-new path.
Despite the achievements, in the process of vigorously promoting modernization, industrialization and the "world factory" have also caused significant "ecological problems" to our living environment. The excessive exploitation of energy and natural resources has led to land resource imbalance, forest resource overharvesting, natural ecological imbalance, and excessive underground resource development. As a result, soil erosion, land desertification, water scarcity have emerged. These conditions, in turn, form a vicious cycle with recurring droughts, heatwaves, and floods. All this seems to be telling us a lesson: blind development is yet another crisis for humanity; development, as a system purpose, does not necessarily bring us happiness. Our generation should bely aware of the extent to which our development can open up space for survival and sustainable development for future generations. If the central idea of the 20th century was to establish a nation-state, then the central idea of the 21st century should be to continue building a modern nation while constructing a rational "shrinking society" within a limited resource space.