Environmental Safety Theory

Author: Zhang Yong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: The increasingly severe and worsening environmental problems have become a major security issue affecting the survival and development of human society. This book attempts to construct an environmental security theory, focusing on the levels of "consciousness, theory, and methods" to study "how to pay attention to and solve environmental security issues," aiming to provide a basic perspective, theory, and methods for grasping environmental security issues. From environmental problems and disasters to environmental crises, there is a logical and historical path for the formation and manifestation of environmental security issues. General environmental problems are transformed into environmental security issues through "the securityization of environmental problems," with the essence being the survival crisis of human society facing the dilemma of "continuing to survive or self-destruction" due to the increasingly worsening environmental problems. The book elaborates on three pairs of fundamental concepts—subject and environment, security and danger, and survival and development—as the theoretical foundation and main thread of the entire work; points out that environmental security is the survival security of human society free from threats and dangers of environmental problems, rather than the safety of the natural environment; proposes a "trinity" environmental security subject structure centered on humans; and identifies three basic dimensions: individual/local, collective/regional, and human/global. It argues that humans can only solve environmental security issues by establishing new "safe survival methods" and transforming traditional survival methods and development models; and explores the issues of environmental security systems and methods. The book holds that national environmental security is the intersection of national security and environmental security, referring to the "ultimate security" of a nation's survival and development free from threats and dangers of environmental problems, and proposes and discusses the theories and strategies of national environmental security. Based on analyses of 10 typical cases, it reflects on China's current national environmental security issues and preliminarily explores China's national environmental security strategy for the 21st century. The book presents clear arguments, logical clarity, and rigorous reasoning, with distinct levels of discussion, demonstrating certain theoretical originality. The writing is fluent and well-structured. The main shortcomings are a bias toward pure theoretical research, overly complex and lengthy conceptual discussions, and insufficient connection with practice. This book can serve as a reference for researchers, university faculty and students, government officials, and individuals interested in the fundamental theoretical issues of environmental science in fields such as environment, resources, ecology, management, security, and social sciences.