The traditional model of industrial economic growth is unsustainable because it is at what cost?

The traditional model of industrial economic growth is unsustainable because it comes at the cost of excessive consumption of resources and destruction of the ecological environment.

The various crises occurring in contemporary times are all caused by mankind itself. The traditional development path of Western industrial civilization is one of economic growth at the expense of destroying the basic conditions of human existence. Humanity has come to a crossroads, facing the choice of survival or death. It is against this background that humanity has chosen the path of sustainable development.

Expanded Information:

Crisis Caused by Traditional Industrial Economic Growth:

1. Resource Crisis

Industrial civilization relies on mainly non-renewable resources (e.g., metal ores, coal, petroleum, natural gas, etc.). It is estimated that the earth's (proven) reserves of mineral resources can still be used for one or two hundred years, or a few decades.

Water scarcity has also become very serious. 97.5% of the Earth's water is brackish, and only 2.5% is fresh water that can be utilized directly. And the distribution of this water is extremely uneven. Most of the developing countries are water-scarce. More than 70% of the cities in China suffer from a daily water shortage of more than 10 million tons, and about 300 million mu of arable land are threatened by drought. The perennial use of groundwater has caused the water table to fall by 2 meters per year.

2, the land is becoming increasingly serious sand

"Sand" word structure that is "less water" meaning. Water is the condition for the existence of life. The human body is made up of 70% water. Desert means death. As a result of massive deforestation, pasture has been seriously damaged, the world's desert and desertification area has reached more than 47 million square kilometers, accounting for 30% of the land area, and is still expanding at a rate of 6 million hectares per year.

3, environmental pollution is becoming increasingly serious

Environmental pollution, including air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, solid pollution, pesticide pollution, nuclear pollution and so on. Due to industrialization, a large number of burning coal, oil, coupled with a large reduction in forests, carbon dioxide increase, thus causing the greenhouse effect. The consequence is climate anomaly, affecting industrial and agricultural production and human life.

4, species extinction and a large reduction in forest area

Because of the tropical rainforests have been cut down and burned in large quantities, the annual reduction of 4,200 acres, at this rate, by 2030 will be gone. It is estimated that 6.7 billion hectares of the Earth's surface were initially forested, with 60% of the land area covered by forests. By the 1980s it had fallen to 2.64 billion hectares. The decline in jungles has made 50 to 100 species of life on Earth go extinct every day, most of which we don't even know the names of.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Sustainable Development