How to look at the environmental problems brought about by industrial civilization from a historical perspective Nanjing Liao Hua

In recent years, as environmental problems have become more and more obvious and the rise of worldwide sustainable economic development, how to deal with industrial civilization, a form of civilization that has brought us countless riches, is inevitably in front of us. Today, because of the deterioration of the environment and the awakening of the people to "man and nature", this form of civilization has been criticized from almost all sides of society. Even in the eyes of some radicals, it has become the number one "enemy" of today's social development. However, I would like to say: "The knife does not hurt anyone, but the one who holds it." We cannot deny the fact that the knife does not hurt anyone! ", we can not deny that in the past two hundred years of industrial civilization for us to create the value, but should hold a bowl of water to level the attitude, from a historical perspective, a correct view of industrial civilization brought about by the environmental problems

Since the first industrial revolution in Western countries, Western countries have been because of this incredible, invisible bloodshed of the revolution has changed dramatically. revolution has undergone a radical change, have begun to enter the era of capital civilization. In this era, the economy of western countries developed rapidly, which in turn led to the development of science, politics and social culture. Then the western countries began to explore the world under the thick economic foundation, and established colonies continuously, on the one hand, to provide a constant supply of resources for the state apparatus, on the other hand, with the development of their national power, they constantly persecuted other countries and peoples of the world, and plundered the resources. However, disaster and blessing depend on each other, although many countries in the world suffered the tragic fate of being colonized, but also received from the West at the same time forced cultural "irrigation", contact with the industrial civilization. After the first and second world wars, changes in the social system of the countries of the world, the people's world view changed, countries began to follow the example of the Western countries, the industrialization of their own country's economic production, have stepped into the industrial civilization. China began to enter the era of industrial civilization at the end of the 19th century

1 Environmental Problems Brought about by Industrial Civilization

None of us can deny that a variety of natural environmental problems that exist in the world today have nothing to do with industrial civilization. For more than 200 years, industrial civilization has brought about tremendous economic growth and a great increase in social wealth, while the side effects of such development are the depletion of natural mineral resources, the imbalance of the ecological biosphere, and a series of environmental problems, such as pollution of the natural environment. This has attracted more and more people's attention in the world, and is the direct cause of the theory of sustainable development in today's world. There are three main types of environmental hazards brought about by industrial civilization, which are mentioned above: depletion of natural mineral resources, imbalance of the ecological biosphere and pollution of the natural environment.

Industrial civilization is close to exhausting the resources mainly in the form of energy, especially the most serious consumption and waste of non-renewable resources. This result can be said to be inevitable, because the so-called industrial development is essentially the establishment of an energy-based model of economic development,, its production and growth depends on a large number of natural resources and the huge consumption of various mineral raw materials. Today, natural resources that have been accumulated over tens of thousands of years are gradually being depleted. The global exploitation period for fossil fuels is at most 50 years for oil, 70 years for natural gas, and only 230 years for coal resources, which are abundant in reserves. Industrial civilization has also caused serious damage to the ecological balance. Due to the demand for natural resources such as mineral resources, biological resources, land resources and water resources for industrial development, land resources and forest resources have been reduced on a large scale, and soil erosion, water and soil loss, grassland degradation and land deserts are spreading faster. It is estimated that in less than 200 years, the planet has lost 6 million square kilometers of forests. In some major river basins, sedimentation due to land erosion has increased threefold. In some small, highly utilized river basins, sedimentation has even increased eightfold. The world's deserts now cover an area of 36 million square kilometers, almost as much as Russia, the United States and China combined. In addition, due to the deterioration of living conditions, biodiversity is disappearing and living species are decreasing. At present, there are more than 1,000 kinds of higher animals in the world are on the verge of extinction, and the survival of about 25,000 kinds of flowering plants is in danger (the above data are quoted on the Internet)

The destruction of the ecological balance and the depletion of natural resources is still not as serious as the industrial civilization has brought about another environmental problem; that is, the ecological environment is polluted. Industrial production of products is often accompanied by a number of by-products: industrial wastewater, exhaust gas,

waste residue. It is these industrial by-products for our living environment and the body has brought extremely serious ecological pollution and health hazards, the main manifestations of: atmospheric pollution, water pollution, acid rain, the destruction of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect and marine pollution and so on. In fact, before the industrial civilization there have been environmental problems, but to the industrial civilization era, the situation has changed.

Because the level of productivity has increased, human activities greatly enhanced, coupled with the impact of science and technology, human activities to produce the destructive force is much more serious, to the extent that today's development to threaten the survival of human beings.

It is because industrial civilization has so many drawbacks, so even now by so many people accused also seems reasonable. And practice has proved that the industrial economy is an unsustainable economic story, the knowledge economy will become the main body of the future economy. 2, historical development and the environmental problems of industrial civilization

Since the industrial civilization in today's era there are so many problems, in the future is destined to be replaced, then it is as shown so useless? As stated earlier, of course not.

First of all, from the point of view of historical development, the emergence and development of industrial civilization is the inevitable result of social development to a certain extent. Just as the hunting civilization that prevailed in the age of ignorance was replaced by the agricultural civilization that emerged later, and then by the industrial civilization that emerged after the Industrial Revolution, it is easy to see how the industrial civilization has evolved since the time of the Industrial Revolution. It is not difficult to see that since the hunting civilization, human beings have embarked on a different path from that of other animals. Humans began to rely on their own wisdom to transform their own lives, and in accordance with the laws of nature and survival of this road gradually far away. Industrial civilization is not the same as the previous civilization form is only greatly accelerated the human subject to understand, use and transformation of the breadth and depth of nature, expanding the space of human activities, but also completely changed the human to nature is the ignorance of the age of ghosts and gods of the humiliation of the status of human dignity and the affirmation of the status of human beings.

From a factual point of view, industrial civilization has brought more than just disaster. There was also economic growth, superior living conditions, and scientific and technological progress, among other things. Some of this is all created with mankind and benefited from man himself, we only two hundred years of history to accomplish the great miracle of the past millions of years of mankind, and even all living things together can not be accomplished. As comrades Marx and Engels pointed out in the **** Proletarian Manifesto: "The conquest of the forces of nature, the adoption of machines, the application of chemistry in industry and agriculture. The movement of ships, the passage of railroads, the use of the telegraph, the reclamation of whole continents, the navigation of rivers, the masses of people called up as if by magic from the earth, - what century in the past had ever imagined that such productive forces could be contained in social labor." [ 4](P277) So it seems to me that industrial civilization is really a new achievement, a new civilization, unprecedented for our humanity.

When did mankind become so enamored of the high-speed development brought about by the industrial economy that it disregarded the relationship between man and nature and pushed itself into an almost antagonistic position against nature? The Second World War brought the worst war disaster ever seen in human history, and most countries around the globe were involved in this "farce". After the war, most of the countries were still in a state of disarray, and in order to rebuild their homes as soon as possible, a wave of "industrial growth" appeared in all the countries almost at the same time. In the end, it took a few decades for mankind to establish a new global industrial age.

From a historical perspective, industrial civilization and the environmental problems it brought about acted as a "catalyst" for the process of global cultural intermingling. 200 years ago, after the first industrial revolution, the Western countries were the first to set off a wave of capitalist industrialization. In just a few decades, the Western countries have completely surpassed the traditional feudal countries, such as China and India, in terms of social forms, science and technology, and economy. Later on, when their own natural resources were almost exhausted, they chose to explore the world in search of development. They chose to explore the world in search of resources for development. This led to the global changes that followed. In general, the human desire for dissatisfaction due to the development of industry has led to global cultural and economic interactions. The closest example of this is the development of the city of Dongguan. In the early days, Dongguan was not an important location on the Chinese map, nor did it have a strong history. But it is the entrepreneurs of Dongguan played the spirit of pioneering the introduction of a large number of foreign-funded enterprises to establish factories in Dongguan, greatly stimulating the economic development of Dongguan, although this also another Dongguan produced a lot of environmental problems, but also for Dongguan after the realization of the "sustainable development of the economy" of the transformation of the economic basis for laying a good foundation.

In fact, mankind has proposed to itself to take industrial civilization seriously for 31 years (from 1972, the United Nations Conference adopted the "Declaration on the Human Environment"). Some countries have made obvious achievements in the treatment of the "disease of industrial civilization". More countries have put ecological and environmental issues on their agenda and taken effective practical measures. There is reason to believe that, as long as we continue to adhere to, the shortcomings of industrial civilization can be effectively overcome and will be revitalized, mankind's tomorrow will be better~