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Two hundred years ago, there was
no sustainability science, and there were few regulatory
bodies with any clout. In the Western world, the management
of the transition to better environmental health was
a matter for visionaries, pioneers, and hard-nosed
business leaders: William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo
Emerson railed against the unnaturalness of the human
condition as it evolved during this period; Edwin
Chadwick and Benjamin Franklin brought public health
to the urban poor; and John Cadbury and Andrew Carnegie
opened up the philanthropic business enterprise.
Today, there is essentially no excuse. The public
health consequences of rampant air and water pollution
are well documented and unmistakably visible in real
pain and suffering amongst all manner of families
and workers. The economic costs of the damage being
wrought are also much more measurable, as indeed are
the likely additional costs if nothing is done.
In many ways, China epitomizes the struggle to introduce
sustainable development at a relatively early stage
into societies that are nowadays ostensibly more able
to recognize the dangers of unrestrained growth. The
fascinating article by Xuemei Bai and Peijun Shi beginning
on page 22 of this issue succinctly exposes this dilemma.
The Huai River basin is an important industrial and
agricultural area that is desperately polluted and
shows no sign of improvement in the near future. The
toxic and organic wastes that industries have dumped
into this watershed have led to health effects with
demonstrable suffering. The agencies seeking to control
all this are underfinanced, entangled in competition
with each other, unable to halt the corruption and
regulatory weaknesses that plague the delivery of
better controls, and insufficiently supported by either
local or central government officials. However, it
is not just the institutional muddle that is to blame.
At the heart of all this is a culture that rewards
enterprise, job expansion, and the successes of productive
output at the expense of all else. There is still
little willingness to come seriously to grips with
an old-fashioned growth culture.
At the same time, in a society where opposition to
government is still strictly limited, it is heartening
to see independent, scientifically literate local
groups warning factory managers, river users, and
citizens of the dangers of continuing bad practices.
Particularly exciting are the courageous citizens'
organizations, often led by scientifically literate
women, talking to stakeholders in a language of river
sustainability that all can understand. The sustainability
science of the new China is a fascinating combination
of established environmental knowledge, informed local
critique, and a visionary exposure to a better way
of relating to the rhythms and limits of natural systems.
China is indeed just entering the difficult straits
of a journey toward sustainability. At a time when
the wave of environmental misery seems to be all engulfing,
there is the heartening emergence of citizens' movements
at the local level that are beginning to be recognized
as beneficial for the public good. Perhaps a form
of sustainability democracy may emerge in China in
a manner that could be quite revolutionary.
Just as there are huge commitments to carbon capture,
clean coal, and eco-settlements on vast scales, so
too there may be a grassroots sustainability revolution
that has no precedent in the modern Chinese state.
If this is the case, China's transition may serve
as a lesson for more developed societies, even those
that enjoy the freedoms of recognizable democracies--for
these are the nations where, more often than not,
the voices for a sustainable future remain whispers.
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