The year 1998, two-thirds of Nobel Prize winners who are still alive had had a meeting in Paris, and the meeting began with this declaration, “If human beings want to continue to survive in the 21st century, we must go back to more than 2500 years ago, to understand the wisdom of Confucius in ancient China.” “The wisdom of Confucius” should mainly refer to Confucius and Confucianism.

天

In Analects, “天” appears 19 times, “命” appears 21 times, “天命” appears 2 times.
The character 天 in Chinese, can be translated in many ways, such as the God, Sky, Heaven.

孔子曰：“君子有三畏：畏天命，畏大人，畏圣人之言。小人不知天命而不畏也，狎大人，侮圣人之言。” ——《论语·季氏第十六》
Confucius said, “There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of Heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of sages.The mean man does not know the ordinances of Heaven, and consequently does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to great men. He makes sport of the words of sages.”

The ordinances of the world is an irresistible objective, such as changes in times of the year, all the living creature has own laws. People can only accept it, spring planting, then we can harvest in auturm; people can just adapt to it, keeping cool in heating summer, and keeping warm during cold winter, then we can get rid of the diseases. If we are against this, we can not do good job in food production, and are also difficult in guaranteeing the health level , it’s just like killing ourselves.

The mean people will never know the ordinances of everything’s development. So they will do anything they like. Because of them, not human relations was ruined, but also the relations between people and nature are ruined.

So there comes series of so-called “moral crisis”, “faith crisis” and “ecological crisis” phenomenon. Confucius regard “knowing the ordinances 知命畏天” as the virtues of gentlemen, and a standard distinguishing gentlemen and the mean men.

和

有子曰：礼之用，和为贵。先王之道斯为美。小大由之，有所不行。知和而和，不以礼节之，亦不可行也。 ——《论语·学而第一》
A philosopher said, “In practicing the rules of propriety, harmony is to be prized. In the ways prescribed by the ancient kings, this is the excellent quality, and in things small and great we follow them, yet it is not to be observed in all cases. If one, knowing how such harmony should be prized, manifests it, without regulating it by the rules of propriety, this likewise is not to be done.”

Differentiation and differences are the premise of harmony. They are the nature of life, and because of them, the world has become so rich and varied. But they must go through the steps of being harmonious. So the real meaning of harmony by Confucius is that things among which there are differences and contradictions do not only allow the coexistence of each other, but are totally complementary symbiosis.

In the eco-system, each individual is factor that matters, and factors affect each other, and jointly create their own living environment, the human beings are also included. 子曰：“和而不同。”meaning that different creatures can live together in harmony.

俭

Frugality is the traditional virtue of Chinese, and is also a kind of moral character.When it comes to the nature, frugality evolves kind of ecologically emotional care.

子钓而不纲，弋不射宿。——《论语·述而第七》
Confucius angled, but did not use a net. He shot, but not at birds perching.

Confucius gave us a good example of spreading the concept of sustainable development, not only sustainable for the people, but for the animals. This is a deep ecological awareness, and also reveal his kindness.

子曰：“骥不称其力，称其德也。” ——《论语·宪问第十四》
Confucius said, “A horse is called a JI, not because of its strength, but because of its other good qualities.”

Do horses also have moral rights? Most people love horse, only to use it as a tool, because it’s profitable. Confucius thought that horses as well as people, have their own virtues.People should not only make use of the animals but also respect them. It is kind of the ecological value of equality!

Nowadays, although the level of productivity has greatly increased, people’s living conditions has greatly improved, but in order to protect the environment, we must promote the consumption concept from the angle of ecological thrift vigorously.

乐

子曰：“知者乐水，仁者乐山。”——《论语·雍也第六》
Confucius said, “The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills.”

We could see Confucius’ attitude about the relationship between cultivating spirits of ”pleasure in water and hills” and being a gentleman. From which we can also found that Confucian ethics and ecological ethics are the same. A man who has ethics must also enjoy the beautiful scenes.

It should be noted that this ideal education of Confucius is very far-sighted. although many reasons should be accounted for deterioration of the environment of today, the rulers of a number of countries lack the spirits of “pleasure in water and hills“. What they care about is the pursuit of immediate interests, regardless of life and death of future generations. On the one hand, their effort resulted in an unprecedented economic prosperity, but on the other hand, serious environmental problems arise so rapidly.

Conclusion

“The Analects of Confucius” shows a great wealth of ecological wisdom, no matter it’s from the angle of nature, existence, life or aesthetics. It provides us useful resources and inspiration in handling the relationship between man and nature, and building a harmonious society to create ecological civilization.

• 2010年04月21日 -- 我读《论语》《道德经》
• 2010年04月20日 -- 周国平《人与永恒》摘抄（下）
• 2010年04月19日 -- 周国平《人与永恒》摘抄（上）
• 2010年04月17日 -- 一场因为狂妄而被删除的发言
• 2010年03月26日 -- 蒋勋《孤独六讲》摘抄

© 2009 Kong-Zi.com | 2009/05/22 | 永久链接 | 一条评论 | Add to del.icio.us
目录: 经管·职业 | 标签: 哲学, 孔子, 环境保护, 环境经济学

River and Air are the same in that they both have no property, but their qualities are both important to us.
When it comes air condition, there is Discharge Permit System.
Carbon Trade is the same way using in air condition control.They all play roles By controlling the total amount of emission.

Kyoto Protocol

In order to save human beings from the threat of global warming, “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” the Third Conference adopted the “Kyoto Protocol” to limit greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries to curb global warming in December 1997, held in Kyoto, Japan,

The Kyoto mechanisms

Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms.
*Clean development mechanism (CDM)
*Joint implementation (JI)
*Emissions trading (Et)

CDM

CDM is based on the fact that emissions of gasleading to our global warming  are in one place – our air, regardless of the source of these gases(from which country). Similarly, the reduction is to reduce emissions, regardless of where it occurs.
Therefore, in the clean development mechanism, among a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, developed countries (such as the United Kingdom) invest on the greenhouse gas emission reduction projects and  transfer technology in developing countries (such as China).
If these projects prove that they can not be implemented without without the support of the Clean Development Mechanism, the developed countries will be able to get carbon credits which makes the developed countries ensure their emissions below the limit.

• 2009年04月23日 -- PRESENTATION:Green GDP in China
• 2009年09月02日 -- 法律与经济，实证与规范
• 2009年04月20日 -- 新制度经济学派的介绍
• 2009年04月19日 -- 古典经济学(Classical economics)
• 2009年04月19日 -- 当代西方经济学各流派的形成与发展

© 2009 Kong-Zi.com | 2009/04/29 | 永久链接 | 暂无评论 | Add to del.icio.us
目录: 经管·职业 | 标签: 环境经济学, 社会科学, 经济学

* GDP reflects the economic growth, but do not reflect the social costs of environmental damage and the resource depletion.
* For example, as long as the harvesting of cutting trees, GDP will increase, but over-harvesting of trees will result in the reduction of forest resources, which GDP does not consider.
* If the current economic development of excessive consumption of natural resources, pollution of the ecological environment, this kind of development is not sustainable.

SEEA1993 & SEEA2003

* The green gross domestic product(green GDP) is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored in.
* In order to measure the sustainable development and environmental considerations, the United Nations published the Handbook of National Accounting “environmental economic accounting system” (System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting, referred to as SEEA 1993) in 1994, in 2003 it was revised again as “System of Integrated Environmental Economic Accounting 2003″.

GREEN GDP IN CHINA

* In 2004, When Jiabo, the Chinese premier, announced that the green GDP index would replace the Chinese GDP index itself as a performance measure for government and party officials at the highest levels.
* The first green GDP accounting report, for 2004,was published in September 2006. It showed that the financial loss caused by polltion was 511.8 billion yuan, or 3.05 percent of the nation’s economy.

Mnay provinces Request to withdraw from the pilot Green GDP, 2005 Forever Abandoned

* As an experiment in national accounting, the Green GDP effort collapsed in failure in 2007, when it became clear that the adjustment for environmental damage had reduced the growth rate to politically unacceptable levels, nearly zero in some provinces.
* In the face of mounting evidence that environmental damage and resource depletion was far more costly than anticipated, the government withdrew its support for the Green GDP methodology and suppressed the 2005 report, which had been due out in 2007.

* Reason 1:
* State Environmental Protection Administration VS National Bureau of Statistics
* Reason 2:
* Local Government VS Environmentalists

My view on the Delay of Green GDP in China

* China is a developing country, governments eagerly need some encouraging statistics to show how fast we are developing.
* Some days ago I am certainly for the application of Green GDP in China, because I think it is a more realistic reflact of well being. But now I think maybe I am too arbitrary. I neglect the utility that the “unreal” statistics have to all Chinese who so eagerly need kind of success comparing with developed countries.

* At present there are a number of major technical problems exist in the implementation of green GDP accounting, which is mainly embodied in the measurement of environmental costs.
* The determination of the concept of environmental costs is easy, but the realization of the measurement of environmental costs is very difficult. This difficulty comes mainly from and the time factor and space factors of the environmental costs.

* Advocation of environmental protection does not achieve the desired height.
* The majority of people in China who promote environmental protection recent years, maybe are only kind of imitation, following the trend of European countries and the United States which attaches great importance to environmental protection.

Wang Jinan Said.

* “Each research of the environmental policy is a long process, people who do policy research must be psychologically prepared for this. However, if the relevant departments of government do not accept it, a large number of your efforts are likely to have been in vain.”

• 2009年04月29日 -- PRESENTATION:Carbon Trade and CDM
• 2009年09月02日 -- 法律与经济，实证与规范
• 2009年04月20日 -- 新制度经济学派的介绍
• 2009年04月19日 -- 古典经济学(Classical economics)
• 2009年04月19日 -- 当代西方经济学各流派的形成与发展

© 2009 Kong-Zi.com | 2009/04/23 | 永久链接 | 暂无评论 | Add to del.icio.us
目录: 经管·职业 | 标签: 环境经济学, 社会科学, 经济学