摘要
自然可以离开人类而存在,但是,人类却不能离开自然而生存。尽管人们对环境依赖性的认识十分清楚,但在漫长的人类历史长河里,始终伴随着人类与自然的不和谐。今天,进退两难的环境问题只不过是这一古老问题的再次显现。从历史角度来看,人类社会多次经历了人类与自然相互和谐到不和谐的危机过程,然后再从不和谐转化为和谐状态。每当人类对环境的消耗超出了环境承载能力的极限时,这种生态危机就会出现。从长远来看,人类需求欲望的增长总是超越环境承载力的增长。因此,我们必须加快科学技术进步和社会制度革新步伐,以此来解决由于人类需求与环境承载力供给不均衡引发的生态危机。在这篇论文里,我们讨论的核心问题是如何提高公众与政府决策者们对这一问题的认识,最大限度地减小所面临的可持续发展瓶颈问题的不利影响。同时,只有把这样的认识转变为政治和经济行为,才是解决这一问题的根本途径。
Nature can survive without humans,but humans cannot survive without nature.Despite a clear understanding of this dependency,humans continue to exist in disharmony with nature,and our current environmental and human dilemmas reflect old problems with a long history.Societies have historically experienced many transitions from harmony between nature and society to a crisis of disharmony,followed by a subsequent transition from crisis to harmony.Such ecological crises arise when society no longer Practices sustainable consumption of resources within the limits imposed by the environmental carrying capacity.Over the long term,the growth in human desires has always exceeded the growth in the environmental carrying capacity.Science,technology,ana social institutions must all be improved to resolve the ecological crises that arise from this imbalance. This paper discusses how increasing understanding of the problem by the public and by decision makers is tne key to minimizing the undesirable impacts of the coming bottleneck for sustainable development.Furthermore, we emphasize how this awareness must be translated into fundamental political and economic changes.
