Latest comments posted about China’s “light green” GDP on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/646-China-s-light-green-GDP http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/646-China-s-light-green-GDP it takes time for chinese local office to automaticlly pay attention to the enviromental issues, hopefully the central government can re-organize the judicail power of the NBS,SEPA Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:03:39 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-9815 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-9815 The second law of thermodynamics set the context for the laws of economics. All economic activities degrade "ecological system services" - they all require energy and materials from the earth and return as wastes to the earth and atmosphere increasing disorder. So all economic activities have "external costs" and if we were to calculate them all the task would be utterly vast. Up to now humanity mostly hasn't bothered to measure or notice its ecological impacts - but as the scale of economic activity has increased the catastrophic magnitude of natural impacts have become unavoidably noticeable. Unfortunately there is still a time lag - what is noticed, and what statisticians decide, or are allowed to count, lags far behind the real scale of problems. However, it isn't just the lack of scientific knowledge of eco-system damage and social costs that limits ecological cost counting. What ethical theorists call 'moral hazard' is also a factor - in China and everywhere else. Those who take economic decisions and benefit from them are typically upwind those who bear the costs are downwind. Moral hazard also has a time dimension - the benefits are now the costs are born by generations who are still children or who are not alive yet, so have no voice. Moral hazard means that privileged decision makers prevent resources being allocated to finding out about social and ecological costs as their interests might be damaged by what is found out. Finding out about social and ecological costs can't be done outside of a social dialogue where people are free to research what is happening, to organise and to speak up, or find people to do it for them - and then a process where multiple stakeholders, issues and criteria can be synthesised in a democratic decision making process. That defines the task, not only for China, but also for the rest of the world using the participative, multi-disciplinary and democratic methodologies of ecological economics. Brian Davey Feasta Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:00:16 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-858 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-858 China just introduced green GDP in recent years. I am eager to learn more about green GDP in Europe and the US, and how green they are? What could actually China learn from them? Mon, 25 Dec 2006 11:05:59 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-831 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/646#comment-831