1、環保論的概念
Environmentalism is a concern for the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment, such as the conservation of natural resources, prevention of pollution, and certain land use actions. It often supports the struggles of indigenous peoples against the spread of globalization to their way of life, which is seen as less harmful to the environment. The study of practical environmentalism is split into two positions:the mainstream “anthropocentric” or hierarchic, and the more radical “ecocentric” or egalitarian.
2、技術對環境的影響既明顯又細微
The effects of technology on the environment are both obvious and subtle. The more obvious effects include the depletion of nonrenewable natural resources （such as petroleum, coal, ores）, and the added pollution of air, water, and land. The more subtle effects include debates over long-term effects （e.g., global warming, deforestation, natural habitat destruction and coastal wetland loss）.
Each wave of technology creates a set of waste previously unknown by humans:toxic waste, radioactive waste, electronic waste.
One of the main problems is the lack of an effective way to remove these pollutants on a large scale expediently. In nature, organisms “recycle” the wastes of other organisms, for example, plants produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, oxygen-breathing organisms use oxygen to metabolize food, producing carbon dioxide as a by-product, which plants use in a process to make sugar, with oxygen as a waste in the first place. No such mechanism exists for the removal of technological wastes.
Humanity at the moment may be compared to a colony of bacteria in a Petri dish with a constant food supply:with no way to remove the wastes of their metabolism, the bacteria eventually poison themselves.
3、經濟對環境的影響
Nearly all of the postwar technologies which have caused large-scale pollution were developed and put into use in the capitalist countries first; then, driven by profit maximization and market domination, these same technologies were sold to socialist countries. Intrinsic greed of the capitalism system is really then more of a threat to the environment than other political systems.
Economic growth and a cleaner environment are not mutually exclusive. The question of how to improve the environment while still enabling balanced or sustained economic growth remains. This balance is possible, if we carefully plan ways to use available technology to spur economic growth and solve ecological problems at the same time. The current method of controlling emissions of toxic substances antagonizes incorrect beliefs that ecology and economy are mutually exclusive elements. The main reason for an increase in pollution is due to postwar changes in the technology of production. For example, our refuse piles have dramatically increased due to an increase in disposable goods; synthetic products are used in place of natural, decomposable ones; and the amount of energy and fuel has increased dramatically to produce goods. A shift towards decomposable goods would continue economic growth, decrease garbage growth.
4、人們對科技對環境危害的嚴重性認識不足
Whether it is through intensified media attention, or due to the efforts of prominent scientists and other members of society, we have become increasingly aware of the detrimental effects that technological advances in industry and agriculture have on the global environment.
However, as Carl Sagan points out in Pulling the Plug on Mother Earth, awareness is not enough, nor is society’s response to the catastrophic implications of environmental pollution rapid enough. Slowness to implement sound strategies are in part due to the fact that the threats we face are nebulous, since they come in the form of particles of invisible gases and radioactivity, and in part because response to pollution appears to be so costly at individual, governmental and corporate levels. It appears that great material loss, as well as visual manifestation, has been the only ways to galvanize action towards altering and limiting technologies so that adverse chemicals and substances are no longer belched into the environment.
5、NO對健康和環境的影響
Nitrogen Oxide is another pollutant that has been nicknamed “a jet-age pollutant” because it is only apparent in highly advanced countries. Sources of this are fuel plant, cars, and trucks. At lower concentrations Nitrogen Oxide is a light brown gas. In high concentrations it is a major source of haze and smog. It also combines with other compounds to help form ozone. Nitrogen Oxide causes eye and lung irritation, and lowers the resistance to respiratory illness, such as chest colds, bronchitis, and influenza. For children and people with asthma, this gas can cause death. Nitrogen Oxide may be the most dangerous of these pollutants because it also makes nitric acid, when combined with water in rain, snow, fog, or mist. This then becomes the harmful acid rain.
6、WTO與環境
Another WTO ruling that produced harm to the environment is the Marine Mammal Protection Act; specifically the provision that protects dolphins from being slaughtered by tuna fisherman, was found disagreeable. Ultimately, these authorized rules will determine whether the United States can prevent Great Lake water from being sold to the highest bidder or whether nations can reject imported shrimp caught in nets that catch and drown endangered sea turtles. Soon, we can expect challenges against American laws controlling pesticide use, protecting community water rights, and banning raw log exports, which save both forests and processing jobs. Not only are these ruling made upon the United States, but also in other countries worldwide. In Japan, the WTO ruled against them for refusing imports of fruit products that carry dangerous invasive species. Thus, because of these harsh rulings made by the WTO on several environmental acts, many nations are now frightened to contradict the corporations. By not proposing anymore health laws against these corporations, the environment could get worse year by year. This also gave advantages to the corporations, since this help them escape from democratic laws that regulate their activities.
7、工業廢物對環境的危害
Most modern technological processes produce unwanted by-products in addition to the desired products, which are known as industrial waste and pollution. While most material waste is reused in the industrial process, many forms are released into the environment, with negative environmental side effects, such as pollution and lack of sustainability. Different social and political systems establish different balances between the value they place on additional goods versus the disvalues of waste products and pollution. Some technologies are designed specifically with the environment in mind, but most are designed first for economic or ergonomic effects. Historically, the value of a clean environment and more efficient productive processes has been the result of an increase in the wealth of society, because once people are able to provide for their basic needs, they are able to focus on less-tangible goods such as clean air and water.
8、不可見汙染物CO對健康的影響
While you may see pollutants such as particulates, other harmful ones are not visible. Amongst the most dangerous to our health are Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxides, Sulfur Dioxide, and Ozone. If you have ever been in an enclosed parking garage or a tunnel and felt dizzy or light-headed then you have felt the effect of Carbon Monoxide （CO）. This odorless, colorless, but poisonous gas is produced by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, like gasoline or diesel fuel. Carbon Monoxide comes from cars, trucks, gas furnaces and stoves, and some industrial processes. CO is also a toxin in cigarettes. Carbon Monoxide combines with hemoglobin in the red blood cells, so body cells and tissues cannot get the oxygen they need. Carbon Monoxide attacks the immune system, especially affecting anyone with heart disease, anemia, and emphysema and other lung diseases. Even when at low concentrations, CO affects mental function, vision, and alertness.
9、臭氧層的破壞
It took the reality that CFCs were destroying the sensitive but protective ozone layer to encourage large chemical companies to begin a gradual phase-out of these substances, even when scientists had already discovered the terrible effects of the chemical combination. To slowly stop usage of such obviously dangerous substances is not enough, for even with current conditions, it is estimated that the damaged ozone layer will require at least 100years repairing itself. In the interim, we are risking danger to the food chain, global warming, and increased cases of skin cancer. Rather than risk these catastrophes, we should call for the immediate phase-out of CFCs, as well as to improve energy usage, plant trees, and curb the population explosion as supplemental methods to improve the environment.
10、空氣汙染物對健康的影響
With the great concern surrounding the destruction of the earth’s atmosphere due to air pollution, the immediate and direct harm caused to the human body is often over-shadowed. While many are aware that our careless use of hazardous chemicals and fossil fuels may leave the planet uninhabitable in the future, most overlook the fact that they are also causing real damage to our bodies at this moment. Such pollutants cause damage to our respiratory system, leading to the fluctuation of the life span of an individual depending on a number of conditions. Amongst these conditions are the individual’s specific geographic location, age, and life style.
In order to understand how air pollution affects our body, you must understand exactly what this pollution is. The pollutants that harm our respiratory system are known as particulates. Particulates are the small solid particles that you can see through a ray of sunlight. They are products of incomplete combustion in engines （example: automobile engines）, road dust, and wood smoke. Billions of tons of coal and oil are consumed around the world every year. When these fuels burn, they produce smoke and other by-products into the atmosphere. Although wind and rain occasionally wash away the smoke given off by power plants and automobiles, much still remains.
11、燃料對環境的影響
As time passes, an increasing amount of capital will be spent on fuel and energy to produce goods. It is a long-term incentive to find alternative energy, such as solar energy, that will not deplete at the rate fossil fuels do, and after an initial investment, take very little monetary capital to maintain. This move must go hand-in-hand with current technology, in part because technology depends on its successful integration into the existing system. It is also important to achieve integration among major economic sectors, such as agriculture, auto manufacturing, and the oil industry. If changing technology is incorporated into current production methodologies, large capital expenditures can be minimized or folded into the overall business plan in a sensible way.
12、全球化貿易和交通對環境的影響
The rise in worldwide trade and the increasing interaction between countries previously separated by trade barriers have stimulated a significant increase in transportation progresses at all geographical levels. This has caused a wide variety of threats to the environment. Thus, a demanding problem of globalization is formed by environmental decay caused by the rise in international transportation. The rise in international transportation could be partly blamed on the transport of globalized food. As more global corporations take over most of the aspects of farming, local resources and labors of small farms are decreasingly vanishing. This caused the people to buy and eat food that are grown overseas instead of the local areas, thus, causing and encouraging the amount of international transportation.
The transport division is a significant contributor to local air pollution, noise annoyance, intrusion to landscapes, congestion and high fatality rates. Transport also damages the global environment. It is contributing to two main global environmental problems, which are the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. Even though the effects of globalization contributed to many environmental defects, some may argue that free trade will avoid the efficiency losses associated with protection. It will reinforce economies of progression, and entrepreneurs are provided with an inspiration to seek new ways to export or compete with imports, a situation that offers more opportunities for learning and innovation. Their belief is that trade liberalization will likely have a positive effect on the environment by making the contribution of resources more efficient, promoting economic growth, and increasing general welfare.
13、全球化對環境影響的爭議
Global change has become a popular word in scientific debates on long-range structural change in the earth’s ecology. Globalization has in the past played a major role in the controversial environmental debates. Many problems resulted in this area of discussion, in regard to the intricate linkages between globalization, government, trade and transport, and environmental decay. The current debate on the environmental effects of globalization is particularly concerned with the question whether a worldwide liberalization of trade may provoke environmental collapse. Three major environmental concerns related to trade are the domestic environmental effects caused by the use of imported products, the foreign environmental effects caused by the production of exported goods, and the environmental effects caused by transport movements needed for international trade.
14、危害健康的顆粒汙染物
Particulate matter （soot, ash, and other solids）, usually consist of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, ozone, and lead. These compounds undergo a series of chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight:the result is smog （a term used to describe a noxious mixture of fog and smoke）.
The process by which these pollutants harm our bodies begins by simply taking a breath. Particulates are present everywhere, in some areas they are as dense as 100,000per milliliter of air. The damage begins when the particulates are inhaled into the small air sacs of our lungs called alveoli. With densities such as 100,000per milliliter a single alveolus may receive 1,500particulates per day. These particulates cause the inflammation of the alveoli. The inflammation causes the body to produce agents in the blood that increase clotting ability, which leads to the decreased functionality of the cardiovascular system, resulting in diseases and increased mortality.
In the blood, carbon monoxide interferes with the supply of oxygen to all tissues and organs, including the brain and heart. Particulates accumulate on the mucous linings of the airways and lungs and impair their functioning. Continued exposure to particulates damages the lungs and increases an individual’s chances of developing such conditions as chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
15、基因汙染
Purebred naturally evolved region specific wild species can be threatened with extinction in a big way through the process of Genetic Pollution, i.e. uncontrolled hybridization, introgression and Genetic swamping which leads to homogenization or replacement of local genotypes as a result of either a numerical and/or fitness advantage of introduced plant or animal. Nonnative species can bring about a form of extinction of native plants and animals by hybridization and introgression either through purposeful introduction by humans or through habitat modification, bringing previously isolated species into contact. These phenomena can be especially detrimental for rare species coming into contact with more abundant ones where the abundant ones can interbreed with them swamping the entire rarer gene pool creating hybrids thus driving the entire original purebred native stock to complete extinction. Attention has to be focused on the extent of this underappreciated problem that is not always apparent from morphological （outward appearance） observations alone. Some degree of gene flow may be a normal, evolutionarily constructive process, and all constellations of genes and genotypes cannot be preserved however. Hybridization with or without introgression may, nevertheless, threaten a rare species’ existence.
16、雜交導致基因汙染
In agriculture and animal husbandry, green revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield many folds by creating “high-yielding varieties”. Often the handful of breeds of plants and animals hybridized originated in developed countries and were further hybridized with local varieties, in the rest of the developing world, to create high yield strains resistant to local climate and diseases. Local governments and industry have been pushing hybridization with such zeal that several of the wild and indigenous breeds evolved locally over thousands of years having high resistance to local extremes in climate and immunity to diseases have already become extinct or are in grave danger of becoming so in the near future. Due to complete disuse because of un-profitability and uncontrolled intentional, compounded with unintentional cross-pollination and crossbreeding （genetic pollution） formerly huge gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds have collapsed causing widespread genetic erosion and genetic pollution resulting in great loss in genetic diversity and biodiversity as a whole.
17、環境保護
Environmental preservation is the strict setting aside of natural resources to prevent damage caused by contact with humans or by certain human activities, such as logging, mining, hunting, and fishing. It is different from conservation; conservation allows for sustainable development, whereas preservation is complete restriction of development. Regulations and laws may be enacted for the preservation of natural resources. The Endangered Species Act of 1973in the United States, for example, was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction caused by the damaging side-effects of economic growth and development.
18、導致環保行動複雜化的三大原因
The challenge to orchestrate the changes necessary for environmental improvement are further complicated in at least three ways. First, there are conflicting viewpoints as to the role government plays to influence private industry to replace technologically damaging processes with more ecologically sound technologies. Second, to phase out current technologies is a burden many corporations are unwilling to take on; implementation of new technologies adversely affects profit margins. Third, governmental failures in policy create a situation where corporations have no incentive to move towards pollution control. Implementation of governmental policies and programs designed to improve the environment fail because there is no incentive for legislators to determine the costs and benefits of their legislation, as there is a lack of appropriate experience in the matter. Legislators focus only on the appearance of implementing solutions for the popular vote, and then allow their decisions to be clouded by lobbyists and political maneuverings. The resulting regulatory standards and technological mandates inappropriately micromanage the private sector, limiting their creativity to allocate resources to improve and change.
19、改變工業決策以保護環境是艱難的
How to properly change the way that industrial decisions are made is not clear. An investment policy which is social rather than under private control should be implemented. The policy-makers would choose the technology to be used to produce goods. This suggests that many more individuals could assess whether a technology was actually useful or moral to society. However, this would be improbable in terms of actual implementation in at least four ways. First, although the U.S. can be said to be a distinct form of socialized capitalism, the procedure would most likely be illicit outrage in terms of its invasiveness of the corporation. Additionally, the recommendation could be ignored by other countries because there is no enforcement mechanism. Second, even if these recommendations were well-received, there is a problem with technology selection in that there will be cases where an apparently benign technology will be embraced, only to find out that it is harmful in some way. Third, if the plan was implemented, the question remains as to who would decide on the technologies, and what mechanism would ensure that these persons would not be influenced by some lobbying power. Fourth, the reality exists that some companies would be unable to afford the costs of transforming to the designated technology.
20、改變環境汙染的現狀遇到障礙
While the cause and effect relationship between technological advances and pollution have certainly influenced public outcry towards change, and influenced corporations to alter their poisoning mechanisms, the immediate change will necessarily meet with resistance. Revelation about mankind’s reticence to act unless literally under the gun remains a valid point.
Destruction of the ozone layer and incidents such as the Exxon oil spill in Alaska are indeed enormous calamities, and we have been cautioned by at least one reputable scientist as to the risks we take by delaying reform, but these events are still not great enough to spawn greater action than handling the immediate situation. It is one thing to agree that car travel pollutes the environment, and to see dense smog in the Los Angeles Basin, but millions will still get in their vehicles tomorrow to drive their jobs.
21、科技滲入生活各個角落，導致環保行動遲緩
Current technologies available have been incorporated into lifestyle at a very practical level. The large cogs of public and private interests also turn slowly due to this infrastructure of product usage which has become so firmly entrenched. Decisions that were made decades ago, such as automobile transit phasing out train transit, and the manufacture of energy through the building of nuclear plants, effect and influence us right now at very fundamental levels. Society and public acceptance requires time to shift and modify.
22、環保被視為與商業增長相衝突
Improving the environment is seen as conflicting with growth in business, and it becomes more of a risk than an opportunity. For example, new regulatory standards have to be met on national, rather than regional levels, and technologies are mandated without the expertise to determine their practicality and availability.
It is incorrect to believe that increased governmental spending and regulations are the only solutions to the problems of a polluted planet. We should call for the government to set financial and other incentives, such as taxation and Emission-Control Incentives （ECIs）, so that producers and consumers can factor these considerations into their decision-making processes; we should also call for the government to step away and allow the entrepreneurs and businesses that have the proper expertise to apply the incentives.