The current environmental education and research are scattered in different disciplines of studies, notably science, engineering, management, economics, politics, and law. This leads to some problems, such as the lack of sufficient understanding of other fields, narrow perspectives towards environmental issues and ill-informed decisions of different branches of the government, and the teaching of one field of the environmental studies based on a false, distorted, or outdated understanding of other fields. Restructuring course curriculum, multi-disciplinary research, and recruitment of college graduates from other fields of study are some of the suggestions.
This article compares the new ambient quality standards adopted by China on 29 February 2012 with the previous ambient air quality standards and reveals the significance of and reasons for this revision. It points out that the new ambient air quality standards added fine particulate matters into the items to be monitored, reclassified monitored items into the group of basic items to be mandatorily monitored nationwide and the group of other pollutants to be monitored discretionally, and set the maximum concentration for each of the two categories of areas. This revision was in response to the demand of the general public for less pollution and better information on the air quality. This revision is important for the human health because it imposes a new task on local governments. The new standard shall be implemented gradually, beginning with most seriously polluted areas, and finally to be implemented nation-wide. This revision is expected to contribute to better protection of human health.
After years of rapid economic development, environmental pollution has become a big concern to the general public in China. Numerous mass protests happened because of actual or perceived environmental pollution. This article makes a case study of three recent mass protests to find the features and deeper causes of mass protests for environmental issues. It concludes that, without sufficient information disclosure, the general public may still protest and the government may yeild, even if a project followed all governmental procedures and obtained all governmental approvals. This harms both the credibility of the government and the economy, and eventually the interests of the public. Chinese government has found the deeper causes and is working on the right direction.
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