تاثیر رفتار انسان در آستانه محیط زیست: مثبت یا منفی؟ تجزیه و تحلیل رابطه ای گری از اثرات زیست محیطی، مصرف انرژی و حفاظت از محیط زیست

Human behavior has the positive and negative impact on ecosystem. To study the interaction between ecosystem and behavior system, per-capita energy ecological footprint (EEF) is selected as the ecosystem threshold. Elasticity coefficient of environmental investment (ECEI) and elasticity coefficient of energy consumption (ECEC) represent the positive and negative human impact on ecosystem, respectively. It takes Shanghai, China as the empirical area to implement grey relational analysis of per-capita EEF (consist of coal, coke, fuel oil, and electricity), ECEC and ECEI from 1978 to 2010. The grey correlation coefficients show that negative behavior of energy consumption has the closer influence on the ecosystem than positive behavior of environmental protection. Electricity is the most significant factor of the energy consumption and the highest sensitive indicator to the environmental capital input–output. From the perspective of government policy, “energy saving” is more efficient than “emission reduction”. Reducing the negative activities is imminent in the current process of development.

1.1. Pollution In May 2007, a large area of blue–green algae accumulated in Taihu Lake of China broke out. Blue–green algae went through the water pipe into the millions of households, resulting in a public drinking water crisis, more than two million people in Wuxi have been disrupted the normal order of life. Phase I treatment project of Taihu Lake completed earlier has invested 10 billion Yuan, Phase II is expected to invest 100 billion Yuan. Though a huge capital has been invested, the output efficiency is questionable. 1.2. Damage The United Nations estimates that sea levels will rise 58 cm by 2100, due to ozone destruction caused by global warming. Maldives composed of the 1200 islands and coral reefs is facing with the threat of disappearance of any time. President Mohamed radical dot Nasheed of Maldives has prepared some income from domestic tourism earmarked “Land Purchase Fund” to accommodate the resulting large number of “environmental refugees” (The British newspaper of “The Guardian” reported it in November 10, 2008). 1.3. Waste According to the “Waste and Resources Action Project” supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the UK throws away “junk” food 17 million tons each year, accounting for purchases of 1/3, with the value of 8 billion to 20 billion pounds. The 25% of so-called “junk” thrown away each year in the world is safe and harmless, at least to feed 70 million people. Inappropriate behavior of over purchase, improper storage and eclipse picky eaters are three main reasons for food wasting. From the above examples, both in developed and developing countries, there are a lot of environmental pollution and resource destruction behavior generated by economic benefits and waste behavior caused by consumption habits. The fundamental reason is that the mode and the strength of the human impacting upon the environment do not take “the natural law” as a precondition, but rather to their own values. In the production and consumption process, people abuse ecological resources free but limited out of control, then as much as possible to save the resources needing to pay.

From the research, we can illustrate the importance of human activities’ impacts – minor or major – on the ecosystem, especially, in terms of EEF and economic growth. Although the ecological carrying capacity within a certain time keeps at a relatively steady state, we should realize that the interaction relationship between ecosystem thresholds and human behavior is real. Positive or negative behaviors may both lead to dynamic changes of the ecosystem. Through GRA, negative human behavior has a more direct and significant impact on the ecosystem than positive one. It means that reducing energy consumption directly is an efficient path to improve the sustainable development of ecosystem. The way of protecting the environment and restoring ecological health is also to decrease the resource consumption fundamentally. In this sense, the effect of “energy saving” is greater than “emission reducing.” Based on the grey correlation coefficients, the electricity footprint has the most similar trend with per-capita EEF and the greatest correlation with ECEC and ECEI of Shanghai. Electricity is the most significant factor of the energy consumption growth and the highest effective indicator to the environmental capital input–output. Currently, electricity footprint is in the smallest proportion of Shanghai’s per-capita EEF. Energy policy to increase the electricity consumption as the primary energy to replace coal and other raw energy resources may be the direction of energy structure adjustment and environmental protection. In the 21st century, Shanghai’s energy consumption has been in an accelerating trend. The actual growth of investment for environmental protection has slowed, while the per-capita EEF has increased. At present, the global economic is in the continuous downturn. It will accelerate the development more relying on the resource pull. Similarly, in many developing countries, the urbanization and industrialization processes are generally faced with the contradiction between the structure upgrading and economic rapid growth. Once the lack of economic growth power, it may cause the reduction of continued investment for environmental protection. The extensive development mode of energy-dependent is likely to come back, weaken or threaten to the sustainability of ecosystem. The impacts of human behavior on the ecological environment are complex and far-reaching. The content, criterion and scope of positive and negative acts are difficult to define simply. Some negative influences are easy to be rapidly identified and immediately restricted; others are hidden to need a longer time and a complex path to show in the ecosystem. The efficiencies of some positive behaviors such as the investment for environmental protection, technological innovation and policy-oriented strategy, are in the lack of effective evaluation mechanism. Meanwhile, the environmental protection expenditures from the states and governments can be facilitated in the statistics, but the impacts of social organizations, enterprises and individual actions are difficult to collect. Those reasons will make the implementation effects of some public policies without scientific prediction. The existence of the problems may leave the door open for further discussions. As a suggested research direction, the overall environmental input–output accounting system of different nations, regions, sectors and enterprises should be built up. It will provide the scientific method and quantitative evaluation to restrict human behaviors, compare within the regions and develop public policies for ecological management.