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Sandstorms and drought remind us to respect nature and adopt a sustainable development model and have plans ready to deal with natural disasters, says an article on Xinhuanet. Excerpts:
Two sandstorms in four days in North China made life hell for about 270 million people. In five southwestern provinces, one of the worst ever droughts has made life miserable for 50 million people.
Blame everything on climate change. But climate change, in turn, can be blamed on human activity. Hasn't our rapid economic development come at a huge environmental cost?
Even today, some local governments, eager to make easy profits, grant permission to polluting industries, because they can achieve instant success. It doesn't matter that these industries cause more pollution.
On the agriculture front, the passive drought relief has exposed how laggard our irrigation and conservancy projects are.
More than half of China's farmland lacks basic irrigation facilities, but despite that our utilization rate of irrigation water is only 46 percent.Besides, we still lack a disaster prevention mechanism for the national water resource allocation system. The lack of a plan to deal with natural disasters always leaves us unprepared.
Hence, how to strengthen disaster relief management has been a burning question for the government.
Only effective environmental protection measures can ensure us a better future. And low-carbon economy appears to be the first choice to reduce negative human impacts on nature.
(China Daily 03/24/2010 page9)