Can Chinas ancient Dao philosophy help its current ecological crisis?
IN AUGUST 2005 the Chinese government formally commissioned British design consultancy Arup to create Dongtan Eco-city, a new urban development for 100,000 people just outside Shanghai. Opening in 2010, it will be a showcase for low-impact modern development and will be the largest of a number of projects China is undertaking to engage with sustainability. China’s environment has suffered many problems over the last half-century. In the words of Jasper Becker, writing in the National Geographic, “With 1.3 billion people the implications of its gallop towards Western-style consumer society are sobering.” These are not just problems for China, facing a giant public health crisis, but for the whole world. The implementation of Western modernity at a rate and scale a thousand times greater than in the Industrial Revolution means China alone may conclusively tip global ecosystems to breaking point. Professor Sir Peter Hall, president of the UK’s Town and Country Planning Association and one
