Oriental route leads to sustainable development

Western medicine is known to sometimes treat the symptoms rather than the disease. And if we use the same method to treat climate change, the disease will only grow.

Now, as environmentalists say, the world has reached a tipping point. Global warming has reached a stage critical enough to threaten our biodiversity, challenge our way of life and question our values.

To deal with climate change, we need to take the holistic approach of Oriental medicine, and start at the source (or base), that is, the village.

One key strategy in the fight against global warming is low-carbon development.

As head of Global Village of Beijing (GVB), an NGO dedicated to environmental protection in China, I visited Sichuan province after the killer earthquake of May 12, 2008. We began our reconstruction plan, called LoHo Home - Home for Life of Harmony, on a grant of 3.65 million yuan from the Chinese Red Cross and help from some other charitable organizations.

Our aim was to build a green village by constructing environmentally friendly houses and developing a sustainable local economy to enable the villagers to live in harmony with each other and the environment.

We picked Daping in Pengzhou, a once beautiful mountainous village that the quake had reduced to rubble, as our first site for the LoHo plan. The LoHo housing design came from Prof Liu Jiaping, a leading green architect, and it draws heavily from the Sichuan of old.

A team of architects, led by Liu, designed the houses without increasing the costs for the local families. In an area where trees are precious and wood is not in abundant supply, our design allowed villagers to build steel-and-wood composite structures.

People were divided into teams to build the houses, laying the foundation for a cooperative economy; an example that can be emulated elsewhere. The villagers built a community clinic and an open handicraft workshop, and are now in the middle of building two community meeting halls.

This process made every villager a rural architect, working side by side with a qualified engineer. The houses and public buildings that we have helped build are environmentally friendly and can match the so-called luxury houses seen in urban areas.

Our low-carbon design affects other aspects of the daily life, too. In Daping, we have managed to develop a creative handicraft industry, which provides an interface with city markets. It follows the bottom-up principle and uses organic farming methods. These handicrafts are products of Chinese heritage and are popular. For example, some of the handkerchiefs made in the village were even sent as gifts to the Clinton family in the US.

But the most important change is the one in people's attitude toward climate change. Modern man's blind pursuit of materialism has given birth to a lifestyle of high carbon footprint. But in Daping, that pursuit has given way to love of life. Low-carbon management and community administration are the hallmarks of the village, which is generating energy from methane and making fuel-efficient stoves. It practices a waste classification system, a phenomenon rare in many Chinese cities.

GVB's aim is to achieve harmony between society and the environment. By becoming environmentally friendly, the villagers are forming a stronger community of thriving individuals. There's an artist who even plays his panpipe while working on a small organic farm. This is the kind of lifestyle GVB desires.

One vital aim of this transformation from a high-carbon ego-centric society to a low-carbon eco-centric society is to turn sand into arable soil, external aid into internal force, and discord into harmony. A low-carbon community means fewer or no disputes, and there is very little law-reinforcement cost. Villagers, as a matter fact, have a respectful and amiable relationship with the each other, and community affairs are democratically determined. Many such efforts made in Daping can be emulated in other villages.

Oriental wisdom rather than the complicated methodology is our tool in the fight against climate change. China has to follow its own development path to achieve its climate goal, and that is to rebuild our communities in such a way that they live in harmony with nature.

The author has been championing the cause of environmental protection in China for 13 years and is head of an NGO, Global Village of Beijing. She has helped many victims of the May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake rebuild their homes and communities in a low-cost and environmentally friendly way.

(China Daily 08/11/2009 page9)