Environmental Protection in China: Lumbering and Mining Industries - Research Paper Example

The world is going through major climate change and China is no exception. In the next 30 years, about 80 percent of the Himalayan glaciers will be disappeared. There is a close relationship between global warming and economic development. The rapid economic development in the world including China has an adverse effect on the environment and climate change due to increasing global warming. Therefore, it is important for China to prevent the further augmentation of climate change. One of the major causes of global warming is deforestation.

It is because trees are an important component in the natural environment and are essential for the absorption of carbon dioxide, i.e., the greenhouse gas. With no trees, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase resulting in the rise of the earth's temperature. On the other hand, manufacturing activities and sales of consumer goods are all generated from the consumption of natural resources, which causes the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. Mining is one of the major human activities in the exploitation of natural resources.

The rapid advance of modern technologies results in an increasing demand for mineral resources. In fact, human society cannot progress prosperously without the contribution of the mining industry. However, as a consequence of mining, a number of hazards happen to an environment, creating new constraints for the sustainable development of the region. Study of the negative impacts of mining becomes one of the urgent tasks of geoscientists in the protection of the mining environment and the optimal utilization of the mineral resources (Tan Jiwen et al.

, 1988; Zhou Shju, 1993).