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春节即将来临，在与家人、朋友尽情享受中华传统佳节带来的欢乐之时，我们不要忘记，人类文明的持续繁荣还需要可持续环境的承载。
也许人们没有想到，千百年来欢度春节的很多民俗做法，大都忽视了环保的效果。如大年三十和正月初一两天，家家户户要燃放鞭炮。此时，空气中的二氧化硫和氮氧化物的含量要超标十几倍甚至几十倍，远远超过平日里化工厂的排放。
而燃放鞭炮产生的二氧化硫，易溶于人体的体液和其他黏性液中，可直接导致多种疾病。二氧化硫与空气中的水分结合，还会形成酸雨和酸雾，对生态环境、土壤、水质造成严重的污染。氮氧化物则易于侵入呼吸道深部细支气管和肺泡，导致迟发性肺水肿、成人呼吸窘迫综合症等，并对中枢神经系统、心血管系统等产生危害作用。另外，大气中的氢氧化物和挥发性有机物在太阳光照射下，还会形成光化学烟雾，对人体健康和生态系统造成损害。
再如，国人都有过春节给孩子包压岁钱的习俗。据官方数据显示，香港金管局每年都要印制3亿张新纸币，耗用400吨棉花，来满足新年用新纸币封红包的需要。还有，过春节拜年免不了带着大包小包去访亲探友，其中相当一批礼品的过度包装，无形中消耗着巨大的社会资源。生产各种包装物所需的原材料中，不乏珍贵稀有的非可再生资源，而在处理这些废弃包装物过程中耗费的大量人力物力，也会造成极大浪费。据北京市有关部门统计，北京市每年产生近300万吨的垃圾中，有60万吨为过度包装物，占用了近2亿元的垃圾处理费。
随着社会生产力的发展，消费对生产的反作用日益凸显。合理的消费模式和适度的消费规模不仅有利于经济的增长，同时还会减少由于人口增长带来的种种压力，使人们赖以生存的环境得到保护和改善。不合理的消费模式和不科学的消费行为则会极大地破坏生态环境和浪费资源，从长远来看严重影响经济发展的后劲，进而危及到人类自身生存条件的改善和生活品质的持续提高。
欧盟近期调查显示，百分之67的荷兰人和百分之82的德国人在超级市场里购物时会考虑到环境污染问题。英国的调查显示，英国有半数以上的消费者会根据是否有利于环境保护这个因素选购产品。
欧洲的许多国家都设立了可持续家庭消费的研究项目，对一些特定地区的消费方式和相关的环境影响进行经验性分析和评价，并针对性地提出一些政策建议。如荷兰环保局、能源与环境部的“展望项目”，针对荷兰家庭90年代后在可支配收入增加、家庭能源消费猛增的情况下，通过对12个典型家庭的能源消费模式的分析，提出了一种减少百分之30能耗的生活方式。
笔者以为，眼下，既要过个好年，也要关注环保，在过年消费的同时不忘环保，这既是时尚的表现，也体现出公民的一种社会责任感。让我们大家从我做起，人人为过个文明的环保春节出力。（涂莹燕 国家环保总局WTO环境与贸易工作领导小组技术支持专家组成员）
[来源文章]
February 2, 2008
Source: Xinhua Net
As Spring Festival is imminent, when enjoying Chinese traditions with family and friends and the excellent times that the festival brings, we should not forget human civilization sustained prosperity and the need to bear responsibility for a sustainable environment.
Probably most people have not thought that the popular customs and ways over the many years that people have joyfully spent Spring Festival mostly have ignored environmental results. For example, New Year's Eve and Spring Festival, these two days, every family wants to set off firecrackers. At this time, the air content of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide exceeds the norm by ten times, or even many tens of times, and even far exceeds the normal discharge from a chemical factory.
In addition, the sulphur dioxide produced by setting off firecrackers can easily be dissolved in the human body in bodily fluids and other viscous liquids and can directly lead to many kinds of disease. Sulphur dioxide and the moisture in the air combine, which can form acid rain and acid fog creating serious pollution for the ecological environment, soil, and water. Nitrogen oxide, on the other hand, can easily invade the respiratory tract, the deep divisions and fine branches of the trachea and pulmonary alveoli, lead to delayred pulmonary edema, adult breathing disorders and composite illness, and, furthermore, can endanger the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. Furthermore, hydroxides and volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere under irradiation from sunlight, creating photochemical smoke leading to damage to human health and the ecological system.
Again, take for example if everybody in the country followed the Spring Festival tradition of giving child a 'red envelope.' According to official data, the Hong Kong Treasury needs to print 300 million bank notes, using 400 tonnes of cotton, to satisfy the need for money sealed inside red envelopes at New Year. Also, when visiting for New Year it is impossible to avoid carrying large and small parcels when visiting family and friends, amongst which some presents are excessively packaged, invisibly consuming a huge amount of society's resources. Amongst the raw materials required for manufacturing all kinds of packaging materials, there is no shortage of precious, scarse non-renewable materials and, in addition, in the course of processing these wasted packaging materials great amounts of money and labor and phyical resources are squandered, which creates a huge waste. According to statistics from the City of Beijing government, every year Beijing produces nearly 3 million tones of trash, amongst which 600 thousand tones are excessive packaging materials, accounting for nearly 200 million yuan in trash processing costs.
Following the development of manufacturing in society, comsumption of goods used in ways other than intended has become increasingly conspicuous. Reasonable ways and suitable scale of consumption not only benefit an expanding economy but, at the same time, reduce pressure brought about by an increasing population, leading people to depend on environmental survival for protection and improvement. On the other hand, unreasonable consumption methods and unscientific consumption actions can cause enormous harm to the ecological environment and squander natural resources. For a long term perspective, this can have grave consequences for the later strength of the developing economy and then endanger the continuation of the conditions for humanity's own quality of life and improvement.
In the near future the European Union investigations will show, 67 percent of Dutch people and 82 percent of Germans, when shopping at the supermarket will consider environmental pollution issues. An English investigation shows that more than half the consumers in England consider the benefit for environmental protection as a factor in deciding which products to purchase. Many countries in Europe have established research projects for sustainable household consumption. For these designated areas the consumption methods and related environmental influences will be analyzed and evaluated and, furthermore, make proposals on the direction of policies.
For example, the “Outlook Project” by Netherlands Environmental Protection Agency within the Department of Energy and Environment was directed at Dutch families in the period after the 1990's with a revenue increase leading to conditions of rapidly increasing household energy consumption. By means of analysis of twelve family energy consumption models, they suggested a life style to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent.
The author thinks, at present, since we want to celebrate Spring Festival well and we also want to pay close attention to environmental protection, so when consuming things for Spring Festival, at the same time, do not forget environmental protection. This is both a manifestation of a fashion and also gives expression to a kind of citizen's sense of responsibility to society. Let each person, from their own actions, show everybody that we can do our best to have a civilized, environmentally friendly Spring Festival. (Tu Yingyan, expert member of the Environment and Trade Leadership Group, Environmental Protection Agency)
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