Urban Development: Sustainable Development And Safety Culture
---- On the question of construction project of 2008 Olympic Games Beijing relating to safety aspects
Jin Lei
Deputy Secretary-General,
China Disaster Prevention Association
Abstract :China's accession to the World Trade Organization and the realization of a successful bid for 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing call for a healthy environment for the urban construction in this country. Faced with multiple challenges coming from the ideas of new millennium, new metropolis, new buildings and new goals, city constructors are naturally given the historical task of unprecedented sense of responsibility and sense of history. In fact, "safety first" has become an increasingly important topic. This topic calls for the city constructors, city planners and safety workers together with disaster mitigation workers join their hands to construct a modern metropolitan space in which people would find it easy to live for its emotional design. This would be most helpful to achieve an all-round sustainable development.
1. Starting from the 2 cases of domestic "air disasters" in 2002
Undoubtedly April 15 2002 is a "dark memorial day" to the Air China. An Air China airliner Boeing 767, with a total of 166 passengers and crew members on board, crashed at the Pusan Airport in Korea. This is the end of the consecutive 47-year long safety record of Air China which is considered the golden history of this largest airline company of china. It is generally accepted that this is merely an "occasional" accident. However, no one could ever deny the fact that the occasionality is so cruel that it devastated a total of more than 100 lives at one time. As is expressed by Karl Marx, "occasionality" grows out of the soil of "inevitability". Then, who on earth could tell us the true story behind this "occasionality"?
Talking about the preciousness of life, Gu Songfen, academicians of both Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, noted that everyone stands equal in terms of the value of their lives. Aeroplane designers attach equal importance to all passengers on board but they could not take in account all possibilities that could lead to the crash of the aeroplane. Nether could they make all preventive measures against all disaster leading possibilities. Otherwise, the aeroplane would become too heavy to take off. Speaking about the higher survival rate of the passengers in the first class cabin compared with the lower survival rate of the passengers in the economy class cabin, this is only an incidental phenomenon. The investigation results of this air disaster indicate that when the plane crashed, it was the end part of the fuselage that first clashed against the mountain. It is just because of this reason that the front cabin passengers did have bigger opportunity to survive. If it was the front end of the plane that first clashed against the mountain, the end cabin passengers would have more opportunity to survive. The result of the air crash had nothing to do with the plane design. It is closely related with the actual conditions of the accident. The difference between the first-class cabin and the economy-class cabin lies only in the width of the seats, the leg-rooms and also the services provided to the passengers. Speaking about flight safety, first-class cabin is identical to economy-class cabin and the flight safety has nothing to do with the distance between the cabins and the cockpit. Now that the pilot survived and the black-box is found, the cause of the crash is just under analysis. Air disaster is a kind of accident related with work safety and it produces more severe results with more profound impact compared with other accidents. We should have a kind of objective attitude towards air disasters. Publicity by the mass media could be a low-toned one, but the investigation into the accident and drawing lessons from the accident could never be low-toned. What we should do is to be as serious as we do about the accidents of cross Bohai Strait passenger ship accident near Yantai, Shandong Province and the collapse of the Caihong Bridge in Qijiang in Sichuan Province several years ago. We should retrieve the true causes of the accidents so as to let the innocent dead rest in peace and prevent any further similar accidents of the same kind. It is because of the lack of serious disciplinary measures that the work safety alarm did not ring sufficiently during the seven-day long May Day holiday that another aeroplane crash repeated on May 7, 2002 in China. What a sad lesson! This case indicates that behind the technology in place for preventing accidents, very close attention should also be directed to human behaviors. This is related with the question of human behavior management, the sense of work safety and work safety culture.
2. What is safety and disaster mitigation in urban development?
All countries in the world experienced the large scale urbanization during the 20th century which is reflected by the occupancy of large areas of arable land for urban development and serious draining of rural population to cities; blind urban expansion for the limited gains at hand; urban development lacks reasonable grounds and urban human environment is damaged; cities lack systematic disaster prevention planning and the safety standards is not sufficient. Since 1992 when the concept of "sustainable development" was first introduced into China, the idea of ecological planning came into being. Now that we are in the 21st century, it is time to improve the overall quality of cities. To create more beautiful cities, constructors and city planners are recompiling urban development plans in which the sustainable development in the urban ecological environment is the core. Cities are a kind of artificial environment which is created by human beings for their own benefits and which is also interactive with the mother nature. This artificial environment totally changes the living style, work and behaviors and values of human beings. Please look at these:
2.1 Harmony between human and the nature.
City planning in the 21st century should not merely be regarded as a technical specialty or a task merely in front of administrative organizations. Every city dweller is a concrete factor that the city planning should take into account since every city dweller should participate in the city planning process. Every individual environment and single phenomenon in city planning are compositional parts of the overall harmony of the city as a integral body. For example, the relations between the city proper and its history, that between the folk custom and folk culture, the influence of climate and the inter-active mechanism between agriculture and industries, etc. Cities should bear the air of cleanliness, freshness and easiness and the city dwellers should live amongst trees, shrubs, birds and flowers. The saying "man is an integral part of nature" should be reflected in the entire planning and designing processes of cities.
2.2 Only people account.
For hundreds of years, streets as the trunk veins have been deciding the spheres of city dwellers' social activities. After the World War II, the prevailing modern architecture divided the cities into some functional parts like traffic zones, dwelling districts, production districts and commercial districts, etc. Over the recent years along with the arising social problems such as development of education, population aging and over-density of urban population, new functional areas are further separated from cities such as education districts, aged nursing districts and satellite cities, etc. We can not deny the positive significance and the reasonable considerations in delimiting such functional areas. But in fact this practice do cause some certain problems. For example satellite cities turned into a kind of place prepared exclusively for people to spend the night, young people have to rush to and from city centers for work and leisure time and the aged-nursing communities suffer the lack of vitality simply because they are isolated from social life and the general public. City planning in the 21st century therefore should fully reflect the principle that people is to account. Human being is a kind of social creature. Communication, emotional exchanges and mutual assistance are inseparable among people. A city erected on the principle that people is all should be endowed with the capabilities to provide its dwellers with the most convenient, the most practical and the most effective means for livelihood, going out, leisure time and communication.
2.3 Establishment of disaster prevention systems.
Modern cities are most characterized of concentrated production activities, concentrated population, highly concentrated buildings and concentrated wealth. Disaster prevention is one of the unavoidable problems that are involved in the planning of cities. Along with the development of industrialization, causes of disasters are changing from natural causes towards human factor causes. Viewing from the angle of sustainable development, all large-sized and medium-sized cities are exceptionally under the shadow of all kinds of natural disasters and human factor related disasters, which call for an immediate solution to the planning and erection of city disaster preventive systems. At present, man can not fully control the occurrence of sudden disasters neither can man realize a kind of accurate prediction of the occurrence of various natural disasters and their calamity. However, disaster related loss is closely related with man's capabilities in disaster prevention, disaster rescue operation and post disaster reconstruction. Countless facts proved that as a result of the development of the highly sophisticated natural science and modern technology, human beings may effectively prevent the loss resulting from injuries, fatalities and related economic losses caused by disasters with the help of the latest scientific theories and the latest technologies.
3.Major factors of disaster for 2008 Olympic Games Beijing and the construction of "Safer Olympiad"
The "Beijing Olympic Games Action Plan" filled with the idea of sustainable development that came out on March 28 further emphasized the theme of "New Beijing, New Olympics" together with the three great notions of "Green Olympics, Scientific Olympics and Humane Olympics". As the writer of this paper, I think that the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing, which boasts to be the most successful Olympic Games in history, not only calls for the first-rate sport facilities, it calls more urgently for the idea of "Safer Olympiad" throughout the process of construction. To be more specific, now that the eco-environment in Beijing is under extreme concerns these days, curbing the environmental pollution is acknowledged as a target of must. The idea about international modern metropolis is not merely linked with housing, cars, communication, greenery and the normal and sufficient supply of lifeline system of the metropolis, the crux is if all of the city functions of the metropolis can give out full and reliable services in case of urgency and if the metropolis like Beijing can easily face the sudden occurrence of disasters and/or sudden incidents. If not, the modernization and internationalization of Beijing will become merely empty words and the three basic ideas of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games would suffer the lack of safety guarantees. I put forward the idea to strengthen the city disaster emergency system on the basis of the actual development conditions of Chinese cities combining a systematic analysis of the city disaster emergency management systems.
3.1 Disaster factors in front of the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing
Sources of disaster risks in Beijing are as follows:
¡ñ Located in the transition zone between warm temperate semi-humid climate zone and middle temperate with semi-drought climate zone, Beijing is under the strong influence of droughts, floods, winds, snow, fog and storms, etc.
¡ñ Located in the north wing of the North China seismic zone, Beijing is surrounded by Hebei and Shanxi earthquake belt which is characterized of "frequent weak quakes in generally quake-free condition". Beijing used to be the only one of the six major ancient capitals with frequent quakes. In the history of Beijing, there were 80 earthquakes over 5 degrees on Richter Scale of which 6 major quakes over 7 degrees on the Richter Scale. As early as in 1994 at the National Earthquake Disaster Mitigation Conference, Beijing was listed at the top of 60 Chinese cities threatened by earthquakes with the strength between 6 degrees and 8 degrees on the Richter Scale.
¡ñ Disasters in Beijing change with the urban development. Before 1949 when Beijing was liberated from the hands of the Nationalists, disasters in Beijing were mainly in the line of "droughts, floods, locust, earthquake and plague". This generally reflected the characters of an old-styled city in an agricultural country. Since then, disasters in Beijing area are further summarized as "water, fire, winds, earthquake, mud, eco-contamination". "Water" implies water related disasters like droughts, floods and deluge; "fire" and "winds" imply the mixed disaster caused by both natural factor and human factors; "mud" implies land slides and mud slides while "eco-contamination" clearly indicates the city pollution and environmental pollution, etc.
¡ñ In the course of change from a thousand-year old ancient capital towards modern metropolis, Beijing is now threatened by a series of human related disasters and hidden major accidents. Mr. Liu Tanhua, vice mayor of Beijing and president of Beijing Disaster Mitigation Association once said at the meeting of the second committee Beijing Disaster Mitigation Association that the first ten most important disasters threatening Beijing are water related disasters, meteorological disasters, earthquake and geological disasters, fire and explosions, traffic accidents, accidents with the urban lifeline systems, urban epidemic diseases, city industrial disasters and environmental contaminations, "constructive damages" and accidents on campuses, etc. In the light of this account, disaster prevention and disaster mitigation in Beijing can never be limited to disasters proper, rather, safety of Beijing should be guaranteed from a much higher point of the readiness of the capability of providing protective reaction in case of emergency. Successful experiences of large and medium city performance indicate once and again that city safety and the emergency reaction capability of these cities are of foremost importance. The incident of 1mm snowfall resulting in serious city function paralysis in large area of Beijing on December 7, 2001 gives us a warning that many factors in this case reflect that not only does Beijing lack the capability for quick and effective reaction in case of emergency, but also the capability is far from sufficient. This case thus put forward a series of topics for our attention and warning.
3.2 The "Three Major concepts" about Beijing Olympic Games will not do without the idea of "Safer Olympiad"
Either starting from countless historical records of major disasters destroying cities around the world or talking about the arduous tasks in front of 2008 Olympic Games Beijing, Beijing can not separate itself from the perplex of city disasters and/or sudden incidents. Therefore, it is very important to deal correctly with the interrelations between the idea of "Safer Olympiad" and three major concepts.
(1) Disaster mitigation and "technical Olympiad". Technical Olympiad is to introduce modern science and technology into this sport games in various ways. It is meant to apply the most up-to-date scientific achievements, scientific spirit and conceptions in every corner of this Olympiad. Viewed from the angle of safety and disaster mitigation technologies, the idea of "Safety Olympiad" should be embodied in the following three aspects: (a) how to make the construction projects of Olympic facilities and their auxiliary facilities, first of all their planning and designing, in conformity with the disaster prevention and disaster mitigation concepts and requirements embodied in the overall planning of Beijing urban area development; (b) although a series of disaster risk evaluation technology and methods are in place, people still lack the scientific evaluation methods to cope with the complicated urban systems; (c) disaster mitigation by science and technology not only needs some breakthroughs in earthquake prevention, wind disaster prevention and contamination handling, it also calls for decision-making process on scientific grounds. To this end, Beijing must work out scientific and rational disaster prevention plans to cope with sudden disasters and/or incidents and pay much attention to the promotion and cultivation of emergency rescue technology and related industries as efforts for disaster prevention and disaster mitigation.
(2) Safety, disaster mitigation and "Green Olympic Games". The Chinese government has promised to the world that China is ready to usher in a new Beijing with blue sky, clear water and green ground to the world. I think that we have to fully realize the unsustainable factors in the campaign for the realization of sustainable development in Beijing. It is not enough to publicize the Beijing Olympiad from the angle of GREEN, or at least we should say this is far from enough. The goals of sustainable development for Beijing Olympic Games related construction should also include the concept of disaster mitigation on scientific ground. International experiences indicate that without the practice of disaster mitigation, mere environmental protection doesn't mean anything. The same is true with this case that green Olympic Games without the practice in disaster mitigation also won't do. I therefore suggest that the competent state authorities and the competent departments of Beijing should initiate comprehensive study projects to analyze the natural disaster and hidden dangers of accidents in Beijing area for the years around 2008. These study projects, to be realized on the basis of large amount of research achievements and basic data, will not only detect the "obstacles" on the way of realizing Olympic Games related construction projects, but will also provide sufficient scientific contents to this green sport event. "Green Olympiad" not only calls for green color in outward appearances, but also requires inward green and inherent green in its eco-functional nature. To this end, "Green Olympiad" is to realize the blue-sky project, clear-water project, green-mountain project and green-city project, etc. The greatest contribution of the concept of disaster mitigation to "Green Olympiad" is that the functions of disaster and accident risk evaluation system should be brought into a full play.
(3) Safety, disaster mitigation and "Humane Olympiad". Speaking from the angle of Olympic facilities' planning and designing, attention should not only be paid to the rationality of their layout, their perfect functions and provision of convenient transport, focus should also be emphasized on the protection and reflection of the profound cultural details of Beijing. As a world famous metropolis, ancient capital and a cultural city, Beijing's traditional buildings and structures are cultural relics. If viewed from the principle of disaster prevention and disaster mitigation advocated by the United Nations, the construction drive for "Humane Olympiad" in Beijing must bring the protection of traditional buildings and structures onto the height of safety and disaster mitigation. In particular, efforts shouldn't be focused on demolishing the old and erecting the new, attention should be directed especially to an all-round evaluation of the protection of the old in the light of continuation of the traditional culture. I hope the arrival of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 should not result in a massive destruction of the traditional culture and old buildings. The Chinese saying goes "safety is the happiness of common people". I think a correct strategy of Olympic Games under the principle of "human-being is the basis" will not only be of great significance to the development of Beijing, but also to the rural and urban construction all over this country. Beijing should make up the lesson in safety culture. The drive for "Humane Olympiad" in Beijing is not a mere slogan, it is China's lofty promise before the whole world. In the drive for transformation and creation of modern culture, it will give a new look to Beijing with the traditional dregs got rid of. In short, deeper contemplations lay stresses on the cultivation of city of "mega safety" and atmosphere of safety culture in communities. This is to bring the idea of "Humane Olympiad" stressing safety and disaster mitigation onto the height of protection of cultural relics. This is a new development strategy that goes further than the humanity and cultural vision in general terms.
4.Urban planning and design: how to deal with the relations between normality and emergency
An international symposium was held in 1996 under the title of construction projects of sustainable development in the 21st century. The workshop drew such a main conclusion that for the goal of realizing sustainable development it is necessary to carry out major upgrading or remake projects on the designing concepts, relevant construction process, operating process, maintenance and the process of renewal. According to this saying, we could say that the traditional design concept could no longer satisfy the needs of a sustainable development society.
4.1 Disaster prevention concept for structure.
If the competition in the construction industry focused it attention on the style and function of buildings in the 20th century, then, the competition in the 21st century will be mainly focused on the aspect of disaster prevention. Cases have proved that an elaborate and original design of a structure may greatly reduce the economic loss and damages resulting from sudden disaster to the structure itself and the society as a whole. Novel disaster preventive design concept should reflect the following:
¡ñ Definite target and multiple methodology. Safety standards and target should be definite and set at a high level. That is, they should guarantee the minimum probability of disaster. On the other hand, there should be multiple ways to ensure the realization of safety standards. In this regard, people may use all modern technology available for various combinations that are innovative in nature.
¡ñ Relation between man and structure: mutually complementary. The planimetric structure and the relevant equipment of a structure provide basic conditions for disaster prevention. The traditional design concept, however, takes into little or no account of the disaster preventive effects resulting from the interaction between man and these equipment. Novel design concept should first take into account the possibility if people could be benefited or if people may reach the goal of disaster prevention as well as the reliability of people's using these safety apparatus in case of emergency. At the same time, novel design concept should also take into account the possible severe consequences to the disaster prevention system of the structure in case of human errors is applying these facilities.
¡ñ Virtual and simulative design of disaster process. What we call the computer aided simulated design is, by applying the method of mathematical analysis and mathematical statistics, to form a series of mathematical models describing disaster process plus the computer calculation to work out various physical parameters related to the disaster process. All these are used to predict all of the environmental conditions for the occurrence of disasters. Virtual reality is the three-dimensional environment of structure simulated by computer into which architects may enter to control and alter the designed structure by interactive process. Man will finally break the linguistic obstacles between man and man, man and computer and finally reach the goal of direct communication between man and machine, machine and biological world. The greatest benefits of this integral technology lie in the fact that it is easier for architects and structure design approval authorities to reach the most rational, the most effective and the most economical disaster prevention system designs on the basis of their on-the-spot feelings in the virtual structure assisted by their knowledge in construction, relevant technical criteria and safety and disaster prevention systems.
In this regard, we have to pay attention to the following three major technical measures for disaster prevention in urban areas:
Integral information and decision-making system for disaster prevention in cities
It is necessary to set up digital systems that are adapted to the city planning and management in this country. This is meant to realize shared use of information. Efforts should be directed to the development and application of 3S technology, namely, GIS, GPS and remote sensing technologies for the establishment of disaster prevention decision-making dispatching and rescue system for cities. This system may include: geological disaster prevention and handling sub-system, flood disaster prevention and handling sub-system, earth quake disaster prevention and handling sub-system and urban fire prevention and handling sub-system, etc. This system may share the use of database and it should also capable of realizing the function dispatching among all its sub-systems. Fire-fighting departments should be used as the main force in the disaster rescue systems of all cities of China. The city fire-fighting dispatching and decision-making systems that are under construction in this country are actually city GIS systems that combine geographic maps, databases and model bases. On the way of the development of fire disaster theory towards practical application, this system may absorb more fire disaster theories. This will further enrich the contents of model base for fire-fighting dispatching and relevant decision-making process, thus making all the models more and more accurate and practical. It is also an important goal to realize the intellectualization of the decision-making process in fire-fighting.
4.2 Prevention of fuel gas explosion in cities
Development of urban construction naturally expands the urban area in which fuel gas is used. As a result, more risks arise with the accidents of fuel gas explosion. Based upon the randomness of fuel gas explosion accidents, it is very important to conduct prediction for the probability of fuel gas explosion accidents and loss that may occur in case of such accidents. It is one of effective methods to apply topology model in the prediction of fuel gas explosion accidents. In the field of the prevention of fuel gas accidents in urban areas, the following work is to be strengthened. Dynamic evaluation system is to be used for the safety of the fuel gas system used in urban areas. This involves the consideration of the functions of both accident causing factors and accident bearing factors. On the other hand, it is important to provide means, techniques and procedures to effective safety evaluation and safety consultancy to the construction of urban fuel gas projects. It is also necessary to enter the fuel gas disaster related information into the integral disaster prevention system of cities on the basis of which the GIS based fuel gas disaster prevention decision-making support system is to be set up. This is to utilize the powerful GIS system for the management over production, transmission, transport, distribution and consumption of fuel gas. This is to improve the safety nature of every link in the whole process and ready reaction could be made in case of emergency to minimize the disastrous results of the accidents.
4.3 Safety monitoring and control project for urban life lines
Modern cities involve complicated system engineering. In case of various disasters, the magnitude of loss and its influence on the production and livelihood of the city dwellers mainly relies on the disaster withstanding capacity of the city life lines such as electric power system, water supply system, fuel gas supply system and some other relevant systems in cities. Here, modern technologies such as GIS system and artificial intelligence could be used in the integral study of daily routine management, project monitoring and disaster mitigation strategies for the city life line system so as to set up and improve the functions of practical systems adapted to the local development. This includes disaster models, economic loss evaluation models, routine information management system, putting forward engineering techniques and measures to mitigate regional economic losses and providing modern management and decision-making methodologies for urban development and sustainable economic development. The safety level of city life lines lies on the technical level reflected in the testing, fixing, solidification and emergency treatment for the life line systems. This includes the following technologies: underground pipeline testing and positioning technology, pipeline operation status monitoring and maintenance technology, anti-corrosion treatment for underground pipelines, underground pipeline in-situ renewal and rehabilitation technology, etc.
International experts predicted much earlier that of the two major events that may arouse great interest from the international community, the trends of urbanization in China is not to be neglected. What was destroyed in the "September 11" incident are the world classic buildings constructed in the 1970's. What the disaster left with disaster mitigation circles is the topics of how to re-consider the defense in modern cities. Looking at the development of anti-air-raid systems used all over the world, it is clear that in the U.S.A. emphasis is put on the construction of screening facilities; in Germany focus is laid upon the function design for cities; in Japan interest is focused on the construction of underground urban projects; in Sweden attention is directed to the construction of integral defense circle and in Taibei China, a large number of refuge shelters have been put in place. We discover at the same time that what ever is done in any of the internationally renown cities, the common point in their practices is the establishment of special commission for the preparation of special rules or regulations to push forward the emergency plan for evacuation practices in cities. I think that the following key links in disaster emergency management systems of cities deserve special attention.
¡ñ Legislation should be the basis for disaster emergency management in cities. Based on the special difficulties in the disaster prevention in cities, urban disaster management should be put under the emergency system of cities. Work on this comes from routine management and it is also above routine management. This is a novel thing to China. For this, it is important to seize the opportunity of the compilation of the state regulations of "Urban Disaster Prevention Law" and extra large cities should compile "Provisions of Disaster Prevention In Cities". These legal instruments should be used to restrain the behavior of people of all walks of life.
¡ñ City disaster emergency management should lay emphasis on integral disaster mitigation. In modern cities, disasters are becoming more and more complicated. To certain disasters, it is difficult to determine if the disaster is caused by natural factor of by human factor. The very important thing in cities administration is to set up emergency control centers in cities.
¡ñ City disaster emergency management system should combine its work with that of the city air-defense system. It is important for the disaster emergency management departments to go hand-in-hand with the air-defense system and therefore an integral command system is called for.
¡ñ City disaster emergency management should lay stress on improving the emergency reaction capability. Governments, enterprises, communities, public services and other related departments should work in good coordination so as to form a responsible and efficient mechanism to deal with sudden disaster or event. This is to improve the overall capability of a city in dealing with sudden events. In this regard, the ISO14001 environment authentication standards as well as safety and hygiene authentication standards are the important management systems that people must rely on.
¡ñ City disaster emergency management should cultivate a kind of sense of safety culture. It is very important to conduct a kind of education in cities concerning the hidden danger of disasters and related sense of hardship. By doing so, it is to make the general public to understand the jargons such as disaster, accidents and crisis, etc. The purpose of doing so is to create an atmosphere in the surroundings of cities so that every person in the society possesses ready mentality for safety.
5. Development of safety culture with Chinese characters calls for novel concept
The Chinese people should have been very familiar with the logic reflected by the old saying: "He who has no anxious thoughts for the future will find trouble right at hand". In fact it is very difficult for people to follow this logic. It is just because of this that people are always too ambitious to strive to realize their dream of conquering the mother nature. With the development of modern industries and modern science and technology at unprecedented high speed, mankind seem to neglect this logic again. The reason why I stress the development of safety culture with Chinese characters from an entirely new vision is in fact to handle the sense of safety from the angle of some major concepts such as the main concepts of culture, man and the nature and sustainable development. We should bear in mind that different culture sometimes accounts for the varied safety situations. No matter it is in a country, a city, a company or in a community, safety situation is always the result of actual practice. It is therefore very important to extend the implications of safety culture.
5.1 It is a must to know the trends of cultural development
The essence of culture is to construct and deliver meanings. According to some well known scholars, culture is the net that man makes for the purpose of expressing his mind. Man after all is but something that sticks to this net. The history of human civilization is a history of human practice in which man seeks more space to live in and improve the quality of life. In the course of cultural development from the traditional mode to the modern, the most outstanding change therein is people generally give up their long possessed attitude that it is the god who decided on the fate of man and they tend to seek meanings directly from the actual life itself. A series of consequences that take place therefrom form the development trends of modern culture with clear characteristics. This presents the background against which we are now indulged in the cultural build-up. To be more specific, the following are included: (1) the secularization of modern culture; (2) technology trends of the modern culture; (3) market trends of the modern culture and (4) diversities of modern culture, etc.
5.2 Man's sustainable development is the nature
Survival and development present the basic center around which man carries out all activities. The same is true with the sustainable development. Sustainable development finds its source in man's worry about his survival and development. The implementation of sustainable development should not be only regarded as a task with the material world as its work target, it should also take into account the human factor. It is from the angle of how to fulfill the goal of sustainable development that is benign to the survival and development of man that we should dress the problems of environment and resources. Without the criterion of man's development, it is not possible to determine the goal, process and measures for sustainable development, thus losing the basic meanings of sustainable development. Here, the understanding of the harmonious relations between man and the mother nature also accounts. The harmonious co-existence of man and the nature is an ideal state of the interrelation between man and the nature. The state of harmony, however, could not be realized as things go at their own will. Looking at the man's demands for survival and development, man and the nature have never been coexisting in a state of harmony because the nature couldn't simply satisfy man. That is to say, the harmonious relations between man and the nature should be taken as man's adaptation to the nature on the one hand, and vice versa, on the other. This is in fact an example of unity of opposites. In terms of sustainable development, the kind of harmony between man and the nature is a directional one. This direction means that the nature is to be adapted to man, not the opposite. In a certain way, the nature's adaptation to man's demands also imply man's adaptation to the nature because only on the basis that man respects the nature and man takes into full account of nature's development can the nature offers to man what he needs. In order that the nature meets the needs of man's survival and development, the nature is to be subjected to reform. Only on the basis of reform and protection of the nature go hand in hand could the harmonious and coordinated development of man and the nature be realized. This is the only way to realize the harmony between man and the nature.
5.3 City safety culture education should start from cultural protection
Over the last one and two centuries, industrialization and urbanization developed at large strides. Along with the tremendous material progress, heavy expenses also incurred in terms of environmental loss and cultural loss. The ones that were first affected are the environment and ecology. Many countries propose to protect the eco-environment of resources in a bid to realize the strategy of sustainable development. China also considers this our national policy in a bid to realize a sustained social and economic development and sustained development of man's survival. On the other hand, some great philosophers, scientists and prophets have realized that the development of material civilization in the west and results have brought about heavy impact upon the spiritual world, making the spiritual world at a loss. Now that at the turn of the century, many scholars turn their interest to China because they want to seek solutions in this country. That means along side the eco-environmental crisis there is another crisis. This is the crisis with the culture. Culture also calls for protection. Just like the fact that the deeds deserve punishments from the mother nature that pay no attention to the nature and damage the environment, the deeds are also destined to be punished by the history that pays no respect to the history. It is a very important task of the 21st century to protect the culture. Many scholars have realized this point. The protection of famous historical and cultural cities should go hand in hand with the protection of the environment. Parallel to this, it is equally important to protect the culture. As environmental protection is very important to the protection of the eco-equilibrium, protection of cultural heritages is also of equally criticalness to maintaining the ever-lasting cultural traditions.
5.4 Upholding safety cultural dissemination under the macro concept of safety
As a result of the Chernobel nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union in 1986, the "nuclear safety culture" came into being. As a result of the United Nations' activity of "International Decade for Disaster Mitigation" in 1990, the global disaster prevention culture was highly advocated. However, both of these two have the inherent shortcoming that they are too technical in nature and thus have little chance for spread application. In my reference materials listed in [1], [2] and [6], large spaces are devoted to elaborating the relations between culture and safety, culture and disaster mitigation and safety and disaster mitigation related technical questions under the macro concept of safety. I think that the safety culture construction in the new millennium should shift from the simple purpose of work safety to a new and wider goal of realizing safety for the entire society. Here, it is very meaningful to reiterate the eight points listed in the proposal for China's safety culture in the 21st century first proposed by the Expert Group of the Preparatory Committee of China Safety Culture Society on June 6, 1997.
It is especially worth mentioning that some of the eight points to be mentioned below have already been adopted by quite some ministries and commissions under the State Council. It is therefore of great significance that we reiterate them here again:
¡ñ Macro safety concept is to be put in place to ensure a sustainable development of the entire society.
¡ñ Creating novel mode of safety culture publicity and education and implementing the action plan under the title "all people's safety month".
¡ñ Improving safety and disaster mitigation economy and optimizing the control mode.
¡ñ Vigorously developing safety and disaster mitigation technology with Chinese characteristics.
¡ñ Strengthening the integral management system and legislation system construction for safety and disaster mitigation in China.
¡ñ Industrialization of safety and disaster mitigation calls for major development in China.
¡ñ Focus of China's safety culture cultivation (Area 1): safety and disaster mitigation in cities.
¡ñ Focus of China's safety culture cultivation (Area 2): safety culture for enterprises.
This paper is not only meant to strengthen a comprehensive research in work safety, disaster mitigation and environmental science and technology, more importantly, it is meant to improve the overall quality of the Chinese nation in safety culture and create necessary cultural conditions to guarantee the sustainable development of the national economy and the society as a whole. Practices have proved that only this culture is lasting and accepted by the general public.
References:
[1] Xu Deshu, Safety Culture Cultivation in China: A Study and Exploration, Sichuan Science and Technology Press, 1994
[2] Jin Lei et al. Strategy of China's Safety and Disaster Mitigation in 21st century,
Henan University Press, 1998
[3] Wang Ziping et al. Earthquake Culture and Social Development, Seismic Press,1996
[4] Jin Lei, The Science of Architecture and Culture, Science and Technology
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