Silk Road Could Become Highway of Environmental Progress
While China is building a gigantic modern-day upgrade of the famed ancient Silk Road resplendent in global cooperation in the name of economic expansion, a group of sustainability scholars point out that the Belt and Road Initiative (B&R) also could be a superhighway of environmental progress.
China's initiative is essentially supersizing the ancient Silk Road -- which connects China to the Mediterranean -- and weaving it into the Maritime Silk Road's ocean-based routes to connect China with Asia, Europe and Africa, as well as along the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.
It's an ambitious initiative, involving some 65 countries that are home to two thirds of the world's population and cover one-third of the global economy.
Money drives it, as the project would shape world economies. But it also could create routes filled with opportunity. Taking advantage of that complex and vast expanse demands a different way of measuring and looking at the world, according to a Michigan State University professor in this month's edition of Ecosystem Health and Sustainability.
Dan Neville