I like to study history and do my personnel research on historical
development including technological development during my free time.
Through my observation , study and personnel research I noticed that
the development of our society is
closely linked to development of materials science and materials engineering.
The ancient Chinese Believed that 金木水火土 (Metal , wood, water ,fire
and earth are the essentials of the world? It is part of a universal
truth(理).Fire represents energy is things that we can not live without
, we need energy that we derived from oxygen to carry out our
activities every second , fuel in the form of fossil fuel , solar
energy ,hydropower ,wind power , nuclear energy are required for
generation of electricity for industrial and domestic use. Wood or
carbon based compound provide us
food , cloth , Shelter Home, and cart for transport cargo.
Earthenware are use have been used container for ornamental purpose ,
clay and brick which are essentially composed of earth until today
are used as building materials. Metal which was used in the past for
making weapon is widely used today to make industrial machinery ,
industrial component ,domestic utensil , and building materials.
Fire which represent energy is the essential that we need s every
seconds . Wood support lives since the first existence of living
being, earth are materials that we depend for as a building material
since primitive time , the technology of metal refinement and metal
alloying is always accompanied by a significant break through in
technological development.
Are Metal , wood, water ,fire and earth, these five essential still
relevant to us today but they are still used today as industrial
materials and are known as
i) Ceramic and glasses ,ii) Polymers ,iii) Metal alloy , iv)Fuel
The ancient Chinese apart from believing that the five elements of
metal , wood , water ,fire and earth are the essentials of the world ,
also believe that these five elements should be handled cautiously to
sustain development to avoid tragic. They also believe that under
certain circumstances these elements could annihilate each other and
other circumstances they could supplement and complement each other.
For these reason in the ancient time the Chinese ruler lay a strict
rule to allowed tree to be cut down during a certain period in the
summer , to ensure the sustainability. Green Technology and
Sustainable development is indeed not new to us but has been practiced
since ancient time. Would not be good for us to do learn from our wise
ancestor applies it to our green technology to ensure the
sustainable development of our world.

(reference LI, QI AND SHU AN INTRODUCTION to Science and Civilization
in China ,HO PENG YOKE ,phd ,Dsc ,F Inst , Fellow of the Australian
Academy of Humanities , Foundation Proffesor , Griffith University ,
Queenland of Australia , former professor of Chinese and Master of
Robbert Black College , University of Hong Kong , and the first
Principal of Tunku Abdul Rahman College , Malay