Globalization And Environmental Issues Essay

Many environmentalists, trade analysts, and anti-globalization activists believe that competition in global trade has led to a disregard for environmental standards. Environmental protections in one country are often barriers to world trade, but with the help of globalization, businesses can do more wicked things to others with little to no environmental problems. Globalization has therefore led to deforestation, and with the increase in human activity, resulted in problems with our ozone layer. China, for example, has fallen prey to this kind of tragedy. Its remarkable economic progress, combined with its large population, has led to its environmental problems. High population density, combined with globalization that is bringing more people

Globalization and continued expansion will force the Chinese middle class to demand more energy, thus making the environmental issues even worse.

The relentless search for lower production costs in politically stable countries has led to the "race to the bottom." The constant loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States, Japan, and Europe as companies move production to countries with low wages and competent workers has motivated coalitions of labor union members, consumers, and environmentalists to try to slow this "race to the bottom". Combined with globalization, this can only lead to an increase in global inequality and poverty and the decline in levels of human welfare. Because globalization goes hand-in-hand with capitalism, this combination will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, allowing the rich to become richer at the expense of the poor. Researchers show that by 2016, the world 's one percent (3.5 billion people) will own 50% of the world 's wealth. Globalization brings about the dependency theory, the notion that resources flow from the poor to the wealthy, enriching developed countries at the expense of underdeveloped/developing ones. This

The most dramatic development was the discovery of HIV/AIDS in the United States, Western Europe, and other rich countries. Human error combined with advancement in medicine has allowed dangerous diseases to reach the general population through blood transfusion, the sharing of intravenous drugs, and sexual practice. These, together with global migration, have allowed diseases to travel from rich to underdeveloped countries. Unlike rich nations, which have the ability to isolate and fix the problem, underdeveloped countries lack the necessary technology to do so, causing the infectious disease to become an epidemic and killing millions in the