Is Globalisation Good or Bad for the Environment?
Globalisation is a complex combination of economic, cultural, and political processes that function to increase the interconnectedness of life in the contemporary world (Pacione, 2009). The question whether globalisation is good or bad for the environment is a very broad topic, in which I shall refine by providing an overview of certain interrelated economic, social and environmental aspects. There are opposing viewpoints in regards to the effects that globalisation has upon the environment. These viewpoints will be examined in relation to the Environmental Kuznets Curve. In this essay I shall then focus on what I believe are the negative implications globalisation has upon the environment. I will introduce the Environmental Kuznets curve that conceptualizes the relationship between globalisation and environmental sustainability. As topic this is very broad I will focus on one particular case study being Brazil, which will provide supportive evidence about the confrontational implications of Amazonian development and land-use intensification. I will detail the importance and natural value of the Amazon rainforest and economic incentives behinds its development. Which will be followed by a detailed discussion into the processes that drive the rapid conversion of natural rainforest to agricultural landscapes, and detail the impacts this land conversion has upon the region’s environment. I shall then summarise the gathered information and conclude as to why globalisation is bad for the environment.
Globalisation and environmental sustainability is encapsulated with Environmental Kuznets Curves (EKC) which are commonly used to consider macro-changes in environmental quality resul...
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...nd-use intensity are driven by economic incentives. These economic incentives have been brought about by Brazils shift from local, national to global markets where demand provide significant motivations and rationality to the destructive often irreversible land use practices that characterize the Amazonian cattle industry. Despite the extensive damage and degradation to the environment is does not seem evident that any required change or alterations are being made in order to mitigate the adverse effects that are currently ongoing. As globalisation brings about new and often lucrative economic incentives, the environment largely goes unconsidered and often completely ignored in terms of the outcomes of such extensive landscape altering practices. The way in which profits outweigh sustainability makes a strong believer that globalisation is bad for the environment.
“Globalization contributes to sustainable prosperity for all people”. This quote contains mostly truth but there are also many arguments towards how globalization really does contribute to sustainable prosperity for people all around the world. This can be supported by three main points. How the rise of Japan’s economy effected the lives of millions of people. How shipwrecking effects the lives of both the ship companies and the workers in Bangladesh, and how economic growth contributes to the sustainable prosperity of the population in a specific nation. Sustainable prosperity can be defined differently from different individuals because of people’s personal opinions and their perspective is also effected by the people who influence their lives the most, but the main definition of prosperity is to have good fortune, or growth in an economic way. Globalization creates a gateway for sustainable prosperity to all people and gives people all around the world the opportunity to gain prosperity.
Brazil, a country of natural resources running everywhere needing saving, destroyed everyday by humankind. with 2/3’s of the Amazon forest home in brazil, we must keep an eye on how it is being sustained, what is being done to keep it safe and when we believe we will be able to not only stop deforestation, but grow back the earth’s creatures natural habitats. The sheer beauty of our world is worth trying to help our ecosystem and helping the environment and ensuring its sustainability.
At the end of the four-year period, it was found that the total costs and revenue from this RIL operation ended up being “more profitable than the most profitable cattle project studied in the Amazon River Basin,” (Bacha 2007). From a purely monetary standpoint, the RIL enterprise proved that a sustainable operation could be profitable, and even be more profitable than an agricultural practice, while still complying with Brazilian environmental ...
Roughly half of Bolivia is covered in forests. However, this amount is decreasing yearly due to a variety of economic and social causes that are representative of the developing world. In the last decade, Bolivia is one of the ten countries with the highest rate of forest loss (Muller, Muller, Schiehorn, Gerold, Pacheco). Until the mid 1980’s, the Bolivian forests were unaffected because the country’s revenue came from mining and agriculture within the communities (Muller, Pacheco, Montero). However, the collapse of tin mining led the unemployed miners to settle and begin farming. Also around this time, mechanized agriculture started to be favored because of the ability for greater trade. The three major sources of deforestation in Bolivia
Stern, DI 2004, 'The rise and fall of the environmental Kuznets Curve', World Development, vol. 32 no. 8, pp 1419-1439, Elsevier, Maryland, USA.
In addition, some countries are leading projects to work on strong sustainability. According to An oak tree in the garden, ‘Bolivia, for example, led by indigenous President Evo Morales, recently passed a Law for Mother Earth, effectively affirming the rights of nature “to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” Implicit in these rights is the idea that the Earth is a living, self-organizing entity that has rights equal to or greater than human beings, who are just one species in the whole community of life’.
The issue again is deciding what exactly is important enough to conserve. We cut down entire forests, and continue to do so today, but we all wish to plant a tree in our yard. It is interesting that we would wish to alter nature so drastically just to try to hold on to it in the most basic ways we know possible. Again it goes to the idea of nostalgia, we focus on aspects of nature we no longer have simply because we miss it. In places like Brazil the amount of forests are still abundant because their need is not just based in appeal. Yet, as Brazil urbanizes, it is going to be difficult for the trees to bounce back. One researcher focused on this problem and states, “Recent studies suggest that deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon could increase sharply in the future as a result of over US$ 40 billion in planned investments in highway paving and major new infrastructure projects in the region”. (Lawrence, 2001) A project that big could pave roads all over the country, which would mean lot of forests would be cut down to make way. It seems that humans are not so much the issue as the society in which they live in. Like America before the English, third world countries tend to be abundant in resources, or at the very least one main export. The problem with this is it creates a capitalist system that does not work in unison the environment. This is also a time to say it is important to know about society at the time of these movements, because they tend to coincide with the societal climate of the time. Despite all of this, one major thing we always seem to forget is that nature, despite our constant effort, has survived. It has been heavily altered and changed but it is still there and still important, so important that we surround ourselves with it
In the article I have chosen one of the problems that had been presented is the deforestation in Brazil. This country had a problem with deforestation and had found a fix for it, but recently there had been a uptick of deforestation due to the land acquisitions by the cattle farmers and agriculture. What was important about this was the management by interest groups as well as the government officials in order to stop illegal harvesting in the rain forest as well as be able to ensure that the deforestation that is occurring will not impact the whole habitat greatly. But from the article there was also a very important mentioning that there was a very bad level of deforestation that could threat the environment. (Schiffman 2015)
The essay, “The Noble Feat of Nike” by Johan Norberg basically talks about the effects of Nike going into third world countries, particularly Vietnam. Norberg explains how Nike’s factory gains from being in its desired location, Vietnam. Vietnam being a communist country comes to Nike’s advantage, because if they were located elsewhere they would have to pay workers higher wages and use more of their machines. Workers in these countries are provided with an air conditioned building with regular wages, free meal plans, free medical service, and training/education to operate the machinery within the factory. The workers find all of this beneficial and in their own favor because of the fact their earning double to five times the amount in wages than if they were working outdoors on a farm. This great deal, blinds them to notice the meaning behind the company’s location in Vietnam. The Nike factory was rather clever in making their location in that specific area to gain benefits for Western owners. The catch Nike gains from is simple. The owners pay factory workers only a small monthly sum from what they make selling the shoes to customers. Globalists state that the company doesn’t pull this fast one on the Western population because of our advancements compared to the Eastern countries. Western people would protest and strike to demand better wages for their work, but the people in Eastern countries have no choice but to deal with the injustice in order to support their families and educate their children.
The Amazon forest faces threats like climate change, cattle ranching and agricultural expansion, badly planned infrastructure, illegal logging, oil exploration, gold mining, overharvesting of fish or other water species, commercial fishing, biopiracy and smuggling, poaching, and lastly damming. Eighty percent of cut down forest areas in the Amazon are cattle. Runoff from pastures pollutes rivers. Fires used to control fields often spread into the remaining forest. The people that commercial fish usually lose up to sixty percent of the fish due to spoilage. 232,000 square miles of Amazon has been destroyed due to logging. In the Amazon about sixty to eighty percent of logging is done illegally. Rainforests used to cover about fourteen percent of earth surface but now it is only six percent. If we don’t stop all these threats in about forty years there won’t be any rainforests at
The fundamental flaw of the environmental Kuznets’ curve theory (EKCT) lies in its compartmentalization of environmental impacts, which serve as its basis for establishing a direct relationship with per capita income, the indicator considered for economic development. While it is true that environmental impacts may be spliced and analyzed empirically, actual ecological processes belong to a web of inter-relationships that current science is still trying to fully understand. It is dangerous and irresponsible to assume or suggest that an assortment of piecemeal positive trends can lead to a conclusion that environmental quality improves with economic growth. Adhering to the EKCT is equivalent to accepting that ecological models follow the same trajectory. This means that the same kind of pollution that occurs in two separate countries will more or less have the same effect. The theory does not exhibit much sensitivity to the variation in the value of ecosystems and species. The reality is that some ecosystems are greater in value, are more fragile, and are more species rich than others.
The authors believe that success in conserving and managing forests depends upon effective governance mechanisms that are transparent, participatory and accountable. It also requires local, regional, national, and international tools to allow different policy actors to evaluate effectiveness at multiple scale. Actions at one scale alone, whether global or local, is insufficient. Public engagement is vital, so by simply banning a whole technique, like logging, there will be major backlash. With change to decrease deforestation comes an increase in commodity prices, which has been seen in Brazil. However, since there was public support, Brazil has been able to see a 70% reduction in deforestation over the last decade. Although, there is still a lot of work to do, if Brazil’s government continues to act on the public opinion the decreasing trend can
The Amazon Rainforest is environmentally harmed through development through means of extraction of its natural resources such as lumber, cattle ranching and agricultural practices. South America and particularly Brazil’s Amazon is environmentally exploited by multinational companies and the global north. With this the environmental consequences as well as the negative social, economic and political impacts should be considered. The sociopolitical variables relative to the aforementioned need to be evaluated. The Amazon Rainforest is a significant global environmental issue, as the impact on the natural environment is reflected from human activities. With this we consider development and environmental politics relative to the Amazon Rainforest.
[WCED] World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our common future. New York: Oxford University Press. 444p.
Globalization refers to the absence of barriers that every country had. Yes, it has helped to demolish the walls that separated us .Globalization, which is the process of growing interdependence among every country in this planet, can be seen as a sign of hopeful and better future by some, but for others it represents a huge disaster for the whole world. That’s why we are going to see the negative effect that globalization has on culture then focus on the ethical disadvantage it brought, to finally talk about the damage it did to skilled workers.