Globalization and the Environment

Globalization and the Environment • The globalization of environmental affairs takes a number of forms , including: the encounters between previously separated ecological systems from different parts of the planet; the pollution and degradation of the global commons (such as the oceans and the atmosphere); the overspill of the effects of environmental degradation from one state to another (environmental refugees); transboundary pollution and risks (nuclear power, acid rain); the transportation and diffusion of wastes and polluting products across the globe (toxic waste trade, global relocation of dirty industries); and, finally, the formation of global institutions, regimes, networks and treaties that seek to regulate all these forms of environmental degradation. • For most of human history, the main way in which environmental impacts circulated around the earth was via the unintentional transport of flora, fauna and microbes, of which the great plagues are the sharpest example. • The globalization of environmental affairs took a distinct leap with the European colonisation of the New World and the unequal exchange of flora, fauna and microbes across the Atlantic. Within a generation a substantial majority of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean, Mexico and other parts of Latin America had been wiped out. Over the following centuries , the ecosystems, landscapes and agricultural systems of these societies were transformed by European agriculture, flora and fauna. • The early history of colonialism also threw up new forms of environmental degradation driven by consumer demand in Europe and America. This led to the intensive exploitation of Sumatran and Indian forests, the extinction of some species of whale, the over-hunting of seals. • However, until the mid twentieth century, most forms of environmental degradation - at least the degradation that could be perceived - were overwhelmingly local. • In the post Second World War