3. Globalization Wastes Natural Resources
In addition to
its many social and psychological costs, the globalized consumer
culture results in more and more of nature being drawn into the
production of unneeded, disposable, and frequently toxic commodities.
Consumerism is at dramatically unsustainable levels in the
industrialized industrialized societies, and yet globalization is
foisting the same pattern across the world, expanding the exploitation
of nature and the outpost of harmful waste.
“Mother Earth has enough for the healthy appetites of her children and
something extra for rare cases of abnormality. But she has not nearly
enough for the sudden growth of a whole world of spoilt and pampered
children.”
-Rabindranath Tagore
Here's a short video to get you thinking:
This is a great animated film that will help you learn more about the ecological impacts of consumerism.
Now check out this movie trailer:
4. Globalization Accelerates Climate Change
“Americans
import Danish sugar cookies, and Danes import American sugar cookies.
Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient."
-Herman Daly, ecological economist
The
Economics of Happiness argues that economic globalization accelerates
climate change, one of the most significant global environmental
challenges of our time. The situation confronting us is dire: to
stabilize the climate at even the uppermost limit before irreversible
"tipping points" are reached will require massive reductions of global
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Watch this video for a brief history lesson on our relationship with fossil fuels.
Check out this interesting time-lapse of CO2 emissions:
There is a new phenomenon in the global arena called
“Climate Refugees”. A climate refugee is a person displaced by
climatically induced environmental disasters. Such disasters result from
incremental and rapid ecological change, resulting in increased
droughts, desertification, sea level rise, and the more frequent
occurrence of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, cyclones,
fires, mass flooding and tornadoes. All this is causing mass global
migration and border conflicts.
MAKE-UP ASSIGNMENT
If you were gone when we watched these clips in class you'll need to watch them and for write about two things you learned from each of the videos and why you think they're important.
