Reading Summary and Reflective Comments
The student will summarize and reflect on the main principles of the assigned readings in Modules/Weeks 1–7. The student must critique ideas in light of a biblical worldview. The summaries must be at least 100–125 words, and the reflections must be at least 150–200 words.
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- extbook Readings
Henderson: chs. 10–11
Payne: chs. 9–10 - Presentation: NGOs
- Presentation: President Bill Clinton – Statement on Kosovo Intervention
PPOL 650
Student: |
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5 Points |
4 Points |
3 Points |
0–2 Points |
|
Critical Thinking |
Rich in content: full of thought, insight, and analysis. Ideas are critiqued in light of a biblical worldview. |
Substantial information: a degree of thought, insight, and analysis has taken place. |
Generally competent: information is thin and commonplace. |
Rudimentary and superficial: no analysis or insight is displayed. |
Connections |
The summaries are reflective. Ideas are critiqued in light of a biblical worldview. Clear connections to real-life situations. |
New connections lack depth and/or detail. |
Limited, if any, connections. Vague generalities. |
No connections are made. Off topic. |
Uniqueness |
New ideas and connections display depth and detail. |
New ideas and connections lack depth and/or detail. |
Few, if any, new ideas or connections, simply restates or summarizes. |
No new ideas or connections are explained. |
Timeliness |
All required postings submitted, adding new entries each time. |
Most required postings submitted, adding new entries each time. |
Some postings submitted. |
All required postings missing. |
Stylistics |
Few grammatical or stylistic errors. Reflections are 150–200 words. Summaries are 100–125 words. Written in paragraph form. |
Some grammatical or stylistic errors. Reflections are 150–200 words. Summaries are 100–125 words. Written in paragraph form. |
Obvious grammatical or stylistic errors that interfere with content. Reflections and summaries have less than the required amount of words. |
Obvious grammatical or stylistic errors that make understanding impossible. The required amounts of words are not met. |
Total ____________________________/25 |
Reading Summary and Reflective Comments Grading Rubric
EDUC 742
PPOL 650
Reading Summary and Reflective Comments Form and Instructions |
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For each assigned reading, summarize the main principles and reflect on these principles in order to make the content meaningful to you. This will ensure that you understand the reading and its relationship to current events. The reflective comments may draw on your experiences or information from other readings. You must also critique ideas in light of a biblical worldview. Approximate length of main principles summaries must be 100–125 words each and must be in paragraph form, and the reflective comments must be 150–200 words each. Submit the Reading Summary and Reflective Comments by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday in Modules/Weeks 1–7, adding the new entries each time. |
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Student: |
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Reading Assignment |
Main Principles |
Reflective Comments |
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Reading Summary 1 |
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Henderson |
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Payne |
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United States Constitution |
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Reading Summary 2 |
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U.N. Charter |
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Reading Summary 3 |
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Reading Summary 4 |
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Reading Summary 5 |
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Reading Summary 6 |
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Reading Summary 7 |
Page 2 of 3
Chapter
9 Global Inequality and Poverty
ONE PHOTO CAPTURES A SHARP CONTRAST BETWEEN RICH AND POOR IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD. The high-rise buildings in the background are apartments for the wealthy.
Learning Objectives
1. 9.1Examine how widening gap between rich and poor strengthens inequality-perpetuating institutions
2. 9.2Contrast between the viewpoints of globalists and antiglobalists on the effects of globalization
3. 9.3Examine the causes and the impact of domestic or global inequality between nations
4
. 9.4Examine the economic, social, and educational inequality that exists within rich countries
5
. 9.5Examine the inequalities that exist in different aspects of life in poor countries
6
. 9.6Review the six dimensions of poverty that can be used to gauge poverty
7
. 9.7Evaluate some of the measures for diminishing poverty and reducing inequality
The richest eighty people in the world control as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population. Thirty-five of those eighty are Americans. The top 1 percent of the world’s richest people control 4
8
percent of the world’s total wealth. More than one billion people in the world live on less than $1.
25
a day.
1
Inequality exists within the United States. The richest four hundred Americans own more assets than the poorest
15
0 million, or almost half the population. The bottom 15 percent, about forty-six million people, live in households earning less than $22,000 per year. The top 5 percent of households in Washington, D.C., make an average of more than $500,000, while the bottom 20 percent make less than $9,500. Conflict between rich and poor is now the greatest source of tension in American society. Economic inequality has emerged as a dominant global issue that has fueled massive protests and popular uprisings. The global financial crisis and economic recession have rekindled debates about inequality and its consequences. Discussions about wealth and poverty and how to achieve greater equality are as old as human society. They demonstrate a perennial concern about the implications of inequality for the security and well-being of communities. Given the persistence of inequality among individuals, groups, and nations over centuries, this debate is interminable. Struggles to achieve equality are also endless. Issues pertaining to global inequality and poverty permeate almost every significant global problem, from trade to the environment, from terrorism and criminal activities to democratization and human rights, and from ethnic conflicts to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As we have seen, popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa were strongly influenced by widespread inequality and poverty. Consequently, as our discussion shows, inequality and poverty are closely connected to politics, economics, and culture.
A central question addressed in this chapter is whether inequality matters. Human societies are inherently unequal due to variations of abilities, opportunities, geographic location, luck, personal characteristics, and so on. But why is it important to address issues of inequality, something that societies have struggled with historically? Globalization is widely perceived as the major cause of global inequality. Yet, as we have noted, unequal distributions of wealth existed independent of the current wave of globalization and are present in societies little affected by it. This chapter analyzes the globalization and inequality debate as well as the current state of global inequality. In addition to focusing on inequality between rich and poor countries and inequality within both developed and developing societies, we will examine the issue of gender inequality. This chapter discusses the enduring issues of global poverty, hunger and malnutrition, economic development and poverty, and efforts to close the gap between rich and poor and reduce the negative effects of inequality and poverty. The chapter concludes with a case study of food security and rising food prices.
9.1: Does Inequality Matter?
1. 9.1 Examine how widening gap between rich and poor strengthens inequality-perpetuating institutions
The existence of inequality is not automatically a major problem, especially when the economy is growing and there are many opportunities for upward mobility. As long as the standard of living is improving for those on the bottom of the economic ladder, concerns about inequality tend to diminish. The last two decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of this century were characterized by a widening gap between rich and poor and the proliferation of millionaires and billionaires. While economic disparities remained a serious problem in developing countries, the forces of globalization created conditions that helped widen the gap between rich and poor in industrialized societies. When the economy deteriorates, the gap between rich and poor tends to be narrower, but concerns about inequality are heightened. During the global economic recession, the wealthy lost money, but the poor lost their jobs, houses, and health insurance. In the United States, the poverty rate peaked at 15.1 percent in 2010, its highest level since 1993. In 2013, the poverty rate was still high, at 15.0 percent. Widespread demonstrations in the United States against excessive executive compensation, especially those in companies that received financial assistance from the government, underscores the dangers of economic inequality. The financial and economic crisis increased inequality and heightened awareness of the concentration of wealth held by the top 1 percent of Americans. That awareness led to “We are the 99 percent,” a battle cry of the Occupy Wall Street protests against financial inequality that began in New York City and spread around the world. The perception that economic inequality is essentially transitory when opportunities for economic advancement are widely available mitigates negative effects of actual inequality.
However, persistent inequality and enduring poverty challenge beliefs in the equality of opportunity and the possibility of upward mobility. Eventually, the legitimacy of the economic system and political and social institutions are challenged. Extreme inequality is detrimental to sustainable economic growth.
The legitimacy of the global economic system is likely to be strengthened if a larger number of countries and individuals are benefiting from it. Extreme inequality perpetuates poverty and the concentration of economic and political power and reduces economic efficiency. It strengthens inequality-perpetuating institutions in three ways:
1. Inequality discourages the political participation of poor people, which, in turn, diminishes their access to education, health care, and other services that contribute to economic growth and development.
2. Inequality often prevents the building and proper functioning of impartial institutions and observance of the rule of law.
3. Inequality enables the wealthy to refuse to compromise politically or economically, which further weakens poor societies in a global society that requires relatively fast responses to economic developments.
2
These consequences of inequality combine to ensure that poor societies will remain poor and unequal, trapping most of their inhabitants in a destructive cycle of poverty. Growing inequality among as well as within nations has direct and indirect implications for globalization. Inequality could undermine globalization by influencing countries to adopt protectionist policies and disengage, to the extent possible, from the global economy. But the ramifications extend beyond economic issues to problems such as terrorism, the environment, and the spread of infectious diseases. Inequality influences global perceptions of America and weakens its
soft power
, or its cultural attraction.
As
Chapter 4
shows, the democratization process and the effective functioning of consolidated democracy depend largely on a significant degree of economic and social equality. The legitimacy of any democratic system is contingent upon the voters’ belief that they have a vested interest in its preservation. Their allegiance to the democracy is influenced partly by the benefits they derive from the economic system. Inequality undermines democracy by fostering despair and alienation among workers and corruption and the abuse of power among the wealthy. It corrodes trust and civility among citizens. Inequality destroys the people’s will to engage in collective solutions to political, social, and economic problems because it weakens their sense of unity and common interests. Massive protests globally against governments underscore this point. The unequal distribution of wealth is often mitigated by government redistributive policies. Extreme inequality sometimes results in the voters pressuring governments to enact trade protection legislation to safeguard their employment and livelihoods. In this case, voters exercising their democratic rights could inadvertently undermine the economic system that supports democracy.
Global and domestic inequalities often directly affect many areas. Terrorism is widely linked to poverty within developing nations. Huge inequalities often fuel resentment, which finds expression in global crime and a general disregard for the rules and norms of global society. Those who are extremely poor are often excluded from participation in decisions that negatively impact their lives. They become vulnerable to being influenced by radical minorities who are committed to violent change. Poverty contributes to global and regional problems by fueling ethnic and regional conflicts, creating large numbers of refugees, and inhibiting access to resources, such as petroleum. Finally, global and domestic inequality is perceived as stimulating the global drug trade. For example, poor farmers in
Bolivia
regard the cultivation of coca as essential to their survival. More than three-quarters of the heroin sold in Europe is refined from opium grown in
Afghanistan
by poor farmers. The costs of fighting the war against drugs in poor countries, such as Colombia and Afghanistan, are extremely high.
9.2: The Globalization and Inequality Debate
1. 9.2 Contrast between the viewpoints of globalists and antiglobalists on the effects of globalization
The impact of globalization on income distribution and living standards is a controversial topic. Preoccupation with globalization to the exclusion of other factors often muddles the debate about globalization and inequality. Would less globalization produce more equality, and would more equality among and within nations result in an improved quality of life for the poor? There are two dominant, but sometimes overlapping, viewpoints on this issue. The globalists argue that globalization has increased economic growth and decreased global inequality and poverty. The antiglobalists generally perceive globalization as a negative and destructive force that is responsible for the increasing global inequality and poverty and the declining levels of human welfare.
3
9.
2.1
: Globalists Make Their Case
From the globalists’ perspective, the basic cause of inequality and poverty is the relatively low level of globalization in some countries. In other words, the poorest societies are the least integrated into the global economy. Openness to foreign trade, investments, and technology—combined with reforms such as the privatization of the domestic economy—will ultimately accelerate economic growth. The
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
calculated that countries that are relatively open to trade grew about twice as fast as those that are relatively closed to trade.
China’s rapid economic growth is an obvious example. On the other hand, North Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma), and
Kenya
are on the margins of globalization and remain impoverished.
Globalists also argue that globalization has contributed to the decline of inequality. Furthermore, poverty can be reduced even as inequality increases. David Dollar and Aart Kraay found that “a long-term global trend toward greater inequality prevailed for at least 200 years; it peaked around 1975. But since then, it has stabilized and possibly even reversed.”
The accelerated economic growth of China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, which is seen as directly linked to globalization, is given as the principal reason for the change. Much of the inequality that persists within countries is due less to globalization and more to policies dealing with education, taxation, and social problems. Moreover, more economic growth in China, for example, has been accompanied by a spectacular reduction in poverty.
Globalists emphasize that the number of people moving out of poverty has increased. More than
800
million people have abandoned the ranks of absolute poverty since 1990. The number of people living in absolute poverty remains high—around 1.2 billion. But given rapid population growth rates in the poorest countries, the decline in global poverty is impressive. The world’s poor are seen as getting to be less poor in both absolute and relative terms.
The more globalized poor nations become, the better off their populations are in both absolute and relative terms. Globalization has generally helped the poor by contributing to reductions in the cost of numerous consumer products. Less money has higher purchasing power in a globalized economy. Finally, by facilitating migration, establishing small businesses that rely on the Internet, and improving access to jobs in telecommunications and computer technologies in countries such as India and China, globalization improves the quality of life for the poor.
9.2.2: Antiglobalists Make Their Case
Antiglobalists believe that globalization is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Concerned with making global capitalism more equitable, they view globalization as primarily benefiting the rich while making life more difficult for the poor. Antiglobalists argue that globalization is a zero-sum game, meaning that the rich are winning at the expense of the poor. Antiglobalists also argue that globalization benefits rich countries, such as the United States. China is one of the few developing countries that is generally regarded as profiting from free trade and open markets. The United States, the locomotive of globalization, benefits the most from open markets worldwide.
George Soros
—a leading financier, philanthropist, and critic of globalization, though not an antiglobalist—believes that globalization drains surplus capital from periphery or developing countries to the United States, thereby allowing Americans to spend more than they save and import more than they export.
Similarly, Jack Beatty contends that the foundation of inequality resulting from globalization is that rich countries do not play by the rules that they made to govern the global economic system. Basically, the United States and other Western countries require developing countries to open their markets without reciprocating commensurably. To support this argument, Beatty points out that although global rules on trade discourage governments from subsidizing industries, rich countries continue to provide subsidies to agriculture.
9
Critics also argue that globalization is like an “economic temptress,” promising riches but not delivering. Global communications have heightened awareness of the vast disparities between rich and poor within the same society and especially between rich and poor countries. Simultaneously, global communications spawn aspirations of escaping poverty and enjoying the good life. Unfortunately, globalization is unable to make these dreams real. Countries integrated into the global economic system are the most severely affected by downturns in the economy. For example, Southeast Asia, which depends on exports of steel, textiles, and electronic components, suffers significantly in global economic crises and is unable to generate enough jobs and sufficient wages for a population with aspirations nurtured by television programs that depict prosperity. Although conceding that globalization is not entirely responsible for global poverty, antiglobalists generally view globalization as a tide that lifts a few boats while leaving the majority mired at the bottom. Even when global companies create jobs within societies, the race to the bottom in labor standards and wages inevitably results in the poor in developing countries being unable to escape poverty while, at the same time, reducing the wages for workers in rich countries or depriving them of employment. This development is intertwined with the precipitous decline of private sector labor unions. Kim Phillips-Fein argues that unions mobilize their members to vote for government policies that help redistribute wealth and reinforce upward mobility, which strengthen the middle class.
10
Antiglobalists contend that globalization compounds existing inequalities and creates more inequality. By giving priority to privatization, globalization weakens governments’ commitment to the public sector. Vito Tanzi states that “even as the forces of globalization boost the demand for strong social safety nets to protect the poor, these forces also erode the ability of governments to finance and implement large-scale social welfare policies.”
11
The emphasis on integrating poor nations into the global economy diverts resources from more urgent development needs, such as education, public health, industrial capacity, and social cohesion. Many trade agreements impose tight prerequisites on developing countries in exchange for crumbs of enhanced market access. The
African Growth and Opportunity Act
is an example. It provides increased access to the U.S. market only if African apparel manufacturers use fabric and yarns produced in the United States, instead of using their own or supplies from less expensive sources. In other words, the antiglobalists perceive globalization as perpetuating inequality by impeding development. Furthermore, they argue, countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, that globalists frequently held up as models for the benefits of globalization developed under radically different conditions. These countries were not required to pay the costs that are now an integral component of integration into global markets. During the 1960s and 1970s, when they were rapidly growing, Taiwan and South Korea did not face contemporary globalization’s pressures to privatize their economies and open their borders to capital flows. The demands of globalization undermine efforts essential for a comprehensive development agenda.
9.3: Global Inequality
1. 9.3 Examine the causes and the impact of domestic or global inequality between nations
Discussions of global inequality remind us of many of the reasons some societies created powerful and prosperous civilizations while others did not. Western Europe emerged as the most prosperous region of the world. Areas that are now the United States, Canada,
Australia
, and
New Zealand
were conquered and settled by Europeans, many of whom embodied the characteristics that contributed to Europe’s rise to global prominence and economic prosperity. The advantages Europeans enjoyed have been consolidated. This, in turn, contributes to global inequality today. Several factors combined to produce Europe’s economic success and profound global economic inequality. A major factor is freedom of expression. Societies that encouraged people to have their own ideas, to be innovative, and to interact with each other eventually surpassed societies that were totalitarian or authoritarian. The latter generally stifled innovation because of their preoccupation with traditions, conformity, and respect for authority. Initiative was often equated with heresy. Another factor encompasses social values. Chief among these is an emphasis on economic opportunity and social equality. In his Wealth and Poverty of Nations, David S. Landes stresses that China’s restrictions on women hampered its growth, whereas women in Europe, who were less confined to the home and were free to find employment in certain occupations, were instrumental in that region’s industrial development and expansion.
12
A third factor is the functioning of a
free market and institutionalized property rights
. Chinese authorities became antagonistic toward free enterprise and eventually regulated it out of existence. Muslim countries failed to develop institutions that would have enabled businesses to expand. Islamic partnership law and inheritance law worked against the growth of large corporations. In Europe, a partner in a business could designate heirs, thereby providing continuity in the business after the partner’s death. Islamic law did not provide mechanisms for partnerships to be easily reconstituted following a partner’s death. Similarly, Islamic law prescribed in rigid detail both immediate and extended family members who had to inherit property. Europe, on the other hand, allowed property to be inherited by one person, thereby minimizing the chances that a business would disintegrate and be prevented from getting larger. Virginia Postrel points out that “the fragmentation produced by inheritance law, combined with the structures of partnership law, kept Middle Eastern enterprises small. That, in turn, limited the pressure to evolve new economic forms.”
13
However, increasing wealth from petroleum has significantly strengthened many companies in the Persian Gulf area, especially those involved in finance.
A final factor undergirding Europe’s economic success and setting the foundation for global inequality is the separation of the secular from the religious. Whereas Islam became inseparable from the state, the origins of Christianity and its spread to Rome forced it to compromise with secular authority, a compromise encapsulated in the warning that Christians should give to Caesar what belongs to him and give God what is God’s. However, Muslim societies prospered when religion was less restrictive. Muslims, commanded by the Koran to seek knowledge, became leading scientists, physicians, artists, mathematicians, philosophers, architects, and builders. For more than five hundred years, Arabic was the language of scholars and scientists. Muslims transmitted Chinese scientific inventions, Greek and Persian texts, and their own impressive scientific discoveries and inventions to Europe. From the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, Europeans translated Arabic works into Hebrew and Latin, thereby giving impetus to a rebirth of learning that ultimately transformed Western civilization.
9.3.1: Inequality between Developed and Developing Countries
Despite rising living standards throughout most of the world, the gap between rich and poor countries has steadily widened.
Tables 9.1
and
9.2
show some of those disparities in greater detail. Historic trends suggest that most of the richest countries will maintain their lead over most of the poorest countries. The gap between the richest country and the poorest country was 3 to 1 in 1820, 11 to 1 in 1913, 35 to 1 in 1950, 44 to 1 in 1973, and 72 to 1 in 1992. By the end of the twentieth century, the richest 20 percent of the world’s population had eighty-six times as much income as the poorest 20 percent. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the average income in the richest twenty
Table 9.1 Income Inequality among Countries, 2011 (in terms of GDP per capita)
Adapted from UN Development Programme, Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South. Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: UN Development Program, 2013). GDP per capita is given in international dollars using purchasing power parity rates (PPP).
Some Rich Countries
Qatar
77,987
Luxembourg
68,458
Singapore
53,591
Norway
46,9
82
Brunei Darussalam
45,507
Hong Kong, China (SAR)
43,844
United States
42,486
United Arab Emirates
42,293
Switzerland
37,
979
Netherlands
37,251
34,548
Japan
30,660
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
27,541
Some Poor Countries
Ethiopia
Mali
964
Togo
914
Mozambique
861
Madagascar
853
Malawi
805
Sierra Leone
769
Central African Republic
7
16
Niger
642
Burundi
533
Eritrea
516
Liberia
506
Democratic Republic of the Congo
329
countries was thirty-seven times that in the poorest twenty countries.
14
As
Table 9.1
indicates, income disparities between developed and developing countries are very wide. Economic development, while dramatically improving the standard of living in most countries, has not significantly closed the gap because of differential growth rates between rich and poor countries. Rich countries have experienced higher economic growth rates than poor countries. Furthermore, per capita income actually declined in more than one hundred of the world’s poorest countries, many of them in Africa. Even developing countries that have enjoyed unprecedented economic growth, such as China and India, have failed to close the gap between themselves and rich countries. It is estimated that it would take China and India a hundred years of constant growth rates higher than those now experienced by industrialized countries just to reach current American income levels. However, given the extraordinarily high standard of living in the United States, both China and India would be relatively prosperous if they achieved half the income level of Americans. Furthermore, globalization is profoundly altering many old assumptions. Because the income gap between rich and poor countries has widened historically, it does not necessarily follow that this will always be the case. Singapore and Kuwait, two high-income countries, illustrate that poor countries can become prosperous by implementing astute political, social, and economic policies (in the case of Singapore) or by having valuable natural resources (in the case of Kuwait). Economic disparities between the developed and the developing world have focused on the
global digital divide
. But access to the Internet and improved telecommunications are not automatic panaceas for solving the problems of developing societies.
9.
3.2
: Causes of Inequality between Rich and Poor Countries
In this section, we will briefly discuss some causes of the widening gap between rich and poor countries. It is important to remember that several factors combine to contribute to inequality: (1) geography, (2) colonialism and its legacies, (3) the structure of the global economy, (4) population growth, (5) government policies, (6) political instability, and (7) natural disasters.
Geography
Countries that are poor, some argue, have certain geographic characteristics that contribute to their economic problems. For example, they are in tropical regions or face high transportation costs in accessing global markets because of their location. Apart from the prevalence of tropical diseases, which have been controlled to a large extent by modern medicines and practices, countries in the Southern Hemisphere also tend to suffer from being landlocked. Countries with extensive coastlines and good harbors tend to be better off economically than landlocked countries that lack the physical
infrastructure
(i.e., systems such as roads and railroads) essential for gaining access to navigable rivers and the sea. Landlocked countries or countries located far from global markets are disadvantaged by high transportation costs.
Colonialism
Many argue that European colonization of Africa, Asia, and Latin America laid the foundation for economic disparities between rich and poor nations. Inequality breeds inequality. Just as wealth tends to perpetuate wealth, poverty tends to perpetuate poverty. Countries that grew rich two hundred years ago, partly because of their colonization of the developing world, are generally still rich today. European groups that migrated to Australia, Canada, the United States,
South Africa
, New Zealand, and throughout Latin America continue to enjoy significant advantages
Table 9.2 Health Inequalities
Adapted from UN Development Programme, Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South. Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: UN Development Program, 2013).
Physicians, 2005–2010 (per 1,000 people)
Life Expectancy at Birth, 2012 (years)
Maternal Mortality Ratio, 2010 (deaths per 100,000 live births)
Country
Rich Countries
4.1
8
1.3
7
4.1
82.5
8
3.9
80.8
6
Sweden
3.6
81.6
4
Germany
3.5
80.6
7
Ireland
80.7
6
3.0
7
United States
2.7
78.7
21
2.4
80.8
83.6
5
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
2.0
80.7
Poor Countries
Guinea
0.1
54.5
610
0.1
49.1
890
Burkina Faso
0.1
55.9
300
Democratic Republic of Congo
0.1
48.7
540
0.0
48.1
890
0.0
50.9
Eritrea
0.0
62
240
0.0
51.9
540
Chad
0.0
49.9
1,100
0.0
50.7
490
0.0
55.1
590
over indigenous populations. However, it is also argued that colonization is not the main reason for ongoing global inequality. Some states, such as Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, that were colonized are now relatively rich.
Structure of the Global Economy
Colonialism and historical experiences, as well as contemporary economic practices, are widely perceived as creating an unfair global economy that keeps poor countries poor and rich countries rich. The Scottish economist
Adam Smith
, who wrote An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, believed that governments should not interfere with the functioning of markets and that businesspersons would be led by an invisible hand to do the best for society. However, many leaders of poor countries argue that governments and multinational corporations in rich countries cooperate to maintain an unfair global economy. They generally subscribe to the
dependency theory
, which holds that poor countries’ reliance on exports of primary commodities, many of which were started during colonization for the benefit of Europeans, puts them at a severe economic disadvantage. The prices obtained from their exports decline relative to the prices of manufactured imports from industrialized countries.
Population Growth
Rapid population growth in most developing countries plays a central role in perpetuating the economic chasm between rich and poor countries. Population growth decreased in the industrialized countries as the economic gap was widening. Since 1950, the population in rich countries grew by about 50 percent. In sharp contrast, the population in poor countries grew by 250 percent. Large families perpetuate poverty in most cases.
Government Policies
Discussing causes of poverty in the Arab world, Alan Schwartz observed that many of these countries are poor because of the policies they pursue. For example, Saudi Arabia tolerates monopolies that help sustain an elite clan that all too often opposes technological, economic, and social change. Many Arab countries use import duties to discourage trade and impede the flow of investment by disregarding the rule of law. Furthermore, many of these governments emphasize religion instead of science and technology and therefore do not adequately develop human capital. Perhaps the most serious policy failure is the lack of adequate investment in women’s education and opposition to allowing women to have equal employment opportunities. When Korea was divided in 1948, South Korea adopted capitalist policies that fostered economic success, whereas North Korea isolated itself from the global community and adopted a Communist system of government. Today, South Korea is prosperous, and North Korea routinely faces starvation. China, India, Malaysia, and Singapore, for example, implemented policies that have a positive impact on their economies. Latin America, on the other hand, disproportionately allocates resources to the wealthy. Although several countries, especially Brazil, have made progress toward enlarging the middle class, many of the poor there remain trapped in the cycle of poverty.
Political Instability
Angola
, a country twice the size of Texas, has abundant supplies of petroleum, diamonds, fish, and fresh water. However, life expectancy there is forty-five years, infant mortality is among the highest in the world, and Angolans are extremely poor. For twenty-seven years, the country was devastated by ethnic conflicts. Political instability directly contributes to economic disparities between developed and developing countries. Conflict not only discourages foreign investment, it also influences the best educated, most talented, and most financially successful citizens to flee or to invest their money outside the country.
Natural Disasters
At the beginning of this section, we discussed how geographic location directly affects the wealth and poverty of countries.
Drought
, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are closely linked to geography. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan; tsunamis in Asia; Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Sandy in the United States; earthquakes in China; flooding in
Pakistan
; and Typhoon Haiyan in the
Philippines
are the most obvious examples. These natural disasters routinely destroy important economic sectors, increase severe infrastructure problems, force the relocation of a large number of people, and lead to greater impoverishment.
9.4: Inequality Within Rich Countries
1. 9.4 Examine the economic, social, and educational inequality that exists within rich countries
History and literature are replete with examples of the difficulties endured by the poverty-stricken citizens of Britain and the United States and how the lives of the poor sharply contrasted with those of the wealthy. Theories of socialism and Communism, articulated by
Karl Marx
, who was living in Britain, underscore the durability of inequality within rich countries. Great economic disparities have existed in the United States throughout its history, with the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, the Roaring Twenties, and the Roaring Nineties bringing unprecedented levels of both prosperity and economic inequality. The stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the implementation of the
New Deal
programs designed to help the poor, and the outbreak of World War II combined to redistribute wealth in the United States. The concentration of income declined dramatically, and the middle class grew rapidly. Income distribution remained relatively equal until the 1970s. In virtually all industrial countries, income inequality grew between the 1970s and the early twenty-first century. Globalization, new technologies, the financial crisis and economic recession, and other factors contributed to this development.
Globalization
is generally seen as a major cause of the rapid rise in inequality. Integral to globalization is the proliferation of new telecommunications and computer technologies. Individuals with technical skills have outperformed those who have few or no technical skills. The globalization of trade also contributed to shifting employment patterns, with low-wage workers in industrial countries losing out to workers in the developing world. Closely related to globalization and technology is education. The knowledge-based economies of rich countries give educated individuals an advantage over those who are less educated, less skilled, and less entrepreneurial. The interdependence of economies enables educated people to be more mobile and marketable. The new global elites are mainly entrepreneurs. Many of them are inventors in the area of communications technologies. The disparity in income between those with a high school education on the one hand and those with a college education on the other became obvious between 1979 and the early 1990s. In 1979, the average American male college graduate earned 49 percent more than a male high school graduate. By 1993, the gap had grown to 89 percent. The forces of globalization continue to widen this gap. Individuals with doctorates and professional graduate degrees experience significant income growth. The weakening of labor unions, as we discussed in
Chapter 8
, also contributes to rising inequality.
9.4.1: The United States
The United States has the greatest degree of income inequality among industrialized countries. The richest country on earth also has pockets of poverty that are similar to many parts of the developing world. In 2013, the
poverty line
was defined as an annual income below $22,314 for a family of four, and 15 percent of Americans—46.5 million people—lived below this line. The poorest 10 percent of Americans receive 1.8 percent of the total income, whereas the richest 10 percent get almost a third. The average for rich countries is 2.9 percent of the total income going to the poorest 10 percent of the population. Economic statistics support the general perception of unprecedented inequality in the United States, with most of the income concentrated at the very top of society. The top 20 percent of households earned 56 percent of the nation’s income and controlled 83 percent of the nation’s wealth, which includes stocks, bonds, real estate, businesses, savings, insurance, and other assets.
Between 1980 and 2006, the top 1 percent of Americans earned ten times more than the rest at the start of the period and twenty times more than the rest at the end. The top 1 percent of earners take more than one-fifth of the income earned by Americans. For the top 0.1 percent, the gain rose from twenty times the earnings of the lower 90 percent to almost eighty times by 2006. The top 10 percent receive more than half of America’s total income and control half the nation’s wealth. The richest 400 Americans own more assets than the poorest 150 million, which is almost half the population. More than 90 percent of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent.
15
The top 5 percent of households in Washington, D.C., made an average of more than $500,000, while the bottom 20 percent made around $9,500. The tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 were widely regarded as creating an even wider gap between the rich and poor in the United States.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of inequality is the growing income gap between urban areas and rural America. As one drives through the numerous small towns in Illinois, Iowa, North Dakota, Alabama, and elsewhere, these income disparities become obvious. Homes, businesses, barns, and grain elevators have been abandoned and are decaying, creating what are referred to as
rural ghettos
. Two New York academics, Frank and Debra Popper, have suggested that given the relentless decay of rural towns, the federal government should accelerate the depopulation of the entire Great Plains region and turn it into a vast
Buffalo Commons
, a refuge for large mammals, hikers, and a reviving Native American population. Similarly, inland California, Native American reservations, the Deep South, Appalachia in general and eastern Kentucky in particular, and many other remote areas of America suffer from extreme poverty and inequality. As we saw in
Chapter 7
, the global financial and economic crises forced factories to close and people to abandon their homes. Cities dependent on the automobile industry were devastated. Detroit, for example, lost roughly half its population and is in the process of downsizing. Unable to pay its $18 billion debt, Detroit declared bankruptcy.
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9.4.2: Causes of Inequality in America
Causes of growing inequality in America are complex. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, globalization has radically altered economic realities in the United States. Global competition exposed many underlying weaknesses in American society that fuel inequality. The American middle class prospered with the growth of American dominance in manufacturing after World War II. Individuals with little education earned enough money to have a decent standard of living and to further their children’s education. But this changed in the 1980s with increased global competition and the proliferation of new technological innovations. Many workers were replaced by machines that improved productivity. Robotics and computers enabled companies to automate more jobs and diminish the bargaining power of labor unions. Richer Americans who invested in technology got a larger share of the national income, thereby widening the gap between laborers and investors.
Another major cause of growing inequality is the education and skills gap. Many poor children are disadvantaged before birth because of the lack of prenatal care and drug and alcohol abuse by their mothers. Most poor children do not receive adequate preschool education, which widens the gap in cognitive and noncognitive skills between them and rich children. Because the quality of education in America is directly linked in most cases to neighborhoods, which are usually exclusive, children from affluent neighborhoods attend better schools. The best teachers often are in the best-performing schools, which reinforces inequality. Rich children start kindergarten much better prepared to learn.
Educational inequality has been inextricably tied to broader societal changes since the 1980s, when inequality escalated. High divorce rates and the rapid increase in single-parent households among the poor have profound economic and educational implications. Less than half of poor children grow up in families with both biological parents, compared to 88 percent of children in rich families. Single-parent families often have fewer resources of time and money. Furthermore, many poor parents devalue education, read less to their children, are generally unable or unwilling to help them with homework, and do not motivate their children to succeed in school. The situation in rich households often is radically different. Many parents are intensively involved with their children in school and in a wide range of enrichment activities beyond school.
This huge investment in education prepares children to perpetuate advantages enjoyed by the rich. They perform better academically, are more aware of educational opportunities, attend colleges and universities, and marry or cohabit with other rich people they meet in college. This consolidates wealth and broadens the gap between rich and poor.
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Unlike other Western countries, the United States imprisons a large proportion of its population, many of whom are poor. There has been an eightfold growth in the number of Americans incarcerated since 1970, partly because of draconian drug laws. Most prisoners are economically disadvantaged and poorly educated. Many neglect their responsibilities as parents and pass on a prison culture to their children, especially boys, ensuring that the next generation will perpetuate poverty. Prison reinforces inequality by making it extremely difficult for people to find and keep jobs after their release.
9.4.3: Other Industrialized Countries
Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Ireland, and Canada are also experiencing high levels of income inequality. Like the United States, Germany is a very unequal society. The widening gap between the rich and poor is a major concern. There are more rich people and more poor people. Over the past ten years, the monthly income for persons in the poorest income bracket declined from $912 to $864. Those in upper income brackets saw their incomes rise from $3,216 to $3,618 a month. Britain’s rural areas have higher poverty rates than urban areas, and schools, railroad stations, and post offices are closing, just as they are in rural parts of the United States. The gap between the prosperous southeast and the poorer north has steadily expanded. Londoners enjoy a higher share of the country’s income than people living in the northern parts of England, Wales, and Scotland. Japan’s long economic recession has heightened the problem of inequality. Unlike the United States, which is more tolerant of huge economic gaps among different groups, Japan emphasizes the oneness of its society. Although about 90 percent of Japan’s citizens regard themselves as middle class, the economic recession that began in the early 1990s has weakened the middle class and sharpened distinctions between rich and poor. South Korea is also facing increasing inequality. Similar to London, Seoul dominates South Korea’s economic, financial, political, and cultural life. This contributes to a huge income and wealth gap between Seoul and the rest of the country.
Rapid economic growth in Ireland, fueled largely by an influx of investments in technology and the country’s increased globalization, had contributed to significant income inequality. However, the global financial crisis severely eroded Ireland’s economy, thereby diminishing income inequality. Canada, generally regarded as a very egalitarian society, ranks twenty-second of thirty-one rich countries in the area of child poverty. Ten percent of Canadians are poor, including six hundred thousand children. Around three hundred thousand Canadians are homeless.
9.5: Inequality Within Poor Countries
1. 9.5 Examine the inequalities that exist in different aspects of life in poor countries
Carlos Slim of Mexico is the world’s richest man. It is estimated that he has $74 billion, compared with Bill
Somali Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) children waited for relief food at a feeding center in Somalia’s war-torn capital. A few minutes after this photo was taken a bomb exploded next to the feeding center, killing six people. Famine and frequent bomb attacks are still part of the lives of Somali refugees.
Table 9.3 Income Inequality Within Selected Countries, 2000–2011
Adapted from “World DataBank, World Development Indicators,” retrieved May 12, 2014,
databank.worldbank.org/data/views/reports/tableview.aspx
.
GINI coefficient is an index measuring income inequality within countries, with 0 indicating perfect equality and 100 indicating perfect inequality
Greatest Income Inequality
GINI Index Number
Seychelles
65.77
Comoros
64.3
Namibia
63.9
63.14
Micronesia
61.1
Haiti
59.27
58.64
Honduras
56.95
56.3
56.29
40.81
Least Income Inequality
Ghana
28.31
Bulgaria
28.19
27.8
2
Serbia
Belarus
2
7.2
2
Finland
26
.88
Ukraine
26.44
Slovakia
25.79
Sweden
Gates’s $56 billion and Warren Buffet’s $50 billion. Almost 60 percent of Mexicans make $15 or less a day. Although leaders of the developing world consistently stress the inequality between rich and poor countries, very little emphasis is put on the gulf that separates rich and poor in developing countries. One persistent characteristic of the developing world is the lack of a large enough middle class to bridge the extremes of wealth and poverty. In most poor countries, there are basically two distinct worlds: one inhabited by the middle and upper classes, which comprise a small percentage of the population, and the other by the poor majority. Traveling in the developing world, one observes high walls around the homes of the wealthy people to protect them from the poor. One also notices that the lifestyles of the rich are virtually identical to those of rich individuals in the developed countries.
Despite significant progress toward diminishing inequality, Latin America has some of the world’s most unequal societies. Although Mexico has the world’s richest person, almost 60 percent of Mexico’s people are mired in poverty. Despite significant progress made under the
North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
, inequality in Mexico is extreme. Roughly 10 percent of the population controls half the country’s wealth. Inequality in Brazil remains a significant problem. Globalization and Brazil’s rapid economic growth have contributed to an increase in the wealthy, including a growing number of billionaires. Roughly 31 percent of the population remains below the poverty line, and 43 million people live on less than $2 a day. On the other hand, Brazil is making a concerted effort to reduce poverty and diminish inequality through programs such as
Bolsa Familia
, or Family Fund. Under Bolsa Familia, which is a model for other countries, more than 11 million families receive financial assistance and medical care and are encouraged to send their children to school. Extreme poverty has declined by more than 50 percent since 2003.
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In some developing societies, inequality is institutionalized. During the period that South Africa was ruled by
apartheid laws
—which rigidly segregated blacks, whites, Asians, and mixed-race people and distributed resources according to a racial hierarchy—whites enjoyed a privileged position, and blacks faced widespread and persistent discrimination. The economic chasm between whites and blacks still exists. However, since apartheid was abolished in 1991, an economic gap within the black group has grown as more opportunities have opened up for blacks. The government’s
Black Empowerment Initiative
, which uses lucrative government contracts as leverage to encourage the expansion of black-owned businesses, has created black millionaires in a relatively short period of time, further widening inequality among blacks.
India’s
caste system
is the most obvious and pervasive example of structured inequality. The caste system is a rigid hierarchical system of social classes in Hinduism, which determines the status, rights, privileges, occupations, and social interactions of each person from birth. One inherits one’s caste or social standing in the community. Each child is born into one of four main castes: Brahmans, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras. Even though the caste system has been outlawed and is constantly challenged, it is widely adhered to in Indian society.
Brahmans
(the priests and scholars) stand at the top,
Ksatriyas
(the military, lawmakers, and rulers) are second,
Vaisyas
(merchants, landowners, industrialists, and artisans) are third, and
Sudras
(laborers and farm workers) are at the bottom of the caste system. The lowest group in India is the
untouchables
, who are literally regarded as outcasts. This means that they do not belong to a caste or class. In contrast to most developing countries, inequality has increased in India. There are more than 400 million poor Indians. More than 43 percent of India’s children under five years of age are malnourished, or roughly one-third of the world’s total. More than 35 percent of Indians are illiterate, and more than 20 million children do not attend school.
The same set of factors that have contributed to the widening gap between rich and poor in the developed world are also present in developing countries. China is an example of this phenomenon. Economic benefits of China’s rapid growth are most concentrated in urban coastal areas. Small towns, rural areas, and the interior experience much slower growth rates and are poorer than coastal industrial centers. About 84 percent of foreign investment is in the eastern coastal cities, 9 percent in the central region, and 4.6 percent in the western part of China. Similarly, 57 percent of the country’s income is generated on the east coast, compared with 17 percent in the west. Millions of poor children are not allowed to migrate with their parents to cities, so they remain in inferior rural schools, thereby perpetuating inequality. China’s
Hukon Policy
, or system of household registration, restricts movements of rural children, officially denies their existence in cities, and makes it extremely difficult to enroll them in urban schools, which have more resources and offer better education. Finding ways to diminish economic disparities became a major priority of the Chinese government. China has roughly 3 percent of the world’s richest people.
9.5.1: Gender Inequality
Women worldwide experience various degrees of inequality. In all countries, the poorest of the poor are women, and they are the majority of those at the bottom of society. Perceptions of women and the reality of inequality are mutually reinforcing, creating a vicious cycle of inequality. Clearly, women are not a monolithic group. Some enjoy great wealth, power, and high positions in society. More women, especially in the industrialized countries, are gaining equality with men of similar educational achievement. Based on our previous discussion about the economic advantages college-educated people enjoy over those who do not attend college, women are beginning to surpass men in terms of income. Observing the gender composition of college classes, it is obvious that women outnumber men by a significant margin. The economic recession created higher unemployment rates for men than for women, thereby giving women a relative economic advantage. The jobs of the future—in health care (including nursing), services, and education—will be dominated by women. Women are increasingly the primary breadwinners. Leadership roles in society twenty years from now are likely to be dominated by women. This trend is obvious. For example, Janet Yellen became the U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman, making her the most powerful banker in the world. Christine Lagarde of France became the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund, the 188-country financial organization.
Beliefs, values, perceptions, and ideas about the roles of men and women and power relations between them are referred to as
gender ideology
. Gender ideology is based on the assumption that women are naturally suited for particular jobs. In Afghanistan, for example, cultural beliefs and practices make family planning very difficult, and many women have ten or more children. Women’s role as child bearers reinforces their unequal status, trapping them and their children, especially girls, in a cycle of poverty. As popular uprisings spread across the Arab world, many women in Saudi Arabia are using social media to organize women and to encourage them to challenge deeply rooted traditional practices that deprive them of basic rights. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three activist women from Africa and the Arab world in recognition of their non-violent struggle for women’s safety and equal rights. The Nobel Prize recipients were Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni prodemocracy campaigner Tawakul Karman. In many parts of the world, women are perceived as being naturally suited for factory jobs that are part of globalization. In Mexico, China, Thailand, and elsewhere, women are concentrated in low-wage employment. But as we discussed in
Chapter 8
, global companies are helping women get better jobs. Women are demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
Countries that are the least globalized tend to have higher levels of inequality. For example, the gender gap in education is concentrated largely in the developing world, particularly in Africa, which is the least globalized continent. In contrast, women in developed countries are experiencing increased equality with men. The United States is an example of that. For decades following World War II in the United States, income inequality remained relatively unchanged. Women received about three-fifths of what men received for similar work. However, as we mentioned previously, the gap is closing as more women attend college and abandon lower-paying professions (such as teaching) for more lucrative employment in business, engineering, and the sciences. Generational change and the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s facilitated women’s access to employment outside the home and equalized pay for men and women to a greater degree than previously. Nevertheless, women’s pay still lags behind men’s in almost every sector of the economy. In 2006, the gap narrowed, with women making 81 percent of what men were paid. Younger women now make 93 percent of men’s wages. Childless women in their twenties earn as much as men. In the United States, these women earn more than men in their twenties. Of all married couples in America, 24 percent include a wife who earns more than her husband. Globalization, particularly the Internet, created new ways of conducting business as well as new opportunities for women, who are increasingly able to integrate family responsibilities and business endeavors. Trends toward gender equality are being consolidated in every field.
9.6: Global Poverty
1. 9.6 Review the six dimensions of poverty that can be used to gauge poverty
Poverty, the most obvious indicator of global and domestic inequality, is an enduring reality for more than two-thirds of the world’s population. Although poverty in developing countries is readily apparent, poverty is a growing reality in the richest countries, including the United States. Poverty persists despite improvements in living standards. Many children die of malnutrition because mothers do not know how to breastfeed properly. But improvements—such as increases in per capita income, declining infant mortality rates, increased access to clean water, and decreases in illiteracy—are often counteracted by rapid population growth rates in the developing world. Nonetheless, the percentage of people living in
extreme poverty
, defined as living on less than $1.25 a day, has declined. Economic growth in China and India contributed to this decrease in extreme poverty. The struggle to further reduce poverty must take into consideration some powerful realities, including the following:
1. Weak political support for foreign assistance in most rich countries, including the United States
2. Uncertainty of commitment from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the WTO, and other multilateral agencies
3. Ongoing armed conflicts that impede efforts to help the poor in many parts of the developing world
These realities are compounded by the diminished role of governments worldwide in efforts to alleviate poverty.
Defining poverty is to some extent subjective. There are basically two aspects to poverty:
absolute poverty
(i.e., the absolute number of poor people below a defined poverty line) and
relative poverty
(which reflects the distribution of income in society). For example, in relative terms, many Americans are poor. However, a much smaller number of Americans are poor in absolute terms. Although poverty is not always easily defined, an important aspect of poverty is a subjective feeling of being poor either absolutely or relative to others. The concept of the poverty line is not always a reliable indicator of poverty. The poverty line in the United States was developed in 1963–1964 by the Social Security Administration on the basis of a 1955 household food consumption survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The poverty line is adjusted each year to reflect changes in the
Consumer Price Index (CPI)
. The CPI measures changes over time in the cost of purchasing the “market basket” of goods and services used by a typical family. But the poverty line does not adequately reflect higher costs for transportation, child care, health care, and other costs associated with employment. Unlike the 1960s, when many mothers work for pay outside the home, in many families, both parents now work, thereby incurring expenses that were not taken into consideration when the poverty line was developed. Furthermore, the poverty level measurement assumes that costs are the same across the United States, with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, where the poverty level is higher. Global measurements of poverty are in reality estimates, despite the certainty conveyed by statistics.
Regardless of where poor people live, there are at least six dimensions of poverty:
1. Hunger: Poverty throughout the world is about inadequate food supplies.
2. Psychological dimensions: Poverty is usually characterized by a sense of powerlessness, dependency, humiliation, and shame.
3. Inadequate infrastructure: Poor people generally lack access to roads, electricity, clean water, and transportation.
4. Low levels of literacy: Educational opportunities are often unavailable.
5. Health problems: Poor people everywhere generally suffer from illness, which further impoverishes them.
6. Inadequate income: Poor people focus on managing physical, human, social, and environmental assets to cope with their vulnerability. Income receives less emphasis.
Table 9.4
shows the percentage of the population in selected countries living on $1.25 or less a day. Hunger and malnutrition are at the foundation of global inequality.
Malnutrition
causes impaired vision, an inability to concentrate and to learn, greater vulnerability to disease and poor health, and a shorter life expectancy. Hunger and malnutrition plague roughly one billion people globally. The worst drought in sixty years, combined with widespread violence and state failure in Somalia, caused unprecedented famine that affected more than 10 million East Africans, primarily Somalis. Despite India’s economic growth, malnutrition, especially among children, remains extremely high. Both population growth and rising food prices are contributing to increases in hunger and malnutrition. Furthermore, the production of biofuels reduces food supplies. In Guatemala, for example, the U.S. demand for biofuels has influenced farmers to stop growing corn and to produce more profitable crops such as sugarcane and African palm. Food prices have risen, and the average Guatemalan is now hungrier. However, the biofuels industry has experienced severe setbacks and has declined, due mainly to costs involved in producing biofuels and technological breakthroughs such as fracking that have lowered the price of oil and gas and reduced America’s dependence on energy imports.
9.6.1: Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction
Extreme global poverty has been cut in half in the past 20 years due primarily to rapid economic growth. Despite the global financial crisis and economic recession that affected many rich countries, the developing world economies continued to grow. Areas with the largest number of poor people experienced significant growth. East Asia grew by 8 percent, South Asia by 7 percent, and Africa by 5 percent. Latin American countries also grew and, as we have seen in this chapter, Brazil allocated resources obtained from its rapidly expanding economy to lessen poverty and inequality. Countries that experience the greatest reductions in poverty are those that promote both growth and equality. China, the fastest-growing economy and most populous country, lifted more than 680 million people out of poverty between 1984 and the present. China’s poverty rate was an astonishing 84 percent before it implemented economic reforms and opened up the country to global trade and investment. Only 10 percent of Chinese now live in poverty.
India, with a population almost as large as China’s, made remarkable progress in diminishing poverty, even though more than 400 million Indians still live in abject poverty. What made a major contribution to economic growth was a
demographic dividend
. This refers to economic gains achieved when the working-age population expands relative to the number of dependent children and old people and provides cheap labor to help develop the economy. Furthermore, as discussed in
Chapter 11
, economic growth also contributes to lowering population growth. Greater prosperity is closely linked to growing contraception use and increased access to reproductive health services.
Sub-Saharan African economies are attracting large amounts of investment, especially from China, and they are growing by around 5 percent per year. Four of the world’s fastest-growing economies are in Africa. The discovery of major deposits of oil and gas in several countries represents an economic breakthrough. Since 2000, the poverty rate has declined by more than 10 percent. Lower fertility and child mortality rates make working-age adults the fastest-growing segment of the population, thereby enabling Africa to experience a demographic dividend. Greater political stability, transitions to democracy, and the proliferation of communications technologies, especially mobile phones, help fuel economic growth and reduce poverty. Lowering trade barriers, an integral component of economic globalization, significantly reduces poverty and improves living standards.
Table 9.4 Percentage of Population in Selected Countries Living below the International Income Poverty Line of $1.25 a Day, 2002–2011
Adapted from UN Development Programme, Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South. Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: UN Development Program, 2013). Figures are expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.
Population Below $1.25 a Day |
|
73.9 |
|
Zambia |
68.5 |
Nigeria |
68.0 |
Uganda |
51.5 |
Kenya |
43.4 |
Pakistan |
21.0 |
Philippines |
18.4 |
Paraguay |
7.2 |
Sri Lanka |
7.0 |
Egypt |
1.7 |
Armenia |
1.3 |
9.7: Closing the Gap
1. 9.7 Evaluate some of the measures for diminishing poverty and reducing inequality
As we saw in
Chapter 8
, global companies help promote equality by providing job opportunities that contribute to diminishing poverty and reducing inequality. By providing training opportunities for women in particular, global companies help the poorest of the poor improve their lives. Globalization not only makes national borders less significant, it also links the fates of rich and poor nations in an unprecedented web of interdependence. This section offers some suggestions for diminishing inequality.
Education and Family Planning
Education and family planning are essential for diminishing inequality. Societies that make education available to as many people as possible, such as the United States, are also the most prosperous societies. Because education affects ways of thinking, perceptions, and creativity, it is at the foundation of any effort to alleviate poverty. Education, especially for women, has a direct impact on the number of children women have, their level of education, and their quality of life. Countries that make education and family planning priorities usually have healthier, more productive, and more economically and technologically competitive populations.
Democracy May Help
India, the world’s largest democracy, is also one of the world’s poorest and most unequal societies. Nevertheless, democratic societies offer poor people an opportunity to improve their lives through their voting power. Democratic governments may be pressured to reduce economic inequalities by interest groups and political parties. Brazil is an example of how a transition to democracy helped reduce poverty and inequality.
Government Policies and Free Trade Could Make a Difference
Decisions made by governments have profound implications for inequality within and among nations. As mentioned earlier, Brazil launched an antipoverty program, Bolsa Familia, or Family Fund, that is a model for many countries. Poor families receive financial assistance and are encouraged to send their children to school and give them medical care. By increasing economic growth, the program also decreases inequality. China’s government has tried to diminish regional inequalities by investing more money in economically depressed areas. Brazil decided to address inequality by “democratizing” land titles and expanding poor people’s access to credit. Granting formal property rights to millions of slum dwellers is viewed as a way of creating greater economic opportunities for the poor. Korea, Brazil, and India have implemented various forms of affirmative action programs to diminish regional, racial, or caste inequalities.
Reduce Corruption
The poorest countries in the world are invariably the most corrupt countries. Corruption drains scarce resources from vital public services and infrastructure projects, rewards incompetence and stifles innovation and change, and discourages foreign investment. At a more fundamental level, corruption infuses society with cynicism, which is detrimental to efforts to achieve economic development and greater equality. Much of the illegally obtained money is invested abroad, instead of being invested at home.
Pay Attention to Women
Societies that reward women for their participation in economic, political, and social life benefit from the talents of more than half of their population. Because women play a crucial role in raising, educating, and encouraging children to achieve, their treatment directly influences economic development and equality issues. The United Nations, the World Bank, and other international organizations recognize that women must be included in decision-making processes. Governments are paying attention to
gender budgeting
, which is essentially an analysis of national budgets to determine how spending priorities affect women. Gender-responsive budgets were developed to hold public officials accountable for promoting gender equity.
Improve Agriculture in Poor Countries
Poverty and inequality are reinforced by the inability of the poor to produce sufficient food. The poorest countries routinely suffer from food shortages and malnutrition. Many of the world’s poorest people live in societies where land is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of powerful families. Land redistribution in places such as Brazil and Venezuela is regarded as a major step toward reducing hunger and creating greater equality of opportunity. The
Green Revolution
—which dramatically increased agricultural production through the development of high-yielding hybrids and faster-growing plants and the application of
New Middle-Class Consumers Around the World are Eating More Meat. Consequently, more grain is needed to produce beef, pork, and chicken, which adds to problems of hunger and malnutrition. In this photo, Chinese customers shop for meat at a supermarket in Binzhou City, China.
large amounts of fertilizers and insecticides—enabled countries such as Mexico and India to produce more food and reduce starvation. Brazil’s success in agriculture shows that scientific research and advanced agricultural practices help increase productivity. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are helping increase agricultural productivity in Africa.
Think Small
Many college students are involved in volunteer efforts, and some think that joining the Peace Corps can help improve living conditions in an African or Latin American village. Similarly, poor people in Brazil have decided to help people even poorer than themselves by volunteering. Volunteers work in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, legal-aid clinics, and antiviolence organizations. Another example of how thinking small can help close the gap between rich and poor is
microlending
, or the granting of small loans to help the smallest entrepreneurs, who often do not have access to conventional financial services, expand their businesses and climb out of poverty. Started in Bangladesh by
Muhammad Yunus
, founder of the Grameen Bank, microcredit is now a global phenomenon. Microcredit is established in the United States and is used primarily by people who do not qualify for credit cards or traditional bank loans.
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Remittances and Foreign Aid Help
During the 1980s, the prevailing view in industrialized countries was that economic globalization offered greater benefits to poor countries than official development assistance did. Consequently, foreign aid declined sharply. The financial crisis and global recession have influenced most governments to reduce aid. Many rich countries have implemented austerity programs to help cut their budget deficits. However, NGOs, especially private foundations, continue to provide foreign aid. Although the global recession diminished job opportunities, migrants continue to assist their homelands through remittances. In fact, remittances provide more money for poor countries than they receive from foreign aid.
Case Study Food Security and Rising Food Prices
Food security is a leading global priority. Roughly one billion people are hungry. Rising food prices have already pushed an additional 44 million people into extreme poverty, with millions more in imminent danger of falling into extreme poverty due to food prices and severe malnutrition rising in the poorest countries. Food insecurity is the greatest threat to the world’s poor. Food insecurity in the developing world is heightened by the fact that the poor generally spend as much as 80 percent of their income on food, much of which is imported.
Global concerns about severe food shortages and Malthusian nightmares about massive starvation were alleviated by the Green Revolution, pioneered to a large extent by Norman Borlaug and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. The Green Revolution concentrated on producing more food from the same amount of land by improved plant breeding, greater use of fertilizers, and irrigation. But the world has reached the point where crop yields are growing more slowly than the population.
There are numerous causes of the global food crisis. Those include drought in the United States, Russia, Australia, China, and Argentina; floods in Canada, Brazil, Pakistan, and Australia; export bans by countries wanting to protect domestic food supplies; stagnant agricultural productivity; high fuel prices that raise the cost of production, transportation, and processing; and widespread waste of food due to inadequate storage facilities, poor transportation, insufficient refrigeration, and throwing away food, especially in the United States and other rich countries. Two of the most important causes of the global food crisis are the rapid economic growth of Asia and manufacturing biofuels from food crops, especially from corn in the United States. However, interest in biofuels is declining due to the high costs of producing biofuels combined with America’s growing energy independence because of the discovery of large deposits of oil and natural gas.
Cultural globalization has changed consumer tastes and lifestyles. Diets of mostly carbohydrates are being replaced by protein. This means that more grain is used to produce beef, poultry, and pork, which increases demand for grain globally. Economic globalization is fueling rapid growth in residential and industrial construction. Infrastructure projects require significant amounts of land. As the developing world builds more roads for automobiles, farmland is being lost.
To improve global food security and reduce hunger, governments could implement cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Familia in Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico to enable families to purchase food. Eliminating tariffs and subsidies in rich countries would help farmers in poor countries increase food production for domestic consumption and export. Deemphasizing the production of biofuels from corn and focusing more on other renewable sources of energy would lessen demand for grain for ethanol and lower food prices. Sugarcane, sorghum, switchgrass, and miscanthus (an ornamental grass) could be used to produce biofuels. Improved storage, transportation, and refrigeration would help prevent food waste. Agricultural research, especially in the tropics, offers hope for meeting the growing demand for food as the population increases.
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Genetically modified crops are an essential part of the solution of the global food crisis. They can also provide essential micronutrients such as minerals and vitamins to improve nutrition and health. Finally, it helps to think small. Home gardeners can make a difference by becoming more self-sufficient.
Summary
This chapter examined global and domestic inequality and poverty. It discussed the linkages between inequality and politics, economics, and culture. It showed that global concerns about inequality are durable. We addressed colonialism, gender inequality, malnutrition, global poverty, and globalization to identify their roles in exacerbating or reducing global and domestic inequality. We focused on the inequality gap between rich and poor countries, as well as the inequality gaps within both developed and developing societies. We also addressed a central question in the debate over inequality: Does inequality matter? Since human societies are inherently unequal due to variations in individual abilities, opportunities, and geographic locations, it seems that inequality will always be a feature in society. We examined a number of concepts and developments, such as extreme poverty, malnutrition, and relative and absolute poverty. We elaborated on the views of globalists and antiglobalists, who take contending views on the importance and effects of globalization. We identified factors that contribute to global inequality, including geography, colonialism, global economic structures, population growth, government policies, political instability, and natural disasters. Women are disproportionately represented among the poorest of the poor throughout all countries today. As we discussed, various reasons help explain such a trend, including the prevalence of religious ideology and patriarchal morals and values; traditional repression of women; and lower levels of education, pay, and job opportunities for women. Finally, we looked at possible solutions for reducing global and national poverty and inequality, including economic growth.
Discussion Questions
1. What role do government redistributive programs have in either increasing or decreasing inequality? Can you think of specific examples of such programs implemented in the United States?
2. Do you think globalization increases or decreases global and domestic inequality? Discuss.
3. What effect does domestic or global inequality have on promoting or hindering democratization? Is there an inverse relationship between increasing inequality and lower prospects for democratization?
4. What are some of the main factors contributing to increasing global and domestic inequality discussed in this chapter?
5. Discuss the global food crisis, including its causes and possible solutions. What can you do to help improve food security?
Chapter 10 Environmental Issues
FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES LIKE THE INUIT, ECONOMIC GAINS FROM CLIMATE CHANGE AND TAPPING NATURAL RESOURCES LIKE GAS AND OIL WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY THE LOSS OF SOME PARTS OF THEIR CULTURE. This Inuit hunter and his dogsled team travel on the frozen Baffin Bay in the Arctic region of Greenland.
Learning Objectives
1. 10.1Recall the intimate connection between human activity and its adverse effects on the environment
2. 10.2Relate the benefits of biodiversity to the need for its conservation
3. 10.3Identify the causes of deforestation and global efforts to stop it
4. 10.4Report the causes of ocean pollution
5. 10.5Relate the effects of global warming to the worldwide catastrophic effects of climate change
6. 10.6Review the issue of water scarcity as an important component of the broader issues of environmental and global security
Widespread destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Sandy in New York, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu, floods and extreme heat in Australia, drought and a water shortage in Brazil, record snowfall and cold weather in the eastern United States, and severe drought in California have reinforced concerns about the environment. Environmental issues remind us that the Earth is a single biosphere and that problems in one country are other countries’ problems as well. Imagine that you are a resident of Boston in 1676 and that your cows are grazing the
commons
, which is land used by the entire community. Overgrazing would eventually destroy the commons and the cattle. But overgrazing is a problem that cannot be solved by restraining only a few members of the community. It is only through the cooperation of all members that overgrazing can be avoided. On a larger scale, environmental problems underscore the reality of global interdependence. Where these problems originate is less important than their global impact. A Soviet nuclear power plant in
Chernobyl
that exploded in 1986 illustrates this point. The power plant explosion released extensive radioactive material that spread to Europe, killing thirty people, damaging crops and animals, and polluting the environment for thousands of miles from the explosion. When the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, small amounts of radiation reached Washington, California, Oregon, and Colorado.
Increasingly, scholars, politicians, leaders of international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and ordinary citizens worldwide are linking environmental security to human security (i.e., the challenges ordinary people face every day) and to traditional concerns about national security. The
environmental security
approach to international relations emphasizes that the ecological crisis we face is also a threat to national security. Environmental degradation is perceived to be as serious a threat to human societies as the traditional military threat. For the Carteret Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Palau, the Maldives, and Bangladesh, climate change is a direct and growing threat to their survival.
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Throughout history, environmental factors have had serious implications for all aspects of human existence, including the rise and fall of great civilizations, the spread of infectious diseases, war and peace, economic prosperity and hunger, migration and resettlement, population growth, and global inequality. The destruction of Mayan civilization on the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico in the tenth century shows how climate change and population pressures can dramatically alter human societies. This chapter discusses how environmental problems became central concerns of the global community. It concludes with a case study of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
10.1: The Globalization of Environmental Problems
1. 10.1 Recall the intimate connection between human activity and its adverse effects on the environment
Ancient civilizations confronted some of the environmental challenges that are familiar to modern societies. For example, almost 3,700 years ago, Sumerian cities in the southern part of
Mesopotamia
(now modern Iraq) prospered because high levels of agricultural productivity supported permanent human resettlements. But these agricultural surpluses that helped develop the cradle of civilization came at a cost: extensive irrigation, which ultimately resulted in fields that were saline and waterlogged. Environmental decay forced people to abandon the Sumerian cities. Air pollution from burning coal in medieval England was so bad that by 1661, the naturalist
John Evelyn
compared London with the “Court of Vulcan or the Suburbs of Hell.”
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Despite obvious environmental problems, environmental movements did not germinate until 1865, when a private group called the Commons, Footpaths, and Spaces Preservation Society was founded in Britain. By the late 1890s and the turn of the century, groups in the United States that were committed to wilderness preservation and resource conservation emerged and were strongly supported by President Theodore Roosevelt.
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Globalizing environmental issues is always a gradual, controversial, and complex process. In the past, most attempts to diminish environmental damage were primarily at the local and national levels. Before World War II, concerns about endangered wildlife and growing threats of ocean oil pollution led to bilateral and limited international environmental agreements. The globalization of environmental issues reflects the growth of global interdependence after World War II and the emergence of the United States as a superpower. The global environmental movement emerged principally in Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. A catalyst for growing concerns about how we are destroying our environment, and ultimately ourselves, was the publication of Rachel Carson’s book
Silent Spring
in 1962. The book focused on how the widespread use of pesticides was devastating birds and other wildlife. Furthermore, space exploration reinforced perceptions of the oneness of the Earth as well as its fragility. Exploding population growth and rapid industrialization, often with reckless disregard for environmental ramifications, focused more attention on resource scarcity, deforestation, and deteriorating health standards. Nuclear weapons proliferation, especially by the United States and the Soviet Union, also helped reinforce our vulnerability to the environmental threats that result from our activities.
Images of “spaceship Earth” facilitated a deeper understanding of global interdependence of environmental issues by illustrating that national boundaries are artificial and national issues are ultimately global issues. Like our example of the Boston Common, the world was increasingly being perceived as a global common. Oil pollution, because of its immediate and drastic impact on coastal areas, clearly showed the dangers of environmental disasters. When the oil tanker
Torrey Canyon
was wrecked on the coast of England and spilled about 875,000 barrels of crude oil in 1967, public opinion worldwide generated support for globalizing environmental issues. Globalization of the economy further reinforced environmental globalization by stimulating trade in endangered species, tropical hardwoods, and various metals. The production and distribution of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) around the world for use as a propellant in spray cans, as a refrigerant, and as cleaning solvents caused significant damage to the protective ozone layer in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
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International agreements were made in response to specific environmental problems. The earliest ones concentrated on protecting wildlife in Africa and in the Western Hemisphere, Pacific fur seals, and whaling. Ocean oil pollution and the proliferation of nuclear weapons became major priorities of the environmental movement after 1945. The
Biosphere Conference
, held in Paris in 1968, focused on how human activities—such as air and water pollution, deforestation, the drainage of wetlands, and overgrazing—affected the biosphere. The
UN Conference on the Human Environment
(also known as Stockholm Conference), held in Stockholm in 1972, is often viewed as the beginning of serious global cooperation on the environment. Developed countries in particular acknowledged that multilateral efforts were essential to adequately address transboundary environmental problems.
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The Stockholm Conference created the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), an institutional framework to address the issues discussed in the conference. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (also known as the Rio Summit or the Earth Summit) and the 2002
World Summit on Sustainable Development
(also known as the Johannesburg Action Plan) emphasized the priorities of developing countries.
States may join international agreements as a way of pressuring neighboring states into doing the same, thereby enhancing chances of widespread cooperation to protect the environment. Domestic political and economic considerations also play a role. Governments often respond to pressure from environmental activists. Industries that must comply with environmental laws in their home countries often support international agreements to prevent companies in other countries from gaining a competitive advantage.
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Even though states recognize the need to cooperate, political and economic considerations often weaken the effectiveness of environmental agreements. These include disagreements between rich and poor countries about the economic implications of environmental agreements and efforts by economic interests and governments to avoid compliance.
7
The implementation of and compliance with environmental agreements are influenced by at least four factors.
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First is the nature of the substances or activities that are regulated. At the heart of many environmental debates is how international agreements will affect economic activities and the costs and benefits of complying with the agreements. Second is the characteristics of the agreement. This relates to the process of reaching the agreement. Who initiates the treaty? What is required of the countries that sign it? Is the agreement vague, or does it spell out clearly the conditions for compliance? Third is the global environment. How major countries, international organizations—such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and environmental NGOs—view the agreement will impact its implementation. Fourth are domestic factors. Ultimately, the effectiveness of an environmental agreement depends on the nature of the society in which it is being implemented.
10.1.1: Nongovernmental Organizations and the Environment
Older environmental groups, such as the National Wildlife Federation and the National Audubon Society, were joined by numerous other environmental organizations, many having originated on college and university campuses in the 1960s and 1970s. The Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Environmental Action, and Friends of the Earth were among them. Scientific groups, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility, strengthened and broadened the environmental movement. While most environmental groups operate on a local or national level and concentrate on specific problems facing particular communities, many of them have a global reach. For example, many NGOs participate in global conferences on behalf of small, ecologically vulnerable Pacific islands. There are also NGOs—such as the Global Climate Coalition and the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy—that represent industries and attempt to limit the effectiveness of other environmental organizations.
10.1.2: Women and the Environment
The connection between women and environmental issues is acknowledged by UNEP, which has held conferences on women and the environment and established a committee of senior women advisers on sustainable development. The general emphasis on the gendered nature of environmental issues arises from the leading roles women have in environmental NGOs and numerous grassroots movements worldwide. Women in Kenya organized the
Green Belt Movement
to prevent further deforestation and to restore the land through reforestation. Wangari Maathai, an environmentalist involved in the planting of more than 30 million trees, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Women’s participation in environmental NGOs and at the grassroots level has resulted in three main arguments about the connection between women and the environment: (1) women are disproportionately disadvantaged by environmental problems, (2) gender bias is an impediment to achieving sustainable development, and (3) women’s participation is vital to efforts to achieve sustainable development.
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10.1.3: Indigenous Peoples and the Environment
Global warming is melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, and the ice cap in Greenland is receding. It is estimated that the Arctic contains 90 billion barrels of oil and 12 trillion cubic feet of gas. That can be exploited because of thinning ice. For the Inuit and other indigenous peoples, who comprise the vast majority of that area’s population, climate change has both positive and negative consequences. Income from natural resources could make them wealthy. The loss of pack ice extends shipping, and fish stocks are increasing. On the other hand, rising sea levels are forcing many of them to leave their homes, and melting permafrost is damaging roads and runways. Furthermore, economic gains will be accompanied by the loss of some aspects of their culture.
Because the lives of indigenous peoples are intertwined with the natural environment, development in general has far-reaching consequences for them. Indigenous populations have declined sharply, and most of their land has been confiscated. Ironically, some environmentalists are so focused on protecting the animals of the forest that they contribute to the destruction of the people who have lived there for thousands of years. For example, when the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the
Great Lakes
region of East Africa was made into a national park to protect its mountain gorillas, an estimated four thousand indigenous people were expelled. Like many indigenous people throughout the world, they are poor, alcohol abuse is prevalent, and life expectancy is low. They are losing their language, religion, and culture.
The global ban on killing baby seals and selling their fur, strongly supported by Greenpeace, severely damaged the livelihood and culture of indigenous people in Greenland. The precipitous decline in global demands for seal fur is unlikely to be reversed. Because of the economic hardship created by the ban, indigenous people can no longer afford to purchase equipment and supplies essential for hunting seals for their own use. Efforts by the Inuit to persuade the European Union to lift the ban have been unsuccessful.
Deforestation in the Amazon has long been a major global issue for environmentalists and others concerned about indigenous people. Brazil’s rapid agricultural growth, in particular, and development, in general, came at an extremely high cost to the inhabitants of the Amazon. Indigenous people in Bolivia protested the construction of a Brazilian-funded road through a rainforest reserve because of the deforestation and illegal settlement it would bring. After the protesters’ two-month march from their Amazon lowlands home to Bolivia’s capital, Bolivian president Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, canceled plans for the road. Global efforts to diminish carbon emissions through forest preservation are helping indigenous peoples.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)
programs, which pay people to preserve forests, could potentially improve the lives of indigenous peoples.
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Although Britain, the colonial power, recognized that Canada’s indigenous peoples had rights to their lands in 1763, the Canadian government increasingly ignored such rights and promoted the development of natural resources without the approval of Native Americans. However, in 2014, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the Tsilhot’in First Nation owned roughly 650 square miles of land in British Columbia and invalidated logging rights acquired by a Canadian company.
10.1.4: Strategies Used by Nongovernmental Organizations
At the global level, NGOs must spend considerable resources to develop
regimes
; that is, the rules, codes of conduct, principles, and norms necessary to govern the behavior of both states and nonstate actors. Environmental NGOs that operate primarily on the global level encounter three major impediments. First, there is no common authority or power that can effectively force members of the global community to comply with rules. Second, the decentralized nature of international bureaucracies and their dependence on states make it difficult for NGOs to get international rules implemented. Third, global agreements and organizations are primarily produced by governments. Environmental NGOs are required in many cases to work through those governments to influence agreements and global institutions. There are several major strategies that environmental NGOs use to accomplish their objectives:
1. Get media coverage and publicity for their issues. Generating domestic and global public awareness and support is crucial to NGOs’ efforts to persuade policymakers to take action.
2. Share information among groups to educate each other on the issues, coordinate strategies and activities, and provide each other with needed support.
3. Lobby government officials and intergovernmental organizations, such as the World Bank.
4. Acquire and manage property to protect the environment.
5. Pressure companies to protect the environment.
10.2: Biodiversity
1. 10.2 Relate the benefits of biodiversity to the need for its conservation
Biodiversity
is defined as the number and the variety of living organisms on Earth. It includes genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity. Crucial to biodiversity is the interdependence of species and ecosystems and how their complex relationships affect the environment. Biodiversity is concentrated in the forests of developing countries, especially Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Zaire, Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. Australia is the only developed country that has a large variety of species. The United States, Canada, and Europe are relatively poor in biodiversity. Biodiversity is at the heart of environmental globalization because it affects so many groups and individuals, including those interested in deforestation, agriculture, biotechnology, anthropology, pharmaceuticals, sustainable development, global trade, and ethics.
Biodiversity provides many benefits. Ecosystem functions—such as carbon exchange, watershed flows of surface and ground water, the protection and fertility of soils, and the regulation of surface temperatures and local climates—are influenced by biodiversity. Diversity lessens the vulnerability of agricultural crops to diseases and pests. This is increasingly important for large-scale, specialized agriculture. Through crossbreeding of diverse genetic stock, crops become more resistant to disease and pests. Crops depend on insects. Since 2006, American honey bees that used to pollinate hundreds of crops have been dying in record numbers, a development often referred to as
colony collapse disorder
. Europe, facing similar problems, banned the use of pesticides, which were believed to be killing bees. Biodiversity is especially important for medicinal and pharmaceutical product development. Preserving biodiversity is regarded as an ethical obligation. The basis of the ethical argument is that biodiversity is an intrinsic value and people should avoid destroying other species. The destruction of rain forests in Brazil, for example, directly affects biodiversity, especially since Brazil alone contains almost 25 percent of the world’s plant species. Perhaps the most widespread causes of damage to biodiversity are pollution and global environmental change. Because the economic benefits derived from biodiversity, especially involving pharmaceuticals, are significant and potential benefits are even greater, governments are imposing strict controls on medicinal plants. In 2002, the Group of Allied Mega-Biodiverse Nations was created to certify the legal possession of biological material and to negotiate terms to transfer it.
Developed countries attempted to reduce the destruction of the world’s biodiversity by calling for the establishment of an international regime. Negotiations for such a regime, known as the
Convention on Biological Diversity
, began in 1991. Whereas the developed countries viewed genetic resources as belonging to all, as common heritage, developing countries saw these resources as national resources. The rich countries of the
North
wanted unimpeded access to these resources, particularly for their pharmaceutical and agricultural resources. The poor countries of the South wanted to control genetic resources to derive economic benefits from them. The Convention on Biological Diversity provides for (1) national identification and monitoring of biological diversity, (2) the development of national strategies and programs for conserving biological diversity, (3) environmental assessment procedures to take into account the effects of projects on biological diversity, (4) sharing of research findings in a fair and equitable way, (5) the provision of technology for the conservation and use of genetic resources by the industrial countries, and (6) the facilitation of participation in biotechnology research by countries that provide genetic resources. The UN Climate Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010 contributed to the preservation of biodiversity by providing monetary rewards for countries to preserve their forests under a program known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
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10.2.1: Endangered Species and Wildlife Protection
Many governments, environmental NGOs, and most Americans oppose whale hunting and eating whales—especially after Greenpeace’s successful campaign called Save the Whales. In Japan, however, eating whales is viewed as part of the national culture, especially by older Japanese who survived on whale meat provided by the government after World War II. Whales have received widespread attention partly because of the popularity of Moby-Dick, a book by Herman Melville about the whaling industry in the first half of the nineteenth century. At that time, Americans sailed the Pacific for up to four years at a time searching for whales. They returned to America with great wealth, since whales provided oil for lubricating industrial machinery and for making soap and margarine, baleen for manufacturing corsets and umbrellas, and food. Whaling was also important for making glycerin, which was an essential component in the nitroglycerin that was used in manufacturing dynamite. Military competition among European countries and the outbreak of World War I created a great demand for glycerin. This, in turn, led to an expansion and intensification of whaling. The development of the harpoon cannon between 1864 and 1868 and the invention of factory ships that could process whales at sea hastened the depletion of whales.
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One of the earliest attempts by the international community to prevent the decline and extinction of whales, especially the widely hunted blue whale, came in 1935 when the League of Nations tried to regulate their exploitation. By 1946, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, called for by nations involved in the whaling industry, established the
International Whaling Commission (IWC)
to protect the price of whale oil. For the most part, whales remained unprotected until 1964, when the IWC specifically advocated for the preservation of humpback whales. Blue whales were designated as a protected species a year later. The 1975
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
effectively prohibited trade in whale products. By 1982, the IWC had agreed to a moratorium on whaling, except whaling done by the Inuit of Alaska and Canada, whose diet and culture depended on hunting whales. An exception was also made for catching whales for scientific purposes, a provision that provides a loophole for Japan to continue harvesting a limited number of whales for consumption. In 1986, the moratorium came into effect, and in 1994, the IWC created a whaling sanctuary in the Southern Atlantic and Antarctica.
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However, in 2006, Japan was able to secure a majority on the IWC, a development that facilitated Japan’s resumption of commercial whaling. Japan escalated its whaling activities. However, in 2011, Japan’s annual whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean was terminated early when the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an environmental group, prevented the Japanese from killing whales. Another major threat to whales that is receiving more attention is ships and boats. Many whales are killed or wounded in collisions with oceangoing vessels.
Dolphins, considered an endangered species, especially by the United States, are widely regarded as having human-like qualities. Environmental campaigns, movies and other media, and aquariums have strengthened the perception of dolphins as friendly creatures that must be protected. Threats to dolphins were a by-product of fishing with purse seine nets for tuna that schooled beneath the dolphins. Many dolphins drowned or were severely injured in the nets. Global environmental NGOs pressured consumers to boycott tuna that was caught in such nets. Because the United States is the world’s largest market for tuna, environmentalists in America used the power of consumers to force tuna producers to adopt dolphin-safe measures for catching tuna. The
Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)
, under American leadership, adopted regulations to prevent the endangerment of dolphins, a development that has helped protect dolphins globally.
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Sea turtles are also listed as an endangered or threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. While overfishing of turtles and harvesting their eggs continue to be serious concerns, one major threat to turtles comes from shrimp trawlers. Turtles caught in shrimp nets usually drown. To eliminate this problem, the U.S. government required shrimp trawlers to use turtle extruder devices (TEDs) on their nets. Essentially, these devices are trap doors through which turtles can escape if caught in the net. Apart from arguing that TEDs were a financial burden and that they were losing almost half of the shrimp they caught, shrimp fishers pointed out that foreign fleets did not face similar restrictions, a fact that put U.S. shrimpers at a competitive disadvantage. American environmentalists ultimately succeeded in getting foreign shrimpers to comply with U.S. laws protecting turtles by agreeing with domestic shrimpers that all shrimpers should play by the same rules to ensure fair competition. Another threat to endangered turtles—especially the leatherback turtle, which can weigh up to 1,400 pounds and grow to a length of 7 feet—comes from long-line fishing. Long-line fishing involves a main line that can be as long as thirty miles. The line has branch lines that are roughly two hundred feet apart and are equipped with baited hooks. Some turtles swallow the hooks or become entangled in the lines.
Sharks play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Coral reefs that are inhabited by sharks have more fish and a wider variety of them. Furthermore, reefs with greater biodiversity, including sharks, tend to recover faster from storms and bleaching. When shark numbers are reduced, midsized predators they eat multiply faster and reduce the number of smaller prey like parrotfish. Since parrotfish limit the proliferation of seaweed by eating it, they help to keep coral reefs healthy, and coral reefs protect marine life and the seashore. It is estimated that globally between 100 million and 275 million sharks are killed each year, many of them for their fins. Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy, especially in China. Shark numbers are declining by roughly 6 percent a year, and some species are facing extinction. Global concerns about the preservation of sharks influenced delegates at the CITES meeting in Bangkok in 2013 to add five species of sharks to the endangered species list.
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The African elephant, hunted mostly for ivory tusks for export, is also an endangered species, a designation that drew opposition from some countries, such as Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South African Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These countries had carefully managed their elephant herds and believed that restrictions on ivory exports would unfairly penalize them economically. Compared with African states that depleted their elephant herds, Botswana and the other countries had too many elephants. Conflicts in Africa, combined with demand for ivory in China and elsewhere, influence poachers to slaughter many elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, and other African countries. In a major shift, the Chinese government destroyed about six tons of ivory to discourage poaching of elephants. Other animals in peril are gorillas, chimpanzees, and rhinoceros. Roughly 80 percent of the world’s gorillas and most of its chimpanzees inhabit Gabon and the Republic of Congo. These great apes, our closest relatives, face severe threats from hunting, deforestation, and infectious diseases. The ongoing violence and endemic poverty in Congo continue to contribute to their destruction. In China,
Southeast
Asia, and elsewhere, rhinoceros horns are believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities, a belief that makes them more valuable than gold. Consequently, many rhinos are killed illegally for their horns.
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Worldwide, rare and exotic animals are threatened with extinction because of escalating exotic animal trade in them, aided by the Internet and a global network of traffickers.
10.3: Deforestation
1. 10.3 Identify the causes of deforestation and global efforts to stop it
One of the principal threats to biodiversity is the accelerating rate of global deforestation. The Amazon rainforest is estimated to be disappearing at the rate of 3 million acres a year. The
Congo Basin
—comprised of Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), and Equatorial Guinea, which had the second largest tropical forests in the world—is losing about 8.9 million acres a year to deforestation. Similarly, Russia, which has roughly 22 percent of the world’s forests, is depleting its natural forests. Deforestation is also a major concern in many parts of Asia, especially in light of China’s rapid economic growth and its demand for forest products.
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Forests are essential in biodiversity and to preserve the quality of life, and life itself, for human beings. Forests, especially large rain forests such as the Amazon, have an impact on the global climate. Air quality, water supplies, climate stability, agricultural productivity, and countless human communities are affected by deforestation. Deforestation also reduces the energy produced by hydroelectric plants by diminishing rainfall. It is widely believed that protecting existing forests and planting more trees are essential to diminishing some environmental problems, such as global warming and climate change, because forests soak up between 10 and 20 percent of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide released by industrial smokestacks and automobiles.
10.3.1: Causes of Deforestation
The most pervasive cause of deforestation is the combination of population pressures and poverty. Throughout most of the world, poor people rely on forests for fuel, shelter, agricultural land, and grazing for their animals. The relationship between population pressure, poverty, and deforestation is demonstrated by developments in
Chiapas
, the poorest state in Mexico. Destitute villagers in hundreds of communities in Chiapas cut down trees and burn the undergrowth to create fields for cultivation and grazing cattle. Soon after, the thin layer of topsoil is planted with corn, and the land is left to return to pasture, which is often overgrazed. The exposed soil becomes vulnerable to erosion during heavy tropical rains. Somalia, on the Horn of Africa, provides another example of how poverty accelerates deforestation. Somalia, which lacks an effective central governmental authority to protect the environment, exports tons of charcoal to Middle Eastern countries. The unmanaged logging of Somalian acacia groves and forests that produces the valuable charcoal has resulted in deforestation.
Deforestation is also caused by the deliberate setting of fires by small farmers, commercial farmers, cattle ranchers, logging companies, and governments.
Selective logging
involves cutting down large and particular types of trees in an effort to manage exploitation of forest resources and to promote sustainability. Selective logging contributes to forest fires because as forests are thinned out, humidity decreases, and drier conditions in the forest facilitate the spread of both natural and human-made fires. The forces of economic development play a significant role in global deforestation. Development involves building an extensive
infrastructure
, which includes roads, highways, electrical plants, airports, harbors, railways, large reservoirs, and dams. Another cause of deforestation is the
commercial logging
practices that disregard sustainable development of forest resources. The demand for tropical hardwoods, such as mahogany and teak, is contributing to deforestation in Southeast Asia, Central America, Africa, and elsewhere in the developing world. Government policies have aggressively promoted deforestation in an effort to relocate people to less crowded areas in order to diminish population pressures and encourage economic development. Brazil has used this strategy. Opening up the Amazon was viewed in Brazil as important for national economic growth as well as a way to strengthen the country’s strategic position in South America. Environmental protection was not a priority of the military governments that ruled Brazil. Consequently, between 1970 and 1974, the government implemented its
Plan for National Integration
. This plan included the construction of the Trans-Amazon Highway and offered incentives to agribusiness enterprises and landless peasants, especially from the northeast, to encourage them to settle in the Amazon.
10.3.2: Efforts to Prevent Deforestation
In Brazil, the transition from military rule to democracy has been accompanied by government programs aimed at halting deforestation. The Brazilian government’s perception of the environment has shifted from frontier development toward environmental protection. This change is partly due to growing global awareness of the Amazon’s importance to environmental health and increased global and domestic pressures for change. It is also a result of Brazil’s emphasis on using scientific techniques to greatly improve agricultural production, thereby diminishing the need to cultivate more land. In 1989, the Brazilian government announced the development of its
Nossa Natureza (Our Nature) Program
to reduce the destruction of the Amazon rain forests. The program included (1) suspending fiscal incentives for developing forest resources, (2) limiting log exports, (3) creating national parks, and (4) increasing the emphasis on environmental protection and research. An important component of this effort was the formation of
IBAMA
, the federal environmental protection agency, to monitor environment problems and to enforce environmental laws. Brazil continues to implement measures to prevent deforestation. Efforts such as REDD, discussed earlier, also are helping restore forests.
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Deforestation in Brazil has declined significantly, making that country the world’s leader in efforts to diminish climate change. Another example of government involvement in efforts to diminish deforestation is the agreement reached in 2000 by logging companies, the government of Gabon, and several environmental NGOs to preserve 1,900 square miles of forests that comprise
Gabon’s Lope Reserve
. This area contains very valuable trees and the highest density of large animals, including elephants and gorillas, ever recorded in a tropical rain forest.
One of the most successful grassroots reforestation efforts is by the Green Belt Movement of Kenya. Its objectives include (1) raising awareness of the connection between the environment and poverty; (2) promoting the planting of multiuse trees to meet fuel needs, provide employment, protect the environment, and provide food for the community; and (3) disseminating information on environmental protection through research, seminars, and workshops.
Another approach to addressing the problem of deforestation is
forest certification
. The basic idea is to inform consumers about the origin of wood products and how their production affects the environment. This approach, which aims to promote eco-friendly lumber, has been championed by the
Forest Stewardship Council
, a coalition of environmentalists and lumber executives. The guidelines for gaining certification include complying with national laws aimed at (1) protecting forests, (2) protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, and (3) promoting economic development. Similar efforts have been made by Greenpeace in Indonesia to preserve the forests from companies such as Unilever and Kraft that produce palm oil, used in many consumer products. Palm oil production endangers wildlife and releases carbon dioxide as forests and peatlands are destroyed. Greenpeace pressures companies and their suppliers to implement environmentally sustainable practices.
10.3.3: Ocean Resources—Fishing
Concerned about proper nutrition, more people around the world—especially in Europe, Canada, and the United States—are eating more seafood. The modernization of fishing fleets has made more fish available to global markets. This modernization involves using technology such as electronic fish locators, satellite navigation, temperature depth gauges, purse seine nets, and long-line fishing gear. More than any other food commodity, seafood crosses national boundaries daily. Most fish are exported from Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States.
Fish remained abundant throughout much of the world until relatively recently. John Cabot, the fifteenth-century explorer, claimed that cod were so abundant off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, that he caught them simply by putting a bucket over the side of his ship. The cod fishing grounds in that area supported the fishing fleets of the United States and Canada for hundreds of years after John Cabot was there. By 1992, however, the cod had essentially disappeared. A ban on cod fishing, imposed to rejuvenate the stock, appeared to be futile. There are numerous examples of overfishing and the eventual collapse of fisheries. California’s sardine industry, popularized by John Steinbeck, declined rapidly in the early 1940s and died out three decades later. Faced with declining catches of fish, communities have historically attempted to regulate fishing. Countries that share North Sea fisheries have been very aware of the dangers of overfishing and have tried to adopt measures to limit the problem. Coastal states with rich fishing grounds often clash with countries that support long-distance fishing fleets. To protect their resources, coastal states successfully pushed for the establishment of
exclusive economic zones
, which extend to two hundred miles and over which coastal states exercise jurisdiction. These sovereign rights of coastal areas are recognized by the
Law of the Sea Treaty
. However, many poor countries, especially in Africa, are unable to protect their fisheries from exploitation by foreign commercial fishing fleets. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on Fisheries attempted to mobilize global support for reducing overcapacity in the fishing industry by adopting the
International Plan for the Management of Fishing Capacity (IPMFC)
. But this is a nonbinding agreement. Most states have few incentives to comply with it. Another approach to protecting global fisheries is boycotting restaurants that serve fish that are being severely depleted. For example, there is growing controversy over the depletion of sharks. Many restaurants are pressured to refrain from serving shark in order to conserve those fish.
Approximately 80 percent of Mediterranean fish stocks and 47 percent of Atlantic stocks have been overfished. Faced with the reality that commercial fishing would soon be unsustainable if left unchanged, the European Union agreed to end overfishing by setting quotas at levels consistent with scientific advice and bringing fishing fleet capacity in line with available fish stocks. It also decided to stop the wasteful practice of fishing fleets discarding unwanted fish at sea.
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Many countries have responded to public pressure for ocean conservation by creating
marine protection areas (MPAs)
, mostly in coastal waters. In 2014, both Britain and the United States created huge MPAs. Britain established an MPA of approximately 320,000 square miles around Pitcairn, its 18-square-mile island dependency in the Pacific that is home to roughly sixty-five descendants of the mutineers of the ship Bounty. This prevents fishing fleets from entering the area. The United States expanded its Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to encompass 490,000 square miles of ocean.
10.4: Ocean
Pollution
1. 10.4 Report the causes of ocean pollution
Long perceived as an almost bottomless sink, the seas have been used as dumping grounds for centuries. Major oil spills, rapid development of coastal areas, increased use of petroleum products, the dramatic increase in shipping to meet demands for global trade, and economic globalization and the rise of leisure travel on cruise ships, among other factors, have contributed to significant increases in the pollution of the oceans by oil. Oil spills by tankers, such as the one caused by the
Exxon Valdez
in 1989 off the Alaskan Coast, often generate a sense of urgency about actions to prevent ocean pollution. The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, caused by an accident on the Deepwater Horizon rig operated by BP, attracted global attention.
The toxic and carcinogenic properties of petroleum and the damage it causes to sea life, most of which is immobilized when soaked with oil, are the most obvious negative effects of oil spills. But the longer oil remains on the surface of the oceans, the more it blocks sunrays and oxygen essential for the health and survival of marine life. When an Ecuadorian tanker spilled 243,000 gallons of diesel and bunker fuel in the Galapagos Islands, located about six hundred miles off the Pacific Coast of South America, there was global concern about the impact of the spill on the environment. Apart from the economic consequences, environmentalists, scientists, and others worried about the effects of oil pollution on the species of marine iguanas, giant tortoises, and penguins that are found nowhere else. The unusual diversity of wildlife in the Galapagos Islands was popularized by
Charles Darwin
, who visited the area in 1835 and developed his theory of
natural selection
.
Although major oil spills receive global attention, these accidents account for around 20 percent of global oil pollution at sea. Far more damaging is pollution caused by the deliberate dumping of oil used in shipping operations in the oceans. Oil tankers, container ships, and cruise ships, for example, use ballast water, which is sea water that is pumped into the bottom of the ship to keep it stable when it is not loaded with cargo. Because cargo serves as ballast, ballast water is pumped out when a ship is being loaded. Ballast water is often contaminated by oil.
The most important source of marine oil pollution is from land-based activities in which most of us engage. As your car drips oil onto the driveway, the streets, and the parking lot, you are likely to think of it as a minor inconvenience. Small amounts of oil from your outboard motorboat and jet skis are responsible for roughly 70 percent of marine pollution. These tiny amounts of oil are washed into lakes, streams, and rivers and eventually make their way to the sea, where they damage coastal ecosystems and marine life far beyond the coasts. Oil spills have influenced the development of international law on environmental pollution. The first significant international agreement aimed at reducing ocean pollution was the
International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea (ICPS)
by Oil in 1954. The 1973
International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution by Ships (ICPPS)
limited the amount of discharges from both land and sea for specific pollutants, including oil.
While oil spills attract global attention, chemicals pose an even more serious threat to the oceans. Farmers depend heavily on fertilizers to produce abundant crops, and homeowners try to grow the greenest lawns by liberally applying chemicals. These fertilizers wash into rivers and streams and eventually into the ocean, where they cause the explosive growth of algae. Some algae produce toxins that destroy fish and can poison individuals who consume contaminated seafood. The decomposition of algae creates expansive
dead zones
in oceans by robbing them of oxygen. Heavy metals that are released from burning coal are major pollutants. Ordinary things like plastic bags and bottles and cans drift into the oceans or are dumped there
The Haze of Pollution Hung Over Tiananmen Square in China.
by ships. This garbage forms islands of floating waste such as the
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
, which stretches hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean.
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Adidas and G-Star Raw, a Dutch retailer, collaborate with Parley, an environmental group, to reduce plastic waste in the ocean by recycling it to develop materials that can be used in their products. Adidas, H&M, and other global companies are phasing out the use of plastic bags. In the United States, many municipalities have passed ordinances either banning or establishing a fee for the use of single-use plastic carryout bags in stores and restaurants.
0.5: Global Warming and Climate Change
1. 10.5 Relate the effects of global warming to the worldwide catastrophic effects of climate change
There is a consensus among scientists that greenhouse gases are altering the atmosphere in ways that ultimately contribute to climate change and higher temperatures. The basic assumption is that human activities are the main causes of these climatic developments. But determining human influence on global warming and climate change is complicated by a relative lack of accurate information about climate change over past centuries. Historically, climate has varied significantly. Natural forces such as volcanic eruptions can create climate changes, as was evidenced by the eruption of
Mount Pinatubo
in the Philippines in 1991. Ocean currents also change temperatures. Climate change is linked to accelerated melting of Greenland and Antarctica’s floating ice shelves. Apart from greenhouse gases, factors such as deforestation, urbanization, and agricultural activities also affect the climate.
Evidence of global warming and climate change continues to mount, and because they are directly affected by it in very dire ways, more people around the world believe that the climate is changing. Scientists generally agree that the average global temperature has climbed over the past one hundred years by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Think of the extremes of weather you have seen the past few years. Hurricane Sandy caused major damage in New York; drought devastated agriculture in America’s Great Plains and elsewhere; Britain experienced unprecedented floods; Australia suffered from forest fires, droughts, extreme heat, and floods; and Russia had its coldest winter in seventy-five years. The United States experienced the hottest recorded weather, and Artic air drove temperatures to record lows across the entire country. With more than 110 inches of snow in the winter of 2014–2015, Boston had its snowiest winter on record. At the same time, California experienced severe, prolonged drought. Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest recorded storm to make landfall, devastated the Philippines, and Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu. Insurance companies, whose survival depends on scientific forecasting, have limited their liabilities by abandoning some coastal areas in the United States because of rising sea levels and severe storms. Natural catastrophes in the United States in 2012 caused $35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than the yearly average over the previous ten years.
Millions of people are displaced by drought, floods, rising seas, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events that are generally linked to global warming. Climate change is producing a new category of migrants known as
climate refugees
.
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When our ancestors discovered how to make fire and how to use it, they set into motion a chain of events that would ultimately alter their environment and ours. However, it was the Industrial Revolution that marked a radical step toward the current problems of global warming and climate change because of its use of massive amounts of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. More than a hundred years ago, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, and T. C. Chamberlain, an American geologist, independently discovered that industrialization could lead to increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This could ultimately raise the atmosphere’s temperature by trapping solar radiation that would otherwise be reflected back into space, creating a
greenhouse effect
. The U.S. government issued a report in 1965 that raised concerns about global warming and climate change. However, national security during the Cold War took precedence over more distant threats such as environmental problems. Congress, under the leadership of Representative Al Gore, held hearings in the early 1980s on global warming. In 1988, after National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist James Hansen told Congress that he was 99 percent certain that the greenhouse effect had been detected and that it was already changing our climate, Congress established the
U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
to study human-induced climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion from industrial emissions.
Tables 10.1
and
10.2
show the implications of global warming and regional climate change, respectively.
Acid rain and ozone depletion preceded global awareness and concern about global warming. Air pollution from Europe’s industrial societies, especially Britain and Germany, was identified by Svante Oden, a Swedish scientist, as a leading cause of the increasing acidification of precipitation, known as acid rain, in the Scandinavian countries in the late 1960s. Acid rain caused by industrial activities in the United States was also a major concern for Canada, where more than sixteen thousand lakes were affected.
Acid rain
, composed of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and volatile organic compounds, is caused primarily by burning coal. By increasing the acidity of lakes, rivers, and streams, acid rain damages animal and plant life. It has also destroyed buildings in Greece, Italy, and other parts of Europe. Ozone depletion was also identified as a serious environmental problem resulting from air pollution. The
ozone layer
of our atmosphere protects us from ultraviolet (UV) radiation that causes skin cancers, genetic changes in animals and plants, eye disorders, and suppression of our immune systems. Agricultural productivity and fisheries are also affected. Ozone depletion is most severe in Antarctica and the Northern Hemisphere. The major cause of ozone depletion was discovered to be
CFCs
, synthetic products developed by DuPont and used in a wide range of products, including air conditioning, refrigeration, foam packaging, and aerosols. CFCs, when released into the atmosphere, react with UV light to form chlorine. It is this chlorine that destroys the ozone.
Table 10.1 Global Warming
Sources: U.S. News and World Report, “10 Ways Global Warming Could Hurt Your Health,” 2011, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/ (accessed April 29, 2011); “WWF: Impacts of Global Warming on Corals,” http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/problems/impacts/coral_reefs/ (accessed April 29, 2011).
Effects of Global Warming |
Implications |
Areas Most Affected |
Floods |
· Rising sea levels and heavy rains could displace millions of people and leave many areas under water · More refugees |
Coastal United States, Australia, Pacific Islands, Holland, Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Mozambique, Nigeria |
Heat waves |
· Increase in deaths from heatstroke, forest fires, and skin cancer |
Southern Europe, United States, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia |
Diseases |
· Warmer, wetter weather could increase insect-transmitted and waterborne illnesses |
United States, Central and South America, Africa, Asia |
Coral bleaching |
· Depleted fisheries and coastal flooding |
Caribbean, Australia, Philippines, India |
Pollution |
· Coastal flooding · Decline of tourism · More respiratory problems, cancer, lung and heart diseases |
United States, Mexico, India, China, Egypt, Russia |
Drought |
· Crop failure · Malnutrition · Forest fires · Water-related conflicts |
United States, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Africa, Middle East, Spain |
Table 10.2 Regional Climate Change in the United States
Sources: Guardian.co.uk, “Carbon Levels Hit New Peak, Research Shows,”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/31/carbon-levels-peak
(accessed 31 May 2011); “A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself,” New York Times, June 5, 2011, A1.
Region |
Likely Climate Changes |
Northeast |
Decline in winter weather extremes; more flooding; hotter summers; changes in forest species |
Southeast |
Rising sea levels; disappearance of some coastal wetlands, barrier islands, and beaches; increase in water quality problems |
Great Lakes |
Declining water levels due to increased evaporation; increased transportation and shoreline problems due to lower water levels; shipping lanes open longer due to warmer weather |
Midwest–Great Plains |
Extreme summer heat; milder winters; longer growing season; heavier rainfall; flash flooding; more droughts |
Mountain West |
Warmer winters; less snow; water problems; drier mountain regions; loss of mountain ecosystems |
Southwest |
Increased moisture; increased crop diversity; more flooding and fire risks; changes in desert ecosystem |
Northwest–Alaska |
Salmon could migrate northward due to warmer water temperatures in the Pacific; more rain in summer; rising sea levels; permafrost thawing will increase and more roads and buildings will be damaged due to warmer weather in Alaska; shipping lanes will be open longer due to warmer weather |
Each year, parts of Southeast Asia are covered with thick haze generated from numerous forest fires, most of which are in Indonesia. These fires are caused primarily by the lucrative palm oil industry. Neighboring Singapore and Malaysia are usually so polluted that the air is a health hazard. Throughout the developing world, wood and coal are used to cook and heat homes. Many people use kerosene lamps because they do not have electricity. Diesel engines are used throughout the world. All of these sources produce particles known as
black carbon
, or soot. Black carbon is the second most important contributor to global warming and climate change after carbon dioxide. Black carbon absorbs heat and darkens clouds, which impact climate. It plays a major role in changing precipitation patterns. When it falls on glaciers or in the Arctic, it melts the ice faster. To reduce the effects of black carbon, groups such as the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition help provide modern stoves that produce less black carbon to people in the developing world. Installing diesel engine exhausts that trap carbon particles and eliminating old vehicles that pollute would immediately reduce black carbon. Lessening black carbon is seen as the most practical and cheapest way to diminish global warming and climate change.
Coral reefs around the world, from Great Barrier Reef of Australia (which stretches 1,500 miles along the country’s east coast) to Caribbean reefs, are dying, due partly to rising sea temperatures linked to global warming. The Great Barrier Reef was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
Reductions in the production of greenhouse gases are widely perceived to be the solution to diminishing global warming and climate change and their effects. The Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, generally known as the
Kyoto Protocol
, is clearly the most important global environmental agreement and reflects an increasing awareness of environmental globalization. But economic, scientific, and ideological disagreements have weakened the Kyoto Protocol’s effectiveness. The United States opposed the agreement on the grounds that the imposition of emission controls would be detrimental to its economy. Developing countries that are energy exporters give four main reasons for opposing global efforts to reduce emissions: (1) emission controls will reduce their revenues by decreasing energy consumption, (2) imports from industrialized countries would be more expensive because of measures taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, (3) the development of new fuels to help cut down emissions is likely to reduce demand for their exports, and (4) oil, gas, and coal resources are part of their heritage. Following the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by more than ninety-six countries, many developing countries supported the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, which supports the right of poor countries to develop their own appropriate strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Meeting in Warsaw in 2013, delegates to UN climate change talks agreed to the broad outlines of a proposed system for pledging emissions cuts and supported a treaty to deal with human costs of rising seas, floods, and storms.
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The European Union agreed on a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
The Kyoto Protocol allows countries to use market forces to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Targets are determined for lower levels of emissions, and then permits are issued for that set level. Companies that exceed their target by not producing so much pollution can sell extra permits to companies that need to meet their targets. This approach is referred to as
emissions trading
, or cap-and-trade. Many European countries use this approach. Britain and Denmark, for example, trade greenhouse gases to reduce climate change. The
Chicago Climate Exchange
is the first attempt to decrease greenhouse gases through a market approach. The International Civil Aviation Organization and airline representatives from around the world agreed to develop global rules to reduce airline emissions. Another approach, favored by the United States, is to rely primarily on forests to reduce the effects of emissions from industries and automobiles. But the long-term effectiveness of using forests instead of taking other major steps to reduce greenhouse gases is debatable. Although the world is far from meeting global goals on reducing emissions and the use of coal continues to grow, there is a decrease in the growth of emissions. This is due to greater reliance on natural gas in the United States, more hydroelectric power in China and elsewhere, tougher mileage standards for new cars and trucks, and slower economic growth globally.
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10.6: Water Scarcity
1. 10.6 Review the issue of water scarcity as an important component of the broader issues of environmental and global security
At the foundation of human existence and life on Earth is water. The most common and abundant liquid in the world, water is at the heart of global environmental issues. Water, particularly potable water, is fueling conflicts globally. Increasing demands for water by the world’s growing and increasingly more affluent populations threaten to create widespread shortages of freshwater. Water, in many ways, defines how we live and determines the limit of sustainable development. Imagine life without adequate water. Think of all the adjustments you would have to make just to survive. Parts of the United States—especially Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming—experience severe water shortages. Tensions routinely flare up between the United States and Mexico over water rights to the Rio Grande and the Colorado River. There are disputes between India and Pakistan over the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers, between China and neighboring Southeast Asian states over the Mekong River, and between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Nile River. Increasing urbanization, industrialization, and the environmental problems we have discussed are likely to accelerate these problems. Southern Europe, Australia, South Korea, China, and parts of Africa are experiencing severe water shortages. India faces severe water problems that seriously threaten to undermine its economic growth and public health. Nearly one billion people do not have safe drinking water.
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Water scarcity
—defined as a lack of secure, uninterrupted, and long-term availability of adequate amounts of freshwater of required quality—is becoming an important component of the broader issues of environmental and global security. As we saw in
Chapter 1
, security issues go beyond traditional military threats. When a country that is extremely dependent on water coming from rivers or streams in another country perceives that its supplies are threatened, it could use military force to resolve the problem. For example, when Lebanon decided to begin pumping water from the Wazzani Springs in late 2002, tensions with Israel intensified. The Wazzani Springs supply the Hasbani River, which is a tributary of the Jordan River. Israel depends on the Jordan River for water. Concerned about tensions over water erupting into war, the United States dispatched a water expert from the U.S. Department of State to try to resolve the conflict. The struggle to control water supplies is an important component of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Rapid population growth and more opulent lifestyles put great pressure on water in an area with some of the world’s lowest supplies of water
Natural Disasters, Often Overlooked by Environmentalists, have Significant Environmental, Economic, Social, and Political Implications. Residents dug through the rubble of their homes in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake.
per capita. While Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories have water for sprinklers and swimming pools, Palestinian water supplies are controlled by Israel and are severely restricted and polluted. In coastal areas and on islands worldwide, rising seawater, due in part to global warming, is likely to contaminate freshwater supplies. In Indonesia, Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia, rising seawater is creating numerous problems, including reduced rice harvests and the relocation of millions of people.
Faced with severe water shortages that sharply diminished agricultural productivity, forced ranchers to thin their herds, idled industrial and agricultural production, and threatened power plants, states in America such as Texas have allocated billions of dollars to ensure that they have adequate water supplies in the future. Global companies, which depend heavily on water, view water scarcity as a leading problem. More than ninety-three corporations have joined the
UN Global Impact’s CEO Water Mandate
, a public-private partnership to promote water sustainability. Companies such as Pepsi, Caterpillar, Levi Strauss, IKEA, Merck, and SAB Miller are increasing their water-related investments. Countries such as India are focusing on harvesting rainwater in ponds to replenish wells and springs. Harvesting rainwater from the roofs of houses and other buildings is seen as part of the solution to water scarcity.
Case Study The Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0, estimated to be as powerful as thirty thousand Hiroshima atomic bombs, struck off the northeastern coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami that caused widespread destruction. Approximately 15,856 people died and another 2,643 were missing. The damage was estimated at a cost of $235 billion. Although environmentalists are predominantly preoccupied with damage to the environment by human activities, the earthquake and tsunami clearly underscore human vulnerability to natural forces beyond our control. This natural disaster, the most expensive in history, also demonstrates limits to solutions to environmental challenges. Japan, which invented the word tsunami, is the best-prepared country in the world for earthquakes and tsunamis. Still, it suffered unprecedented destruction. These realities reinforce the importance of focusing on human security, discussed in
Chapter 1
.
Developments in Japan also illustrate that attempting to solve some environmental problems can make the world even more vulnerable to others. Nuclear power, widely viewed as a clean source of sustainable energy that would diminish dependence on polluting fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reinvigorated environmental groups and others concerned about the dangers of radiation from nuclear power plants. Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster became a major global issue partly because of the rapid expansion of the construction of nuclear power plants globally, especially in China and India, to deal with increasing energy demand. The Fukushima nuclear disaster influenced environmental activists in China to demonstrate against the government’s expansion of nuclear power.
The 1968 nuclear power disaster at Chernobyl, in Ukraine, that spread contamination across Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, and other countries in Europe, provides a prism through which Japan’s problems can be seen. Experiences gained from this earlier environmental catastrophe prompted the Japanese government to act quickly to evacuate people closest to the nuclear power plant, to advise others to remain indoors, and to distribute potassium iodide tablets to protect residents from getting thyroid cancer. Soldiers used power shovels and other heavy construction equipment to cut through mountains of debris. Roughly one hundred thousand troops, the largest number since World War II, were mobilized to help deal with the consequences of the natural disaster. The global response to environmental problems in Japan included critical examinations of nuclear power. China, which is also vulnerable to earthquakes, reaffirmed its policy of not building nuclear power plants close to urban areas or earthquake fault lines. Germany announced a permanent phasing out of nuclear power, and the European Union tested all the nuclear power plants in twenty-seven countries to ensure preparedness for emergencies such as floods, tsunamis, and terrorist attacks. Japan’s problems rekindled American fears of a repeat of the Three Mile Island nuclear power accident in 1979 and eroded public support for building more nuclear power plants to enhance energy independence and reduce global warming. Americans also purchased potassium iodide capsules and called on the U.S. government to implement the law that provides for giving potassium iodide tablets to people living near nuclear power plants.
The earthquake and tsunami had significant global economic and financial consequences. The epicenter of the tsunami was Sendai-Shiogama, one of Japan’s largest ports and the point from where Sony, Canon, Pioneer, and other global companies ship their products. Shipping stopped due to damaged infrastructure, including ports, roads, and railways. Automobile factories around the world experienced production problems as a result of shortages of various components made in Japan. The cost of chips used in cameras, smartphones, and computers increased dramatically. Toshiba, which manufactures about one-third of chips globally, closed some of its factories, thereby reducing production. The disaster interrupted Japan’s supply chain, which severely affected many aspects of global trade. It created doubts about the just-in-time approach to business discussed in
Chapter 8
. Financial markets declined sharply, led by a 16 percent drop in shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Huge financial losses were borne by insurance and reinsurance companies globally and by the Japanese government. China expressed concern about radiation contaminating its coastal waters and affecting marine life. The United States, South Korea, and Singapore inspected food imported from Japan for radiation. America banned imports from areas near the nuclear power plant. Combined with the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa that increased oil prices, the natural disaster in Japan created fears of a slowdown of the fragile global economy.
This case study clearly demonstrates that human solutions to environmental problems are sometimes overwhelmed by the awesome power of nature. Roughly ten thousand miles of Japan’s coastline had concrete seawalls (some as high as forty feet), breakwaters, and other structures to protect the country from high seas, tsunamis, and typhoons. Some coastal cities installed networks of sensors that set off alarms in individual residences and automatically close floodgates. There are routine earthquake and tsunami drills. Buildings are constructed with extra steel bracing, giant rubber pads, and embedded hydraulic shock absorbers to withstand earthquakes. Following the Kobe earthquake in 1995, which killed about six thousand people, Japan invested billions of dollars developing the most advanced building technologies. Still, all of these efforts did not prevent devastation. But the damage would undoubtedly have been more massive without them.
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Radiation from the nuclear power plant has reinvigorated debate about finding other, less dangerous, sources of sustainable clean energy and ways to reduce energy consumption. However, Japan restarted its nuclear power plants and renewed its reliance on nuclear energy.
Summary
Environmental problems illustrate how much developments in other parts of the world can impact our lives. Environmental problems cannot be contained by arbitrary national boundaries. Environmental factors have played an important historical role in the rise and fall of great civilizations, the spread of infectious diseases, war, economic prosperity, and many other international issues. Environmental problems are intertwined with politics, economics, and culture. Despite the importance of the environment in our lives, however, movements to protect the environment are relatively new. The global environmental movement emerged principally in Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. Attention to the environment was spurred, in large part, by a tremendous population growth and rapid industrialization that took place with little regard for the serious environmental ramifications, such as deforestation and deteriorating health standards. Nuclear weapons proliferation in the United States and Soviet Union also increased concern for environmental issues.
Biodiversity is a fundamental preoccupation of environmentalists and NGOs. This is such an important issue because the destruction of some species could upset the balance of the ecosystem, resulting in the loss of other species and the alteration of the ecosystem. Biodiversity affects many groups and individuals, such as those interested in deforestation, agriculture, biotechnology, anthropology, pharmaceuticals, sustainable development, global trade, and ethics. Another major concern of environmentalists is water, the foundation for human existence. The planet’s increasing population is threatening to create widespread shortages of freshwater. Roughly two thirds of freshwater consumed each year goes to irrigate farms. Compared with other environmental problems, global warming is sometimes perceived as being a less immediate issue. While there is evidence that human activities cause most climate changes, determining how much human activity influences global warming and climate change continues to be debated, partly because there is little information about climate change over past centuries. However, global warming is generally viewed as contributing to rising oceans, more destructive hurricanes, and extensive flooding.
Discussion Questions
1. The global environmental movement emerged primarily in Western Europe and North America. What were some of the issues that led to the creation of this movement?
2. Because of the global nature of environmental problems, international agreements are often used to address environmental issues. What are some factors that influence these agreements?
3. Why is deforestation an important issue? Discuss the causes of deforestation and global efforts to stop it.
4. Discuss the impact of black carbon (soot) on the environment and efforts to reduce it.
5. Discuss how environmental problems affect women and indigenous peoples.
6. What are some of the strategies that environmental NGOs use to achieve their objectives? Give examples of how these strategies have been applied.