China and India used to be lower industiralised, but now they are emerging as newly industrialised. The economic growth in these countries is more than any other in the world. India’s human and economic developments are bad for the country, but the consequences of the growth are good for the country. Whereas China’s growth is good for the country, but the consequences are bad for it.
Increased population from economic migration and potential job prospects help development, but also decreases human welfare for individuals due to lack of resources and sanitation and puts pressure on wages. There will be a reduction of poverty, proven by China overtaking India’s economic growth by 4.5% in 13 years.
Investment opportunities have increased, leading to more transnational companies or businesses, globalisation of trades and services and a high cultural influence. For example; the Pearl River Delta region in Hong Kong has been transformed into a business district of heavily urban buildings and money making companies. From a political standing, this could give China and India more of an influence of opinion in new policies and suggested strategies in all aspects of global management, but also cause it to become heavily dependent on core countries for investments. This increase in businesses has consequences like over exploitation of resources. This causes water scarcity, food chain and ecosystem disturbances and loss of biodiversity that is already under pressure from climate change. The hydrological cycle could be thrown out of its delicate balance and groundwater sources will deplete due to increased temperatures causing transpiration.
The millennium ecosystem assessment, formed by the United Nations aims for a sustainable world by 2015. The larger CO2 emissions make this aim harder and harder to achieve in the allotted time. The IPCC assess the anthropogenic factors that cause climate change and according to statistics, China and India are main contributors to CO2 emissions. The pollution in these countries is causing respiratory problems, disease and death. China has had 590,000 premature annual deaths due to urban air pollution, and India has had 460,000, according to figure 15, they are the two biggest contributors. The public that have experiences these deaths may think that their countries policies are inadequate or inefficient, causing political instability within the government to rethink their approaches.
Geopolitics is heavily linked to the risks of continuing growth. India and China compete for dwindling resources of energy and water due to the increased demand and population change. Price wars for gas and oil causes the market to increase and prices sky-rocket, and OPEC struggle to ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of oil to consumers.
The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) advices the US president about national and global intelligence which influences US foreign policy and came up with 4 scenarios about the future balance of world power. One of the most statistically likely to happen is the “BRIC’s bust-up” which explains that there will be an increase in conflicts between powers over resources and the countries containing the resources will have more control as other countries become dependent on them.
In conclusion, weighing up the benefits with the impacts of economic and political growth, the risks are too high to stop growth and focus on the environment all the time or the country will lose their global influence. I think that governments will take the environment into account, but will not sacrifice their economy for sustainable resources and development.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Japan's Unfair Trade Is Disturbing
The recent report by our Commerce Department indicating a huge negative foreign-trade imbalance with Japan and China should be very disturbing to our administration and Congress. While Japan's negative balance is twice as large as China's, all of the pressure by our trade negotiator, Mickey Kanter, appears to be on China.
Have we capitulated to the Japanese, convinced that we cannot make it open its markets to us and level the economic playing field? Our most capable negotiators have asked them to open their markets to American factories, farm products, insurance and engineering companies, etc., but to no avail. Yet China, with a potential consumer market of more than a billion people for our export, was threatened with a penalty, averted on the last day.
This is not to say that China should be allowed to continue it's copyright and patent dishonesty. But why have we allowed Japan, with a much smaller consumer potential market, to laugh all the way to the bank with a $65 billion trade surplus by finding devious ways to stonewall our negotiators?
Is our government afraid that the Japanese will dump the golf courses, hotels, farmland, and key real estate on a soft real-estate market? We are concerned that they will close some of their automobile factories in their most lucrative market? Or that they may dump their huge holdings of U.S. treasury bills on Wall Street?
Not likely. With their own soft economy and the American dollar at its lowest rate of exchange with the yen, there is no chance that the Japanese would risk such losses on its investments. Its farmers protest the purchase of American farm products. Our automobiles are overpriced on showroom floors, as are all American-made products. Our construction and engineering companies are not allowed to bid on government contracts. And yet our markets are wide open.
The difference appears to be that China threatened retaliation and Japan gives us a toothy smile and sends our negotiators home with promises. Their files and trash cans must be filled with negotiating contracts and deals that never are signed and delivered to Washington.
Have we capitulated to the Japanese, convinced that we cannot make it open its markets to us and level the economic playing field? Our most capable negotiators have asked them to open their markets to American factories, farm products, insurance and engineering companies, etc., but to no avail. Yet China, with a potential consumer market of more than a billion people for our export, was threatened with a penalty, averted on the last day.
This is not to say that China should be allowed to continue it's copyright and patent dishonesty. But why have we allowed Japan, with a much smaller consumer potential market, to laugh all the way to the bank with a $65 billion trade surplus by finding devious ways to stonewall our negotiators?
Is our government afraid that the Japanese will dump the golf courses, hotels, farmland, and key real estate on a soft real-estate market? We are concerned that they will close some of their automobile factories in their most lucrative market? Or that they may dump their huge holdings of U.S. treasury bills on Wall Street?
Not likely. With their own soft economy and the American dollar at its lowest rate of exchange with the yen, there is no chance that the Japanese would risk such losses on its investments. Its farmers protest the purchase of American farm products. Our automobiles are overpriced on showroom floors, as are all American-made products. Our construction and engineering companies are not allowed to bid on government contracts. And yet our markets are wide open.
The difference appears to be that China threatened retaliation and Japan gives us a toothy smile and sends our negotiators home with promises. Their files and trash cans must be filled with negotiating contracts and deals that never are signed and delivered to Washington.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Earth's Economical Growth Limit Theory
Since 1970, environmentalists have increasingly brought up the same theme that there is a limit to growth on Earth. This is linked to many different aspects of globalisation, sustainable resources and population increase.
Thomas Malthus, for example, believes that overcrowding is inevitable, as population grows geometrically, whereas ‘the means of subsistence’ only grows arithmetically. Some economists take this theory further and argue that productive activities face a ‘law of diminishing returns’.
Malthus believes that only famine, disease and war can hold back population growth.
So far, Malthus’ theory has been disproved by the fact that food supply growth is as fast as population growth and the world’s economic output has grown even faster. No difference has been seen between arithmetic and geometric growth as of yet.
Malthus’ overcrowding theory can be classified by Allen’s (1995) geographical ideas about globalisation. Allen explains overcrowding as a simple illusion created mainly by MEDCs. Space is continually shrinking due to more efficient transport and communication. This makes countries seem closer together than reality, considering how easy it is to move around the world. Unequal interdependence can cause international market dominance and small businesses can become bankrupt from the increasing competition overseas. Integration can cause an underlying moral panic from the threat of minority beliefs dominating the majority’s beliefs due to increased migration. This problem has a solution however; we can educate society about other beliefs so people do not remain ignorant and not rely on stereotypes for their opinions. All these factors create a strong illusion of overcrowding in many forms, which spreads throughout the links in society.
The natural world provides society’s life-support system and resource base. The Earth is finite in human resources, whereas economy, the multinationals and the world cities are able to grow indefinitely. Finite unsustainable resources are causing a threat, as society has been exploiting them in and unsustainable way. Now human society must steer away from the tipping point in order to become sustainable. The changes will not be immediate or of any great magnitude, as we have become used to the exploitation that provides us with electricity that we use daily, whereas, if we had began sustainably, no change would be needed. Unsustainable resources are only unsustainable because human society exploits them in an unsustainable way.
The prospect of damage to natural systems and exhaustion of natural resources due to global exploitation of minerals like crude oil, causes and underlying moral panic to businesses and environmentalists. This is because the demand for resources will succumb to a global increase and put pressure on the economy link with businesses that deal directly or indirectly with natural resources. This can also affect human society from an interpretivist perspective, as costs of resources would increase with the demand and moral panic would spread along the links between countries using globalisation. This then adds to Allen’s theory of the illusion of over-crowing, through the lack of oil affecting transportation, therefore causing unequal interdependence to increase and smaller businesses must face a complete collapse due to their dependency on natural resources for profits.
On the other hand, integration may slow to a steady rate, as transport links become less efficient and prevent immigration to countries like the
Population growth is not the only cause of the world’s overcrowding, but human society’s impacts on each other and the Earth through our lifestyles. Affluent and over-consuming societies will have a greater negative impact on the environment than lesser, producer-orientated societies, even if they are in the minority. Areas experiencing economy and population growth like MEDCs are having a heavy impact. Even developing countries have some of the biggest environmental impacts in the world. For example, Mumbai has developed its city to try and keep up with the 21st century market. The economic growth has greatly helped the city increase, but its GDP is not high enough for its government to afford to cut down on its CO2 emissions. This can only be fixed by increasing business opportunities to give the government more money through taxes and GDP. Unfortunately, this means that CO2 emissions will have to increase before they can decrease. With the world so near the tipping point, and debatably past it already, can we afford to put this kind of pressure on the environment?
Opinionated by Hoxy, aged 16
Resources: “An Overcrowded World?” by Sarre and Blunden
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Galapagos Islands - A threatened hotspot?
Are the Galapagos islands a typical example of a threatened biodiversity hotspot? What is this nature of the threats and how is their management effective?
A biodiversity hotspot is an area or region with a significant range of species, which are threatened with distruction. There are 25 hotspots placed worldwide, mainly based in the tropics, near the equator or in coastal areas. According to Myers, a hotspot analiser, a region must contain at least 0.5% species as endemics (unique to that area) and has to have lost at least 70% of it's primary vegetation. Succession is the proccess of growth in plants, from small primary vegetation to large trees in secondary vegetation.
Due to the high profile of biodiversity hotspots, they have recieve criticism from papers such as Kareiva and Marvier for not adequatly representing and protecting the areas of declining biodiversity. Some companies that work with the hotspots are; The World Wildlife Fund, Alliance for Zero Extinction, The National Geographic Society and Conservation International all have a say in how biodiversity hotspots are managed.
The Galapagos Islands are one of the 25 hotspots are the world, situated off the west coast of America. These islands are part of the Equadorian province. The Ecuadorian government technically restricts access to the islands so that if you want to get there as a tourist you should go through a registered agent. That said, there are numerous operators who visit the islands without any permits. The Galapagos Islands were made a World Heritage site in 1978, as were the waters between them. Government of Ecuador is unable to effectively police tourism, illegal immigration, fishing or anything else of concern on the islands. Rapid growth in tourism due to the expanding demand for marine products like sea cucumbers and lobster, has led to a rise in migration and with these activities have come an increased amount of feral species, both plant and animal.
Because the islands are so small and many of the species are native to only one island, a high proportion (at least 60%) of vertebrate species are already endangered and 25% of plants are extinct.
Because the islands are so small and many of the species are native to only one island, a high proportion (at least 60%) of vertebrate species are already endangered and 25% of plants are extinct.
Conservation efforts are of being made, but the local authorities are unable to keep up with the arrival of new species from unregulated planes and and boats arriving daily.
The Government of Equador are trying to encourage conservation by enabling people to volunteer to help using media like internet and adverts to get international help.
CRACYP is a Equadorian conservation organisation. Their Galapagos Islands conservation project focuses on supporting the control of selected introduced species in the Galapagos Islands, as well as the sustainable development of the local communities through organic agriculture.
Many Galapagos reptiles are at risk of extinction. For example; the giant tortoise and the marine iguana, which is the only sea-going lizard alive. This is loss of species is very typical of biodiversity hotspots and which make the Galapagos Islands an official biodiversity hotspot.
While there are a great number of issues and problems facing the fragile environment of the Galapagos, there are success stories and potential solutions as well. The introduced eradication program, though slow going, has eliminated feral goats from several small islands. Dogs are now absent from the island of Isabela. The efforts to reintroduce and repopulate species such as elephantine tortoise have increased their numbers dramatically. Environmental education efforts on the Islands help their inhabitants understand the larger picture and need for conservation, and responsible tourism and enforced park guidelines help preserve the Galapagos for the future. But there are seemingly endless needs for the park's preservation, and always limited funding.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Introduction to Geography
For those of you who didnt do Geography in school, i just have to tell you, that Geography is about EVERYTHING.
I will chat about different topics that i happen to be studying at the time, and give you questions to think about by yourselves, or you can post your opinions in the comment box, as i would love to here from you!
Lets start off with a topic most of you should know about:
Topic 1: Renewable Energy.
We all know this business about global warming, which is basically the warming of the earth due to an increase in greenhouse gases from our cars and essentially cow pat. If some of you are still confused about greenhouse gases, just think of a greenhouse. The glass is our atmosphere and the earth is getting warmer and warmer inside from the sun. This global warming is melting our polar ice caps and all the cute little baby penguins are running out of land! We dont want that now, do we?
This is all happening from using too much energy sources like oil, gas and coal. Some people know of nuclear energy as a bad thing, but let me correct you. When nuclear energy goes right, its the cleanest and most efficient of all energy sources, using Uranium for nuclear fission with big explosions, and they harness the energy from the nuclear fission. Unfortunately i am not a scientist and dont know the details. But when nuclear energy goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong.
Some of you may have heard of Chernobyl in Russia. Basically it was a nuclear powerstation, that didnt get enough water to cool down the reactor due to what they think is human error, and it blew sky high! Sheep 100 miles away can't graze on the land from the radiation. Basically, it was very bad!
So, if like Greenpeace, you are against nuclear energy and the use of fossil fuels... then what else could we use?
Well, we could use wind energy? If anyones seen the big white fans in feilds, you'll know what i mean. The wind spins the fans to power the generator and get energy. Simple. But, they are very expensive and not that efficiant and retaining energy. Birds are even known to fly into them! Some might find that funny, but im sure the birds wouldn't!
We could use sun power. I'm sure everyone's seen a solar panel in their life. They absorb the energy from the sun's waves for power. But if we think about it, what happens at night?
We could use coal... Essentially the burning of air between rocks. But there is alot of transportation needed and the mining is pretty extreme. The greenhouse gas emissions are very high, so we'd possibly be going backwards a bit there.
Theres hydroelectric energy. They can turn rivers into dams and use the power of gravity on the water to turn the turbine and get energy. But it can dangerously effect the habitation of fish and small mammals. The poor little fish can get sucked into the turbine. Not pleasent. There is also an increased flood risk further upstream as the water has no where to go. Vigerous landscaping is involved in creating the dam using pipes etc. So is it worth it?
We could use Gas. Natural gas burning from oil and gas "feilds". The greenhouse gas emissions are less than coal, but gas in toxic to humans and must be kept in storage in huge underground caverns. But if you left it alone for thousands of years, it would essentially turn into lead, seeing as lead is the most balanced of particles...
Theres biomass, the transformation of organic matter into energy. This sounds like a good plan, but unfortunately the fertiliser added to the plant to speed up it's growth damages the soil and the greenhouse gas emission from the burning of the organic matter is the highest of any renewable resources.
Wave energy could be useful. This is the use of the sea to turn turbines as the waves break on the beach. But animals can be affected by this, and the building of platforms at sea is dangerous for sea creatures.
Geothermal energy is the use of warmth from the earths core to spin a turbine for energy. The drilling of holes to release the heat is very extensive and affects land stability. But the greenhouse gas emissions from this are very low.
So which do we use? Solar, wind, nuclear, coal, hydroelectricity, gas, biomass, wave or geothermality.
Let me know your opinions in the comment box!
I will chat about different topics that i happen to be studying at the time, and give you questions to think about by yourselves, or you can post your opinions in the comment box, as i would love to here from you!
Lets start off with a topic most of you should know about:
Topic 1: Renewable Energy.
We all know this business about global warming, which is basically the warming of the earth due to an increase in greenhouse gases from our cars and essentially cow pat. If some of you are still confused about greenhouse gases, just think of a greenhouse. The glass is our atmosphere and the earth is getting warmer and warmer inside from the sun. This global warming is melting our polar ice caps and all the cute little baby penguins are running out of land! We dont want that now, do we?
This is all happening from using too much energy sources like oil, gas and coal. Some people know of nuclear energy as a bad thing, but let me correct you. When nuclear energy goes right, its the cleanest and most efficient of all energy sources, using Uranium for nuclear fission with big explosions, and they harness the energy from the nuclear fission. Unfortunately i am not a scientist and dont know the details. But when nuclear energy goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong.
Some of you may have heard of Chernobyl in Russia. Basically it was a nuclear powerstation, that didnt get enough water to cool down the reactor due to what they think is human error, and it blew sky high! Sheep 100 miles away can't graze on the land from the radiation. Basically, it was very bad!
So, if like Greenpeace, you are against nuclear energy and the use of fossil fuels... then what else could we use?
Well, we could use wind energy? If anyones seen the big white fans in feilds, you'll know what i mean. The wind spins the fans to power the generator and get energy. Simple. But, they are very expensive and not that efficiant and retaining energy. Birds are even known to fly into them! Some might find that funny, but im sure the birds wouldn't!
We could use sun power. I'm sure everyone's seen a solar panel in their life. They absorb the energy from the sun's waves for power. But if we think about it, what happens at night?
We could use coal... Essentially the burning of air between rocks. But there is alot of transportation needed and the mining is pretty extreme. The greenhouse gas emissions are very high, so we'd possibly be going backwards a bit there.
Theres hydroelectric energy. They can turn rivers into dams and use the power of gravity on the water to turn the turbine and get energy. But it can dangerously effect the habitation of fish and small mammals. The poor little fish can get sucked into the turbine. Not pleasent. There is also an increased flood risk further upstream as the water has no where to go. Vigerous landscaping is involved in creating the dam using pipes etc. So is it worth it?
We could use Gas. Natural gas burning from oil and gas "feilds". The greenhouse gas emissions are less than coal, but gas in toxic to humans and must be kept in storage in huge underground caverns. But if you left it alone for thousands of years, it would essentially turn into lead, seeing as lead is the most balanced of particles...
Theres biomass, the transformation of organic matter into energy. This sounds like a good plan, but unfortunately the fertiliser added to the plant to speed up it's growth damages the soil and the greenhouse gas emission from the burning of the organic matter is the highest of any renewable resources.
Wave energy could be useful. This is the use of the sea to turn turbines as the waves break on the beach. But animals can be affected by this, and the building of platforms at sea is dangerous for sea creatures.
Geothermal energy is the use of warmth from the earths core to spin a turbine for energy. The drilling of holes to release the heat is very extensive and affects land stability. But the greenhouse gas emissions from this are very low.
So which do we use? Solar, wind, nuclear, coal, hydroelectricity, gas, biomass, wave or geothermality.
Let me know your opinions in the comment box!
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