The Environment as a Global Issue

This chapter presents the debates involving globalization and the environment. A general introductory discussion of the phenomenon of globalization is needed before the relationship between globalization and environment can be examined. There is no single discourse on globalization, or on globalization and the environment. Rather, globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon and this is reflected in the literature on globalization as well as on globalization and ecology. In order to structure this chapter, we have used the traditional distinction between political, economic and sociocultural globalization as heuristic categories. However, we have added an introductory historical section in order to place our understanding of globalization in a historical context. We conclude by illustrating our analysis with a case study on trade and agriculture. Throughout this chapter, we address a variety of schools of thought and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Our understanding is that most attempts at conceptualizing, or theorizing, about globalization from an international political economy (IPE) perspective tend to sideline the environmental and social consequences of globalization and that these issues are usually treated as part of an analysis of global civil society and new social movements. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.