FREE ESSAY ON GLOBALIZATION AND IDEAL LANDSCAPES

GLOBALIZATION AND IDEAL LANDSCAPES

5/10/00
Globalization and Ideal Landscapes 
Globalization is a broad term that has several meanings to different factions, cultural
Groups and nations. For our purposes globalization refers to the loss of time and space
through the rapid development of technologies. It also refers to a world in which all
nations and peoples are directly or indirectly connected through the international
economy and world politics. This rapid trend toward a globalized world has seen
supporters from both the first world financial sectors and the mass producing
agricultural sector. Its main detractors have been environmentalists and the indigenous
peoples who are adversely affected by the encroaching nature of globalism.
Environmentalists have pointed to environmental degradation and the loss of valuable and
naturally sustainable landscapes as the main argument against globalization. However,
champions for continued globalization insist that growing populations and the desire to
live the comfortable first world lifestyle force economies and people to expand into
landscapes that have historically remained diverse, safe, and sustainable. The difficult
task facing the human race in the next century will be finding the delicate balance that
must exist between continued population and economic growth and the protection and
preservation of natural and ideal landscapes.
The global era involves the mass production and consumption of consumer goods and
commercial services. This New World also has to have elaborate and extensive means of
distribution to support the flow of goods and services across great distances. Modern
advancements in telecommunications, aerospace, satellite, and computer technologies have
all greatly facilitated the movement of goods, services, information and ideas in minute
amount of time. The disappearance of time and spatial limitations is the nature of the
globalized world we live in today. 
World economies are the probably the greatest contributing factor to the destruction of
ideal landscapes. Historically, economies have been the main cause of landscape
modification. European colonization and the drive to find raw materials and new markets
led to massive landscape makeovers on every continent except Antarctica. For example the
European expansion into the Americas led to a dramatic change in the landscape. When the
Europeans arrived, North America was a thick forest of woodland. In order for the
colonists to survive an incentive existed for landscape modification including woodland
clearance for agriculture. Over hundreds of years and advances in technology and
populations, North American boreal forests have been significantly destroyed severely
depleting the number of species and the overall biodiversity. 
Another biodiverse and sustainable ideal landscape that has been recently hampered by the
negative aspects of globalization are the Brazilian rain forests. The economic pressures
of the world's corporations to find more land to encroach have seen the destruction of
millions of acres of valuable rain forest. Another problem facing the rain forests is
from its own indigenous people. Their lack of agricultural knowledge including soil
preservation, erosion and turnover has led to harmful farming tactics like slash and
burn. This has caused the loss of biodiversity and has decreased the long-term
sustainability of the rain forests.
Fortunately, the human race has developed enough to realize that the destruction of these
ideal landscapes across the world will eventually have an adverse effect upon humans
themselves. Advancements in technology, medicine, and communications have created a
medium for landscape conservation. The discovery of valuable species of both plant and
animal for medicinal uses have been one of the largest factors in the movement to
preserve and protect the remaining acres of the rain forests of the world. Information,
such as the rain forests importance in oxygen production, has also led to conservation.
Agricultural technology has led to increased production and better use of agricultural
landscapes. There is no longer the great waste that was accompanied by the earlier
agricultural landscapes and systems. Therefore, technology may be the only way we can
sustain the remaining ideal landscapes that exist.
I believe that the continued protection of ideal landscapes will only ensue if and when
the landscape in question is proved to be of importance to the humans who are threatening
it. To return to our rain forest example, the only reason humans have decided to make
protecting it a priority is because they have realized its long -term importance to human
race as a whole. Eventually landscapes that are protected solely for the purpose of
aesthetics will be displaced if the world economy deems it necessary for the continued
production of goods. As far as the question, "Does the globalization of the economy
contribute or detract from making the world better?", I say it depends on your point of
view. From a first world point of view I would have to say that globalization has
certainly made the world a better place. I have troubles with a lot of contemporary
environmentalists that cry for preservation but still enjoy all of the first world modern
conveniences that are provided to them by the globalized economy. From my point of view
globalization has been a great development in human history. Humans enjoy a far easier
life than its counterparts who had to slave away doing manual labor a hundred or more
years ago. Travel is easy, safe and relatively inexpensive. Information about all topics
of life are a fast finger away with the development of computers and the internet (a
phenomenon that could not exist without a globalized world I might add!). I truly believe
that the overwhelming majority of first world and industrialized peoples would not give
up their modern way of life and luxuries for the preservation of the landscapes that are
destroyed to ensure it. 
Bibliography 
1. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The modern World System. New York: Academic Press. 
2. Simmons, I.G. 1996. Changing the Face of the Earth: Culture, environment, history.
Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Short, J. 1991. Imagined Country: environment, culture and society. London:
Routledge.
Bibliography
1. Wallerstein, I. 1974. The modern World System. New York: Academic Press. 
2. Simmons, I.G. 1996. Changing the Face of the Earth: Culture, environment, history.
Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Short, J. 1991. Imagined Country: environment, culture and society. London:
Routledge.