Loss of biodiversity - caused and solved by globalisation?: Difference between revisions

There are lots of, more or less theoretical, definitions of globalization, for example: “Globalization (…) can be thought of as the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness.” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perrat, 2008, p. 2). This phenomenon is accompanied by a wide range of positive as well as negative consequences for humanity in general, society and the environment. One example of an abstract description of the consequences for society was mainly coined by the socialist Ulrich Beck in the mid eighties: The risk-society. When the past was characterized by difficulties of a just distribution of wealth, today in this “second, reflexive modernity” (Gane, 2001, p. 83) the production of wealth comes with the production of risks: It is no longer only a distribution of wealth, as well as a distribution of risks (cf. Gane, 2001, p. 83). A second change related to the distribution of risks is the decreasing of the importance of borders: On the one hand the result of an event takes place in another part of the world and on the other hand a small local event can cause a global reaction (cf. Held et. al., 2008, p. 2). There are lots of economical, social and cultural examples for these phenomena. Because the following text will mainly focus on the environmental issue, the given example is the climate change, facing Copenhagen, probably the most popular one right now. This risk is caused by the production of wealth and will, at least in the beginning, mainly effect the “undeveloped countries”, but furthermore as well global public goods and therefore the globalization in general (cf. Curtis, 2007).  

But you cannot say every global environmental problem is inevitable directly caused by globalization without a sound argumentation. The following text concentrates on one example of a global environmental risk- sometimes called as a risk of globalization: Loss of biodiversity. To understand the problematic properly a few facts about biodiversity in general will be given in the beginning. Furthermore the loss of biodiversity and the reasons for it will be described. In a third step these causes will be related to globalization. Finally there will be a prospect if even a further (political-) globalization is necessary to solve these problems.