My last post brought up the topic of travel and tourism, and whilst researching into that I was enlightened of how globalisation affects our world negatively, mainly in the form of global warming, this post I hope to delve slightly deeper into that subject and try and discover what it is that's the problem.
The past 100 years have been considerably more important to globalisation than any other period of time, and during that time our technologies have furthered and furthered. The main contributor to all of this success is our use of fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas. Seemingly miracle fuels, these literally fueled our progress through the past 100 years. As globalisation was booming however, we were unknowingly contributing towards global warming.
The problems all source from the fossil fuels themselves, consisting mainly of carbon, when burnt they release this carbon back into the atmosphere, adding to the problem known as the greenhouse effect. This is when the atmosphere is filled with greenhouse gases, which essentially act like a pane of glass around the world, and amplify the heat which comes from the sun. Now this is where the 'Global Warming' term comes from. Our problem is that we're hooked on using fossil fuels, they're so convenient for our use in factories and homes. As great as the fuels have been for our history, I think its time that we use the knowledge and technology we've gained through the use of fossil fuels to help us work without them, it's a weird relationship really...
As a current resident of Rochdale, i've got first hand experience of how things are changing in our current situation. In the past five years we've had hundreds of wind turbines put on the moors, helping to provide clean energy for our town, but even this comes with its problems. Wind energy isn't reliable, if mother nature decides that it isn't going to be windy, we'll be out of power. Other negatives are the huge lump fee thats involved when they're built.
Another interesting point comes from politics. The emergence of the green party, and its rising popularity spells a good forecast for our future. Even if they're not voted in parliment, its still in the limelight and getting popular.
As a conclusion, I think we're trying, but I still feel that we're not making enough effort towards a sustainable future. I've enjoyed looking into something which shows the darker side of globalisation, rather than the positive side, and I hope that my ramblings have showed some sort of insight into my thoughts.
References I used:
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/0111111ec008.pdf?expires=1429626450&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=2EDA15A1B6A42D6F849114ADBA964D82
http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/1672
I think you've brought up some really good points here, I had almost forgotten about the whole 'global warming' situation as I haven't heard it mentioned for a while! I'd never really thought about the link between globalisation and global warming either. I definitely think that more needs to be done in order to have a sustainable future, it seems like there was a considerable amount of effort made once it was realised that global warming was an issue, and since then it seems the efforts have gone down hill. The fact that it hasn't been talked about or an issue on the news for quite some time says it all really, people seem to have forgotten that it's still a problem.
ReplyDeleteYou do bring up some good points here. I would say that the reason we haven't heard much about global warming recently is because of the other issues in the world taking win priority in our news. In regards to what you said about the green party, in Northern Ireland, the green party got their first seat in 2007 and stayed with their one seat in the election after that so it seemed like they were on the rise but remained the same. One foot in the door I suppose but more needs to be done to increase their popularity and their awareness.
ReplyDelete