Discussion 1:
Globalization has led to an increasing melding of the developed and developing worlds, with the latter being more easily accessible due to the ease with which individuals and organizations can reach out to countries. In this photo, an African woman carries her child with her in a papoose on her back, while she holds material in a cardboard box above her head, transporting goods from one place to another. The photo intends to symbolize the influence of nations upon each other – the cardboard box, a symbol of industrialization, is being used for great utility by this member of a developing nation. This picture represents the change in the norm from traditional to modern, as globalization is providing members of the developing world with new tools and influences to help them work and function.
At the same time, my perspective takes a slightly more cynical note; where the picture intends to show the utility of a cardboard box, I see the fact that industrialized nations only care to give them a cardboard box. The woman is still impoverished, must still bring her child to work, and must live and work in presumably harsh conditions – the fact that cardboard boxes are treated as garbage in industrialized nations, yet is prized here as a tool, takes a slightly imperialistic and paternalistic view of developing nations as being grateful for our scraps. The woman happily goes to work thanking us for a gift we do not want, while we are unwilling to divest substantial resources in actually providing true industrialization and globalization. This is a much more exploitative perspective than may be expected or intended from the image, but it becomes a potent symbol for the inadequate involvement of developed nations in the plight of the developing world.
Discussion 2:
The environment is facing the effects of globalization in many different and intriguingly frightening ways. Due to the increase in exports, resources are being consumed faster than ever before; as globalization increases and transport becomes cheaper, more people clamor for things like fossil fuels, electricity, luxury items and more. While efforts to make materials more recyclable are stemming the tide of pollution and waste, it is impossible to recycle everything; therefore, the problem is only going to get worse.
A globalized world has come along to sustain a higher population – to that end, many ecosystems have been removed or destroyed to make room for population growth. Things like deforestation and the logging industry are uprooting entire jungles and forests for the same of living space for humanity. All of this has also contributed to the increase in global warming, the emission of carbon dioxide that is causing increased sea levels and the melting of glaciers. Globalization is granting humanity more chances to live outside their means, which means testing the stress levels of the ecosystem; eventually, something must give.
Of course, we are reluctant to give it up; Gitlin notes that we live in a constant state of stimulus and technological progress, which makes it easier to dismiss our concerns and just keep living life as we do (Gitlin, 2008). This will lead to the environment experiencing dramatic changes as a result of the extra resources needed to facilitate globalization. Media like An Inconvenient Truth and organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency do what they can to increase awareness, but it is a tall order to ask humanity to reduce its consumption.
References
Gitlin, T. (2008). Media unlimited: How the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives.
In S. J. Ferguson (Ed.), Mapping the social landscape (5th ed., pp. 441–450). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Muller, G. H. (2014). The new world reader: Thinking and writing about the global community
(4th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Photo insert found between pages 32–33: "Culture or Conflict? Images of Globalization"
