Globalization is the worldwide increase in the interaction of people through the growth of world financial trade, technology and communications.  It is a process aided by information technology and driven by international trade.  Globalization involves goods, services, economic capital resources, communications, advances in technology and data. The globalization process has altered political systems, economic development and the environment. Globalization has negatively affected the world’s ecosystem by promoting an increase in the purchasing of inexpensive goods from a cheap often foreign labor market which does not necessarily have to adhere to stricter environmental manufacturing rules. Often the environmental damaged caused by manufacturers to produce cheaper and faster has aroused environmental groups to action. As well, globalization has made the communication of environmental concerns to all world people easier; changing the way we view environmental matters such as the protection of  our atmosphere and oceans. This swift and broad reaching sharing of environmental information aids in making disasters more of a global issue rather than an individual nation’s problem. We will explore the relationship between globalization and the environmental movement and its effects on our world by examining how mass production to keep up with global demand has damaged Maria 2our environment as well as how advances in communication brought about because of globalization have enabled people from around the world not only to quickly learn about events that harm the environment but have assisted in the mobilization of people for protests and demonstrations calling for changes to protect our ecosystem.Globalization is the integration of a country’s economy with the world’s economies. It has led to an increase in the consumption of products both natural and manufactured, which has impacted the ecological cycle. Increased consumption leads to an elevation in the production of goods and transportation requirements to move those goods worldwide, which in turn puts stress on the environment. One of the main areas of concern regarding globalization is the impact it has had on the environment; newer faster transportation routes have been created destroying valuable eco-systems. As well, it has increased the use of non-renewable resources and contributed to the increase in pollution and global warming. Companies can outsource production to where environmental standards are less strict.  There is no denying that increased manufacturing of cheap goods has had a negative impact on the environment. This negative impact has not only increased the damage done to our eco-system, it has galvanized the environmental movement to demand the creation of global guidelines such as the Paris Agreement.It is easy to see that globalization has changed Asia’s role in the world. Manufacturing-led development has caused massive environmental problems in countries such as China and India. China’s role in manufacturing goods for the world, along with reliance on coal and lack of pollution controls, adds to climate change in East Asia. China has become the world’s main Maria 3factory, producing clothes, electronics and other goods for many countries including the highly attractive market found in the United States. That trade increase has also generated huge emissions of pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that are swiftly transported elsewhere by global winds adding significantly to carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. China’s role in manufacturing for a global economy combined with a reliance on coal and lack of pollution controls is changing the climate in Asia and elsewhere. Particles in the air, known as aerosols, have been blamed for causing Beijing’s notorious smog.  According to a study written in 2014 by a team of American and Chinese researchers and published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; emissions linked to China’s exports have caused increases in surface sulfate concentrations (a combination of sulfur dioxide and other gases) of between 3 percent and 10 percent in the Western United States, as well as a smaller increase in ozone-producing pollutants.Globalization can not only be linked to the depletion of the ozone layer due to an increase of greenhouse gases, but it has resulted in an increase in pollution levels on land and sea as well. Globalization has led to an increase in the transportation of raw materials, manufactured products and food from one place to another. The 1989, Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Prince William sound Alaska is one such example of how globalization led to an environmental disaster that affected the ocean’s ecosystem. The Exxon Valdez was transporting crude oil to Long Beach California for processing when it struck Bligh Reef spilling 10.8 million US gallons into the ocean covering over 2100 kilometers of coastline and 28000 kilometers squared of ocean. This Maria 4spill and subsequent clean-up ravaged the region’s habitat for salmon, otter, seals, orca and seabird creating a decline in population.  Another globalization activity that has had a negative effect on the world’s waters is Agri-business’s use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow larger, pest resistant crops in the Louisiana area. The chemicals are used to ensure a higher crop yield, one that is resistant to pests, has a longer decay rate so it can be transported world-wide. These chemicals enter the Mississippi river dumping high-nutrient runoff such as nitrogen and phosphorus into the Gulf of Mexico. This causes a hypoxic or poisonous dead zone every summer in the Gulf of Mexico. This dead zone has been mapped from 1985 to 2017 when it reached a record high of more than 22,730 square kilometers. To improve international transportation in various parts of the world, mountains are leveled, and forests are being cut to make way for highways, roads and tunnels. Brazil is constructing new paved highways that crisscross the Amazon basin, cutting across the Andes mountains to provide a direction link for exports from the Amazon to the Pacific Rim nations, such as China.  Another damaging aspect of paved highways is that they spawn networks of secondary roads, which spread further environmental destruction. In Brazil the 2,000-kilometer-long Belem-Brasília highway, completed in the early 1970s, has spawned a spider web of secondary roads and a 400-kilometer-wide swath of forest destruction across the eastern Brazilian Amazon. A 2001 study by William F. Laurance, Miriam Goosem and Susan Laurance, showed that large expanses of the Amazonian forest may become further fragmented by the advance of new highways and roads in Brazil. They predict that by the year 2020, the rate of forest destruction would rise by up Maria 5to 500,000 hectares per year, and the area of forest that remained in large, unfragmented tracts (exceeding 100,000 square kilometers) would decrease by 36 percent. These are alarming examples of how globalization has had a negative impact on today’s environment and these disasters and many like them have become rallying points by the environmental movement calling for governments to enact change to protect our ecosystem.With improved world-wide communication, important parts of the environmental movement have also become global. Protests to preserve habitats and prevent further pollution are the backbone of the environmental movement. With the use of the internet, social media and cell phones (all communication advances that are part of globalization) such protests can quickly become a massive action attracting large numbers of people. Large protests often call for government change demonstrating how globalization, the environmental movement and democracy are entwined.The Amazon forest in Brazil has been called the earth’s lungs and its rapid deforestation is of concern to the entire world. As stated earlier, Brazil has been cutting down forests and disrupting entire ecosystems in an effort to improve transportation infrastructure. The world has become aware of this environmental disaster in the making and this action has put at risk funding the country receives from Norway. Since 2008, $1.1 billion dollars in financial assistance has been sent to Brazil from Oslo, Norway. Environmentalists in Norway protested this investment citing the loss of Amazon forests as a global concern that Norway should not support. This aroused the Norwegian government to action.  In a letter to his Brazilian counterpart Jose Sarney Filho; Maria 6Norway’s environment minister, Vidar Helgesen, stating that since there was an increase in deforestation of the Amazon forests since 2015, any further even modest increase in deforestation would halt Norway’s financial assistance to Brazil. This is an example of how globalized communication has provided information sparking an environmental movement in Norway demanding change.Another environmental concern that has been communicated throughout the world and caught global attention is the condition of our atmosphere specifically how greenhouse gases are causing ozone depletion affecting climate change. The Paris agreement is a set of global guidelines put in place to deal with the negative effects greenhouse gas emissions have caused. Industrialized countries such as China and India; use fossil fuels in their manufacturing processes that in turn puts greenhouse gases into the world’s atmosphere. It asks that all countries participating (1) Hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, (2) Increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; and (3) Make finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. The Paris agreement is the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement and has been brought about because of global concerns and talk of those concerns. Many reports and studies on greenhouse emissions and their negative affect on our atmosphere can be found on the internet. This information has been shared Maria 7through globalized communication and have prompted environmental groups to call for changes and many of the world’s governments have listened.  The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, which was discussed earlier, has prompted environmentalists to sue the EPA in an effort to reduce excessive use of chemical fertilizers by industrial agricultural businesses in the United States. “The states and EPA need to stop dragging their feet and institute solid goals and timelines to address the Dead Zone and the impacts nitrogen and phosphorus pollution cause throughout the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico.” (Jamail)  Environmentalists feel the US Environmental Protection Agency, which is supposed to regulate chemical usage, is not doing its job. The Mississippi River Collaborative (a group of regional and national environmental organizations and legal centers) decided to take this action when the EPA did not place sanctions against businesses that did not meet guidelines set for 2012 but instead pushed the date back to 2035 with no new strategies put in place to reach the targeted reduced use of chemicals. Another example of information being communicated globally and spurring environmental movement groups to action. A further example of how new technology has influenced the environmental movement at large is the environmental protests held in Turkey over the urban redevelopment of Gezi Park. On May 28th, 2013, students in Istanbul, Turkey, were holding a protest regarding the loss of Gezi Park when water cannons and tear gas was used to disperse the gathering. Protesters’ belongings were destroyed, and the park was barricaded. Activists went on social media and the internet to ask for help in retaking the park. This became a massive engagement as people joined the students and crowds grew. As the Maria 8number of protesters grew, issues beyond the loss of the park became the focus and it became an anti-government protest calling for reforms and the resignation of the Prime Minister. An environmental movement seeking to preserve a green space became a call for government change showing how globalization, the environment and democracy are entwined. Globalization has meant an important conceptual change in the way we think about the environment. Many of us now see environmental problems as being of international concern spurring environmental movements. World power lies with the global financial markets that dominate decisions made by corporations and governments seeking greater financial returns regardless the cost to society and the environment; in other words, global capitalism. The crisis we face is that today’s global capitalism destroys our environment and uses up valuable non-renewable resources in an effort to make more money. The use of democracy to put in place global guidelines designed to resolve issues causing environmental devastation is a must. A new global capitalism supported by all countries with a focus on sustainable development putting in place conditions necessary for the market’s healthy function must be created soon to protect not only future economies but a future for our descendants as well.