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NEWS FROM THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE
CONTENTS
1. New Book on Globalization and the Environment
2. Earth Day Discount-20 PERCENT OFF
3. Ordering Vanishing Borders in
Print
4. Press Release for Vanishing Borders
1. NEW BOOK ON GLOBALIZATION AND THE
ENVIRONMENT
Worldwatch is pleased to announce the publication of Hilary
French's new book,
Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of
Globalization.
The first chapter of this book is posted for you to read at
www.worldwatch.org/pubs/ea/van1.html. The press release is attached below.
2. EARTH DAY DISCOUNT -- 20 PERCENT OFF --
DOWNLOAD
VANISHING BORDERS TODAY!
You can order and download the complete text of
Vanishing Borders today straight
off the Worldwatch web site at 20 percent
off the price of the printed book.
Just go to:
www.worldwatch.org/pubs/ea/van.html and you can order and download
the book
today as two PDF files. (We are offering the book in two parts to limit
the
size of the Adobe PDF files.)
3. ORDERING VANISHING BORDERS IN PAPER
Vanishing Borders
is available in paper for $13.95 (plus $4 shipping and
handling in the
U.S., $5 in Canada, or $8 in all other countries.) Discounts for
multiple
orders are available.
To order a printed copy of Vanishing Borders, you can:
1. Call our toll-free number, (800) 555-2028 and order by credit
card.
2. Go to the order page on the Worldwatch web site
(www.worldwatch.org/pubs/ea/van.html) and click on the
button for
printed copies.
3. Send your order by fax to 202-296-7365.
4. Send your
order by email to wwpub@worldwatch.org.
4. PRESS RELEASE FOR VANISHING BORDERS: PROTECTING THE
PLANET IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION
GLOBALIZATION STRAINING PLANET'S HEALTH:
Cross-Border
Alliances Needed to Safeguard Environment
Globalization presents growing threats to
the planet and its inhabitants,
according to a new report from the
Worldwatch Institute, a Washington DC-based
research organization. Forests
are shrinking as the value of global trade in
forest products climbs, from
$29 billion in 1961 to $139 billion in 1998. And
fisheries are collapsing
as fish exports rise, growing nearly fivefold in value
since 1970 to reach
$52 billion in 1997. Human health is also endangered, with
pesticide
exports increasing nearly ninefold since 1961, to $11.4 billion in
1998.
"The surge in movements of goods, money,
species, and pollution across
international borders is placing
unprecedented strains on the planet," said
Hilary French, author of
Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of
Globalization.
"Ironically, the best way to tackle these problems is by putting
globalization to work for us, instead of against us."
Channeling globalization to protect,
rather than undermine, the earth's
natural systems, is key to building an
environmentally stable society in the
21st century. People are using new
communications technologies to create
powerful international coalitions,
like last December's outpouring of citizen
concern at the World Trade
Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle. And trade can
help spread
environmentally beneficial products and technologies, from
shade-grown
coffee to wind power.
World exports of goods increased 17-fold
between 1950 and 1998, from $311
billion to $5.4 trillion; the volume of
foreign direct investment has grown
almost 15-fold just since 1970,
reaching $644 billion in 1998; and the number of
transnational corporations
worldwide grew from 7,000 in 1970 to some 60,000
today.
These trends pose major environmental
challenges. While economists tout
record-breaking increases in global
commerce in recent decades, more sobering
statistics are being reported by
the world's leading biologists: the loss of
living species in recent
decades represents the largest mass extinction since
the dinosaurs were
wiped out 65 million years ago.
Globalization is a powerful driving force
behind today's unprecedented
biological implosion. An upsurge of trade and
investment in natural resources
sectors such as forestry, mining, and
petroleum development is threatening the
health of the world's forests,
mountains, waters, and other sensitive
ecosystems. And the rapid growth in
the movement of human beings and their goods
and services has provided
convenient transportation for thousands of other
species of plants and
animals that are now taking root on foreign shores. On any
given day, some
2 million people cross international borders, while 3,000 to
10,000 aquatic
species are moving around the world in ship ballasts. Once
"exotic species"
establish a beachhead in a foreign ecosystem, they often
proliferate,
suppressing native species, and imposing high economic costs.
International commerce is also a potent
mechanism through which hazardous
products and technologies move around the
world. Over the last few decades, the
developing world has become home to a
growing share of the hazard-laden
petrochemical industry. Approximately 41
percent of U.S. foreign direct
investment in the Philippines in 1998 was in
chemicals, as was 22 percent of
such investment in Colombia.
High-tech industries such as computers
and electronics have also gone global
in recent years. Despite their early
reputation as relatively clean, these
industries can exact heavy
environmental costs. Semiconductor manufacturing
employs hundreds of
chemicals, including arsenic, benzene, and chromium, all of
which are known
carcinogens. More than half of all computer manufacturing and
assembly
operations-processes intensive in their use of acids, solvents, and
toxic
gases-are now located in developing countries, according to the San Jose,
California-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.
Despite the environmental risks, the
forces of globalization can also
produce environmental gains, such as
helping developing countries leapfrog to
the cleaner technologies of
tomorrow. China has become the world's largest
manufacturer of
energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs in recent
years, in part
through joint ventures with lighting firms based in Hong Kong,
Japan, the
Netherlands, and Taiwan. And India has become a major manufacturer of
advanced wind turbines with the help of technology obtained through joint
ventures and licensing agreements with Danish, Dutch, and German firms.
Several countries are working to harness
the global economy to protect
rather than decimate natural wealth. Costa
Rica is now a major destination for
eco-tourists, capitalizing on its moist
cloud forests, sandy beaches, and dry
deciduous forests. And many other
countries have moved to tap into the booming
international market for
organic produce. Mexico now has some 10,000 organic
farms on 15,000
hectares of land, most of them run by small farmers. While
coffee is their
mainstay, Mexico's organic farmers also cultivate apples,
avocados,
coconuts, cardamom, honey, and potatoes.
Redirecting the global economy away from
environmentally harmful activities
and into more sustainable ones will
require a multi-pronged strategy, starting
with requiring international
economic institutions to pay more heed to the
environmental impact of their
programs. Since the World Trade Organization was
established in 1994, its
dispute resolution panels have ruled that several
national environmental
laws constitute illegal trade barriers, including
provisions of a U.S. law
aimed at protecting endangered sea turtles and a
European Union (EU) ban on
the sale of hormone-raised beef. And trade tensions
are rising between the
European Union and the U.S. over European restrictions on
planting
genetically modified crops and a requirement that food containing them
be
labeled as such.
French calls for the WTO to incorporate a
greater respect for the
precautionary principle, which holds that lack of
scientific certainty should
not be used as a reason for postponing action
where there are threats of serious
or irreversible damage. She also
advocates protecting consumers' right to know
about the health and
environmental impact of products they purchase by
safeguarding eco-labeling
programs, allowing countries to use trade measures to
protect the global
commons, and deferring to international environmental
treaties in cases
where they conflict with trade rules.
Better integration of environmental
issues into the lending programs of the
World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund would yield additional ecological
dividends. On paper, the
development-oriented World Bank is far more open than
the IMF to
environmental concerns. But a recent internal review by the World
Bank of more than 50 recent structural adjustment loans found that few of
them
paid much heed to environmental and social matters. Whereas a 1993
Bank report
found that some 60 percent of such loans included environmental
goals, the
recent study concluded that this share had now plummeted to less
than 20
percent.
A stronger international
environmental infrastructure is also needed to act
as an ecological
counterweight to today's growing economic powerhouses.
Environmental
treaties now number more than 230, with three-fourths of them
agreed to
over the last thirty years. But the effectiveness of these agreements
is
often undermined by vague commitments and lax enforcement.
"Environmentalists should take a page
from the World Trade Organization and
push for international environmental
commitments that are as specific and
enforceable as trade accords have
become," says French. In Vanishing Borders,
French calls for upgrading the
U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) into a World
Environmental Organization
that can coordinate and strengthen the current
scattered collection of
environmental treaty bodies.
New information and communications
technologies can be harnessed to forge
powerful cross-border political
alliances-a trend that is already well underway.
The number of
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working across international
borders
soared during the last century, climbing from just 176 in 1909 to more
than
23,000 in 1998. Empowered by e-mail and the Internet, environmental
activists have gradually organized themselves into a range of powerful
international networks, such as the Climate Action Network, the
International
Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, and the Women's
Environment and
Development Organization.
Some forward-looking corporations are
helping to chart the path to an
environmentally sustainable global economy,
according to the report. In recent
years, some 10,000 companies worldwide,
many from the developing world, have
become certified under the voluntary
environmental management guidelines forged
by the Geneva-based
International Organization for Standardization, a worldwide
federation of
national standards-setting bodies.
Private investors are also increasingly
active on environmental issues. In
1999, concerned investors introduced 54
shareholder resolutions related to
environmental issues. In one
particularly successful case, Home Depot announced
a commitment to
purchasing certified timber just three months after 12 percent
of its
shareholders asked the company to stop selling wood from old-growth
forests.
In Vanishing Borders, French finds that
innovative partnerships are being
forged between activist groups,
businesses and international institutions,
including several independent
eco-labeling initiatives that aim to bring
consumer pressure to bear on
behalf of environmental change. For example, the
Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) was established in 1993 to set standards for
sustainable forest
production through a cooperative process involving timber
traders and
retailers as well as environmental organizations and forest
dwellers. As of
late 1999, FSC-accredited bodies had certified some 17 million
hectares of
forest in 30 countries, up from only 1 million hectares in late
1995.
Despite these encouraging developments,
environmental destruction continues
to outpace society's collective
response. "Over the course of the twentieth
century, the global economy
stretched the planet to its limits," said French.
"The time is now ripe to
forge the international policies and institutions
needed to ensure that the
world economy of the 21st century meets peoples'
aspirations for a better
future without destroying the natural fabric that
underpins life itself."
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