How has globalization created new globalized spaces of economic activity?
1. Global assembly line
2. Global Office
3. Offshore financial centers
Global Assembly Line
The reorganization of corporate operations in production, manufacturing, marketing and sales of a good that takes advantage of cost opportunities between countries, places, and regions
Advantages of the Global Assembly Line
1. Standardized product is cheaper
2. Take advantage of full range of geographical variations in cost
3. Not dependent on single source for inputs or components
FLEXIBILITY
Maquiladoras/Export-Processing Zones
Small areas or regions within semiperipheral/peripheral countries where governments encourage FDI
Problems with Maquiladoras/EPZ
1. Do not strengthen local economies
2. Environmental problems, labor repression, social disruption and child labor
Why would a country make an EPZ/Maquiladora?
Strategy for economic development; AGGLOMERATION economy- creates more jobs
What are the 3 trends for the global office?
1. Back office growth has been decentralized
2. Front office growth has been localized
3. Growth of offshore financial services to small island nations
World City
a city in which a disproportionate part of the world's most important financial services and businesses are concentrated
Environmental Ethics
the philosophical perspectives that prescribes moral principles as guidance for our treatment of nature and non-human things
Society and culture relationship is more than just..
environmental determinism" which is the defunct belief that physical environments alter human beings
Human modification of the environment has increased in what three ways?
scale
pace
intensity
Where are 2 examples of global water crisis due to privatization of water?
Bolivia
New Orleans
How many people die from water disease and what is their average age?
2 million people; most under 5
What is the #1 contaminant found in water and is a weed killer?
Atrazine
15th century phase of expansion not only changed the political map but also the environment in 2 ways:
1. Disease and Depopulation in the Spanish colonies
2. "Columbian Exchange
Crops going New to Old
maize, corn, potato, cocoa, cotton, cochineal, quinine, rubber
Crops going Old to New
rice, sheep, horses, pigs, sugar cane, wheat, grapes
The color red
discovered to come from cochineal bug; transformed the market
Land-use change
shifts in how humans use land resources
Forests are
renewable but not regenerating at the pace it is depleted
Where is there greatest forest cover?
Asia and South America
Where is there greatest forest cover loss?
North America
Grasslands/Savannas are
frequently used for grazing livestock
What is the world's most tropical savanna?
Brazilian Cerrado
Greening of the Sahel
additional biomass due to increase in rainfall
Wetlands
large category that includes land that is temporarily flooded or experiences; important for birds/migrating
Global Land Grab
nations go places to buy land
Global Land Project
purpose is to measure, model and understand the coupled human environmental system
Nuclear Energy
regarded as cleaner technology than fossil fuels because no emissions but has security problems
What kinds of countries are expanding the nuclear energy and which are preventing expansion?
Semiperipheral are expanding
Core are preventing
What is the dominant energy source for the periphery?
Wodfuel
Where is there major dam development?
The periphery and semiperiphery
What is the most famous dam?
3 Gorges Dam
Wind Power
provides power for the electrical grid
Texas
has exponential growth in wind capacity
Largest nation in capacity for wind power?
China
What are biofuels?
global ethanol, liquid forms...corn and sugarcane from Midwest/Brazil
4 criticisms of biofuels
1. Expensive and ineffective at reducing petroleum consumption for transport
2. "Green" cloak for farm subsidies
3. Cause of food price increase
4. Unnecessary intensification of farming
Evidence for Global Climate Change
-sea level rise
-more intense and extreme events
-less precipitation some places and more in others
What was the era we have been in for the past decades? What are we in now?
Holocene; Anthropocene
What is the evidence that we are in the Anthropocene Era?
exponential growth
Agriculture is a
science, business, and art
What is the largest user of water resources?
Agriculture
Seed Perk Areas
where seed crops grow well
Where is the highest level of biodiversity for a crop?
its original hearth location
The Fertile Crescent
the relationship between the rise of seed crops and domestication
First Agricultural Revolution
-in South Asia and MesoAmerica
-land tenure and division of labor
-created a surplus
Second Agricultural Revolution
-in Western Europe in the 1600s
-higher yields; replace yoke for oxen; replace ox with horses/mule
-crop rotations
-intimately linked to the Industrial Revolution
-new inputs for fertilizers
Third Agricultural Revolution
-in North America
-replacement of humans with machines
-introduction of the use of fossil fuels
-large scale changes in ecologies
-worldwide usage of fertilizers
what is necessary for chemical farming?
high capital
Who is the father of the Green Revolution?
Dr. Norman Borlaug
What is purpose of the Green Revolution?
to develop a production system to be successful in developing countries; subset of third agricultural revolution
Hybrid Crops
mature in a shorter time than normal seeds; respond better to fertilizers; more nutritional
Biorevolution focuses on what as their main goal?
control, not yield
pharming
genetically modified plants that produce pharmacueticals
Biorevolution purpose
it's not about yield, its about finding new markets for the products created
-helps to solve the overproduction problem
Bue Rvolution
essentially aquaculture with pens of fish farming; negative: destruction of mangroves
What is an agricultural production system?
integrated system of inputs and outputs for agricultural production
-intensive vs, extensive
-labor vs. capital