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Globalization
and Trade
Species once spread across the earth very slowly, blocked
by deep oceans and varying climates on land. Human
beings took more than one million years to move
from Africa to all the other continents. Human trade
and communication over great distance dates back
more than 2,000 years, when products first
began to travel between China and Europe along the
Silk Road. Within a few centuries the Silk Road carried
Buddhism from India to China. It was the desire to
trade that drove European nations to develop great
sailing ships at the end of the fifteenth century,
breaking the Venetian monopoly on trade with Asia
and causing the European discovery of the Americas
in 1492. These ships became the technology that allowed
large numbers of plants, animals, people, and viruses
to be transported from one continent to another.
During the European colonial period, traders, invaders,
settlers, and slaves were transported via ocean-going
ships from one continent to another. These colonists
brought new diseases and exotic species with them that
ravaged human populations and ecosystems in Asia, Africa,
the Americas, and Australia. The modes of transportation,
and the speed at which items have been transported,
have increased exponentially over time. As these capabilities
have developed, new communications technologies were
introduced that have enabled corporations, governments,
and militaries to significantly increase the transportation
of goods, services, and information from continent
to continent.
Increases in the frequency of these intercontinental
contacts is known as the process of globalization.
American political scientists Robert O. Keohane and
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., define globalism as “a state
of the world involving networks of interdependence
at multi-continental distances.”1 Globalism has
generally been increasing throughout modern history
and it is this process of increasing globalism that
is called globalization.
Since the 1990s, globalization has become a major concept
in academia and activism, with different groups understanding
it in many different ways. Keohane and Nye advance
a broad understanding of globalization that encompasses
four different processes of globalization:
- Economic Globalization
- Social and Cultural Globalization
- Military Globalization
- Environmental Globalization
2
Although scholars divide globalization into different
aspects, these various types of globalization continuously
interact with each other. For example, economic globalization
increases international trade. Shipping of traded goods
can inadvertently transport species from one continent
to another. Some of the transported plants and animals
(also called invasive species) thrive in the new habitat,
often severely damaging various indigenous species
and/or their accompanying ecosystems. In this instance,
economic globalization led to environmental globalization
and environmental degradation. All four types of globalization
have significant impacts on the Earth’s ecosystems.
Economic globalization is particularly characterized
by intercontinental trading and management relationships
organized by multi-national corporations. Almost one-quarter
of all the goods and services currently being produced
in the world are exported to another country for consumption.3
This type of globalization has created interdependent
economic systems because most national economies are
greatly reliant on increased trade relations; some
could encounter economic depression were trade to stop
growing, as it did in the 1930s, leading to the Great
Depression.4
Since the establishment of the first corporations (e.g.,
the East and West India Companies) by European powers
during the seventeenth century, there have been major
debates about the power transnational corporations
(TNCs) hold in the global economy and the international
trade injustices introduced by corporations that abuse
their economic power. The problems often relate to
the fact that the producers, consumers, and managers
live in different communities in different geographic
locations, and have different sets of priorities, understandings,
and worldviews. For example, many goods and services
are produced on one continent, consumed on another,
and managed by a corporation based on yet another continent.
In situations relating to globalization, it is perhaps
less likely that community moral standards will be
applied to economic relationships. Managers and consumers
who live in developed countries are perhaps not as
concerned about the working conditions of factory workers
in developing countries because they have few personal
relationships with them.
There is a similar lack of concern within developed
countries about environmental problems in developing
countries. People are generally most eager to fight
pollution where they live, therefore they are unlikely
to give much thought to how the manufacture of their
consumer goods causes social and environmental degradation
in other parts of the world. These issues have existed
since the seventeenth century and they have steadily
grown in importance as globalization has becomes a
more prominent aspect of contemporary culture.
During the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, improvements in communications
and transportation systems greatly increased the importation
and exportation of goods and services in many parts
of the world. This process did not escape the notice
of members of educational institutions. European philosophers
began to study the dynamics of international trade
as it grew in the fifteenth century; their study led
to the creation of the field of economics. Arguing
for the mutual advantages of free trade, British economist
David Ricardo theorized, in 1817, that each nation
had its own “comparative advantage” in
the global market of goods.5 Informed by these theories,
investors sent their capital into new markets in the
nineteenth century, thereby expanding the reach of
multinational corporations. The mobility of labor also
increased, as millions of workers seeking employment,
especially from Europe and Asia, migrated to the Americas.
The wave of economic globalization beginning in the
late twentieth century is characterized by the global
governance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as
well as the highly technical trade negotiations now
occurring in new areas such as intellectual property
rights, genetic engineering, and other advances in
biotechnology. As the Internet has allowed activists
in many nations to communicate more easily, more sophisticated “anti-globalization” movements
of workers, environmentalists, and indigenous peoples
have also developed.
In general, anti-globalization movements oppose economic
globalization and its effects on the environment, human
rights, and cultural integrity. The names “anti-globalization
movement” and, in India, “living democracy
movement,” have been utilized to describe the
global network of organizations proposing environmentally
sustainable alternatives to economic globalization.
These organizations highlight several negative aspects
of economic globalization:
- The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and World Trade Organization (WTO) make decisions
concerning trade and development outside of the United
Nations
system and with little accountability to the national
governments that created them.
- Corporations and international
investors move from nation to nation to escape labor,
environmental,
and
consumer standards. This mobility creates great financial
instability and unemployment in poorer, “single-industry” regions.
National and local governments must then pay “corporate
welfare” payments in an effort to entice corporations
to relocate and remain within their jurisdictions.6
- Corporations fund political parties and campaigns,
often leading elected officials to make unpopular
decisions that favor corporate profits over citizen
safety, rights,
and needs.
- Governments are increasingly converting
various “commons”— properties
historically held in common by communities of people
(e.g., land, seed varieties, and water)—into
private properties held by corporations.
- Economic
planning fails to consider the effects of growth
and industrialization on the ecological
capital upon which human wealth relies.
In order to help reverse many of the negative effects
of globalization, different sectors of the anti-globalization
movement have proposed various policies. A leading
group of theorists, the International Forum on Globalization
(IFG), has promoted a set of policy changes that
generally fall into four categories: new measurements
of economic
development, stabilization of economies, local ownership,
and democratic control.7
- New Measurements of Economic Development
IFG promotes the implementation of new measurements
to evaluate economic development in the context
of ecological sustainability. Utilizing new theories
in the field of ecological economics, IFG assists
economists with their examination of how economic
decisions
impact
the Earth’s life-support systems. This ideal
is accomplished when measurements of economic growth
reflect the manner in which economic activities
are expanding or damaging opportunities for future
generations.8
- Stabilization of Economies
IFG promotes the stabilization of global economic
conditions by curbing
international financial speculation.9 Short-term
investments in foreign currency markets can
create havoc in
the
global economy
by reducing the ability of national governments
to maintain stable currency rates and, by extension,
to keep their national economies stable. One common
proposal
is to implement the “Tobin Tax” on
currency trading in all nations which would reduce
the flow of short-term currency investments and
thus stabilize currency rates.10
- Local Ownership
IFG promotes the increase of local business ownership
in order to reduce pollution and
create stable employment situations. Increasing
local business
ownership may help raise environmental and labor
standards for two main reasons:
a) Local stakeholders would more than likely choose
cleaner production methods because they would have
a personal stake in the local release of the pollution
created by the enterprise.
b) Local stakeholders would more than likely choose
better labor policies because business employees
would include people (e.g., family, friends, neighbors)
from
their own geographic region. Local owners would
also be much less likely to relocate their factory
out
of their home region and therefore would help preserve
local jobs, stabilize local job markets, and reduce
unemployment levels.11
- Democratic Control
IFG promotes the assertion of democratic
control over national governments and the global
economy.
Proposals for increasing democracy vary from nation
to nation,
depending upon what type of governmental system
is currently being utilized in that country. In
the
United States, for example, the anti-globalization
movement
calls for the public financing of election campaigns,
in order to reduce the influence of corporations
on government decisions. At the global level, the
movement
has debated whether to reform or abolish the World
Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World
Trade Organization (WTO). The IFG recently proposed “decommissioning” these
institutions. Under the proposal, international
trade negotiations would return to the jurisdiction
of
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), where developing nations have a greater
voice
in decision-making.12
The anti-globalization movement is also concerned
with the effects of economic globalization on various
cultures
throughout the world. Indigenous cultures are particularly
impacted because increases in economic globalization
lead to rapid social changes that can easily eliminate
much of their cultural heritage. This phenomenon
is called social and cultural globalization.
Economic globalization has been supported by new
technologies in the communications and transportation
industries.
These technologies have also led to an unprecedented
mixing of world cultures, which has resulted in
the second type of globalization, social and cultural
globalization.
Although cultural inventions have been exchanged
throughout history, technology is making the global
exchange of
ideas and inventions possible on a much larger
scale than has previously occurred. The earliest
globalization
of technology was the spread of Chinese inventions
such as paper to Africa, Europe, and the rest of
Asia. The invention of paper was one of the first
things
to facilitate the exchange of ideas between cultures.
These ideas then could catalyze revolutionary changes
in many different places. For example, publications
of Karl Marx’s writings first led to revolution
in Russia, then to revolutions in Latin America,
Africa, and Asia.
This exchange of ideology was not limited to political
writings. Mass publishing, for example, has facilitated
the distribution of various types of religions
to every nation. Christianity and Islam in particular
have spread
from continent to continent through written tracts
and traveling proponents. These religious influences
have often had either a direct impact on local
religions
(e.g., through the elimination of cultures practicing
a particular religious tradition) or through syncretism—the
mixing of local and imported religions. Globalization
has also driven change within religions, leading
to secularization in some religious branches and
an international
wave of fundamentalism in others.
More recently, new communication technology has
made entertainment imports relatively inexpensive
and
this has increased the amount of information that
is transferred
among various countries. Most of the world now
watches imported movies and television programs
that are
primarily produced in the United States. These
entertainment venues have brought American cultural
conventions
to
the rest of the world and have had the effect of
influencing, if not changing and/or eroding, traditional
cultures.
The scale and effects of contemporary cultural
globalization are historically unprecedented. Critics
argue that
the costs of this process exceed the benefits.
Although cultural globalization may enrich the
various cultures
involved in these interactions, it may also function
to marginalize these cultures by replacing the
distinguishing characteristics of the culture with
imported traditions,
entertainment, and religious beliefs. Globally
this process produces a trend toward the creation
of a
monoculture, because a variety of different cultural
expressions
are now being replaced by the expression of one
single culture. These cultural losses may also
be exacerbated
by person-to-person cross-cultural changes made
available through the possibility of rapid intercontinental
travel. Airline technology has greatly increased
tourism, and
this has led to an unprecedented level of interaction
among individuals from different continents.
Social and cultural globalization potentially brings
various types of innovations that are beneficial
to the environment, but it can also lead to new
environmental challenges. On the negative side,
social and cultural
globalization, spread through various forms of
global communication technology, tends to deliver
messages
that support higher levels of consumption. People
in
other countries are readily adopting these ideas,
which often result in negative environmental effects.
For
example, many environmental problems (e.g., global
climate change) will be exacerbated if low-income
nations develop their economies in a manner that
leads to the
same rate of consumption and pollution as is found
in high-income nations. On the positive side, increased
communication among nations through the direct
transfer of ideas and technology, or “technology
transfer,” is
making international environmental efforts to globalize
sustainable technologies a reality for many nations.
Technology transfers encourage a new path of sustainable
development that has the potential to help reduce
poverty in developing nations while at the same
time, decreasing
or severely limiting the destruction of the environment.13
Governance also may be transformed by social and
cultural aspects of globalization. British economist
Susan Strange
proposes that economic, social, and cultural globalization
are leading to the decline of national governmental
structures. This “retreat of the state,” according
to Strange, has the effect of replacing national
governments with other, somewhat different governmental
forms and
structures (e.g., local governance, global governance,
power held by transnational corporations, and the
greater influence of international nongovernmental
organizations
[NGOs]).14 These changes in governance are interacting
with recent trends in the globalization of military
activity.
Historically, organized military conquests have
served as a form of globalization. This is perhaps
the oldest
form of globalization, dating back to at least
the seventh and eighth centuries, when Arabs from
West
Asia conquered peoples in Europe and Africa. Expansive
examples of intercontinental military conflict
include the European conquest of both North America
and Latin
America (1492 through the late nineteenth century)
and World War I, World War II, and the “Cold
War” conflicts of the twentieth century.
Though the former instigated vast intercontinental
change,
the latter were in fact the most globalized military
conflicts in history, involving large groups of
allies comprised of nations from every inhabited
continent.
The nature of these wars has led to an increase
in the flow of global refugees. The World Wars,
for
example, caused the flight of many Europeans to
the Americas
and West Asia. Other conflicts, such as the Kurdish
independence movement, have driven many refugees
from Asia and Africa into Europe.
War became less globalized during the 1990s, as
many conflicts were regionally, rather than globally,
focused.15 At first, this decline in military globalism
corresponded
with a decline in military expenditures, but after
the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States
strengthened military bonds with nations around
the
world in order
to fight multinational terrorist networks and this
has tended to increase the military expenditures
of many nations. Armed forces from several continents
formed coalitions to invade Afghanistan in 2001
and Iraq in 2003, citing a need to destroy “global” threats
from the al Qaeda terrorist network and weapons
of mass destruction. The United States, in an effort
to aid the eradication of terrorist cells in other
countries,
has, since 2001, also provided military aid to
many
countries, most notably Colombia, Georgia, Israel,
and the Philippines.
These developments represent a contemporary globalization
trend in military activities and this increase
in military globalization has led to higher levels
of
environmental
degradation. For example, US-funded military operations
in Colombia spray herbicides over extensive areas
in an attempt to destroy the illegal drug crops
used to
fund guerilla movements. These herbicides damage
ecosystems and make all forms of agriculture more
difficult for
Colombian farmers.
Globalization in economic, social, and military
affairs contribute to the fourth process, environmental
globalization —the increase of movement between
continents of pollutants and species. Of the many
environmental challenges found around the world,
two in particular
are driven by environmental interactions between
continents: the loss of biological diversity and
the increase of
global atmospheric pollution.
One key aspect of environmental globalization is
the decrease in biological diversity. In the past,
species
distribution has been influenced by three main
factors: temperature, geological history, and the
structure
of the Earth’s surface. Natural barriers (e.g.,
oceans, seas) have isolated certain terrestrial species
in specific areas and terrestrial barriers (e.g., continents)
have kept different types of marine species in specific
aquatic locations. American biologist Edward O. Wilson
describes this type of “geographic speciation” as
the process in which populations of plants and animals
located in separated regions “diverge from each
other in evolution because of the inevitable differences
of the environments in which they find themselves.”16
Increased transportation has breached the oceanic
barriers that once ensured the biological separation
of species.
Thousands of exotic species have been introduced
to new continents through various means (e.g.,
biologists transporting these species back to their
own countries
for study, intentional animal trafficking, and
the accidental transport of species through various
means
of transportation [e.g., ocean-going ships, airplanes,
barges, etc.]). Invasive species are non-native
species that are brought into an area. These species
then
compete
with the native species already existing in the
area. Invasive species can be very destructive,
often totally
eliminating various indigenous species. Examples
of invasive species include: the Nile perch, which
has
eliminated 200 other fish species in Africa’s
Lake Victoria; avian malaria, which has led to the
extinction of at least ten native bird species in Hawai’i;
and the South American water hyacinth, which has
clogged waterways on five continents.17
The accumulations of greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting
chemicals, and nitrogen in the Earth’s atmosphere
are not direct results of globalization. Global
atmospheric pollution could occur at a rapid rate
even if trade,
social interactions, and military conflicts decreased.
Yet these types of atmospheric pollution are examples
of environmental globalization because they require
various countries to participate in international
agreements in order to effectively reverse the
global environmental
damage. Nations can address their own soil, water,
and localized air pollution problems (e.g., ground
ozone, acid rain), but the upper atmosphere is
truly a shared, global commons.18 Nations cannot
address
global climate change, ozone-layer depletion, and
nitrogen loading on their own and expect effective
results.
All three global atmospheric pollution issues currently
rank among the most dangerous environmental threats
facing our contemporary global society. Increases
in greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous
oxide, and ground ozone) are influencing and in
some cases altering climate systems while also
effectively
changing species migration patterns. Damage to
the ozone layer is exposing flora and fauna to
more dangerous
levels of ultraviolet radiation. Nitrogen loading
in the atmosphere, through the widespread use of
inorganic
nitrogen fertilizer, is stimulating higher levels
of plant growth, damaging coastal estuaries through
eutrophication
(harmful algal blooms), polluting drinking water
supplies, and enhancing the scale of global climate
change.
The pollutants that cause these environmental problems
are released from all nations. Atmospheric wind
currents quickly circulate the chemicals to all
parts of the
globe. Analysis of environmental globalization
has led many government leaders to the conclusion
that
global environmental problems require global solutions.
Global agreements to address these problems are
complicated by the fact that developed nations
release much greater
levels of pollutants than developing nations.
The effort to protect the ozone layer has been
the most successful global environmental project
in history.
It has involved the cooperation of many international
organizations and nearly every national government.
Industrialized countries have stopped producing
nearly all of the worst ozone-depleting chemicals
after
signing the Montreal Protocol on Substances that
Deplete the
Ozone Layer (1987).19
The successful cooperation on the Montreal Protocol
gave the United Nations Environmental Programme
(UNEP) hope that there could be some agreement
on the issue
of global climate change. Global climate change
has been the subject of intense negotiations since
the
creation in 1992 of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The 1997
Kyoto Protocol,
the first supplement to UNFCCC containing specific
emissions goals for various nations, has been ratified
by many developed nations in Europe and Asia, but
the United States and Australia have rejected the
Protocol.
The lack of international progress in slowing global
climate change illustrates the difficulty of organizing
global responses to globally initiated environmental
degradation.
The international community has also not yet comprehensively
addressed other important issues of environmental
globalization, such as invasive species and nitrogen
loading. Nations
have agreed upon joint commitments for slowing
habitat loss to protect biological diversity (e.g.,
the 1992
Convention on Biological Diversity), but slowing
the transport of invasive species to new continents
has
garnered less attention. Perhaps the relatively
recent difficulties in negotiating a limit to greenhouse
gases has discouraged any new initiatives to limit
nitrogen
emissions on a global scale. Interesting regional
efforts, however, such as the Gothenburg Protocol
to Abate Acidification,
Eutrophication, and Ground-level Ozone (1999),
are
seeking to bring attention to these matters.
As a concept, globalization is too broad to be
useful unless it is broken down into at least four
interconnected
trends—economic globalization, social and cultural
globalization, military globalization, and environmental
globalization. These trends are often interrelated.
Economic globalization has increased the specialization
of workers, as their employers compete in global markets.
Social and cultural globalization has changed cultures
through the increased dissemination of communication,
information, and technology. Military globalization
has consisted of intercontinental blocs of allied nations
engaging in military conflict with terrorists and with
each other. Economic, social, cultural, and military
globalization have often had negative impacts upon
the environment, requiring that all nations of the
world cooperate in an effort to slow the process of
environmental globalization. Four environmental issues
in particular—biodiversity, global climate change,
ozone-layer depletion, and nitrogen loading—are
either caused by globalization or have serious
effects that necessitate global cooperation.
Many scholars, policymakers, and activists consider
globalization to be the overarching trend of the
post-Cold War world. The nature of international
relationships,
and the geographic scale of organizations and their
power, are certainly related to nearly every type
of human activity, from economics and politics
to ecology
and the arts. Though globalization has been occurring
in various ways for thousands of years, the current
era is unusual in that globalization has become
a primary way of understanding world trends.
The common thread through the many descriptions
of globalization is that the world is becoming “smaller.” The
four types of globalization interact with one another
and can have grave environmental consequences.
For example, the economic and social globalization
of
nineteenth-century imperialism helped facilitate
the military and environmental
globalization of the twentieth century. As globalization
continues, interactions between the four types
of globalization are producing possibilities that
are
even more difficult
to analyze and predict than are the situations
humans currently face.20
For additional information on globalization and
trade, consider consulting the resources in our Globalization
and Trade Links section.
1 Robert O. Keohane, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Introduction” to
Governance in a Globalizing World, edited by
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and John D. Donahue (Washington,
D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 2000) 1, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions/publication/globalizing_intro.doc.
Nye is the dean of the John F. Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University.
Return to text
2 Ibid.
Return to text
3 International Monetary Fund (IMF), World
Economic Outlook 2002, (Washington, D.C.: IMF, 2002) 157,
186, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2002/01/pdf/annex.pdf.
The statistic was created by dividing the value
of world output at market exchange rates (p.
157) by
the
value of world exports (p. 186).
Return to text
4 David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt,
and Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations:
Politics,
Economics, and Culture (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1999) 157.
Return to text
5 David Ricardo, On the
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 3d ed. (London: John Murray,
Albemarle-Street,
1821), updated n.d., http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/prin/ (cited 5 August 2002).
Return to text
6 David C. Korten, The
Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism (San Francisco, Calif.:
Berrett-Koehler, 1999).
Return to text
7 Alternatives Task Force of the International
Forum on Globalization, Alternatives to Economic
Globalization:
A Better World is Possible (San Francisco, Calif.:
Berrett-Koehler, 2002).
Return to text
8 Rajaram Krishnan, Jonathan M. Harris, and Neva
R. Goodwin, eds., A Survey of Ecological
Economics, Frontier
Issues in Economic Thought, vol. 1 (Washington,
D.C.: Island Press, 1995).
Return to text
9 Fritjof Capra, The Hidden
Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive,
and Social Dimensions
of Life into a Science of Sustainability (New
York: Doubleday,
2002).
Return to text
10 A “Tobin Tax” is
a tax on traded currency. If such a tax were to
be instituted, each national
government would be responsible for collecting
taxable monies whenever any currency was traded
in the financial
markets. It is proposed that the resulting revenues
should be deposited into an international institution,
such as the United Nations or the World Bank,
to be spent on international social and economic
development
activities. US Economist James Tobin’s
original tax proposal was published in James
Tobin, “A
Proposal for International Monetary Reform,” Eastern
Economic Journal 4, nos. 3–4 (July/October,
1978): 153–59.
Return to text
11 Michael Shuman, Going
Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a
Global Age (New York: Free Press,
1998).
Return to text
12 Alternatives Task Force of the International
Forum on Globalization, Alternatives to Economic
Globalization:
A Better World is Possible, 229.
Return to text
13 “Sustainable development” has been defined
as development that “meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.” World Commission on
Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1987).
Return to text
14 Susan Strange, The
Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power
in the World Economy (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Return to text
15 Eduardo Viola, “Multidimensionality
of Globalization, Environmentalism, and the New
Transnational Social
Forces,” conference paper, International
Studies Association 40th Annual Convention, Washington,
D.C.,
February 16–20, 1999,
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/.
Return to text
16 Edward O. Wilson, “The Current State of Biological
Diversity,” in Biodiversity, ed. Edward
O. Wilson (Washington D. C.: National Academy
Press,1988) 6.
Return to text
17 Invasive Species Specialist Group, “100 of
the World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species: A Selection
from the Global Invasive Species Database,” updated
n.d., http://www.issg.org/booklet.pdf (cited
7 August 2002).
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18 There are two different
types of environmental problems that relate to
ozone. One relates to
the chemical decomposition
of ozone in the stratosphere and the other relates
to ozone gases accumulating at a ground level.
Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer occurs
through the
chemical decomposition of an atmospheric element
(ozone) that filters out harmful levels of ultraviolet
light
emitted by the sun. Stratospheric ozone depletion
causes skin cancer and weakens human and animal
immune systems.
Ground ozone develops locally, primarily around
cities, where vehicle emissions have kept levels
of nitrogen
oxide and reactive organic compounds unusually
high. High levels of ground ozone and vehicle
emissions have been linked to asthma, cardiac
arrhythmia,
cardiac
arrest, impairment of human reproductive systems,
bronchitis,
and cancer in humans (Robert J. Pandya, Gina
Solomon, Amy Kinner, and John R. Balmes, “Diesel
Exhaust and Asthma: Hypotheses and Molecular,” Environmental
Health Perspectives Supplements 110, no.
1 [February 2002]: 103–112; Bert Brunekreef
and Stephen T.
Holgate, “Air Pollution and Health,” Lancet 360,
no. 9341 [19 October 2002]: 1233–42.
Return to text
19 United Nations Environment
Programme, “Synthesis
of the 2002 Reports of the Scientific Assessment
Panel (SAP), Environmental Effects Assessment Panel
(EEAP),
and Technology and Economic Assessment Panel
(TEAP) of the Montreal Protocol,” UNEP/OzL.Pro/WG.1/23/3
(25 February 2003), http://www.unep.org/ozone/oewg/23oewg/23oewg-3.e.pdf (cited
2 July 2003).
Return to text
20 Keohane and Nye, 7.
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