Environmental Degradation.

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KOVAN

Merve Kovan

CIVL Ds f

Ins. Deniz Bingöl

Research Paper

22-05-2002

Environmental Degradation

Environmental degradation is a controversial issue of the last and new centuries.  Because human activities increased with the developing technology since the last century, human effects on the environment have increased.  Similarly, the consequences of globalization are also results of human activities.  For example, Scholte (2000) states that ozone layer depletion, which is an environmental problem, is a global issue and the depletion is caused by human activities.  Furthermore, globalization is a significant feature of recent world history which can be characterized as the spread of supra-territorialization according to Scholte (2000).  What is meant by supra-territorialization is not that there are no more territories, but decreasing importance of territories in some social spaces (Scholte, 2000).  Hence, one can conclude that globalization and environmental degradation simultaneously take place in the world history.  As Scholte indicated, globalization is a new phenomenon which emerged with new changes and contemporary issues.  To distinguish globalization from other phenomena, Scholte (2000) stresses that global is neither international, which includes cross-border exchanges while globalization includes trans-border exchanges, nor universal, which indicates spreading worldwide where globalization indicates trans-world coordination (Scholte, 2000).  In addition to this, environmental problems such as the greenhouse warming of the earth, ozone layer depletion, the loss of biodiversity, and acid rains are supra-territorial and concern all states. Taking globalization as defined above, this paper will argue that four major environmental problems named above are global.  

The most controversial environmental problem in recent years is the greenhouse warming of the earth.  Many scientists and scientific organizations have been investigating the issue of climate change and have been warning the public.  Singh (1995) states that structure of the atmosphere allows any gases spreading easily.  One of the reasons for the greenhouse warming is said to be the increasing amount of greenhouse gases.  Moreover, Fleagle (1994) states that changes in the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is one of the greenhouse gases, is an explanation for climate changes.   In addition to this, scientific interest about the issue of climate change increased in 1960s, with the scientific evidence of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere in the late 1950s (Fleagle, 1994).  Since then much scientific data related to temperature indicate the rise of temperature all over the world.  However, increasing amounts of CO2 in the 1900s concerned countries, mostly with the issue of pollution (McNeil, 1992).  According to McNeil (1992), environmental pollution, or specifically air pollution, was local in both reasons and results, but in the late twentieth century with the increasing amount of some gases, pollution became global (McNeil, 1992).  Furthermore, because the same increase of gases in some regions has spread in the atmosphere, the results affect the entire world; in other words, the resultant problems, one of which is climate change, are global.

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Another controversial environmental problem is the depletion of the ozone layer which is especially caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).  The issue of ozone depletion first emerged as a problem in the 1970s.  Rajan (1997) states that in the late 1970s and 1980s some governments were aware of the problem and tried to prevent the wide use of CFCs.  However, as CFCs have important cost-efficient uses and are non-toxic, multinational corporations did not want to decrease the use of CFCs.  Therefore, they lobbied their governments to support their view (Rajan, 1997).  On the other hand, indicating ozone depletion over Antarctica, the first ...

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