Hilary French
Vanishing Borders : Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2000, 257 pp.)


It is obvious that globalization and interconnectedness are more than fashionable semantics, for they point to the increasing significance of the external world context for many issues that were formerly thought of as 'national issues.'  Now a state is no longer able to control activities whose origins are external - thus the vanishing of  borders which were thought to mark the limits between foreign and domestic concerns.

There is wide agreement that globalization as measured by the cross-border movement of goods, assets, financial flows, services, communications, and people is the result of three main processes:

− the investment patterns of firms, especially transnational corporations, funds such as large pension funds, and individual investors;
−  information technology which enables corporations to operate from anywhere in the world  - information technology being a key example of more generalized transfer of technology;
− consumer behavior, creating a global consumer culture reinforced by publicity, television programs, etc.

While these forces are complex and varied, they move in the direction of ever-greater globalization.  Thus, societal and environmental issues can no longer be divided into domestic and international.  There is a need for a harmonization of legislation on banking, taxes, insurance, property rights and environmental protection.  Notions of security are being redefined to take in ecological imperatives, and greater attention is being placed on the needs and concerns of human beings and the quality of their environments.

Globalization has expanded the parameters of social policy from a national to a transnational frame of reference.  Transnational issues are those whose causes, consequences and potential solutions transcend the boundaries of existing states.  Persistent poverty, increased migration and refugee flows, environmental degradation are all transnational social concerns which cannot be solved within a national framework.  Hilary French is vice-president for research of the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, DC and stresses the ecological dimension of transnational issues.

She underlines the impact of population upon natural resources, especially land and water, the unsustainable use of current energy, the loss of biodiversity, the loss and misuse of forests, the uncertain health of the oceans and fisheries, the disorderly growth of cities, the negative impact of war and arms upon both society and nature.  She stresses the need, in the energy economy to move away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources, like wind and solar.  In material production, there is a need to move away from a primary reliance on mining toward cycles of continual reuse.

There are two related approaches to dealing with the global ecological crisis: the first is governmental action within the United Nations and strongly applied at the national level; the second is concerted and continuing action on the part of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  At the time of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, there was much hope that governmental action through negotiated treaties would lead to a halt of irreversible ecological degradation.  Yet as French points out "Even as the number of treaties climbs, the condition of the biosphere continues to deteriorate - carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reached record highs, scientists are warning that we are in the midst of a period of mass extinction of species, the world's major fisheries are depleted, and water shortages loom worldwide.  The notoriously slow pace of international diplomacy needs to be reconciled with the growing urgency of protecting the planet's life-support systems.

"Environmental treaties have so far mostly failed to turn around today's alarming environmental trends because the governments that created them have generally permitted only vague commitments and lax enforcement.  Governments have also for the most part failed to provide sufficient funds to implement treaties, particularly in the developing world."

Thus much depends upon strong political action and increased efforts on the part of NGOs.  Deforestation, water shortages, climate change, extensive poverty, and other global ills have assumed greater prominence in the public mind, but the public rarely finds adequate ways to effect change at the world level.  The 'think globally, act locally' idea has led more often to local action than a world-wide vision.  Despite the fact that ecological awareness stresses that all is related and that one needs a vision of the whole, it is difficult to organize people on a holistic basis with an intimate and caring relationship with the planet.  Organizational NGO efforts tend to be sectoral: wildlife, pollution control, population etc.

There are very few 'household names' among those working for a global ecological effort.  Probably Maurice Strong of the Stockholm and Rio Summits is the only champion of ecological action at the world level who is widely known.  The panda symbol of the World Wide Fund for Nature (which many people still think of as the World Wildlife Fund) is widely known, but few people can name the Fund's secretary-general.  There is a need to develop an ecological movement on a world level which can be a real NGO partner of the UN system, and such a movement needs recognized leaders.  There is also a need to tap into the emotional-spiritual ethic of reverence for life as a motor for the ecological movement, for as the biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote "We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not fight to save what we do not love."

René Wadlow