Natural Resources, Sustainable Development, and Globalization

Posted on Dec 10, 2024 in Geography

Natural Resources

A natural resource is a set of elements that humanity obtains from the physical environment to satisfy its biological or social needs.

Renewable Resources

  • Critical: Those that are exhausted with use, such as water, fishing, and forests.
  • Non-critical: Solar radiation, wind.

Non-Renewable Resources

  • Consumables: Fossil fuels.
  • Recoverable:
    • Non-metallic minerals, gravel, glass, sand.
    • Recyclable: Metallic minerals.

Of these resources, the most important are the sources of energy, and currently, fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) pose many problems:

  • They are exhaustible.
  • They are tremendously polluting and are responsible for the greenhouse effect and acid rain.
  • They are geographically concentrated, mostly in Middle Eastern countries, which has implications for oil wells.
  • Developed countries depend on these resources to operate and are not producers.

For these reasons, alternative energies have yet to be developed, including the most important being wind, solar, biomass, tidal, and hydroelectric.

Advantages of Alternative Energies

  • In principle, they are clean.
  • They are not exhaustible.
  • They are ubiquitous.

This opens a debate in countries about nuclear energy (not safe, generates tremendously dangerous and polluting waste).

Biodiversity and Natural Risks

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the set of animals and plants on the Earth’s surface. It is not uniformly distributed, being richer in the equatorial forests (Amazon, Congo, Indonesia), which are at serious risk and are vital.

Threats to Biodiversity

  • Deforestation.
  • Plantations of multinational companies.
  • Many poor farmers are forced to burn parts of the jungle for planting and thus survive.

Biodiversity is the main source of sustenance for the population, especially in developing countries. It is also important for the pharmaceutical industry and regulates the climate. Never before has there been a loss of biodiversity as is occurring now, especially due to high consumerism in rich countries and the great growth in India and China. Another factor is climate change caused by greenhouse gases.

Natural Risks

It is important to differentiate between natural phenomena and natural risks. For a natural phenomenon (earthquakes, rain) to become a risk, it must affect people or their property. Human activities are enhancing natural disasters:

  • Deforestation and erosion of soil by wind and rain, which aggravates floods.
  • Construction of urbanizations and infrastructure in natural watercourses.
  • Climate change is affecting rare phenomena (droughts where there were none before).

Development and Demographics

Economic Development

Growth in the wealth of a country is measured by what is called the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the value in money of what the country produces in one year. Often, what is measured is the GDP per capita (divided by the number of persons).

Problems with GDP

  • It does not account for how social differences have been addressed in the distribution of GDP.
  • It ignores subsistence economies.
  • It does not take into account unpaid work.

There are other ways to measure the development of a country. One that is widely used is the U5MR (Under-5 Mortality Rate), designed by UNICEF, which indicates the degree of nutrition.

Human Development

Human development refers to the conditions for people of a territory to develop their personal and human skills. It is measured by the HDI (Human Development Index), calculated annually by the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). It measures the development of a country from 0 to 1. Rich countries are always above 0.8, intermediate countries between 0.6 and 0.8, and poor countries below 0.5.

It is measured in three ways:

  1. Health, measured by life expectancy.
  2. Education, targeting the illiteracy rate and average years of schooling.
  3. GDP measured by PPP (Purchasing Power Parity).

The opposite of human development is poverty, which has two aspects:

  • Relative poverty, which varies by time and place.
  • Absolute poverty, defined by the UN, occurs when a person does not have a number of basic or fundamental needs covered:
    • Food.
    • Health.
    • Housing and decent clothing.
    • Access to education.

Absolute poverty occurs mostly in underdeveloped countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, but also in developed countries (what we call the Fourth World).

Demographics

After 1973, population growth began to decrease due to the birth rate.

  • Natality: Number of children born in a territory over a year. The birth rate is studied (relationship between births and the total population).
  • Mortality: Number of deaths in a territory in a year. The death rate is studied (ratio of deaths to the population).
  • Natural Increase: The difference between births and deaths throughout the year. The rate of natural increase is studied (relationship between natural increase and population).
  • Emigration: Outflow of population from a territory with a change of address.
  • Immigration: The arrival of a population to a territory with a change of address.
  • Net Migration: The difference between emigration and immigration.

The total growth of the population is given by the natural increase plus net migration. The ISF (synthetic index of fertility) is used more than contraception. To regenerate a population, it has to be 2.1 children per woman.

Currently, population growth is highest in poor countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. There is also high growth in Central Asia and southern Africa. Eastern Europe is the only area to lose population, while the rest of Europe, Africa, and Asia increase their population.

Poor countries, in general, have young populations (many children are born). This has disadvantages:

  • Unemployment problems.
  • Social problems.
  • Need to build infrastructure.
  • These countries’ populations migrate, leading to population aging.

Reasons for High Birth Rates in Poor Countries

  • Children provide financial help from a young age.
  • Children care for parents in old age.
  • The situation of women, who have few rights and cannot decide the number of children they will have.
  • Very young marriages.
  • High infant mortality.

High birth rates are accompanied by a decline in mortality due to medical and hygienic improvements. Yet, these countries have a much lower life expectancy.

In developed countries, the phenomenon is the opposite: little or no growth.

Causes of Low Birth Rates in Developed Countries

  • Children are not a financial aid and are costly.
  • Old age is guaranteed by the state (pensions), and children are not needed for support.
  • The liberation of women, associated with their incorporation into the workforce, allows them to decide how many children they want.
  • Later marriages.
  • Mortality is very low (although it may rise slightly) due to very good living conditions, excellent sanitation, and very good hygiene.

All this means that underdeveloped countries are dominated by youth and are generally sources of emigrants (send people to other countries), while developed countries have an old population and are migrant-receiving countries.

Urbanization

Another key phenomenon today is urbanization (growth in the number of the population and size of cities, and urban lifestyles extending everywhere). There are two main types of growth:

  1. Rich countries grew in the 20th century but now barely grow or even lose population. This was well developed with industrialization and industrial development.
  2. Poor countries are currently growing rapidly. Cities are mostly on the coast, and growth is due to natural increase and migration of poor farmers from rural areas.

This rapid growth leads to many slums, shantytowns that lack minimum conditions (sanitary, hygienic) and where there is often great violence. However, next to them appear extremely luxurious neighborhoods where people live safely, often gated and guarded privately.

Globalization

We live in an economically globalized world because of market competition between companies to sell across the world. This is called globalization.

Key Characteristics of Globalization

  • The entire world is in a capitalist economic system.
  • The relationship between all production systems has increased; they are increasingly interrelated.
  • Lack of state control over its economy, because the power of the national state remains, but the economy has become global.

One of the important aspects is delocalization (moving factories or companies from developed countries to less developed countries).

Reasons for Delocalization

  1. Lower wages.
  2. Less stringent environmental laws.
  3. Lower taxes.
  4. Workers have fewer employment rights and are more controlled.

In the globalized world, multinational enterprises play a key role (controlling 80% of world trade):

  • They have production plants in various countries so that none of them is critical to the company, although they continue to be run from the headquarters.
  • This allows them to reach more markets, make better use of manpower in each territory, and reduce transport costs.
  • They are at the forefront of organization.
  • They devote significant investment to research and development.
  • They have extensive knowledge of the political systems of the countries where they place their factories and influence them in their favor.

WTO: World Trade Organization, administers the agreements negotiated by its members and is also a forum for multilateral trade negotiations.

All this has led to a relationship of interdependence between parts of the world. No one is excluded from globalization. This has been made possible by progress in transportation and especially in communications (which has been spectacular). Not all countries participate equally in globalization. Especially in the relations between rich and poor countries, there is an unequal exchange.

Unequal Roles in the Global Economy

Within the global economy, not all countries have the same function. Some countries, such as the USA, Japan, and the EU, have advanced technology production means. They run the global economy and are called the center. Another group of countries, especially in Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America, have limited or no advanced technology production means and little power in the global marketplace. These are the periphery.