Globalization and Politics

Promises and Dangers

Jan-Erik Lane

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351157223
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Politique et relations internationales
• Categoria: Politique

Globalization and Politics brings together vision and imaginative insight to the analysis of the evolution of inter-state politics to produce a clear, comprehensive and coherent sense of how globalization works and how it might work better. The study looks upon globalization as a distinct set of phenomena - energy, economy, environment and politics - all of which interact. Presenting opportunities for interdependency and governance, globalization offers both dangers and promises which explains why it is equally feared and praised. Globalization is an economic trend with strong spillovers and as such has become a political trend with cultural implications. This volume is an invaluable, highly readable new text for graduate and undergraduate courses. It sets out the key challenges for globalization in the 21st century and looks at the challenges, responses and risks of globalization. It is required reading for analysts, students and professionals who want to understand what's at stake in the globalization debate.

Part I: Challenges

Globalization entails that mankind has embarked upon a common path of development where all countries face interdependencies. Out of this reciprocity come a few major challenges that call for responses in the form of state coordination and government cooperation. I would underline the following three main challenges that globalization throws up:

1. energy: the running out of fossil fuels;
2. environment: global wanning, climate change and species' extinction;
3. peace and human rights: genocide, anarchy, terrorism, civilization wars.

In order of priority, one would start with the fact that human beings need energy for running their social systems - especially the global market economy. But energy must be retrieved in such a manner that mankind does not come into opposition with Mother Nature. How to ensure the supply of energy to more than six billion people on the Earth, while also protecting the environment is already a major concern. Enhancing development and increasing affluence is a must, if poverty is to be reduced, but how to modernize without fossil fuels? Yet, besides well-being there is the question of human rights, which are still denied to large portions of the population in Africa and Asia.

Chapter 1
The Optimistic and Pessimistic View on Global Energy

Introduction

Energy is necessary for all forms of activity. If the problem of access to cheap energy cannot be solved, then the living conditions of mankind will deteriorate dramatically. Energy is consumed when fossil fuels are burnt and electricity is used up but also when minerals are extracted and handled in order to deliver usable products. Some of the key minerals that are used in industrial production of mass products are in short supply today. However, one cannot predict that they will stop being supplied in the near future, as besides new discoveries there is also the possibility of man made substitutes for some of them as well as increased energy efficiency.

The energy problem is at the same time a technological, social and political conundrum. It is technological to the extent that it may be resolved through key new innovations allowing mankind to use many other kinds of sources of energy than fossil fuels, especially hydrogen. However, it is a distinctly social problem in the sense that it is questionable whether the main coordination system of mankind markets - is powerful enough to trigger the new innovations necessary for the hydrogen economy. Finally, the energy question is a politicized one, as governments use a variety of public policies in relation to the provision of energy as well as in regulating energy markets. The global energy problem boils down to the classical question of coordination. Which mechanism of coordination is most effective in bringing forth energy to mankind: market or state?

There are in the literature on global energy basically two views on the global energy problems: the optimistic view following the principle of relative scarcity and market resilience on the one hand and the pessimistic view targeting the grossly unequal distribution of energy among the countries of the world on the other hand. The purpose of this Chapter is to analyze the confrontation between these two perspectives upon global energy.

Various Types of Energy

Energy is either renewable like the direct sun radiant energy and its indirect derivatives like biomass and the winds, gravitational energy and thermal energy from the earth, or energy is non-renewable like chemical energy from combustible fuels or nuclear fission energy from uranium. In the natural sciences one talks about different forms of energy (Pielou, 2001). What energy is in its essence is not entirely clear to the layman. According to the Einstein formula, where energy is said to be equal to mass times the velocity of light squared, energy and mass are considered as basically the same thing. Yet in physics one speaks of different types of energy: radiant energy, thermal energy, wind energy, gravitational energy, nuclear energy and chemical energy. When using the energy of nature to transform it into power or release its power so that it can be employed, it is interesting to distinguish between different forms of energy. The more compact the mass of the energy source, the more energy it generates. Chemical energy is much easier to employ for human goals than other forms of energy, such as radiant energy or thermal energy.

In principle, all energy derives from the fusion or fission of matter as well as from the gravitational force that matter exerts upon matter. Thus, the energy available on earth either originates from the sun (fusion), the earth (fission) or the gravitational force between the sun, the moon and the globe. Mankind may either directly employ these sources of energy and their derivates or human beings may themselves create energy through the fusion or fission of matter. Actually, the advances in technology, science and economics have thus far allowed mankind to tap into all sources of energy except one, namely the fusion of matter in nuclear installations. Whether this can occur on a grand economical scale is not known as of today, although the industrial powers have decided to attempt it in the giant reactor in Cadarache, France (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor - ITER).

It should be underlined that mankind must rely upon the sources of energy that it can control and that are economically developed. Thus, the distinction between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy is most relevant, but mankind is in its technology and its economic systems heavily dependent upon one non-renewable energy source, fossil fuels, which in their turn drive global warming and environmental degradation. Mankind needs to develop the technology for another and more abundant energy source, as for instance putting the hydrogen economy in place.

Total and Usable Energy

Potentially the amount of energy available on the earth is enormous, as out of the daily energy derived from the sun's radiation (fusion energy) and that from the earth's interior (fission energy), mankind only uses a tiny portion, especially the fossil fuels. This is the crux of the matter. If more of the renewable energy could be put to use, then the energy problem would be less severe. Mankind does not possess economically feasible ways for employing in a major way the immense daily supply of energy from the sun. Instead, it relies upon the burning of fossil fuels - coal, oil, gas, of which oil is being rapidly depleted. At the same time, burning fossil fuels leads to environmental problems through the emission of hazardous materials including carbon dioxide, sulphur and nitrate - the greenhouse gases.

The daily supply of energy on the globe may be recalculated from various types of energy into one measure: Joule. There are only two sources: the radiation from the sun and the internal energy of the earth. Together they mix to produce several forms of energy, some of which human beings are able to tap into. The sun's power is measured in terms of watts (W), where it holds that 1 W = 1 J/s, or one watt being equal to 1 joule per second. The sun is a giant fusion reactor, which sends out 3.8 χ 10²⁶ watts per day the solar constant. The earth receives 340 W per square metre, of which 70 per cent enters the atmosphere of the globe, while 30 per cent is immediately reflected back into the universe. Fifty-one per cent of the heat reaches land and sea on earth whereas the atmosphere of the globe absorbs 19 per cent by the greenhouse gases, water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane. The incoming heat is reflected back into the universe, where 45 per cent of the heat passes through the atmosphere of the earth and 6 per cent is radiated directly into the universe.

The radiant sun energy renders the earth some 170 000x 10¹² W of power, but very little is used by mankind. Thirty per cent leaves the earth as short-term radiation without ever reaching land or sea, 47 per cent is converted to heat and leaves the earth as long-term radiation and 23 per cent evaporates or becomes precipitation. Photosynthesis takes a mere 40x10¹² W, which is stored in plants, resulting in fossil fuels after decay. The winds, waves and currents that the sun puts in motion account for only 370 x IO¹² W (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy).

The second major source of energy is the earth. It delivers gravitational energy as well as thermal and nuclear energy. Terrestrial energy is small in relation to the radiant energy from the sun, although it results in earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tidal flows. The energy from the fission processes in the interior of the earth is transformed into so-called conduction in rocks and convection in volcanoes in hot springs. The energy in tidal currents amounts only to: 3 x 10¹² W. The terrestrial energy may be tapped into through water-powered stations, through geo-thermal installations or through plants using tidal waves. However, these renewable sources of energy have not been developed enough to deliver a sizeable portion of the energy that mankind needs to develop its social systems and keep the world economy going.

Fossil Fuels

Today almost as much as 80 per cent of all energy consumed in the world is derived somehow from the burning of combustible fuels, that is, coal, gas and oil. The consumption of fossil fuels is highly skewed with rich countries consuming much more than poor countries. This energy inequality means that the United States with a population of 5 per cent of the globe's total consumes 25 per cent of the energy produced in the world. The more advanced countries becomes economically, the more they consume energy from fossil fuels - as for instance with China today.

Something has to be done about the immense dependency upon oil and gas. If the consumption of fossil fuels continues to increase, then the world will run out of these sources of energy before the middle of the 21st century. Prices will start rising, at first slowly and then dramatically, in order to keep demand in line with supply. Continued vast burning of fossil fuels would also have dramatic consequences upon the global environment - the greenhouse effect. Thus, there are good reasons to initiate policies that would reduce the global dependency upon combustible fuels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuels), especially after the rise in petrol prices since 2004.

How is it, then, that governments and markets do not already react in a crisis manner to the future shortage of combustible fuels? Markets are as myopic as governments are sanguine and opportunistic, 'myopic' meaning that the discount factor is high. Future income streams 20 or 30 years ahead have little impact upon economic expectations today. Perhaps more oil and gas will be found? Yes, this is probable but not at the rate of their consumption today. For every four barrels of oil burned, only one is retrieved in new discovery. Methane could replace oil to some extent. Besides being derivable from gas and organic wastes, it is available abundantly as submarine deposits of methane hydrate along the perennially frozen ground in the Arctic waters. It contains an immense amount of carbon, but the technology to bring this ice up to the earth's surface in a safe manner does not exist. When it melts, then the methane enters the earth's atmosphere and increases the greenhouse gases that account for global warming and acid rains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane).

Fission Energy

Fission energy is a much more effective power source than chemical energy derived from burning fossil fuel. Again it is the Einstein equation that explains why, as the mass of uranium is much more compact than the mass of oil or gas. Thus, 3 kilograms of uranium used in a...