What is Globalization?
Depending on who you ask, it has many different definitions. The Suny Levin Institute, creators of Globalization101.org, defines Globalization as “A process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment, and aided by information technology.” They continue by saying “This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development, and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.”
Steve Jones, from About.com defines globalization as “An elimination of barriers to trade, communication, and cultural exchange worldwide with openness that promotes the inherent wealth of all nations.”
No matter how it’s defined, Globalization involves the economies of countries from around the world working together to become more integrated over time. Consider it as a global form of investing of one country in another country, perhaps even a partnership of trade, healthcare, commerce, and the reduction of (if not the complete removal of) existing barriers of international industry.
The United States became a major contributor and participant in globalization after ending a period of over 100 years of isolationism when it entered World War One, but more importantly as a super power during the Second World War. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt who had told the
American People of his desire to expand the United States interests in the hopes that another great depression would not come about as it had done when the First World War ended. Additionally, he hoped that globalization would harbor an environment that would prevent another world war. The end result of this was the creation of the United Nations by the big three allied leaders, FDR, Winston
Churchill, and Josef Stalin. Today, the United Nations has grown from the original 51 nations in 1945 to
193 nations today, and focuses on international law, dispute resolution, disaster relief, human rights, and the recognition of new nations. The United Nations is one example of how globalization can foster an environment of international agreements, aid, security, and unity when global events transpire that require the attention and aid of others.
From 1946 to 1991, The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a “cold war” with two very different forms of government, which essentially created walls and established dividing lines between different countries. While the United States encouraged globalization, the Soviet Union attempted to share very little by producing all goods internally with a heavy degree of cautious

international relationships and practices. The U.S. promoted trade with other countries as well as offered foreign aid, ultimately offering other countries positive alternatives to a very closed and insular communist system.
One of the systems of globalization created by the U.S. was free trade. This refers to a lack of barriers between trade with other nations. These barriers included tariffs that protected domestic manufacturers. Tariffs were originally designed by the U.S. to raise revenue for the country to help pay off its war debts from the Revolutionary war, and later to prevent poorly made products from flooding the American market which could ultimately slow (or even stop) the growth of American manufacturers.
Because of agreements of different countries on Tariffs and Trade, The United States now has free trade agreements with 18 different nations; our newest agreement was signed by President Obama with Columbia. These agreements have presented a wide range of trade opportunities with other countries such as Agricultural trade with Australia which has established a 23 percent increase of exported goods from 2005 to 2009. The United States has exported over $7.5 billion in agricultural goods to Australia, up 3.5 percent from 2004.
The United States and Peru signed the United State-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA) in
2006 which has led to the elimination of expensive and lengthy tariffs between the countries. The two countries today have formed partnerships in regards to the protection of the environment and to established labor rights which were previously non-existent in Peru. As of 2009, the United States Trade
Representative’s website states that the two-way trade with Peru was $8.8 billion, with the U.S. goods exported to Peru at approximately $4.8 billion. Because of positive globalization in action, Peru now has protections in place for its workforce, and has established itself as a beneficiary and participant of the global market as trade markets migrate to the 21 st century.
In November of 2011, the leaders of nine countries formed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These countries include Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. The announcement includes the achievement of an ambitious agreement which will set broad outlines to enhance trade and investment among the nine countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.
End of introduction portion

Conclusion & Benefits Combination Information
The new field of sustainability science has emerged from attempts to understand the interactions between human activities and natural systems. It spans the full range of scales from the local to the global, recognizing that land use is affected by the changing global climate and is also effecting change to the global climate, so interactions in both directions need to be considered. It explicitly transcends traditional disciplines, since many of our most serious environmental problems are the direct result of applying narrow specialized knowledge to one aspect of a complex system. It aims to improve our understanding of complex self-organizing systems and their responses to multiple and often interacting stresses. Rather than trying to shore up the crumbling myth of scientific objectivity, it accepts that different observers with different values legitimately reach different interpretations of complex issues. By explicitly recognizing the problem, it endeavors to enable the various social actors to work together toward common goals from their separate perspectives. It is seeking to answer some
“core questions”, such as whether scientifically meaningful limits can be identified to warn when natural systems are at risk of serious or irreversible degradation. It is addressing specific short- term issues of concern, such as the effect of the recent pattern of “development”' on the Himalayas. In that case, teams including both natural and social scientists from five countries involved (India, Nepal, Pakistan,
Bangla Desh and China) and from international research institutions are examining the impacts of globalization on the fragile ecosystems and economies of their common mountain region' (Kates et al2001). There are other international initiatives, such as the Resilience Alliance, which is attempting to define the conditions which determine the capacity of natural systems to cope with pressures
(Resilience Alliance 2003) and the Global Scenarios Group. In other words, the recognition that complex environmental problems are regional or global in scope is itself driving a new approach that explicitly takes that reality into account.
Additional benefits of Globalization include employment, strong international relationships based on universal foreign trade practices, the sharing of technical knowledge and innovations, the sharing of different cultures, as well as the introduction of a more broad sense of global environmental and social concerns which can be (and are) shared between nations. Globalization has enabled us to break the destructive and regressive taboos that have caused discrimination between nations and some consider it to be an antidote to the intolerant fundamentalism that oppresses millions of the world’s poorest people.

Another strong argument for globalization is the broad attention it has brought on the exploitation of child labor in other countries, and how that responsibility has ultimately been placed squarely on the shoulders of the corporations themselves. Without a global trade and communication system, it is plausible to consider that we as a country might never fully know or understand the severity of this global problem, and other international watchdog groups may very well never have come to fruition as a direct result of it.
Consider the cocoa industry in Africa in 2001 when it was discovered that several suppliers of cocoa beans were using child labor in West Africa. The U.S. State Department reported that some
15,000 children were working in forced labor conditions in Ghana as well as the Ivory Coast, trafficked from poor countries like Mali and Burkina Faso. These farms produced more than half of the world’s cacao that finds its ways into candy, cookies, or cocoa butter used in cosmetics. When the news was leaked to a global economy that children were forced into such conditions, which was a clear violation of existing international trade policy, the chocolate industry itself appealed for a non-legislative solution, fearing the chocolate market itself would collapse on a global scale. In September of 2001, plantation owners, cacao traders, and chocolate manufactures agreed to implement what would be known as the
Cocoa Protocol. All major chocolate companies signed the agreement and which was designed to ensure that all cocoa bean products are grown and processed without violating international accepted labor standards. Similar standards have been set into place globally in the coffee industry as well.
Because of globalization, smaller countries have been able to compete and participate in a market that exists outside of their borders, and with countries that may have otherwise been uninterested in forming singular relationships with them. Consider that companies that exist in countries have smaller markets to sell their products and services to as the existing markets in their country become saturated. By opening boarders, expanding trade, and simplifying tariffs, countries are now more free to pursue business outside of their boarders, with established policies for doing so that other countries must abide by. Additionally, countries are free to expand on their span of influence, thus improving international relationships, and introducing their cultures to what was once an insular population, the United States of America. Environmental conditions are now at the forefront of business on a global scale, with “green technologies” becoming a commodity that all of our population requires.
And finally, the unified agreements of fundamental based laws that are now in place continue to ensure that the spirit of cooperation lives on, regardless of which part of the planet you call home. From the computer chip, to the materials we build our homes and our lives with, globalization is a positive and

internationally profitable establishment that is simply measured by more than dollar signs, but by the quality of our lives on a planet that we are all expected to share.

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