Global+Problems

= ** Global Problems ** =
 * By: Saige Hammond and Nicole Hoffman**

By the end of the twentieth century, many traditional areas of state responsibility-- whether pertaining to population policies, health concerns, or environmental issues-- needed to be coordinated. Issues concerning labor servitude, poverty, epidemic diseases, terrorism, and human rights demanded attention and action on a scale greater than the nation-state.

__Population Pressures and Environmental Degradation__
There has been a dramatic population increase in the 20th century, as a result of advances in agriculture, industry, science, medicine, and social organization, the world experience a fivefold population increase over a period of three hundred years: from 500 million people in 1650to 2.5 billion in 1950. After WWII the widespread and successful use of vaccines, antibiotics, and insecticide, along with improvements in water supplies and increased agricultural yields, cause a dramatic decline in worldwide death rates. Asia and Africa experienced a population explosion after WWII. There were approximately 5.5 billion people in 1994; and perhaps 11.6 billion people in 2200. So far, food production has kept pace with the population growth. With the large population changes, and important question rose: How many people can the earth support? Scientists and citizens have become concerned about physical limits of the earth. Beginning in 1967, a group of international economists and scientists became the Club of Rome. Praised by some observers as the conscience of the world and decried by others as being excessively negative, the club issued a

report in 1972 with the subtitle "The Limits to Growth." Dire predictions not borne y facts: prices have fallen, food has increased.

**Environmental Impact**
Urbanization and agricultural expansion threatened the biodiversity. As people are born, pollution levels increase, more habitats and animal and plant species disappear, and more natural resources are consumed. Two environmental issues have taken center state is recent decades: biodiversity and global warming. Global warming refers to a rise in global temperatures, which carries potentially dire consequences for humanity. Like the glass panes in a greenhouse, hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel, and methane emitted from the stool of farm animals trap eat within the atmosphere, leading to a rise in global temperatures. In 1997 at Kyoto, Japan, the delegates of 159 countries met and agreed to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

**Population control: a highly politicized issue**
Political leaders in developing countries, for example, charged representatives of industrialized countries with racism when they raised concerns regarding overpopulation. The problems caused by rapid population growth eventually convinced many governments to take to control fertility. Reducing birthrates became a central concern of many governments, and to date some eighty countries have adopted birth control programs. UN agencies have aided many countries with family-planning programs. China's one-child policy has significantly reduced growth rate. However, other cultures still favor larger families, for example, India.

__Economic Inequities and Labor Servitude__
The unequal distribution of resources and income, and the resulting poverty,have materialized as key concerns of the contemporary world. Several million people, especially in the developing areas of eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, struggle daily for sufficient food, clean water, adequate shelter, and other basic necessities. Malnutrition among the poor has led to starvation and death, along with stunted growth, poor mental development, and high rates of infection. The division between rich and poor has been a defining characteristic of all complex societies. A worldwide shortage of natural resources as well as the uneven distribution of resources have figured as major causes of poverty and have divided nations into the haves and have-nots. This other major cause, resulted from five hundred years of colonialism, defined by the appropriation of labor and natural resources. Pervasive poverty characterizes many former colonies and dependencies.

**Labor servitude increasing**
Slavery officially ended worldwide in the 1960's, although forced and bonded labor practices continue to affect millions of poor people in the developing world. According to the International Labor Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, more than 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work around the world, many in conditions that are inherently harmful to their physical health and emotional well-being. A growing related global problems that touches societies on every continent is the trafficking of persons. In this form of modern slavery, one to two million human beings annually are bought and sold across international and within national boundaries. Trafficking appears in many forms, including luring victims with the promise of well-paying jobs abroad, and then once the victim arrives in the country, they become captives of traffickers who force them into bonded labor, domestic servitude, or the commercial sex industry. Most of these victims are girls and women, lured with promises of work.

__**Global Diseases**__
The introduction of diseases to populations that lacked any form of immunity killed perhaps as many as 90 percent of native Americans in the span of 150 years. More recently, and influenza pandemic that swept the globe in 1918and 1919 killed between twenty and forty million people, far more than died as the result of the Great War that had just ended. Since then, medical experts, public health officials, and scientist scored major victories in their fight against diseases, eradication smallpox and diphtheria.

**HIV/AIDS**
Medical experts identified AIDS for the first time in 1981 among homosexual men and intravenous drug users in New York and San Francisco. AIDS rather quickly developed into a worldwide epidemic that affected virtually every nation. At the end of 2003 the number of people living with HIV/AIDS was 37.8 million, and over 20 million AIDS deaths had occurred since the beginning of the epidemic. The AIDS epidemic struck hardest in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS kills adults in prime, therefore many children in Africa were orphaned. As the AIDS epidemic deepens, it leaves an economically devastated continent in its wake. Families who must care for a member who is ill with AIDS often deplete financial resources that would otherwise be used to cover necessities or to invest in children's futures. Many people in African cannot afford the treatment. Although infection rates in Asia remain low, health officials fear that the disease will spread faster as it traverses India, the world's second most populous nation.

__**Global Terrorism**__
Terrorism has become a problem for the whole globalized world. Media awareness of terrorism has showed the grievances and demands of terrorists. It also has transformed the practice of terrorism. There is no agreed definition of terrorism, but many experts agree that a key feature of terrorism is when there is deliberate and systematic use of violence against civilians, because of political, religious, or ideological differences. Terrorism is rarely successful and the terrorist tactics usually discredits potentially worthy causes. There are many issues of what constitutes terrorism and how to respond to it. These issues were revisited on September 11, 2001, when there was a terrorist act against the United States. The targets of this terrorist attack were Washington D.C. and New York City. There were hijackers who seized four passenger jetliners and used them as guided missiles. Two of these planes crashed into both of the World Trade Center towers. This caused both of them to collapse, causing many deaths and injuries. During the same morning another one of the planes crashed into the Pentagon. The last jet crashed into a field outside of Pittsburgh. This jet was intended to hit Washington, D.C., but the passengers of the jet stormed the hijackers. This stopped it from hitting Washington, D.C. The U.S. government identified the person in charge of this terrorist attack to be Osama bin Laden. President George W. Bush then declared war on Osama bin Laden and global terrorism itself. Osama bin Laden is head of al-Qaeda, which is the core of a global terrorist network. In 1998 he publicly called on every Muslim to kill Americans and their allies. Osama bin Laden is viewed by many as the personification of evil and is admired by some for his convictions and aims.
 * September 11, 2001**

In 1996 the Taliban established the Islamic state of Afghanistan. The Taliban intolerance was prominent, and their leader was Mohammed Omar. They also provided sanctuary and training grounds for Islamist fighters. The Taliban imposed strict Islamic law, which included regulated dress, entertainment, and media. The women were barred from education, work, and health services. The United Nations and other governments in the world didn’t recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. The northern alliance, comprised of smaller religious and ethnic groups, became an ally of the United States in its mission to find and punish those responsible for the September 11th attacks. On November 2001, United State forces invaded Afghanistan so they could drive out the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Another action against terrorism happened in March 2003 when president Bush coordinated “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” They wanted to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein and create a democratic state in Iraq. On May 1, 2003 Bush declared an end to major battle operations in Iraq. In December 2003 Hussein was caught but resistance in Iraq still persisted. The costs of this war has climbed in both casualties and expenditures.
 * War in Afghanistan and Iraq**

**__Coping with Global Problems: International Organizations__**
Even though the world’s nations and people were becoming increasingly interdependent, governments still operated on the basis of the territorially delimited state. Many of the global problems couldn’t be solved by national governments, because of national borders became less important in the face of new economic and cultural connections. Nongovernmental international organizations and governmental international organizations institutions became more important because they had the potential to tackle problems that do not respect territorial boundaries and are beyond the reach of national governments. The Red Cross was a prototypical nongovernmental organization. The Red Cross is an international humanitarian agency. Jean Henri Dunant, a Swiss philanthropist, founded the Red Cross. It was originally for helping wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilians in time of war. Twelve nations signed the first Geneva Convention, this laid rules for the treatment of the wounded and the protections of medical personnel and hospitals. The Red Cross was adopted a symbol of neutral aid. Ultimately the Red Cross extended its mission to peacetime, rendering medical aid, and other help for victims of natural disasters. Founded in 1970, Greenpeace is an environmental non-governmental organization. Their pursuit is a green and peaceful world and they have attracted a lot of media attention with their environmental concerns. United Nations is the premiere international governmental organization. The United Nations goal is to find solutions to global problems and to deal with any matter of concern to humanity. A principal purpose of the UN is “ to maintain international peace and security.” It is not successful at preventing wars, for example the Iran-Iraq war, the civil war in Somalia, and the war in Afghanistan. However the UN has compiled an enviable record with respect to another role defined in its character. The UN cannot legislate, but has an influence in the international community. The United Nations has worked hard to provide access to safe water for over one billion people living in rural areas, as well as many other great accomplishments. They are more successful in health and educational goals, like eradication of smallpox, decrease in child mortality, and increase in female literacy. Many governmental and nongovernmental organizations have focused their attention on the protection of human rights. Human rights are the notion that all persons are entitled to the some basic rights, especially those that protect an individual against state conduct prohibited by international law or custom. This is an ancient concept, but is gaining wider acceptance. The universal recognition and acceptance of human rights came in the after math of World War II, especially with the exposure of crimes that the Nazi regime unleashed. The Nuremberg Trials of Nazis established the concept of “crimes against humanity.” The UN universal declaration of Human Rights forbids slavery, torture, and discrimination. By the late 1980s, human rights had emerged as one of the principal themes of global politics. Because of the level of global interaction, international coordination to solve problems became a necessity. Contentious issues have sometimes paralyzed the UN and its affiliated organizations.
 * Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO)**
 * The United Nations**
 * Human Rights**