10 - Environments

Summary

It is necessary to acquire a full understanding of the increasingly global context of political interaction, not conceived as simply “world-wide”, but rather as the relationship between local issues addressed in a global context and global issues addressed in a local context – local environmental problems (land, water, air pollution) may demand a global strategy, and global environmental problems (ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and climate change) may demand local action.

Hugh C. Dyer

Environmental sovereignty says my home, my space, isn't just limited to my borders on a map. It includes the air I breathe, the water off my shore and the whole extended food chain upon which I rely. Environmental sovereignty is not confined either by conventional borders or by conventional time.

Thomas L. Friedman

Environmental issues represent the paradigmatic transboundary challenge and thus serve as a prime focus for studies of global governance.

Paul Wapner

As these epigraphs imply, in climbing high on the global agenda environmental issues have eroded boundaries within as well as between societies. Pollution is carried by winds and currents across provinces as well as countries, thus cutting a wide swath along the Frontier. Clearly, if the many challenges of nature that presently beset humankind are to be met in the future, actions will have to be undertaken at all levels of community Some of the challenges - such as ozone depletion, pollution of the oceans, loss of biodiversity, and potential climate changes - are global in scope and thus require international collaboration to limit or alter their consequences.