Globalization, Development, and Energy

Abstract

Young adults today have grown up in a world where globalization is a massive reality and where most of our politicians accept its supposed virtues or did so until recently. There are fierce discussions, or more often positions, about whether or how globalization is losing (or gaining) us jobs, or whether we have globalized too much or not enough, but for most people it is just a fact represented by the labels on their clothes or electronic devices indicating production or manufacture from all around the world. This was not the case when the authors of this book were young—at that time nearly everything we ate, wore, or drove was «made in America.» Anything from overseas—except specialized luxury goods—was normally viewed with great suspicion. Thus globalization, at least at the scale we see it today, is a relatively recent phenomenon. That makes it useful and important to understand why globalization has become so important, what are the perceived and actual gains and costs and how these are related to energy use ► [1].