Customer Reviews

Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization

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If you have ever wondered what all the fuss surrounding the WTO meetings in Seattle was about, or who the World Bank and IMF are and their impacts on the environment, this is the book for you! Clearly written and meticulously researched, Vanishing Borders makes many of the complex issues of globalization and the environment accessible to a general audience. This book goes out of its way to tell all sides of an issue and to look toward what can be done to improve the world in the future. I highy recommend it.

In the book Vanishing Borders, by Hilary French, she brings to our attention how rapid people, resources, money, disease and pollution are integrating themselves with the entire world. Borders of nations and physical barriers are no longer containing things like they used to. The book is divided into two parts; the current situation the world is facing and what its going to take to solve the issues.
In the first section of the book French states the status quo of the world. We are burning too many fossil fuels leading to ozone depletion. She discusses the devastations as a result of the elevated timber market. We can no longer count on our natural environmental borders to keep out diseases or invasive species. As a result of our wildly intensifying populations, we are finding ways to get beyond our borders and transmit all sorts of hazards throughout the continents causing immense wreckage to our ecosystems. The more our populations grow the more waste we have. French gives insight to how developed countries are trading their toxic waste and hazardous chemicals to lesser-developed countries, causing mass death and injury. Although we have environmental organizations and treaties in favor of promoting a healthy world, there are just too many countries and environmental issues that are out of control and treaties not getting enforced.
In the second part of her book, French discusses the tactic that she feels will best bring control to our uninhibited world mixing and relief to our environmental strains. There are lots of world treaties out there that are not getting enforced and still other issues that are not even getting considered. International institutions such as the World Trade Origination are not taking a rigid enough stance on a lot of environmental and global protection issues. French argues that the solution to this problem is joint world effort on behalf of citizens themselves. She states that technologies and communications are such that businesses and non-governmental organizations have the abilities to form substantial coalitions of people through the private sector.
I got a lot out of the book. I was previously oblivious to a lot of our environmental concerns. What I assumed was just getting done and regulated I now know is not. I had no idea what was occurring with our toxic waste and hazardous chemicals. French brought to my attention a lot of issues that pertain to the United States that are seldom publicly discussed for obvious reasons. I am however a little skeptical about Frenchs solution. Im not convinced that there is that large of a base of people interested in devoting enough time, energy, and finances into organizing a world-wide environmental protection program. My skepticism could be a result of not having the knowledge or background on what non-governmental organizations are capable of. Overall the book was well worth the read and very understandable. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is remotely interested in environmental protection or globalization.

Rur Soc 248
4/16/03
BOOK REVIEW 4

Vanishing Borders Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization is written by Hilary French. French works for the World Watch Institute, where she is the Vice President for Research. World Watch is a nonprofit organization that analyzes global environmental and development issues.
Vanishing Borders is about the problems that the World is facing due to increasing globalization. French goes on to explain that globalization means different things to different people. For some people it means that companies are setting up offices overseas with very little restrictions, for others it means increasing diversity among people and cultures, and yet for others it means communicating easier with others far away through the Internet. In French's book she argues that the globalization that is of most concern to the environment is how companies are able to trade and operate all over the World with very few rules to regulate them. The book goes on too explain that major problems that are effecting natural areas such as, deforestation, mining, and ecotourism. French also talks about how agriculture practices are changing our environment and creating problems such as species reductions. French links these problems together and discusses how they are affecting the biota of the world. She argues that economists have to place a value on the conditions of the planet as well as on consumer goods in the long run they will affect each other. French argues that the World needs more environmental regulations to regulate globalization and its effects in order to maintain our environment and even make it better.
I thought that this book was interesting. Even though I was aware of the situation that the World was in, I did not think it was as bad as French writes. I liked how French showed numerical values to illustrate how trade has become even more globalized in the last decade. In many instances countries are importing and exporting 10 to 15 times more goods than they did 20 to 30 years ago. These numerical values really show that we are a global community. One aspect of the book that I did not like was the agriculture practices that she said needed to change. It is true that some of our agriculture practices need to change in order to reduce environmental pollution, but we can't have a decrease in production because we are all ready have many starving people in the world. After reading the book I think that French succeeded in proving her argument which illustrate that we need more regulations on global trade in order to protect our planet.

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