There is an ironic dimension to the connection between globalization and climate change: attacking globalization is a bit like complaining about the weather- satisfying, but there isn't very much we can do about it. The global expansion of common markets for goods and services may be as destructive as hurricanes, or as beneficial as May sunshine, but it's an historical force that seems inevitable. How do you stop ever more people from forming economic relationships that they find mutually profitable? The key to surviving, even flourishing in the new economic climate is to find a way for the "small guy", the Inuits, small communities around the world, you and me, to compete more effectively. The winning plan isn't to turn the clock back, it's to even the playing field.

To accomplish this will require a different set of policies and operating practices at many different levels from new international treaties to local community zoning decisions. A simple change in mindset would help accomplish a lot: we have to make the promotion of local economic and political development a strategic goal of international, national, and local policy. Not the only goal, obviously, since we have to protect the jobs of people who work for the GM's and Wal-Marts of the world, but an important goal, one against which our other policy goals would have to be balanced.

If this were the case, then globalization itself could serve the beneficial purpose of connecting local entrepreneurs and service providers into a larger network of potential partners, suppliers and customers. Cultural and other changes will still occur, but small communities could find a way to preserve their identity even while engaging the world in ways that might benefit themselves. It would help communities devastated by natural disasters reconstruct themselves in ways that meet their needs. It would also help developing nations avoid the economic malaise that keeps their populations in poverty and contributes to violent conflict. It might even help bring ecological destruction in remote areas under better control.

The key is finding ways to help locally-based enterprises compete. There are well known ways to do this, but until people gain an awareness of the importance of the problem, the political support that would be required to achieve these changes in public policy will not develop.

I'm sure Bucky would agree with you. The scientific community already has- science would not be possible without universalism, after all.

Bucky Fuller had the whole 'global village' thing going. Where the hell did _that_ go? In part, I'm afraid Hillary pre-empted the 'village' part. Now, the 'global' has been pre-empted, mostly because of the still rampant tribalism that is part and parcel of our species.

Globalisation is, after all, anti-tribe, and these days, as it was in the beginning, the tribe, as a source of self-importance, is still paramount.

Our own back yard is not, however, known to be tiny anymore. But try telling that to, oh, you know who....

In the conventional wisdom of economics, the benefits of globalization are outlined in classical economist David Ricardo's "comparative advantage." There's just one problem: Ricardo's logic presupposed mutual benefit from trade predicated on immobile capital and labor. What we have now is globalization in which all such bets are off. Capital, labor, and everything else move around the planet at an often dizzying velocity.

International trade as currently experienced is therefore often not a good deal. It's certainly not an exercise in comparative advantage, and often fosters unsustainable, extractive economics.

For the full story read former World Bank economist Herman Daly's "Beyond Growth : The Economics of Sustainable Development"

Michael Crichton's latest book, State of Fear, discusses a situation quite similar to this one.

I'm pro-globe, but "globalization" is an economic term used by the neoliberals to reinstitute a low-wage labor policy. You know, the kind defeated by Lincoln, FDR, and every other modern president until the Restoration began with the election of Reagan. From Teddy Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter, no president was going to stand up and say, I want to lower wages so the international coupon-cutters can hire people cheap and sell the crap in big Wal-Marts.

In the name of globalization, we have made our own economy into a stunted, neocon dwarf, with no steel, no auto, no ability to manufacture anything. We do, however, have the corner on the world market on patent attorneys and international tax-avoidance consultants.

We were financed by more than 100 years of tariffs on imports, which made us into an independent powerhouse. I don't know how to put Humpty back together again, but the USA of globalization is a 98-pound weakling with very tough bodyguards, not the real Goliath we were at the beginning of the previous century.

What I don't understand about the administration's, and hence this country's, official position on global warming is that they have never come out and said WHY they figure it's unimportant to A. accept that it's happening, and B. to do something about it. Yes, we hear that Kyoto is untenable for America because it places no restrictions on China or India, ostensible economic rivals (who are kicking our butts in some sectors). But why should this matter? Our actions indicate that at best we have mild contempt for the positions of other countries, among more glaring examples, our refusal of Kyoto has demonstrated. Do we do nothing -- or little -- because it would mean that accepting the sword against global warming would somehow be detrimental to our economy, especially to the energy and automotive industries?

The great irony is that were this country to throw its full weight into being the leader in pioneering the development of green technologies then I think our economy would, in the long run, stand a better chance of staying on top for a long time. Yes, there would be a potentially lengthy adjustment period to big companies like Exxon Mobil and GM, but by developing technologies that we can use to reduce our own emissions and then sell these technologies to other countries we would be doing ourselves AND the world great economic, moral, and not least of all, environmental service.

Why do they -- the administration -- refuse to tackle problems logically? Why do we appear to be regressing to an era when science was just so much gobbledygook? Why do we seem, technology-wise (and the internet aside), content to be living in the 1970s when we should be trying to leap into the 2050s? Why are we so anathema to regulation? Why can't we see the connections between our consumption of energy and our failing international moral stature? Is it because we're so blinded by fighting for or against religion? We can argue about what to do in Iraq until we're blue in the face, but I wish someone would just tell us WHY it is unwise to be attacking global warming head-on.