Globalization; the Curse or the Savior of Mankind?

Carl Sagan asked, based on his cosmic calendar, “Where would you place your own life on this timeline? Where would you place the life of one of your grandparents? What is the major disadvantage of a time line drawn to this scale? What is its advantage?” To answer his questions about where your life or the life of your loved ones would fall, signifies a miniscule amount of time relative to the time line of human history. You simply couldn’t place the life of any single human on this cosmic calendar due to the fact that all recorded history occupies the last 10 seconds of Sagan's calendar and the entirety of human existence takes up only the last 90 minutes. Therefore, globalization ensued after the first humans walked on earth in only 90 minutes of the entire world’s cosmic history of 525,600 minutes. As for the 108 billion [1] people who have walked the Earth, each person’s life, is less than a blink on the timeline, approximately fifteen tenths of a second. It is remarkable that in a literal blink of an eye, humans have been able to profoundly impact the condition of the Earth and to challenge the course of history. In the history of the world, humans have been caught red-handed, egregiously abusing the very place they live by developing an unnatural world out of a once natural one. Is there time to alter the course? As Albert Einstein suggests, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”[2] The relationship between humans and the Earth resulted in a significantly changed landscape. Globalization began with the domestication of wheat and barley in the Middle East around 10,000 BC. By 6,000 BC, both corn and rice had been domesticated creating cash crops and a more comfortable lifestyle for humans. There was no longer a search for food but instead a transition to a simple purchase or trade. Land which was once a dense forest, evolved into level parcels with condensed arrays of wild plants. The manipulation of plants and land to accommodate the needs of an increasing population of humans is part of the reason globalization was vilified from the start. The alterations to the natural landscape had destructive qualities such as erosion and floods. Additionally, the introduction of foreign or invasive species of plants and animals to places that they didn’t belong changed the environment and natural habitats. If humans hadn’t tried to create a landscape that only catered to them, and if humans had thought about their negative impacts and the future repercussions, then we wouldn’t be in the repugnant situation we are in now. There is only one component to blame, globalization, which is a product of humans. Globalization is a double edged sword. For example, civilization is a product of globalization, the illustrious civilized world we live in today wouldn’t have occurred unless we developed our primitive technologies and tools, and produced a more efficient way of doing the same tasks using less of our own energy and time. However, civilization is also a curse, for one, we use more resources and expend ourselves less, as well as how people lived for thousands of years nomadically, not staying in one location for the entirety of their life. When humans had to hunt and gather their food, they were more intuitive and much less idle. Primitive human’s didn’t have time to sit down, they were always searching for their next meal, so when this was eliminated, and all they had to do was venture down to the market to trade or purchase a food or personal item, it seemed great then, but little was it known about the potent damage that was happening to the Earth.
When cities and towns were created and people were living in large volumes in centralized area’s, a lot of resources were expended and required to keep a large population clothed, fed and healthy, this also meant items had to be imported and exported to keep a city stable. Cities allowed for more human to human contact to spread viruses, diseases and small bugs more easily by the travel of humans from one community to the next. Not only were human's impacted by more contact, but also the unnatural spreading of invasive species to area’s due to the importation and exportation of goods from town to town, country to country, and continent to continent. When the growth of the human population was (and still is) growing at the rate it was and is growing, the same cities couldn’t and can't withstand tremendous amounts of humans, so the solution was to either, expand and enlarge the city, or to create and congregate elsewhere, both options destroying more land, requiring more resources and ultimately vilifying globalization in the long run. When humans did not know better, and did not foresee the lasting impacts or danger of crossing with other groups of people or bringing animals and plants to places to utilize them in a certain scenario without realizing what spore, illness, bacteria or invasive qualities that animal or plant. As well as how a plant or animal may thrive in an area, but it be destroying the native species, and be destroying the fertility of the soil, all effects noticed and frowned upon in the end, but touted during because of certain things alleged greatness, finally realizing their destructive actions qualities. If globalization were to be put on a balance beam, pro’s on one side, con’s on the other, the pro’s would probably be heavier. If you think of all the lasting impacts and great momentous strides the human race has taken, such as: technology, infrastructure, nationalized commerce, the global market (and China), government, human aides, modes of transportation, medicine, currency, production of food, entertainment, machinery, language, life expectancy, literacy, education, and global production of human products, all made this world more of a secure place for the modern human to live and thrive. Things that humans benefitted from, however, may not have benefitted the land, and was quite possibly detrimental to the well being of the fertility of the land and the native species of plants and animals.
Since globalization started, conveniently the beginning of man, we haven’t really been focused on our lasting impact, such as our readily available resources. The question, “will fresh and drinkable water run out?” wasn’t even on the radar of early man, and hadn’t really been on anyone's radar until recent. Human’s have just started to scramble for resources that were once abundant, like oil for example. We have now had to start preserving our resources that are still in existence. The human race hadn’t experienced this type of thing until we had to search for fertile virgin land to farm on, until we realized that once abundant species were now being driven to extinction, until we had to start preserving our land so we didn’t make the same mistake twice, until we had to start thinking to globalize responsibly. In the end, globalization benefitted human’s as a species ten fold to the negative impact to us, but to the land which we have no escape from, to the animals from which we feed, and the plants we receive nourishment from, and the water we receive hydration from, and the resources we build our dwellings and personal products from, all received a slap in the face due to our utter manipulation. Now is our calling, we can foresee what will happen if we repeat, we saw what can happen if we just take our assets for granted. This is a time for change, a time to reverse the curse we have set upon ourselves. If we come together and realize how we are ruining our home, we can halt our exponential population growth, and our misuse of resources if we want to keep what this world originally presented to us. Like stated earlier, globalization is a double edged sword, we need to chose how we use it, there is a time and place for everything, and globalization doesn’t need to be looked at as a villain, if we utilize globalization the right way, and keep in mind what has happened, we can make globalization a hero, if we invest in the correct engineering, and smart technologies, then we can restart and not waste senselessly, as Benjamin Franklin said, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” [3] If we are smart, we won’t let the well dry up.