The impact of globalization has been seismic. Workers in China labor to create toys designed for children in the United States, an employee might work for a multinational firm in his hometown, or be transferred halfway across the world for his job. A customer might talk to a call center employee in an outsourced Indian call center to trouble-shoot problems on his or her computer. Globalization, the argument goes, has made the world more economically interconnected, thus lessening the chance that national political conflicts will spiral out of control. Globalization fosters tolerance by facilitating greater cultural as well as economic exchange.
             However, the surge of prosperity in the developing world has also meant a surge in the use of increasingly overtaxed resources of the globe. People who never had access to wealth before are buying more cars, eating more meat, consuming more disposable goods, and living in larger accommodations. The world cannot physically support even greater use of its finite energy resources. But how can the developed world, which is largely responsible for this situation, tell the developing world that it must tighten its belt, and be denied the same rights and privileges as the West of the past two centuries?
             Globalization does have some advantages in preserving the environment. To improve the world, international cooperation is necessary, to reduce fuel emissions, environmental pollution, and over-fishing. The developed world can also provide economic and educational support to poorer nations, as well as broker regional conflicts through the United Nations. Although colonization and the globalization that took root in its aftermath have created many problems, hopefully the ideology of globalization can also promote solutions.
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