The State of World: Universe is one way and not reversible

In a series of treaties and declarations promulgated over the past few decades, most of the world’s governments have committed themselves to cooperate to end a host of scourges that seriously threaten human well being. Yet they do not seem to mean it. They have promised to halve global poverty by 2015 - but poverty rates have barely budged, except in China, where the reliability of the statistics is open to question. They have vowed to ensure that all people attain a level of health that permits them to lead socially and economically productive lives. They first promised, in 1977, to meet this goal by the year 2000. Instead the proportion of children being immunized against basic childhood diseases has fallen from more than 70 % to at best 50% (1). The UN was founded to protect the world from the scourge of war, but more than 20 million people, mostly civilians, have died in armed conflict since the end of WWII (2). Despite the success in trade liberalization and protection of the ozone layer, there is a litany of failure. The global economy remains highly unstable and grotesquely inequitable, and the global environment continues to deteriorate rapidly.

For the past decade the new challenges and opportunities faced by states over recurrent themes illustrate the configuration of a likely unipolar structure headed by the United States. The lack of geopolitics as a pattern in the international system of the 1990s was due to the fact that there were no overarching rivalries and that the main power structure faced no obvious and significant strategic threats. This benign geopolitical landscape was the result of the massive military superiority of the United States and of the relatively mild quality of its hegemony. This situation, however, changed after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The agenda of promoting political liberalism is being downplayed in exchange for cooperation in maintaining security. The critical issue is not solely suicide bombers rather the people who direct them - being calculating and political. They are seeking above all to seize control of a number of countries now aligned with the US and Europe.

There is a return to military activism that will stimulate balancing behaviour. This is a time of great uncertainty and a pivotal moment, since the decisions that are being taken now will carry long-term consequences. There is enormous emphasis on the need to stop nuclear proliferation with recent attention focused on Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Some see an inconsistency between opposing vertical proliferation by all means necessary, including the threat and in Iraq’s case, the act of war and yet permitting horizontal proliferation. It is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which the use of a nuclear weapon, with all the environmental damage and international opprobrium would be a favoured option. That said nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbol of nation’s ability to respond with ultimate force. As for Iran, the scenario is uncertainty of possible consequences of an attack that could follow: an increase in terrorism, a Shia rising in Iraq; Hizbullah and Iranian attacks on Israel; attacks on oil facilities along the Gulf and a recession caused by rising oil prices. However as Iraq is proving an electoral liability, the future for US to retain power for the next decade is downplayed while Iran’s oil supplies mostly destined for China - perceived as the US’s main long term rival - exacerbates the relation. Hence, the story is open ended.

The aspirations of both Japan and India have also changed in recent years. Both countries see themselves as key players if the post-Cold War world changes to be multi-polar. Chinese people are upset at the way Japan bribed the Russian government to renege on agreement made by the Yukos oil company to build a gas pipeline to China; and Japanese official documents dropping the idea that North Korea is the most likely adversary in a future war and recognised openly the enemy would probably to be China. Japan’s dependency on trade with China is increasing and China’s dependency on Japan is declining. Last year Chinese growth in trade with Japan at 25% was less than the growth in its trade with the US - up 34%, the European Union increased by 33% and South Korea grew by 42%.

New analysis requires of the way the world is heading as it is committed to high levels of economic growth, recognising that much industrial production is now being carried out in the poor world. The increasing trend in globalization of production, seemingly, has mixed environmental effects. On the positive side, the more efficient technologies made available to poor countries should reduce some degree of waste. But the globalization of production also allows consumers in rich countries to benefit from environmentally harmful production processes without directly paying, the environmental costs are pushed off on poor countries, which often lack the resources to regulate such production or to clean up its consequences. Under the existing international trade agreements governments are not allowed to ban or discriminate against imports of goods made by environmentally “undesirable” processes, even if they have banned such processes in their own territory. Even requiring labels to inform consumers about the way products are made may under WTO rules, constitute a barrier to trade. While poor countries have no way of exercising the rights recognised in the Conventions and Charters signed up to by the member states. Relying on a voluntary approach alone has failed to provide the appropriate minimum standards that adequately protect individuals, their communities, and the environment from recalcitrant corporate behaviour and operations.

Worryingly, the EU is proposing that water delivery becomes part of the services negotiations at the WTO. Markets for water, health care, and education are not the same as those for television sets and cars, and they should not be governed by the same principles - basic services should remain public for developmental and poverty reduction necessities.

Today a rising population confronts shrinking natural resources. We have no more emigration valve, because all human societies are linked by international transport, and we can no more escape into space as previous generation could flee into the ocean. Obviously we do not make the air, water and soil on which our lives depend. Less obviously nature also provides essential and irreplaceable services. It cleans the air and water we pollute, recycles organic matter into usable form, and maintains the infrastructure of ecosystems that nurture all the species on which we depend for food and medicine, and all the natural resources that provide grist for the mills of our industrial civilization. Nature provides flood control, pollination, erosion control, and genetic resources. Nature does not charge for its services. If it did, the bill could easily overwhelm the entire global GDP. Perhaps if we did have to pay, we would take better care of those ecosystems. Because nature provides its goods and services at no monetary cost, there is no price mechanism to enforce their efficient allocation. As a result, no market incentive militates against damaging the ecosystems.

The equations of mechanical physics - theoretically allowed the universe to run equally well forward or backward. Thus, in a purely mechanical world, the tree could become a shoot and a seed again, the butterfly turn back into a caterpillar. But there is more to it - as the second law of thermodynamic specifies “ the process of heat conduction cannot be completely reversed by any means” (Planck, 1879). The vision of increasing disorder means that the universe is one way and not reversible. Hence, the great fact of irreversibility of natural phenomena requires greater understanding of the role that human ought to play in preserving the earth. If we continue to follow our present course, we shall have exhausted the world’s major fisheries, tropical rain forests, fossil fuels, and much of our soil in the next few decades. To claim that production processes have only local environmental consequences is to reveal a profound misunderstandings and ignorance of natural law and the way ecosystems work.


References:

(1) “Shots for all children”, International Herald Tribune, Jan 23, 2002,8.
(2) Cranna, M., The true cost of conflict (London: Earthscan with Saferworld, 1994)
- Making trade work for development in 2005, Oxfam Briefing Paper
- Rhodes, R., The making of the atomic bomb, Simon & Schuster publishing, 1986
- Plesch, D., War with Iran, Guardian, August 15,2005
- Bellamy, C., The decision that dares not speak its name, The World Today, May 2005
- Florini, A., The coming democracy, (2002), Island Press
- Berkes, F., Common Property Resources, ecology and community based sustainable development, 1989, Printer Publishers London
- Melosi, M., Garbage in the cities - refuse, reform, and the environment; 2005, University of Pittsburgh Press
- Dasgupta, P., human well being and the natural environment, 2002, Oxford University Press