Eitzen13e.chapter3.lecture.ppt 193985

Editor's Notes

• #4: The countries of the world vary widely in levels of material conditions. Some nations are disproportionately poor with rampant hunger, disease, and illiteracy. Other nations are exceptionally well off, with ample resources. Here are some facts concerning the uneven distribution of the world’s wealth: The richest 2 percent of adults own more than half of the world’s household wealth. The poorest half of the world’s adult population own barely 1 percent of global wealth. About1.2 billion people live in wealthy countries and about 5.8 billion live in poor countries. In 2012 there were 1,226 billionaires worldwide. The top five countries in numbers of billionaires were the United States (425), followed by Russia (96), Mainland China (95), Germany (55), and India (48). Sub-Saharan Africa had only one billionaire (South Africa). The reasons for such global inequality include, as one might suspect, the degree of geographic isolation, climate, overpopulation, and natural resources. Another key determinant is the effect of power.
• #5: Chapter 3, Activity 1 Policy Development in an Inter-Nation Conference Break students into two groups representing one poor and one wealthy nation. Give each group a couple of topics to address (e.g., food distribution, disease control, debt, slavery). Ask each group to develop strategies to reduce those problems. Make sure that each group tries to find strategies that are satisfactory to both nations. Have each side prepare their arguments to present at a face-to-face conference.   Possible Questions for the Class to Consider:   What can each nation contribute to solving the social problems in question? What is the ultimate goal of this conference and how does the goal affect each nation? What kind of real negotiations and concessions are both sides really willing to give up for a solution? Who is defining the social problems? What social structures (both international and domestic) contribute to these problems?
• #6: The world has almost 1 million more people every four days (adding 227,252 more people each day) Each of these people needs food, water, medicine, and a home. Each of these people lives an average of 69 years. Each new human strains the Earth’s environment, adding to climate change, soil depletion, and limited fresh water. Look at the rate of global population growth. It took until 1830 to hit 1 billion. The rate of growth depends on fertility rates (average number of children born per woman). Why 2.01? That is the number that stabilizes the population. It replaces each parent and those who don’t have children. Half a child higher and we will see expansive growth. Differential fertility is the difference in fertility rates based on social categories. In 2011, developing nations have average fertility rates of about 4.5, whereas developed nations had average fertility rates of 1.7. Growth is occurring in areas where the countries lack resources. Addition resources put more strain on already poor nations. We can reduce the fertility rates through economic development, family planning, and social changes.
• #7: To illustrate, the natural increase (births minus deaths) in 2011 for the less-developed countries was 81.1 million, compared to 1.9 million in more-developed countries. If the fertility rates in less-developed countries are not lowered, their populations will continue to increase at very fast rates.
• #8: In countries that have become more urbanized, industrialized, and modernized, the population growth has slowed. Let’s look at that modern demographic transition: Agricultural stage: Birth rates and death rates are both high (women have more children in hopes that some will survive to adulthood). Little population growth Transition stage: Birth rates remain high, but death rates drop due to improvements in sanitation and sewage, better medication, diets, and hygiene. Population explosion Industrial/urban stage: Traditional customs have changed, and birthrates decline. Population stabilizes Overall, due to increased urbanization, better access to contraceptives, and more women being educated, the global fertility rate has declined from an average of 4.92 children per woman in 1950 to 2.56 now. Demographic transition in Europe took 200 years, but developing nations today are going through the transition much faster. This is a good thing: the world can’t wait 200 years to bring fertility rates down.
• #9: The “critical cohort” under age 20 is important to watch in less-developed countries. If the fertility rates of this group are high, the population will continue to increase. If the growth rate continues to slow, the demographic transition with its accompanying urbanization, medical advances, and the liberation of women from traditional gender roles, will have worked. In more developed countries, the population may be threatened by not having enough children. Who will support people as they age?
• #10: As a result of international efforts, fertility rates have fallen worldwide, but we still need to see more of a drop in developing nations. The United Nations estimates that about 200 million people worldwide would like to prevent pregnancy but are not using effective contraception, either because they cannot afford it or are not knowledgeable about it. It is estimated that it would take $8 billion to make birth control readily available on a global basis. Such availability would reduce the projected world population from 10 billion to 8 billion during the next sixty years. Beginning with the Reagan and Bush administrations, the United States did not support international efforts aimed contraception use and education. Clinton supported efforts but George W. Bush revoked them again. Obama reinstated U.S. support for the United Nations Population Fund.
• #11: The availability of and proper training in how to use birth control is crucial to slowing population growth.
• #12: Cultural values about the familial role of women and about children, as evidence of the father’s virility or as a hedge against poverty, in old age must be changed. Religious beliefs that resist the use of contraceptives, such as the resistance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and of fundamentalist Muslim regimes (e.g., in Saudi Arabia), are a great obstacle to population control. These obstacles are not insurmountable. Change in women’s roles is the most significant social change needed to reduce fertility. When women are isolated from activities outside the home, their worth depends largely on their ability to bear and rear children.
• #17: The World Bank defines the global poverty line as living on less than $1.25 per day. 1.4 billion people live below this line. Extreme poverty is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. Global poverty has declined since 1981, but the gap between the rich and poor is wider than ever. What is poverty? Poverty affects an individual’s life chances (the chances throughout one’s life cycle to live and experience the good things in life) A problem with living in poverty: you lack not only resources but the power to change your situation.
• #18: If we went on a vegetarian diet and did not waste food, the world produces enough to feed 10 billion people. Why are people dying of malnourishment? What is food insecurity? Not knowing where your food is coming from or knowing if you will have food. An obvious source of the problem is rapid population growth, which distorts the distribution system and strains the productive capacity of various nations. The annual increase in population of 75 to 80 million people requires an enormous increase in grain production just to stay even. But increasing food production is difficult where there are changes to the productive land. The following affect both rich and poor countries: declining topsoil water shortages air pollution and toxic chemicals leveling of land for homes and roads eating more meat in developing countries (growing grain for animals strains the land) Most population growth is in poor areas that cannot afford the fuel to remain agriculturally productive. In addition, natural disasters affect poor nations more than affluent nations because they are not equipped to handle them. Another way to explain the food problem is to view it as a poverty problem. Food supplies are adequate, but people must have the resources to afford them. Because the poor cannot afford the available food, they go hungry. Political and economic conditions keep prices too high, make jobs difficult to obtain and poorly paid, and force too many people to compete for too few resources. Agriculture controlled by a few landowners and agribusiness interests results in investment decisions made on the basis of current profitability. The grain surplus is handled by feeding more than a third of the world’s production to animals. Crops are allowed to rot or are plowed under to keep prices high. Surplus milk is fed to pigs or dumped to keep the price high. The notion of food scarcity is an obvious distortion when the major headache of many agricultural experts around the world is how to reduce mountains of surplus and keep prices high. The problem of food scarcity lies in the social organization of food production and distribution. The solution to hunger is to construct new forms of social organization capable of meeting the needs of the masses.
• #19: Lack of food causes more than simply hunger. Chronic malnutrition leads to many problems: Protein deficiencies in infancy can result in permanent brain damage Vitamin deficiencies lead to goiters, rickets, and anemia Vitamin deficiencies also make people more susceptible to disease Low energy Water related diseases leads to more than 5 million deaths per year: 1.1 million people do not have access to safe water 2.6 billion people live with unsanitary water Polluted water, contaminated food, exposure to disease-carrying insects and animals, and unsanitary living conditions make the world’s poor highly vulnerable to, among other diseases, chronic diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola, dengue, hepatitis, cholera, and parasites More than half of the annual deaths in sub-Saharan Africa are caused by infectious and parasitic diseases AIDS is a worldwide epidemic (pandemic). In three decades since the origin of the disease 30 million people have died. In 2010 an additional 34 million people are living with HIV, two-thirds of them in sub- Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS is the worst epidemic in human history. The global rate of HIV infections fell by 25 percent, from 2001 to 2009.
• #20: New slavery (slavery today) is similar to slavery of the past: loss of freedom the exploitation of people for profit the control of slaves through violence or its threat But today’s forms of slavery also differ from the past. slavery is no longer a lifelong condition as the slave typically is freed after he or she is no longer useful (e.g., a prostitute who has AIDS) some individuals and families become slaves by choice a choice forced by extreme poverty At any one point in time today, 2.4 million people are involved human trafficking. The trafficking of humans is an international business, involving forced migration, smuggling of illegal immigrants, and criminal networks. 80 percent of those trafficked are female About 50 percent are minors 75 percent are trafficked into sexual exploitation They are brought to the United States from Asia, Africa, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, and Eastern Europe where two-thirds of the women live in poverty. Promised jobs in the United States but often find their passports and identification stolen and they are trapped.
• #21: The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that 200,000 children in West and Central Africa are sold into slavery annually by their parents.
• #22: Problems of cities: Infrastructure. The housing, schools, roads, mass transit, water, and sanitation are overwhelmed by the exploding population. Employment. Developing nations do not have the industry to employ the people migrating to cities. People migrating to cities are unprepared of the lifestyle there. They lack skill and literacy necessary to work in cities. Squatter settlements (“shanty towns”). People living just outside or on the city’s edge struggling to survive. 1 billion people without food, clean water, or infrastructure Because of population growth, extreme poverty, and the problems above, living in cities can exacerbate other problems (racism, pollution, crime). Chapter 3, Activity 3 Family Planning The world’s problems have reached epidemic proportions, and the nation’s leaders agree that the number one priority is to reduce population growth.   Break the class into groups. Each group will pick the country they are representing. Each group/country must come up with a feasible plan to reduce population growth in their country. Have them list the arguments for and against their plan in order to defend their plan of action to the class.   Possible Questions for the Class to Consider: Can a government force families to limit their size? Is it ethical to offer monetary compensation to limit family size? Will you force families to reduce their family size regardless of their religion, or will some families be exempt? Discuss/debate the television show Nineteen Kids and Counting. This show is about the Duggar family and their nineteen children.
• #29: The gap in living conditions between rich and poor nations is vast. 75 percent of the world’s population lives in overpopulated, underdeveloped areas, but they only produce 1/10 of the world’s industrial output and 1/12 of electrical power. Some nations remain poor because their climate and geography prevent them from moving ahead. Other nations are engaged in continuous warfare. But wealthy nations are also responsible. History of colonialism (a territory controlled by a powerful country that exploits the land and the people for its own benefit) and economic domination have left poor nations without the necessary resources or power to move ahead. Although officially ended around the 1960s, the effects of colonialism are still present in nations once under colonial rule. Chapter 3, Activity 2 Sustainable Earth There are a number of websites that help people to calculate whether their carbon footprint is sustainable. One of the better ones can be found at http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/. You could do this in class if you have a computer and projector, using a variety of different scenarios or students from the class.   Possible Questions for the Class to Consider: What is the single biggest source of unsustainability? What things, if any, would you be willing to do to get to a sustainable life? What would be the hardest change to make?
• #30: Decisions of transnational corporations to build or not to build, to relocate a plant, to begin marketing a new product, or to scrap an old one have a tremendous impact on the lives of ordinary citizens in the countries in which they operate and in which they invest. Arms Sales Wealthy nations sell or give armaments to poorer nations. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has sold weapons abroad worth well over $100 billion. The United States is actively engaged in promoting and financing weapons exports through 6,500 full-time government employees in the Defense, Commerce, and State Departments. Arms sales have negative consequences: Fan the flames of war. The U.S. sells arms to countries already in conflict. The United States is the “informal shopping center” of terrorists, mercenaries, and international criminals. People buy arms through lax controls at stores. Blowback from arms sales. Example: Weapons sold to Iraq in its war against Iran were used against the United States in the Gulf War. Arms have been sold to countries who violate human rights and to countries that are undemocratic but that support U.S. interests. Corporate Dumping Occurs when corporations export goods that have been banned or not approved for sale in the United States because they are dangerous. These products usually end up in poor nations. These countries often do not bar the importation of hazardous products. Many of their poor citizens are illiterate and therefore tend to be unaware of the hazards involved with the use of such products. Corporate dumping also occurs when countries ship toxic waste to other nations for disposal. The United States has strict controls on removing hazardous waste so taking waste to poor nations, without controls, saves money.
• #35: In the global economy, the fate of the world’s poorest nations and the poor within these nations are of crucial importance to all nations. Gaps in income, education, and other quality of life measures make the world less safe. Wealthy nations can help, if: The aid is truly humanitarian (such as technology, medical sup- plies, food, inoculation programs, family planning, agricultural equipment, sewage treatment systems, water treatment) and not military aid The aid reaches the intended targets (those in need), not the well-off elites The governments in the impoverished nations have sensible plans for using the new resources, such as spending on health (e.g., the vaccination of children) and education, especially for women If the United States and other nations do not help poor nations, the world is at risk of a huge gap between those who have and those who don’t. Wealthy nations will be affected by these poor nations if they fall into greater poverty.