Environmental Crisis of Capital vs. Nature Appropriation - Essay Example

For the past decade, the demand for natural resources such as minerals and energy has increased tremendously. This has led to an increased number of the industry which aims at meeting this demand and maximizing profits. Little has been done to sustain a healthy environment an aspect that has highly contributed to global warming. Latin America has for the past decade recorded an increased number of industries because of its natural wealth. The region is currently a great supplier of different commodities, food and even energy to developed economies.

The wealthy countries have on the other hand been transferring multinational companies to these countries because of the availability of cheap labor and resources (Dean 2005). The history of the environmental crisis facing Latin America dates back to the days that the economy of the United States became developed. The United States enacted different laws that were aimed at guarding its natural resources against exploitation by multinational companies. As a result, multinational companies were forced to look for countries where laws were friendly to their activities.

At that time, Latin America was facing political upheavals therefore; the countries had no stable laws. This saw mass investment being taken to these countries (Catro 1997). With economies of countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Columbia growing tremendously the previous companies and other mushrooming companies have put a strain on natural resources while at the same time these countries are in need of capital and labor to sustain the growing population (Roberts 2003)Currently, little has been done to reverse the condition with the impact of degradation of the environment in these countries affecting the whole world.

Different summits have been held in these countries with the latest being the UN summit on environmental protection (Rio+20) which was held in Brazil. I believe that the solution to this crisis can be achieved by these countries themselves. These countries need to enforce laws that will force the companies to comply with the set measures aimed at improving the environment.