Globalization, Social Equity and Environment as Factors of a Community - Example

Globalization, social equity and environment as factors of a community Student’s name: Professor’s Name: Institution of Learning: Course Name: Date: Introduction Community is a ubiquitous term in the current society. It is in everyday life as we express ourselves to our peers. Therefore, this implies that the term has several and varied ways of explanation or description. Almost every society has a way of describing the term. For example, it has different composition depending on the social setting like in the church, street, school and the universe among other social settings. The definition will depend on the social setting where the description is to meet. A community usually refers to a large social group that shares common values and has the characteristics of oneness and unity. It also refers to socializing collectivities of people living together. According to dictionary.com, the term can also refer to regional consciousness or global consciousness. In a regional perspective, it recognizes the coming together of people who in most cases share similar geographical circumstances and other factors such as: language, economy and civil government irrespective of their social ethnicity. On the other hand, global consciousness refers to unionization of people, from different backgrounds, social up bring and different allegiances across the globe. In any human collectivities, there are a number of factors bringing people together. They include: purpose, prejudices, wealth, need for friendship and others. This will involve people living together and how they interact with other people towards what they believe is their concern, for instance, marriages. In a similar way, people living together need to have a sense of identity for one to belong. These include working together, taking care for each other, assisting one another and generally being a good neighbor (Durkheim, E. 1950). Any successful community must put into consideration the following issues: globalization, environment and social equity issues Globalization and community According to Beck, U. (1992), Globalization refers to the increasing tendencies of people from different cultures and economic activities to relate well all over the world. People can still do commerce in the spirit of globalization. Globalization contributes to economic growth in developed and developing countries through mutual exchanges in the form of ideas, languages and culture. Globalization is the major factor that has affected our social and business communities. . It has particularly affected how people relate in urban areas. Cities throughout the world are struggling with large-scale economic changes and their social effects which include: race, ethnicity, gender, and, other factors. Through globalization, different national communities have embraced the idea of sharing the resources available to fight this problem. The rationale behind this is to improve the living standards of all human beings in the world. In leadership, globalization ensures good leadership. For example, the international bodies have intervened in helping to curb dictatorship in countries like Egypt, Iraq and others. The spirit of globalization has ensured proper formulation of policies by countries across the globe. Despite the positive results in leadership, it has contributed to Intensity inequality, which is a great drawback in raising the living standards. In actual sense, globalization increases the gap between rich and poor. Moreover, it serves the elites and hence discloses the illiterate. Globalization has faced many challenges. They include: globalism; power and authority; security and war and legitimacy and accountability. The problem of globalism arises due to the difference between politics, law and economy at the international level. Countries have different systems of governance. How those countries, which have different governing systems, relate is the problem. It has been a problem to see how globalization has changed the manner of distributing power and the location of political authority. The level to which political and economic authority connects with different kinds of offices within the international body becomes a factor to consider. Globalization has affected the conditions of security and the prospects of war in the word. The global redistribution of power has altered the traditional security mechanisms within the system of states and this has affected the pattern of global warfare. This is in particular to the emergence of new forms of war and particularly, increase in terrorism. Globalization has influenced the idea of political control over some institutions. The problem has been on how legitimacy by international bodies. Application of democratic principles in a global context has been a problem. Social equity simply refers to fair access to basic needs. Similarly, it is the engagement of every individual to the betterment of ones community. Social equity facilitates the distribution of wealth and resources more evenly within communities.It are a preferable way to benefit the many have-nots in the community (Fredrickson, 2010). For social equity to be successful, it requires historical inequalities first addressed so that they can be compensated fairly through a just transition. It is mainly facilitated in different ways. One way is by developing an interest on how money is accessed, kept and used locally. Another way is on how this money can be used by the local people to connect to the outside world by ensuring that all ages and skills are accommodated. All this said and done, members of the community will end up being treated fairly. Adverse human-scale neighborhoods that provide shelter for all will greatly enhance the social equity. This is facilitated by making sure that everyone in the community is accommodated within a given prospect and providing each an equal opportunity to utilize the available resources. This is by distribution of resources in free and fair ways. Here, resources are decentralized and this leads to growth of an economy. The construction of a statewide system of bike paths in Rhode Island, for example which is about 50miles, spent millions of dollars. The voters of state initiated this project in 1988, which strongly approved bonds for pathways. Instead of doing away with the beautiful and historic old, Jamestown Bridge reconstructed it to fit non motor vehicle users. Both pedestrians and cyclers do enjoy the surrounding and the beauty of the path itself. If resources are not equitable among the people who live together, the people who consider themselves marginalized will end up doing anything in order to meet their day-to-day lives. The more privileged on the other hand may continue to exploit the less privileged by using the best and the greatest proportion of the available resources. This results in social conflict between these two classes. This idea justifies the importance of social equity within a community. Moreover, there exists a degree of mistrust between low-income advocates and the real estate developments. Real estate developers fail to provide good jobs for local residents. They also emphasize the importance of human resource considerations to ensure a vibrancy of an economy. To be able to address this, current and future community and regional leaders need to include those that have been left out in the discussion to accommodate all. However, private sector and government leaders may have challenges in implementing these policies since they may not have a legacy of working with the marginalized. There is also a striking concern on how social equity relates with leadership issues. The transportation sector is a good example that can be used to illustrate social and community equity. It is agreed that the transport sector has been instrumental in ensuring that there is equality regardless of one’s social or economic status. However, there exists a room for improvement in this sector. It is good for example that whether one owns a car or not, whether one is a woman or a man, all are treated equally. This sector is also supposed to ensure that there is wealth creation that is not biased in favor of any specific group. In fact, today’s society where everybody is mobile, transportation sector can be an important avenue to start in ensuring social equity. It is clear that the current dilemma of inequality can only be resolved by ensuring that the levels of poverty are low as much as possible. Negative outcomes probably results from poorly designed policies. A case study by a recent Australian Agency for International Development white paper noted with concern the fact that Australia-as far as security is concerned- depends on the extent to which fight against poverty is won. There exists a relationship between environment, social equity and community. Environment just as it sounds is what surround a person or organism. It is important to note that in the recent days emphasis is paid to the natural environment but far from this, environment means more than just the natural surroundings. Environment is the entirely surroundings of a living organism, including other living organisms, which create circumstances for physical and social progress It may be biophysical, cultural or ecological. Community basically it is interested by some environmental factors that are at times affected by leadership which includes climate change, conservation, energy, environmental degradation, environmental health. Climate change is a factor collective term that incorporates in itself issues such as global warming and green house effects among others including Environmental impact of the coal industry. Climate change may be viewed as the remarkable long-term change in the patterns of weather. Weather is an important determinant of how communities live and interact with each other. A change in the weather pattern is a source of social and community destabilization. For example, mass migration in search of favorable weather conditions may disrupt an already formulated community. It may be a change on weather conditions generally, or in the distribution of weather around the average factors. This condition is caused by factors like oceanic processes and variations in solar rays directed to the earth. Human factors are more important especially in the world of today that is much industrialized. The effects of the more industrialized countries’ activities on the environment are pronounced today and in deed the problem affects the less developed countries than the developed ones. It is the high time that those who are up to support globalization to look into this aspect. Conservation Conservation is a process of taking care of the environment, on individual, institutions, for the benefit of the natural environment for the good of all. Conservation of the environment is aimed at the long run at protecting human health and ultimately human life. The policies that are employed in this conservation begin with prevention of adverse effect, their avoidance, reduction and finally compensation. This was the basis for the implementation of the process of assessing how a project can affect the environment or the community before the project begins. Conservation is not only a scientific concept but also an ethical one regarding resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon ensuring the health of the natural sounding with emphasis in protecting human health. Secondary concern should be on the conservation of things, which are considered vital. Community members should be mobilized at personal and public to develop the sense and the ethics of conservation, so as to promote a healthy and sustainable environment. In fact during environmental impact assessment, the public must be involved in the process for the process to be considered effective. Government policies and leadership skills that promote conservation should be enacted forcefully to the whole society to enhance the same. Energy Humans for millennia have harnessed energy. Initially it was with the use of fire for cooking, light, heat, and for safety, and its use is at least 1.9 million years old. Lately, there has been a trend towards the increased commercialization of various renewable sources of energy. Energy conservation includes Renewable energy, efficient energy use, Renewable energy commercialization, Environmental impact assessment of all projects oriented towards energy use and its exploitation. The environmental impact of the energy industry is diverse and in my view this industry should be controlled if we are to have stable communities. Developing technologies can ensure the generation of solid waste management, water and food production geared towards improved energy and environmental usage practices by using various methods. It is worth noting that development that is not sustainable is worthless. National and business communities in the current world have tried to emulate the new upcoming renewable sources which are more conservative. However, there has been challenges which I may attribute to resource constrain and lack of knowledge. Environmental degradation Environmental degradation is the making of the environment to be less useful to the inhabitants of that environment. It is defined as any alteration to the environment perceived to effect negatively on the environment. It protects negative changes onto the environment such as eutrophication or loss of rare, threatened or endangered species. The change however can be negative but not necessarily disrupt any community. Environmental health is one of various branches of public health that deals with all natural issues that can affect people. Other terms concerning this discipline of environmental health also include the areas of public health. For effective management of the environment, it is required that social environmental impact assessment should be done. Genetic engineering Genetic engineering is the process changing of the inherent or the natural characteristics of an organism. Traditionally, it involved combining the characteristics of two organisms by a process of hybridization. Nowadays, this process is carried quickly and precisely through changing the organism's genome. This is done using various technologies. It involves the addition or modification of the DNA of an organism by a process that cannot occur under the natural circumstances. This results in organisms with well-deigned characteristics. the organism that result from this modification is called a transgenic organism. It overviews Genetic pollution, genetically modified food controversies and also loses the originality of a community’s environment. A community is defined to consist of basically individuals that have close or similar genetic make-up. Genetic modification can change the genetic composition and thus the characteristics of a community. It can also impact positively or negatively. Intensive farming Agriculture is one of the major ways that many communities utilize its environment. Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is an agricultural production system characterized by a use of inputs such as capital, labor, or heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in relation to the physical area. Communities through good leadership are taught how to implement modern farming techniques to increase output per unit contrasting with traditional agriculture with lower inputs per unit land being replaced with machines decreasing labor costs inversely increasing production. More so it should be in a position to utilize the available resources and sustain its members. Modern agriculture is intensive and mechanized. They use chemicals widely. This has increased production. Yet at the same time, it has increasing environmental degradation through soil erosion and poisoning water by use of agricultural chemicals. This may produce a long-term effect such as acid rain which hazardous to a larger part. For sustainable growth in a community, we must emphasize so much on the leadership. Proper leadership is really required to introduce and enforce new and existing policies. Fairness and justice are the key pillars in fighting against social inequalities. Flexibility and high level of knowledge is needed in embracing and reacting towards globalization. Future standards and goals need to be set and more so promoting self-awareness are important devices for the community to uphold a sustainable environment. This said and, globalization, social equity will help any type of the society to strive to achieving that ideal of the coveted community. The philosophy of individuality will no longer be an impediment to the positive growth and progress of the community all over the world. Issues of terrorism and mass destruction by some countries will come to a standstill. This is what any citizen of the world should be striving to achieve These ideals are possible if only our hearts subscribe to the ideals of the international community. People should never shy away from resisting all those factors hindering the realization of a well-organized and resourceful community. We should avoid ill-advised people like a deadly plague (Reich, 2007). References Read More