ABSTRACT
In a general sense, it was probably the ‘ozone’ debates of the mid-1980s that first brought home to the general public that actions taken in one part of the world can have dramatic effects on other parts. These can be illustrated by such examples as the rise in mercantile ‘flags of convenience’ and the links to accidental sinking of oil tankers,1 or Chernobyl, or the acid rain from British industry causing the death of forests in Sweden. Global warming, with its attendant conferences and debates illustrated that there was more to global theory than global products ‘borne of a high-tech, fast-moving society, frequently allied with the motive to maximise profit’ (Boniface and Fowler, 1993:3). It is a phenomenon that encompasses both culture and communications.
