ABSTRACT
This chapter explores several pressing Global Issues (GIs) facing humankind today. Worldwatch Institute researcher Hilary French calls globalization "the stunning acceleration in the growth in trade, investment, travel, computer networking, and pollution across national boundaries". The Global Policy Forum notes that "Jet airplanes, cheap phone service, e-mail, computers, huge oceangoing vessels, instant capital flows, have all made the world more interdependent than ever before". American University international studies scholar James Mittelman chooses a minimalist approach to globalization by confining it mostly to the realm of current economics: “Globalization is a phase in the history of capital whose lineage has brought together many different societies into one system.” The metaphor that often resonates with students is the one about borderless athletes. The National Hockey League is filled not only with Canadian hockey players but more than one hundred Europeans, nearly half of whom hail from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
