The Global Environment: Economic Issues, Environmental Impacts, and Media Portrayal

This essay explores the complex interplay between economic issues, environmental factors, and media representation in the global environment. It examines key economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, and debt, highlighting their impact on individual lives and national development. The essay then delves into the pressing environmental issues of global warming and climate change, analyzing their consequences for human health and the planet. Finally, it investigates the role of different forms of communication media in shaping public understanding of these global issues, focusing on the potential for bias and the importance of accurate reporting.

The Global Environment
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main discussion..........................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Reference list............................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
“Global environment governance” could be defined as the sum of companies, policy
instruments, economic mechanisms, regulations and processes, which regulate the procedures
of international environmental protection. Since environmental factors entered the global
agenda in the early 1970s, international policies and politics have been increasing rapidly.
Currently, there is huge awareness of environmental threats and many efforts have developed
to address them internationally (news.bbc.co.uk, 2018). This essay will indulge in examining
and analyzing economic issues, influences of environmental factors on countries and on
global context. In addition to these factors, solutions used by global and national
organizations for environmental issues, different forms of communications media, recent
image of public services would be critically investigated in this essay.
Main discussion
The major economic issues in the international environment that have both negative and
positive effects on individual life and administration processes of organizations are poverty,
employment, unemployment issues, economic recession, GDP status and developing world
debt. According to Baylis et al. (2017), there are various types of poverty level exist in the
global environment and each effects differently on the international economic conditions.
These poverty levels are Absolute or extreme poverty, which refers to lack of means required
to meet fundamental requirements such as clothing, food and shelter. The relative poverty
level takes in to concern individual financial and social status as compared to rest of the
society. It is noticed that the later type of poverty in UK exists if household revenue is below
60% of the average household income. As per the current international statistical report, in
2013 around 10.7% of the globe’s population lived on less than US$1.90 per day as
compared to around 12.4 % in the previous year, going . That is down from 355 in the year
1990 (worldbank.org, 2018).
As per the report produced by World Bank, it is has been noticed that while poverty rates
have reduced in all regions, progress has been irregular. The decrease in Absolute poverty
between 2012 and 2013 was mainly driven by East Asia and Pacific, including China, South
Asia, India and others (worldbank.org, 2018). Half of the people, who fall under extreme
poverty level line in sub-Saharan Africa. Sunam and McCarthy (2016) have stated that vast
majority of the international poor live in rural areas as well as have no adequate education,
mostly employed in the farming industry and over half are under 18 years age.
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On the other hand, around 7.3 % of the UK population were facing persistent poverty level,
which is equivalent to around 4.6 million people. This poverty level could be defined if
population of a country is experiencing relative low income in recent years. Out of 28
European Union countries around the world, the United Kingdom has the 5th lowest rate of
persistence poverty, but the thirteenth highest poverty rate of up to 16.7% that is near the EU
average of 17.3% (ons.gov.uk, 2018). (Refer to appendix) It has been is noticed that around
21,000 people die daily of hunger or hunger-related causes. Mostly world hunger affects on
women and children around the globe. Due to extreme poverty level people are suffering
from various diseases such as AIDS, Pneumonia, Malaria and others.
Many years after debt campaigners accomplished in convincing the “International Monetary
Fund”, G8 and World Bank to put an end to debts worth billions of dollars that is owned by
emerging countries. Information in the World Bank’s record shows an entire external debt
stocks owned by emerging countries developed around $437bn over twelve months in order
to stand at $4tn at the end of 2010 (theguardian.com, 2018). For example, in case of Nigeria,
it took a loan of $5 billion, and has been able to paid pay around $16 billion, but is still left
with $28 billion (worldcentric.org. (2018). A nation’s financial conditions are influenced by
various macroeconomic as well as microeconomic factors, involving monetary and other
fiscal productivity, inflation rates and exchanges rates. On the other hand, global economy
has developed as lingering fragilities associated to the international economic crisis subside.
According to the 2017 statistics, international financial development has reached around 3%,
which is the highest growth level since the year 2011 (un.org, 2018). This developed
international economic situation offers an opportunity for many nations to focus policy
towards the long-term factors like low carbon financial development, decrease of inequalities,
financial differences and reducing deep-rooted challenges, which hinder country’s
development.
As per the present conditions, the international economic crisis has grab attention on the
debts of the rich west. U.S.A had a gross external debt of $14.3tn while UK had $9tn that is
almost 400% of the GDP. According to Ahn and Hamilton (2016), unemployment rates are
measure of the occurrence of unemployment and this is estimated as a percentage by
separating numbers of unemployed persons by all-individuals recently in the working force
(ons.gov.uk. (2018). It has been noticed that during time of economic recession, countries
generally experience a relatively high unemployment rates. There are two well-spread
measures of unemployment rate. These are labour force measure and claimant count measure.
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Calculations of labour force survey show that in 2017 there were around 32.21 million people
involved in employment and this rate has developed from prior year (ons.gov.uk. (2018).
(Refer to appendix) There are various reasons behind development of global unemployment
rate. These reasons are population growth, decrease of employment opportunities, slow
development of sectors and insufficient financial growth. Financial indicators like gross
domestic product, household income, inflation rates, investments and others effect on the
recession, employment and world debt (ons.gov.uk. (2018).
All the major economic issues have been described in the above part of this essay. Each issue
has either positive or negative impacts on countries. Increased poverty level influences on the
growth of county’s economy (Grunewald, 2018). As per the national data, poverty levels
have moved along with changes in the unemployment level since 1959 as well as in opposite
directions relating to the changes in economic inflation adjusted average income. Therefore,
it could be said that a lower poverty level coincides with reductions in unemployment or
develops in country’s income. For example, compare to the Asian countries poverty level in
European countries are low, which help to sustain the economic growth (Grunewald, 2018).
(Refer to appendix)
In additionally to various indicators like GDP, economic inflation and interest rates,
unemployment rates of countries is an important measure for identifying the health of an
economy. If unemployment rate of a country continues to develop, then that country would
face consequence of unemployment through raise in taxes to compensate for the loss in tax
revenue. This condition will force each one, both workers and unemployed people and
reduction of disposable income. Due to this less money would spent to the country’s
economy, leading to more individual losing their jobs. On the other hand, increasing level of
employment rate would help a country to spent more money in country’s economy and
development in industries (Hudson, 2018).
Economic recession has no positive impact on the country’s economy. As stated in the above
part of this essay, many developing countries are suffering from recession. Increasing level of
recession is connected to unemployment, poverty, development of inequality and others. All
these factors are negative for the overall country’s economic growth and individual growth.
On the other hand, GPD growth reflects country’s economic growth whereas; low GDP rate
refers to slow economic growth of a country and high capital formation. For instance,
currently, financial freedom of UK has scored to 78.0, making country’s economy the eight
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freest in the 2018 index (heritage.org, 2018 A) While, South Africa’s economic freedom
score is 63%, making its economy 77th freest in the 2018 index. This comparison proves the
fact that compared to UK, the economic freedom rate in South Africa is low. With a high
GDP rate UK is more prosperous than South Africa (heritage.org, 2018 B). A country’s debt
crisis influences the world with the help of loss of investor confidence as well as systematic
economic instability. This financial issue leads to high interest levels and inflation. This
creates losses for investors in the debt along with slow the world financial growth. For
developed countries like china, US, UK, a debt crisis could fling overall international
economy into a recession. While, high rate of debt crisis in developing countries reflects
profligate government, instability in political condition, poor economy and others.
Current environmental issues are global warming, climate change, natural disasters and
others. Global warming is one of the significant issues of concern internationally (nrdc.org,
2018). Global warming and climate change reflects to an increase in medium global
temperatures. In the increase of global warming effects, human activities are believed to be a
vital part. Due to development in “greenhouse” gases like CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), O2 and
others global warming effects has been increased in last few years. On the other hand, over
past 150 years, most industrialized nations across the globe have unwittingly altered the
balance of carbon cycle through burning of fossil fuels, developing large stock of methane-
producing livestock and most importantly cutting down trees that absorb large number of
carbon Dioxide (nrdc.org, 2018).
Currently, in U.S.A, the burning out of fossil fuels in order to make electricity is one of the
largest sources of environmental pollution that produce near about 2 billion tons of carbon
Dioxide each year. It has been noticed that the coal-burning power plants in this country are
biggest polluters (nrdc.org, 20180. On the other hand, carbon pollution, which is one of the
main cause for increasing global warming and climate change is developing sue to
transportation industry that generates near about 1.7 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide emissions
each year. Many scientists have said that a continuous drought in California has been
developed by almost 15 % to 20% due to the global warming. Rising sea levels would lead to
coastal flooding in many countries due to negative effects of global warming and climate
change (nrdc.org, 2018).
According to (), Climate change is an important threat for the health of people all around the
world, especially people in America. Climate change currently increasing chances of illness
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and death due to heat. Developing concentrations of Greenhouse gases increase of both
extreme and average temperatures. This type of climate changes a development in deaths
from heat specifically a number of people vulnerable to these changes like old people,
children and others. Chances of water related diseases, bone diseases and others also
increasing due to the climate change and global warming (health2016.globalchange.gov,
2018). (Refer to appendix)
The public forum held by World Trade Organization in Geneva entitled as “Global
Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance” aimed at arouse
discussions regarding all factors of the multilateral trading policies at a time of international
financial upheaval (wto.org, 2018). There are various efforts exhibited by the national and
international companies to track and reduce global warming effects. The Rio conference is
second conference in United Nations on Human Environment. This conference has reflected
that development of planet sustainability through 21st century and on a wide statement of
policies for safeguarding forests is required (publications.gc.ca. (2018). New global networks
were made to carry out all the important specifications. At the end of this summit, UNCED
negotiations have been made to a matter of money. If the developed and industrialized
countries want environmental safeguarding, they must be determined to pay for it. Another
point came up form this summit is the Agenda 21, which is non-binding action planning for
sustainable requirements. “Securing the future” reflects development of the 1999 strategy
both globally and domestically for the environmental protection by the UK government. This
policy underlines global push for sustainable development from the “World Summit”
(gov.uk, 2018). “Green growth” rule and policy proposed by European Nation is helpful to
protect quality of life and environmental health. On the other hand, “European Act in 1987”
has objectives that are important to unfold all the necessities of nations and international
organizations to protect environment. These policies are protection of human health
conditions, preservation and protection of environmental health, logical and prudent use of
natural resources and others (env-net.org, 2018).
Different forms of communications media could be broadly divided into two parts, which are
traditional media types and new media types. The traditional group includes magazines,
newspapers, pamphlets, direct mail and others. On the other hand, the new group involves
film, social networking, mobile marketing, blogs and others. The United Kingdom media
industry has performed strongly with around 100 leading media organizations (deloitte.com,
2018). Currently, the TV production and Distribution has a great role in generating
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productive online information related to global issues. The new communications media has a
great role in highlighting current global issues that affecting public life and organizational
status directly or in directing. For instance, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
are currently used for collecting and reviewing news related to global politics (deloitte.com,
2018). Google is another platform, which alone has the role in providing significant news and
information regarding the global issues. Anything Starting from environmental effects to the
impact of political environment in several countries along with current fashion trends can be
accessed if it is available on could be found out in Google if accessible. According to Roberts
and Piller (2016), blogs are more personalized way of providing various valuable information
to people. If an individual follows web blogs then only he or she could gather information
from there. Films are currently one of the strong medium of communicating many important
events, messages and changes happening in the world to people.
Media becomes a strong medium of reporting current international issues. In this regard, one
important question can media be trusted comes up. Currently various types of propaganda
and censorship of advertisement and news exist in the market that inform and influence
people. The leading news agencies such as “Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence
France-Presse (AFP)” format hard news features and stories, which could be used by other
media organizations along with little modifications and then sell to other media companies. In
media reporting biasness is a major problem. On the other hand, many have agreed the fact
that news media is effective in separating facts from fictions. But media often failed in
delivering news regarding current global warming issues. Example of news media reporting
that reflects fact not fiction is the news of Kabul bombing. It is reported that an ISIS suicide
bomber has attack in Kabul resulting several deaths of citizens. This attack has left around 31
dead and occurred on the main road with no one expecting as they are involve in their daily
works. The news media also underlined that pronounced terrorist group has accepted the
responsibility of suicide bombing in Kabul (Embury-Dennis, 2018). This news is clearly
stating no biasness and this is a clear evidence of news media being honest in providing
factual information. On the other hand, mostly in case of global warming issues news media
that has capacity of influencing majority of the population often fails to inform exact news or
reports of countries’ roles in enhancing pollution due to pressure from the head quarters.
These incidents affects population as they remain ignored about the haunting effects of global
warming and climate change that have affected their lives and will be worsen in future
(reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk, 2018).
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The public concept about Service personnel was majorly characterised through respect and
pride, the recognition connected to charities such as Help for Heroes as well as Wootton
Bassett repatriation ceremonies. However, recent studies have focused that some ambivalence
towards media and their portrayal of the military (News.bbc.co.uk, 2018). Generally,
important focused groups felt that coverage was logical and developing, as papers portrayed
the developing public support for the Forces among their readers. This development was not
thought to be worldwide, though and some felt this was more to do with following news
followers or readers’ sympathies than any desire to be effective. On the other hand, nearly
four, 5th of United Kingdom service personnel thought that all the media had a positive
concept of the armed forces. Almost 40% people thought that news media quite well
regarding daily life in the Forces as a higher proportion than said he same of the general
public. The Home office has reflected the way news papers tabloids particularly
(News.bbc.co.uk, 2018). Reflecting crime through news papers are helping to develop the
gap between what is called as public fear and what it experiences actually. Recent media
portrayal of public services, as per the government’s current British Crime Survey, around
43% of tabloid news readers thought that the national crime rate has developed significantly,
as compared with around 26% of broadsheet readers. On the whole three quarters of the
40,000 citizens surveyed have been believed that crime had developed in the past two years
(News.bbc.co.uk, 2018). This way, media portrayals have an influence on the general public
and their conceptions of global issues.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it has been noticed that current economic conditions of various
countries has both the negative and positive effect on the national economic conditions.
Poverty, recession, world debt conditions are affecting on the individual and country’s
income level either by decreasing its level or developing it. On the other hand, issues related
to global warming and climate change have been described and evaluated in this essay with
specific examples to develop understanding about negative impacts of environmental issues
around the world. Use of several forms of communications medial has been elaborated and
media reporting of current international issues help to enhance knowledge in this area. The
last part of this report, media portrayal and its influence on people has cleared out the fat that
news media and their portrayals have a direct impact on the conception of people regarding
global happenings either in positive or negative way.
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Appendix
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