The Bretton Woods System On The World 's Natural Riches

This act of May 18, 1933, created the Tennessee Valley Authority to oversee the construction of dams to control flooding, improve navigation, and create cheap electric power in the Tennessee Valley basin. Other TVA responsibilities written in the act included improving travel on the Tennessee River and helping develop the region’s business and

The United States became a part of NAFTA which ended tariff customs, which made it harder for American companies to compete with the cheaper Latin American goods. A new Environmental movement was gaining speed and ranted about global warming and the need for clean energy and the use of renewable resources in the United States. This was only the start of the environmental activist movement in the United

Prior to 1994, trade and the environment were two entirely separate issues. There were no environmental regulations found in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) or in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Upon the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) environmental concerns of North America as a whole were for the first time provided within a side agreement to the NAFTA. Finally there is a trade agreement that recognizes the concerns of North American citizens to maintain a healthy, sustainable environment, where the damaging effects of free trade could be minimized. The NAFTA entailed provisions for stricter environmental regulations

Putting a higher value on nature is a step towards the creation of a green economy. Jobs are created on better terms locally and the people can work together, with a better cleaner water supply.

Geoffrey L. Buckley’s “Extracting Wealth from the Earth and Forest,” featured in North American Odyssey, examines how private and commercial logging and mining “shaped and reshaped North America’s physical environment during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” (139) Specifically, the author narrows his focus to observing the role of the federal government in sanctioning such practices, industrial logging, and commercial mining, all with a particular eye toward Appalachia (140).

To cut costs, companies relocate their factories to areas with minimal pollution regulations to produce more with lower prices. Without tariffs, “trade without borders” become more much accessible and gratifying multibillion dollar corporations. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA and WTO do not consider the ecosystem and thus, endanger biodiversity and vital natural resources. Globalexchange.org states, the creation of free trade agreements imperil “global diversity by accelerating the spread of genetically engineered crops, … and erodes the public’s ability to protect our planet for future generations.” All in all, the absence of environmental regulations in free trade agreements severely damage the biosphere.

The bizarre economy that we live in has affected us in many ways than our simple mind can fathom. After World War II there was massive push in innovation. Human were gifted with inventions like the Airplane, color T.V., polyvinyl cups, and precooked dinners. Nevertheless, these “gifts” came at an enormous cost. That cost was pushed onto the environment and people living in that environment. “The Market Economy” by Marge Piercy illustrates the movement in American aimed at bring attention to a global problem as well as an effort to save the planet along with the people living on it.

Dam projects can serve many purposes. They compensate for varying amounts of water that nature may send down a river at a given time, or they may serve as a resource to generate hydropower for the local population. The construction of these complicated feats of engineering is an expensive, time consuming task. For whatever reason a dam is built, it will almost always pay for itself in the energy it produces or

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was United States federal agency that was founded in 1933 for purposes of controlling floods in the southern valleys of the Appalachians. The project was intended to control flooding, improve the Mississippi, so it was navigable, and improve the standards of life for farmers, as well for production of electricity. Before the valley project, the Tennessee River experienced perennial flooding and was not navigable for ships

Economic growth comes form the use of natural resources. In the 1930’s, natural resources are what fueled the growth of the U.S. economy. The use of resources such as water, timber, coal, oil, and minerals were in very high demand. Even now there is still a market for these resources. The use of natural resources was very high in the 1930’s and the possible damage that the use of these resources was of little concern, or not even known at the time. In the 1930s the growth of the U.S. economy would become a burden due to the use of natural resources, how the resources were collected and extracted, and the impact that harvesting had on the environment. The main point of this article, is that the mass consumption and mass production is not always ideal.

However, FDR and the congress feared that the unemployed would become reliance on the relief payment, so they created different agencies and public works that provided jobs and income to the unemployed. Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed young male to work on projects that includes forest preservation, flood control, and the improvement of national parks and wildlife preserves and by 1942 “more than 3 million persons had passed through CCC camps, where they received government wages of $30 per month” (Give 866). One part of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which provided jobs was the Public Works Administration that built hospitals, schools, roads and other different public services. Another agency that was launched that rendered jobs was Civil Work Administration, which recruited people to work on public works that included courthouses, highways and airports. Another program was the Tennessee Valley Authority, which helped build dams to help prevent flooding and deforestation. Tennessee Valley Authority also provided cheap and affordable electricity to those that lived around the Tennessee Valley area. Even though these different programs and agencies successfully in decreased the unemployment rate, they were too costly. The total spending for the first year of this plan cost approximately five hundred million dollars. It was also said that these programs and jobs

Contrastively, globalization itself has great damage to the environment. Due to developed countries going into developing countries to exploit their resources, the natural resources is depleting at a rapid speed, yet we are still not doing enough to stop it. As there are strict laws regarding the environment in developed countries, these companies turn their eyes onto developing countries whose environmental laws are more relaxed in comparison. As these developing countries also want to earn revenue and income that these companies bring, they open the door to them, but destroying Mother Earth at the same time.

The Twentieth Century conservationists like John Muir and Gifford Pinchot always argued that it was important for the government of the day to strike a balance between the two conflicting goals of economic development and environmental conservation. According to Menzel (2007; 3- 4), other environmental movements in the USA had been in constant conflict with industrial enterprises. The major root cause of conflict being the fact that industrial enterprises had ignored the fact their activities were hurting the environment through

TVA damns helped control floods and also provided a source of hydroelectric power to the area. Never before had the federal government undertaken a project of such scope and maintained control over the public works it helped create. Reformers had pushed for the development of the nation's water resources a source of electricity but opposition from the utility companies had been too great to overcome. Hoover was one such opponent of government intervention in the free

The economic vs. environmental growth debate has been a topic discussed in America for quite some time. The perfect example of this is the decision is whether America should to drill onshore for oil rather than importing their oil. Many believe that there is a relationship between the two. As the economy grows, the environment takes a knock. Some argue the need to stop economic growth and focus more on the harm that is being inflicted on the environment. As we drill onshore for oil, we are able to create more jobs for our country but at the same time it affects our environment in a negative manner. As the largest consumer of oil, continuing to import can become costly and we may become too dependent on other countries (Telegram, 2014). The question remains, can our nation improve without economic growth? Can we continue to grow our nation with continued dependency on other countries? Do the benefits of drilling onshore for oil outweigh the negative environmental affects? There have been many arguments showing the pros and cons of the tactics it takes to obtain economic growth.