The Importance Of Globalization In The 21st Century

Globalization is a multi-faceted process of social and economic change that has come to encompass the entire world throughout the past. It is arguable that globalization started with the first expansions of human civilization and has been a development throughout history. The term, however, came only into widespread use since the 1990s. There are numerous definitions that cover different aspects of the process, but usually, all contain the transnational connections and exchange of culture, goods and humans, that ultimately lead to an interconnected world system, which can hardly be reduced to the study of single units. As the process’ velocity and the society’s consciousness of globalization increased over the past hundred years, it is important to study the differences between globalization during the 20th and the 21st century. This allows us to understand the new challenges of a globalized world and sets the fields of new research in the social sciences.
Globalization in the 20th century has been characterized by the widespread use of telecommunication …show more content…
However, an entirely new task for the globalized world in the 21st century is the consciousness of change that happens on our globe from an environmental perspective. The limited availability of resources and the climate change will be problems that need an entirely new approach to a globalized life. In not so far future, we will have to deal with climate refugees through the rising sea levels, droughts, and floods. In order to prevent, this from happening, we, as one people from one planet, have to find a global answer to reducing CO2-emissions. Until today, we only have loose international agreements that have not shown any results yet. How and to what extent this re-thinking can spread globally, is in my eyes, the biggest challenge in a globalized world of the 21st