9781422281246

with the ones in place severely outdated. As polluting industries in China grew, and more and more of China’s 1.35 billion people could afford cars, China’s air pollution became increasingly severe. Finally, in 2014, China announced that it was making the first amendments to its environmental laws in twenty-five years. It’s a Small World After All In the early 1960s, two staff songwriters for Walt Disney Studios in California, Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, wrote a song titled “It’s a Small World After All.” Although the Sherman brothers were inspired to write a song of peace and brotherhood following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, their song, or at least its title, is more true today than ever before. Although regional economies are important, the world is operating more and more as a global economy. Throughout much of human history, people have engaged in international trade and commerce. The spice trade among historical civilizations traversed much of the known world at the time. Asia, Northeast Africa, and Europe were all involved in the trade of and for spices such as cinnamon, ginger, pepper, and turmeric. The Great Silk Road was used from around 130 BCE until the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with the West and closed the various routes in 1453 CE . However, nearly seven centuries later, advances in high- speed transportation and technologies like the Internet have “shrunk” the world, both in terms of communication

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The Global Economy and the Environment