Introduction: Globalization and the Environment

Human societies have long experienced the increasingly rapid expansion of the modern world-economy; an economy that has existed since at least the middle 1400s, meeting crisis after crisis in accumulation (e.g.Abu-Lughod 1989; Arrighi 1994; Chase-Dunn 1998; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chew 2001; Frank 1978, 1998; Frank and Gills 1993; Kentor 2000; Moore 2003; Pomeranz 2000; Wallerstein 1974, 1979). Rapid technological growth has been part and parcel of this expansion that has tightened the global division of labor and importance of distant events for all humans. This division of labor permits further expansion in rationalized production, and it reaches everywhere to expand markets and offer up cheap labor and material resources to increase surplus value ( e.g. Marx 1906; see also Foster 1999, 2002; Harvey 1999)

Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases

Despite the apparent importance of these dynamics, there is relatively little social science theorization and cross-national research on such global environmental issues. There is especially a paucity of cross-national, quantitative research in sociology that focuses on the social antecedents to environmental outcomes (for exceptions, see Burns et al. 1994, 1995; Kick et al. 1996; Grimes and Roberts 1995). We find this condition surprising given the substantial initial work of environmental sociologists (Dunlap and Catton 1978, 1979; Buttel 1987) and the key role social scientists might in principle play in addressing such worldwide problems (Laska 1993). As a consequence, we propose and assess a perspective on the global and national social causes of one environmental dynamic, the greenhouse effect

Militarization and the Environment: A Panel Study of Carbon Dioxide Emissions and the Ecological Footprints of Nations, 1970-2000

The authors situate treadmill of destruction theory in a comparative international perspective to assess the environmental impacts of national militaries. Results of cross-national panel models indicate that high-tech militarization in the form of expenditures per soldier contribute to the scale and intensity of carbon dioxide emissions as well as the per capita ecological footprints of nations. Likewise, all three of these environmental outcomes are positively associated with military participation in the context of the number of soldiers relative to the size of domestic populations. Overall, the findings support the proposed theorization and highlight the need for social scientists to consider the environmental and ecological consequences of nations' militaries, regardless of whether or not they are engaged in conflicts. (c) 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.