Description
This paper evaluates the impact of globalization on the landscapes of the Global South (especially in Africa) through the boom in production of petroleum from the past to the present and project into the future. To many of its antagonists, globalization has subverted nations' ability for self-determination as it has been producing inequality and deterioration in living standards in the Global South especially in sub-Saharan Africa without the improvement in efficiency which is predicted. Some anti-corporate organizations also believe neo-liberalism that globalization epitomizes changes economic and government policies to increase the power of corporations and large businesses and a shift to benefit the developed countries over the underdeveloped ones through gross economic exploitation. But according to its proponents, globalization has aided the integration of national economy into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flow, migration, and the spread of technology. Indeed, it has created new opportunities for many, but not without its enormous costs; most especially-the ecological/environmental costs. It has placed uncontrollable pressures on the global environment and natural resources, straining the capacity of the environment to sustain itself. The primary concern here is to examine the roles that extracting, producing, and transporting of petroleum have played (are still playing) in environmental history (especially the impact of energy transition and infrastructural development on the environment) of Africa in the past and evaluate the implications of this for the present and the future though the activities of the Multinational Oil Corporations in Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Congo and Libya. It concludes with some suggestions on how to creatively address the crises through combination of global and local efforts.
