Vertical Farm - la coltivazione in un edificio. Flickr/ Tutto Giardinaggio. Some rights reserved.‘Peak globalization’ may provide a pathway to preserving the best of globalization and global interconnectedness, enhancing economic and environmental sustainability, and empowering individuals and communities to strengthen democracy. At the same time, some of the most troublesome aspects of globalization may be eased, including massive financial transfers to energy producing countries (and companies) and loss of jobs to manufacturing platforms like China. This shift could also bring relief to the ‘losers’ of globalization and ease populist and nationalist political pressures that are roiling the developed countries.
That is quite a claim, I realize. But let me explain the vision.
By ‘peak globalization’ I mean a point in the future – in some ways we are already seeing this – when the amount of physical stuff moving around the world peaks and begins to decline. By ‘stuff’, I am referring to liquid fuels, coal, containers on ships, food, raw materials, etc. But I don’t see peaking movement of people, information, data, and ideas around the world. In fact, while movement of stuff is slowing if not declining, as McKinsey has noted, digital flows are growing exponentially and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We are moving toward increasing “just-in-time-production-at-the-point-of-consumption” of energy, food, and products.
