When 12,000 demonstrators converged on Washington D.C. in September to protest meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Houston activist Scott Parkin was among them. Part of the anti-globalization movement for the last two years, Parkin is familiar with the frequent assertion by mainstream media that the movement is dead. Parkin called this imposed moratorium ridiculous. Not only is the movement alive and well, it has beating a heart right here in Houston.

Thousands of anti-globalization protestors marched on Washington D.C. in September. Photo courtesy Alliance for Global Justice.

For Nan Hildreth, Houston Sierra Club’s co-chair on population and sustainability, the “next wave” of anti-globalization means working with local environmental groups to frame the issue in a positive light. She said anti-globalization activists are trying to make the movement more inclusive by focusing on sustainability.

According to Hildreth, globalization threatens sustainable development. “In attempting to standardize products for global trade, global structures bring environmental protection laws down to the lowest common denominator, often overturning them completely.” She said that the processes used to set up global trade agreements typically exclude the input of environmental groups.

Hildreth heads up Globalization Forum, a local group that takes a scholarly approach to globalization. Members meet monthly to study proposed laws and business innovations to determine whether they “contribute to or diminish global justice.” Currently, Globalization Forum’s book-study group is discussing Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz.

Parkin organizes locally with the Houston Global Awareness Collective, a group largely comprised of students from Rice University, the University of Houston and the University of St. Thomas. Since the group’s commencement in July of 2001, HGAC has organized dozens of protests, teach-ins and demonstrations.

Among their activities in the past year, HGAC held a demonstration in front of the Enron building downtown and marched from the River Oaks Country Club to former executive Jeff Skilling’s home. Teach-ins, organized in part by HGAC, drew activists from all over the world to the Exxon Mobile shareholders meeting in Dallas to learn about the Texas-based multinational’s environmental abuses in the developing world and the U.S. In September, demonstrators stood at the corner of Shepherd and West Grey, where one Starbuck’s shop faces another, to distribute fliers detailing the coffee chain’s use of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone. Most recently, HGAC hosted a lecture in October featuring famed historian Noam Chomsky who examined the environmental and social ramifications of corporate globalization.

Parkin admits that the anti-globalization movement might not be for everyone, but insists that the environmental implications warrant serious attention.

“We don’t expect everyone to be out in the streets,” he said, “but everyone should be aware of what corporate globalization does to the environment.”

According to a report by Friends of the Earth, an international network of grassroots environmental groups, global policies have wreaked havoc on the environment of many developing countries. The report’s authors said that Structural Adjustment Programs, which represent half of IMF investment, promote development that is not environmentally sustainable. SAP conditions emphasize export-led development, which leads to the exploitation of valuable natural resources. Cutting social spending and reducing the size of local governments, also conditions of SAPs, means less capacity to enforce environmental regulations. IMF policies also encourage the deregulation of foreign-owned business. In other words, countries are forced to compete for foreign investment by offering low wages, tax breaks and relaxed environmental regulations.

World Bank-funded projects like dams, power plants, oil pipelines and medical waste incinerators often result in environmental devastation and social dislocation. An internal World Bank study found that fewer than 20 percent of World Bank adjustment loans included any environmental assessment.

For more information on HGAC, email to hgac2001@yahoo.com. Visit Globalization Forum on the web at www.cistix.com/Globalization.html.