Unit #16 - Globalization, Environmental Issues, Nuclear Pro-

• OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) - An organization of countries who control the world's largest oil supplies.
• outsourcing - having certain job functions done outside a company usually in a foreign country
• NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) - The free trade zone between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - An organization of many nations/states to regulate nuclear energy and its use
• EU (European Union) - The economic and political organization of some Europe states.
• Globalization - refers to the free movement of goods, capital, services, people, technology and information. It is the action or procedure of international integration of countries arising from the convergence of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.
• Internet/World Wide Web - the worldwide computer communications network
• climate change - is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years)
• Global Warming - the process of the earth in which the climate warms and could be manmade and/or natural
• Global Cooling - the process of the earth in which the climate cools and could be manmade and/or natural.
• Greenhouse Effect - is the process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to a temperature above what it would be without its atmosphere
• Ozone Layer - a layer of the atmosphere which absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth from the sun
• Acid Rain - rainfall made sufficiently acidic by atmospheric pollution that it causes environmental harm
• deforestation - the action of clearing a wide area of trees
• desertification - the making of an expanding desert
• Nuclear Meltdown - a nuclear accident in which the core of the nuclear reactor superheats
• Kyoto Protocol - is an international treaty that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• nuclear proliferation - is the spreading of nuclear weapon technology to nations that do not possess the technology or that increase their capabilities
• Third World - the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America