Acid Rain Essays (868 words) - Environmental Chemistry, Free Essays

Acid Rain Essays (868 words) - Environmental Chemistry, Free Essays Acid Rain Acid Rain The damaging effects of acid rain on society is becoming overwhelmed with great amounts of pollution from cars, factories and an large amounts of garbage. The immense amounts of sulphur dioxide put into the air causes high levels of acid in the atmosphere. When this sulphuric acid is absorbed into moisture in the air, then rain can be harmful to the environment. Acid rain is destroying lots of things in our environment. It is hurting lakes, air and thew rest of our ecosystem. Acid rain is killing lakes and decreasing the number of animals in these lakes. Acid rain greatly lowers the amounts of pH in the water. Each decade the pH levels of lakes around Ontario have become ten times more acidic. The high acid levels contained in lakes also causes a decrease in the number of fish living in these lakes. Also the high amounts of acid in the water can lead to fish being deformed. They have messed up and out of shape backbones, flattened heads and strangely curved tails. When there gets to be a lot of acid in the water, then there is barely anything left besides rock bass, pumpkinseed and lake herring. As with sulphur dioxide in rain, mercury is also discharged into the water. There is a direct connection between the mercury rich lakes as there is with those with high acidic levels. This metal becomes concentrated in the blood and tissues of fish. Acid rain causes traumatic effects in natural lakes and rivers. Acid rain causes air quality to deteriorate. As in water, acid rain causes the pH levels in the air to decrease. The sulphur dioxide, which diffuses into the air, mixes with moisture causing the pH levels to drop from the normal level. Again, the normal level is somewhere around seven, yet in some acidic air masses the levels can be as low as three. These lowered pH levels form a photochemical smog in the atmosphere. In the air Anitrogen oxides react with ozone and some hydrocarbons in the presence of sunlight to form photochemical smog, the kind of yellow-grey haze which it literally alive and growing in stagnant air [emailprotected] (Howard protected] (Howard & Perley, 1980, p. 32). Disruption in the life span of trees and plants is also another effect of acid rain. The acid rain corrodes the thin, waxy layer, which coats and protects the leaves letting the acid suffocate the leaves. This can cause an interference in the plants metabolism and photosynthesis may be altered meaning the leaves cannot produce and efficient amount of food which may result in death of the plant. Acid may obtrude fertilization , stunt or kill the growth of seeds and make them sterile. A second generation would be

Symbols Of Freedom And The Values They Represent Essays

Symbols Of Freedom And The Values They Represent Essays Symbols of Freedom and the Values They Represent American symbols are almost as complicated and interpretive as the American politics they serve. In my first grade class, before the boy scouts were kicked out of meeting in public schools, they made us do the Pledge of Allegiance. This frightened me; being put into a class where these lunatic people talked to a piece of cloth hanging on the wall, and in my fear they sent me back to kindergarten. When I reached the first grade for the second time, they taught that the red stripes were for the blood of dead soldiers, and the white ones for flesh. The blue was for the night sky they fought under, and the fifty stars represented every state in the union (no one mentioned that there were only thirteen at the time of the revolution). As a Sophomore in High School, we studied Humanities, and learned that the colors of the American flag mimicked the colors of the French one due to copious amounts of money donated by the French. Perhaps their intention was not so much to aid the colonists, but to hinder the British they had quarreled with for so many years. In any event, Humanities taught that the colors of the flag were a money matter. As for the representation of American values, perhaps paying tribute to one's debts and loyalties is what is evident here. The Confederacy (Citation to see attached) said that white was for, "innocence and purity"; red symbolizing, "valor and hardiness"; and blue marking, "vigilance, perseverance, and justice." No official record of the original intention behind the coloring of the United States flag has been found to date. American coins are characterized not only by monetary values out of proportion to size (nickels to dimes) but by the Latin phrase, "E Pluribus Unum" or >Out of many, one.' This is most likely symbolic of early Americans' commitment to voting together and then acting together in the manner which they had pledged. One could also apply it to the fifty (then thirteen) states coming together to form one common country. adventure.com/library/encyclopedia/america/libbell.html The Ring Of Freedom July 4, 1776 PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA For more than 200 years, the Liberty Bell has been one of the most visible symbols of American freedom. Made in England, the bell was brought to Philadelphia in 1753 and hung in the new Pennsylvania State House, which is now known as Independence Hall. The bell is inscribed with the words "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land," which is a phrase found in the Bible (Leviticus 25:10). On July 4, 1776, the bell was rung when the members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. This began an Independence Day tradition that was observed every year, except in 1777 and 1778, when the British captured Philadelphia and the bell was hidden for safe keeping. The last time the bell was rung was in 1846, when a small crack in the bell grew so large that it could no longer be sounded. But it is still seen by millions of people each year when they visit Philadelphia's Liberty Bell Pavilion. Copyright 8 1996 Knowledge Adventure, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://libertynet.org/iha/betsy/index.html This material is copyright by, and used with permission of, the Independence Hall Association. For further information, visit the Independence Hall Association's Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://libertynet.org/iha What do the red, white, and blue of the flag represent? The Continental Congress left no record to show why it chose the colors. However, in 1782, the Congress of the Confederation chose these same colors for the Great Seal of the United States and listed their meaning as follows: white to mean purity and innocence, red for valor and hardiness, and blue for vigilance, perseverance, and justice. According to legend, George Washington interpreted the elements of the flag this way: the stars were taken from the sky, the red from the British colors, and the white stripes signified the secession from the home country. However, there is no official designation or meaning for the colors of the flag. Why are the stars in a circle? The stars were in a circle so that no one colony would be viewed above another. It is reported that George Washington said, "Let the 13 stars in

Evaluate the claim that biometric technology is a viable and effective Essay

Evaluate the claim that biometric technology is a viable and effective alternative to traditional security methods - Essay Example Experts suggest that biometric technology is the most viable and efficient security measure compared to traditional methods, therefore, the paper aims to validate this claim. Discussion Biometric is the automatic person identification depending on the behavior or physiological attributes of that person. This authorization strategy identifies and verifies a person based on who he is before giving him access permission. The quest for increasingly reliable method of authorization to protect company information has called for biometric revelation and various companies and businesses have shown increased interest in the method. Commonly used physical biometrics is fingerprints, geometry of palms, characteristics of the face and retina, (Schuckers, 2010, p.89). Similarly, behavioral attributes are things such as voice recognition, patterns of keystroke, peoples’ signatures and gait and these technologies, voice recognition and signature are highly developed. Biometric security metho ds are indeed most effective authentication method compared to traditional methods such as smart cards and PINS or both. ... Technical support managers may have difficult time offering instructions to PIN users who have challenges with more basic associated technologies of signing in to certain network. Therefore, biometric technologies are more promising because they solve such problems and relieve the company of such expensive cost of hiring technical support staff, because in a system that uses one log in, biometric technology will be efficient in user authentication. Increasing number of organizations are recognizing biometric method efficiency in various applications, for example, in hospitals traditional methods are being replaced with biometric methods for authentication of users to ensure patients information privacy and confidentiality. Traditional methods such as swipe cards and passwords can be lost or stolen, and bad password management has left users writing passwords on papers and other materials or choosing general and possible works for faster remembrance, an activity that expose such pins to fraud and intruders. Biometric technologies, on the other hand, can be viable and efficient methods in solving these problems because they have strong techniques of authorization and authentication that can assure users of excellent security, (United States, 2004). Similarly, because biometric techniques uses user’s behavioral and physiological attributes in authentication and authorization, it is easy to detect and trace fraud and intrusion, (Ratha and Jain, 2005, p.85). Unlike traditional methods of authentication based of known characteristics – such as passphrases, smart cards – biometric techniques utilize distinct human traits such as voice recognition and prints of fingers that cannot be misplaced, forgotten, or lost. This is because human

Respond to classmate Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Respond to classmate - Essay Example Diversity brings together people with different beliefs and cultures. These people view situations in different perspectives and if brought together, they will make good ethical decisions. If the instructors had employed a check and balance system, the students would have been placed in groups. Moreover, the instructors would have demanded a report on each stage of the processes; hence, ethics violations could have been avoided. I appreciate that I have been able to understand the relationship between ethical decision-making and diversity because it is critical and exists. A combination of the two methods of implementing programs leads to successful teaching. Since realists hold to the traditional scientist values and constructivists on the other hand, implement art and creativity in the science-based disciplines, the science aspects taught are well absorbed by the students. The creativity aspect encompasses modern ways to handle situations (Rainer, 2011). I agree with you because, for the millennials, traditional values demoralize them as they engage in some extra-curricular school activities as well as science-based disciplines (Rainer, 2011). This was evident from few numbers of students that participated in sports as well as school clubs. A new club introduced in the school encompassed designing projects using latest technologies. The students were creative and many projects involved a lot of science technologies as well as engineering. They then converted their free time to designing projects and this way, they perfected their science-based skill s. It is therefore evident that these two methods, when combined together yield better

Cyber Terrorism A Global Menace Criminology Essay

Cyber Terrorism A Global Menace Criminology Essay A female American cartoonist, Jeff Smith stated, The threat is there, its very real, If we have a Unabomber who desires to launch an attack with an PC instead of a bomb, there could be a great deal of damage . Computers and the internet are an essential part in modern society undoubtedly. They make our life more convenient as well as enhance our living quality. As the role of computers is tremendous, it stimulated criminals and terrorists to make it their preferred tool for attacking their targets. This kind of modern crime is called cyber terrorism. This transformation in the methods of terrorism form traditional methods to electronic methods is becoming one of the hottest issues in the modern society. Cyber terrorism is a form of terrorism which the criminals use computers and the internet as a medium to commit crimes. Issues surrounding this type of crime have become high-profile, generally those including hacking, computer virus, computer worms and e-mail related crimes. We can easily observe the cases of cyber-related crimes are rising on news, even in local or other countries. In my point of view, Cyber Terrorism is an inevitable phenomenon in an advanced society. The intentions of cyber terrorists using cyberspace as a channel to commit crimes can be defined in different ways. Many people assume that the objective of cyber terrorists are only focus on computer hacking, they only commit crimes through internet. They generally regard that their intention to commit cyber crimes is only for steal data and violate peoples privacy. However, there are another reasons for the criminal to commit cyber crimes. Dorothy Denning stated that Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet. As the cyberspace has the ability to affect an abundant amount of people at one time, its the effective way for criminals to commit crimes through internet with different intentions and purposes. On behalf of explaining the purpose of cyber terrorism, the criminals can be politically intended hacking operations, their purpose is to cause tremendous harm to the society such as loss of life or economic damages. Second, the behaviors of the criminals can be unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate. Third, the criminals coerce a government or its people for the political or social objectives. Forth, cyber terrorism can be a physical attack that ruins computerized systems for critical infrastructures. (Such as the internet, water supply and telecommunications). Except for the above objectives of Cyber Terrorism, some authoritative organizations also have their own definition on the term of it. The U.S. National Infrastructure protection Center defined cyber terrorism as A criminal act perpetrated by the use of computers and telecommunications capabilities, resulting in violence, destruction and/or disruption of services to create fear by causing confusion and uncertainty within a given population, with the goal of influencing a governme nt or population to conform to particular political, social or ideological agenda. Now we can have a thoroughly understanding of why the terrorists choose cyberspace as a medium to commit crimes. The forms of cyber terrorism are multi-faceted, cyber terrorists use various tools and methods to achieve their purposes. The first mean is hacking. Hacking refers to all forms of unauthorized and illegal methods to access a computer system or a network. Some people are underestimate the harmful effect .Here is a terror example showing the seriousness of hacking. Jimmy Sproles and Will Byras once stated that A British hacker wanted to know what kind of chaos could be caused by penetrating the hospital computer, he hacked into a Liverpool hospital in 1994 and changed the medical prescriptions for the patients. Unluckily, A patient was killed by an overdose of penicillin after the hacker broke into the hospital computers and altered his prescription. The other form of cyber terrorism is Computer Viruses. It is generally a computer program that can infect other computer programs by modifying them in such way as to include a copy of it. They are spreading faster than theyre being halted. Some people are underestimating the harmful effect of computer virus, they think that the virus can only affect the performance on the personal computer, it wont post threat on other aspects. In fact, the virus are very dangerous and its harmful effect are massive. For example, the hospital life-support computer system being stopped by virus could be lethal. In addition, Computer worms are also a typical tool for Cyber terrorism. It is a self-contained program that is able to spread functional copies of itself or its segments to their computer systems. A worm named WANK(1989) infected many computers on a network. If this worm found that it had system privileges, it would change the system announcement message to Worms against Nuclear Killers!.Additionally, Cyber Terrorism are also included some E-mail related crimes. The convenient, ease and speed of email has made it a preferable tool for criminals. The email related crimes are mainly email spoofing, email bombing, threatening ema ils, defamatory emails. Also , its a powerful tool for criminals to spread virus and worms. Criminals are increasingly designed to steal information silently without any noticed by the victims. It is expected that mobile devices are prevalence in our daily life, there may be increasingly targeted victims for attack by the criminals in future. Cyber terrorism can bring negative effect to the individuals, society and even the entire nation tremendously. The actions of criminal hackers are non-stopped all around the globe. They try hard to exploit vulnerabilities in software, violate peoples privacy, steal information, and even shut down computer network malevolently. Lost of properties, being violated of privacy and personal data are the results of hacking by the criminals. Their personal computers will also be infected by virus and worms, it may harm a computer systems data or performance. For the society, criminals could pose serious threaten to the operation of business and governments .The threat is factual, increasing and already has proven costly. Cyber attack ranging from I LOVE YOU virus to the Trinco and the worms RamenLion and Crade Red have cost an estimated $5 billion US dollars. According to Coleman, K. (2003) the internet being down for just one day could disrupt nearly $6.5 billion worth of transactions. Lewi s, J (2002) also states that the Love Bug virus is estimated to have cost computer users around the world between $3 million and $ 15 million. In 2000, A hacker was able to control the computer system that control the flow natural gas through the pipelines in Russia. In 2002, hackers broke into the U.S. Justice Departments website and replaced the departments seal with a swastika, dubbed the agency the United States Department of Injustice and filled the page with obscene pictures.Also, the terrorists might crack into an air traffic control system and take over the complete direction of multiple airplanes. The air collusion between airplanes or crashing an airplane into a building are just two possible results of this action. Cracking into a citys traffic system could have disastrous results. The other possibility of traffic jams and traffic accident would be occurred and its consequences are very serious. The above cases and examples show that the cyber terrorism could seriously af fect the social stability and public security of ones country. Some people may under-estimate the influences of cyber terrorism, they regard the criminals are only targeted on some individuals and business, it wont post a menace to the entire nation. By the way, cyber terrorism can not only affect a specific community of people but the entire nation. Richard Clark once marked They (computers) run our electric power grid, out telecommunications network, they run our railroads, our banking system, and all of them are vulnerable, at some level, to some degree to information warfare, or cyber-terrorism, By the use of the internet the criminals can affect much wider damage than one could kill people. For example, they can destroy the economy of the country by attacking the critical infrastructures in the big towns such as electric power or water supply. Verton, D (2003) points out that the members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were planning to blow up and destroy six key electric su bstations in London (2003). Had the IRA succeeded in their goal, they would have disrupted power to major portions of London for months at 2003. This example would have been a terror attack and would have threatened the citizens of London. Also, the criminals can post a menace to the security of the nation by targeting the sensitive and secret information by stealing, disclosing or destroy the system of national defense. The menace of cyber terrorism is measureless, its influences is profound, its target can be anyone, it is invisible but exist somewhere around us. It may occur anytime and anywhere all round the world. The criminals could seriously threaten the operation of business and government even the entire nation. As we all know, the capacity of human mind is inscrutable, the methods and tools using by criminals of cyber crimes are changed with each passing day .It is impossible to eliminate the cyber crime from the cyber space. The existence of cyber terrorism can not be denied in the advanced society. Cyber Terrorism is without doubt an inevitable phenomenon in the advanced society. Just like what Daniel, H. mentioned that One of the hot areas right now is tracking down cyber crime and cyber terrorism. The modern world is declared to be a global village, collective efforts should be done across the nations by the governments, business and individuals in order to rectify this worsening situat ion. Word Count : 1628

Bell Curve

The Bell Curve is a controversial, best-selling 1994 book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray exploring the role of intelligence in American life. The book became widely read and debated due to its discussion of race and intelligence in Chapters 13 and 14. Named for the bell-shaped normal distribution of IQ scores, the book claims there to have been the rise of a â€Å"cognitive elite† having a significantly higher than average chance of succeeding in life. Within both the mainstream media and the scientific community, large numbers of people rallied to both support and criticize the book.The Bell Curve is fairly large for a book of its popularity, having 845 pages in the first printing and 879 in the revised paperback form. Much of its material is technical and academic, but the book's statistical explanations are styled to appeal to a general audience. The Bell Curve is divided into four sections. First, argues that social stratification on the basis of intelligence has been increasing since the beginning of the twentieth century. Second, presents original research showing significant correlations between intelligence and various social and economic outcomes.For instance, based on data as of 1989 this section shows that among Whites intelligence level (cognitive class) is a better predictor of poverty than parents' socioeconomic class. Third, by far the most controversial, examines what role IQ plays in contributing to social and economic differences between ethnic groups in America. Finally, discusses the implications of the findings for education and social policy in the United States. Of course, Bell curve is scientific. Both the American Psychological Association and the Human Genome Project have denounced the science behind The Bell Curve.Its authors were unqualified to speak on either genetics or intelligence, since their expertise lay in other fields. Their project did not rise through the usual system of academic publishing, and in fact the authors ducked the process of peer review. The Bell Curve was ultimately funded by the wealthy, far-right Bradley Foundation, which used its media connections to launch a massive national publicity campaign. And The Bell Curve relies heavily on studies that were financed by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that promotes eugenicist research.The persons that are responsible in bell curve were Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein. Charles Alan Murray (born 1943) is an influential conservative American policy writer and researcher. He is most widely known for Losing Ground, his influential work on welfare reform, Human Accomplishment, a quantification and ranking of well-known scientists and artists and as co-author (with Richard J. Herrnstein) of The Bell Curve in 1994, exploring the role of intelligence in American life.He's written several other books on modern social issues and politics, and has sometimes written on libertarian perspectives. Richard J. Herrnstein (May 20, 1930—September 13, 1994) was a prominent researcher in comparative psychology who did pioneering work on pigeon intelligence employing the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and formulated the â€Å"Matching Law† in the 1960s, a breakthrough in understanding how reinforcement and behavior are linked. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of psychology at Harvard University and worked with B. F.Skinner in the Harvard pigeon lab, where he did research on choice and other topics in behavioral psychology. Herrnstein became more broadly known for his work on the correlation between race and intelligence, first in the 1970s, then with Charles Murray, discussed in their controversial best-selling 1994 book, The Bell Curve. Herrnstein died shortly before the book was released. The row over school vouchers, whose advocates endlessly take it for granted that poor performance by students reflects only inadequacies by the teaching profession inadequacies among the learners being a huge unmentionable.The President's astounding proposal that all American youngsters, including those with IQs at the left tail, should have at least two years of college. The expressions of surprise and rage when it turned out that, in the absence of affirmative action, prestigious law schools would be admitting hardly any black students. Eugenics is a social philosophy, which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society's resources, and lessen human suffering.Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-s ponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior.In the social aspect of bell curve, the publication of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve enraged readers with its controversial racial and intellectual agenda, which suggested that certain groups of children are genetically unable to learn because of their race and, therefore, unworthy of the educational attention and financial resources that flow from federal and state governments Gottfredson, Linda S. â€Å"Mainstream Science on Intelligence†. Published in The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 1994, and also in Intelligence, January-February 1997. http:www. //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve.

Global Warming Problem/Solution Essay

For the past two centuries, at an accelerating rate, the basic composition of the Earth’s atmosphere has been materially altered by the fossil-fuel effluvia of machine culture. Human-induced warming of the Earth’s climate is emerging as one of the major scientific, social, and economic issues of the twenty-first century, as the effects of climate change become evident in everyday life in locations as varied as small island nations of the Pacific Ocean and the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The â€Å"greenhouse effect† is not an idea which is new to science. It has merely become more easily detectable in our time as temperatures have risen and scientists have devised more sophisticated ways to measure and forecast atmospheric processes. The atmospheric balance of â€Å"trace† gases actually started to change beyond natural bounds at the dawn of the industrial age, with the first large-scale burning of fossil fuels. It became noticeable in the 1880s, and an important force in global climate change by about 1980. After an intensifying debate, the idea that human activity is warming the earth in potentially damaging ways became generally accepted in scientific circles by 1995. Addressing the consequences of global warming will demand, on a worldwide scale, the kind of social and economic mobilization experienced in the United States only during its birthing revolution and World War II, and therein lies a problem. The buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a nearly invisible, incremental crisis. Carbon dioxide is not going to bomb Pearl Harbor to kick start the mobilization. Author Jonathan Weiner observes, â€Å"We do not respond to emergencies that unfold in slow motion. We do not respond adequately to the invisible† (Weiner, 1990, 241). It has been said (not for attribution) that the best thing which could happen to raise worldwide concern about global warming would be a quick collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which would raise worldwide sea level a notable number of feet over a very short time. When stock brokers’ feet get wet on the ground floor of New York City’s World Trade Center, all the world’s competing economic interests might mobilize together and provide the sociopolitical responses necessary to address the atmosphere’s overload of greenhouse gases before it is too late. The same water that could lap at the ground floor of the Trade Center also would ruin most farmers in Egypt and Bangladesh and slosh in the lobbies of glass towers of Hong Kong and Tokyo. Perhaps, only then, might all of humankind heed the implications of Chief Seah’tl’s farewell speech a century and a half ago. We may be brothers (and sisters) after all. So far, humankind’s collective nervous system—national and international leadership, public opinion, and so forth—hasn’t done much about global warming. As of this writing, the flora and fauna of the planet Earth are still in the position of a laboratory frog submerged in steadily warming water. This is not a secret crisis, just a politically unpalatable one. Al Gore, in Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, raised a sociopolitical call for mobilization against human-induced warming of the Earth: â€Å"This point is crucial. A choice to ‘do nothing’ in response to the mounting evidence is actually a choice to continue and even accelerate the reckless environmental destruction that is creating the catastrophe at hand† (Gore, 1992, 37). In his book, Gore, then a U. S. senator, called for a â€Å"global Marshall Plan,† to include stabilization of world population, the rapid creation and development of environmentally appropriate technologies, and â€Å"a comprehensive and ubiquitous change in the economic ‘rules of the road’ by which we measure the impact of our decisions on the environment† (Gore, 1992, 306). Eight years after Gore issued his manifesto, fossil-fuel emissions had risen in the United States. Gore had captured the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States, and global warming had slipped from campaign radar. From this vantage point, one imagines the world lurching through the twenty-first century as global public opinion slowly galvanizes around year after year of high temperature records, and as public policy only slowly begins to catch up with the temperature curve. The temperature (and especially the dewpoint) may wake the global frog before he becomes poached meat. Whatever the outcome of the public policy debate, the odds are extremely high that the weather of the year 2100 will be notably warmer than today, as greenhouse â€Å"forcing† exerts an ever-stronger role in the grand dance of the atmosphere which produces climate. Ross Gelbspan observes, â€Å"Global warming need not require a reduction of living standards, but it does demand a rapid shift in patterns of fuel consumption—reduced use of oil, coal, and the lighter-carboned natural gas to an economy more reliant on solar energy, fuel cells, hydrogen gas, wind, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. It is doubtful that capitalistic market forces will bring about this shift on their own, because market prices of fossil fuels do not incorporate their environmental costs. † (Gelbspan, 2004) George Woodwell has been quoted as saying, â€Å"[For] all practical purposes, the era of fossil fuels has passed, and it’s time to move on to the new era of renewable sources of energy. † The other alternative, says Woodwell, is to accept the fact that â€Å"[t]he Earth is not simply moving toward a new equilibrium in temperature†¦. It is entering a period of continuous, progressive, open-ended warming† (Gordon and Suzuki, 2001, 219). In Jeremy Leggett’s opinion, â€Å"The uniquely frustrating thing about global warming—to the many people who see its dangers—is that the solutions are obvious. There is no denying, however, that creating the necessary changes will require paradigm shifts in human behavior—particularly in the field of cooperation between nation-states—which have literally no precedent in human history†¦. There is no single issue in human affairs that is of greater importance. † (Leggett, 2000, 457) According to a Greenpeace Report edited by Leggett, â€Å"The main routes to surviving the greenhouse threat are energy efficiency, renewable forms of energy production†¦less greenhouse-gas-intensive agriculture, stopping deforestation, and reforestation† (Leggett, 2000, 462). Greenpeace also recommends redirecting spending away from armaments and toward development of a sustainable energy for the future of humankind (Leggett, 2000, 470). Of the broader picture, Michael MacCracken writes, â€Å"The underlying challenge is for industrialized society to achieve a balanced and sustainable coexistence with the environment, one that permits use of the environment as a resource, but in a way that preserves its vitality and richness for future generations†¦. The challenge [is] to transform our ways before the world is irrevocably changed†¦ toward displacing militarization and the ever-increasing push for greater national consumption as the primary driving forces behind industrial activity. † (MacCracken, 2001, 35) According to Donald Goldberg and Stephen Porter of the Center for International Global Law: â€Å"The Clinton administration has bungled repeated chances to initiate domestic measures. For example, recent legislation proposed by the White House to restructure the electric utility industry could have been crafted to require utilities to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency lobbied hard for the authority to impose a cap-and-trade program on utilities’ CO2 emissions, similar to the trading system that has lowered sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions in a cost-effective way. This was a golden opportunity, as the restructuring bill is projected to save the average consumer roughly $200 a year, which would have more than offset the cost of reducing GHG [greenhouse-gas] emissions. Unfortunately, the White House chose to forgo this opportunity. † (Goldberg and Porter, 1998) According to Goldberg and Porter, loopholes in the Kyoto Protocol, adopted at the insistence of the United States, permit richer countries to avoid many of its mandated emission reductions by purchasing allowances from other countries through the protocol’s â€Å"flexibility mechanisms. † The Buenos Aires Climate Conference (1998) negotiated a mechanism allowing trade in greenhouse gas emission rights in two markets. The first market would allow â€Å"sellers,† nations which exceed greenhouse gas-reduction targets set in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, to offer their rights for sale to â€Å"buyers,† countries which have not met their targets. The second market, the Clean Development Mechanism, will allow industrialized countries to meet part of their greenhouse-gas-reduction quotas by transferring clean technology to poorer countries so that antipollution projects can be carried out there. â€Å"If it buys all (or most) of its reductions,† Goldberg and Porter write, â€Å"the United States will not get its own house in order. In the long run, efficiency and productivity in the U. S. economy will suffer because domestic industry will be shielded from any incentive to adapt† (Goldberg and Porter, 1998). Under these provisions, the United States could â€Å"purchase† emission reduction credits from nations, such as Russia and Ukraine, which reduced their greenhouse-gas emissions during the 1990s because their economic infrastructure collapsed. The continuing political wrangling over the Kyoto Protocol illustrates why the world is responding so slowly to the impending crisis of global warming. Climate diplomacy remains an arena dominated by competition of special (mainly national) interests. Meanwhile, a few countries, most of them in Europe, are taking steps to mitigate greenhouse forcing on their own. While British emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2000 had fallen between five and six percent compared to the Kyoto Protocol 1990 targets, emissions in the United States rose 11 percent between 1990 and 1998. Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions rose 13 percent during the 1990s, while several European countries (including Britain) made substantial progress toward meeting the goals of the Kyoto Protocol by reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions as much as 10 percent compared to 1990 levels. Denmark (which produces less than one percent of humankind’s greenhouse gases) underwent something of a mobilization against global warming during the 1990s. Denmark was planning â€Å"farms† of skyscraper-sized windmills in the North and Baltic seas that, if plans materialize, will supply half the nation’s electric power within 30 years. The Danish wind-energy manufacturers’ association believes that electricity produced through wind power on a large scale will be financially competitive with power from plants burning fossil fuels, which will be phased out if wind power proves itself. Svend Auken, Denmark’s environmental and energy minister, said that with half of his country’s power coming from Norwegian hydroelectric plants and the other half from wind power, the country is planning to meet its electricity needs within three decades while reducing carbon dioxide production to nearly zero. The wind farms must prove their endurance in winter storms and stand up to the corrosion of seawater, but if they can, Denmark’s windmills will prevent the production of 14 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. While the fossil-fuel economy remained firmly entrenched in most of the world at the turn of the millennium, gains were being achieved in some basic areas of energy conservation. In 1994, for example, the average person in the United States was recycling 380 pounds a year, up from 62 pounds in 1960, a 613 percent increase (Casten, 1998, 101–102). Following the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1972, the United States also made a concerted effort to limit the production of nitrous oxides by gas turbine engines. Before regulation, the typical gas turbine engine emitted 200 parts per million (p. p. m. ). Since then, several technological innovations have reduced emissions to below 10 p. p. m.. Technology was being developed in the late 1990s which could reduce the rate to two to three p. p. m. (Casten, 1998, 117–118). The problem is at once very simple, and also astoundingly complex. Increasing human populations, rising affluence, and continued dependence on energy derived from fossil fuels are at the crux of the issue. The complexity of the problem is illustrated by the degree to which the daily lives of machine-age peoples depend on fossil fuels. This dependence gives rise to an array of local, regional, and national economic interests. These interests cause tensions between nations attending negotiations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The cacophony of debate also illustrates the strength and diversity of established interests which are being assiduously protected. Add to the human elements of the problem the sheer randomness of climate (as well as the amount of time which passes before a given level of greenhouse gases is actually factored into climate), and the problem becomes complex and intractable enough to (thus far) seriously impede any serious, unified effort by humankind to fashion solutions. References Casten, Thomas R. (1998). Turning Off the Heat: Why America Must Double Energy Efficiency to Save Money and Reduce Global Warming. Amherst, N. Y. : Prometheus Books. Gelbspan, Ross. (2004). A Global Warming. American Prospect, 31 (March/April). Goldberg, Donald, and Stephen Porter. (1998). In Focus: Global Climate Change. Center for International Environmental Law, May. Gordon, Anita, and David Suzuki. (2001). It’s a Matter of Survival. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gore, Albert. (1992). Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Leggett, Jeremy, ed. (2000). Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report. New York: Oxford University Press. MacCracken, Michael. (1991). Greenhouse Gases: Changing the Global Climate. In Joseph P. Knox and Ann Foley Scheuring, eds. , Global Climate Change and California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 26–39. Weiner, Jonathan. (1990). The Next One Hundred Years: Shaping the Fate of Our Living Earth. New York: Bantam Books