Global Warming

In 1859, John Tyndall researched what cause's the earth to become too warm. The result of his study was the emission of gasses such as: methane, carbon dioxide, ethane, propane, and butane are absorbed and trap heat into earth's atmosphere. A few years later August Arrhenius labeled Tyndall's discovery; the "greenhouse effect". He then stated the burning of fossil fuels will contribute to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in years to come. Arrhenius theory was proven to be correct in 1938 by Guy Callendar. Callendar looked at previous weather records and noticed a constant increase in earth's temperature over years. Human contribution to greenhouse gases was not discovered till later years. The first discovery was the destruction of forests, biologist G. E. Hutchinson discovered tree's use carbon dioxide to make food; when deforestation occurs tree's are cut down releasing carbon dioxide into the air which rises into the atmosphere. During the beginning of the 70’s era, people started to utilize weeds, crop wastes, and solid waste to convert into methane gas. The methane gas was then converted into energy. At the time the main focus was to control pollution and create energy, the problem was thought to be solved but created a much larger problem for the future. It was not until 1975 scientists and researches came to the realization; some human made products such as hairspray, plastic bags, plastic bottles, house hold cleaning products, and much more pose a threat to the ozone layer.

Recent studies prove the earth's temperature continues to rise, "the planet has reportedly warmed 0.3 degree Celsius to 0.6 degree Celsius over the last century" (Unknown author, 2010. P.462). Human's in the United States are contributing to global warming without realizing. One of the biggest contributors to gas emissions come from common household operations such as; heating, lighting, and appliances. According to Joshua Westmoreland; "Human-induced-global warming is mostly attributable to the utilization of combustion-powered machines" (Westmoreland, 2010. P.229). The United States stands at the top of the ranking for contributing carbon emissions. In Report 5: How Do We Individually Contribute To Global Warming, a graph is shown comparing the amount of carbon emissions by countries. The United States is said to emit 20 tons while China is further down in line emitting 2.7 tons. This may not seem like a massive difference to some but compare the U.S. population to China. The current population of the United States is said to be around 290 million while China is at 1.3 billion; the average American emits around seven times more than an average Chinese. With that in mind, what is the United States plans to lower the amount of gas emissions?

In article II, Section I of the United States constitution there is a Vesting Clause. The clause gives the president complete power to execute a law and control actions of executive agencies. Since the power lies in the president’s hands, he should be required to take action on working towards less gas emissions.

In 2001 Bush administration requested further studying to be done about global warming; the study affirmed global warming has been in affect the last 20 years. According to the same study the planet's temperature will rise anywhere from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Current president, Barack Obama recently proposed a plan to deal with global warming. The plan would require transportation fuels to decrease the amount of carbon 5% every 5 years. Obama also is interested in creating a carbon credit system. The system would give a certain amount of carbon credits to fuel providers and allow them to sell any extra credits to anyone that needed more. If a provider needed more credits but could not find anywhere to purchase them they would be able to borrow more but would have to cut back in future months to make up for credits borrowed.

Many hope president Obama will follow the Clean Air Act (CAA) that was passed by Supreme Court in Massachusetts. If put into action in the United States, the Clean Air Act would initiate the process to control greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions. The CAA defines the Environmental Protection Agencies responsibilities for protecting and regulating gas emissions.






Bibliography:
1.) Spencer Weart, January 27, 2009. The Discovery of Global Warming, American Institute of Physics.
2.) Unknown Author, 2010. Global Environmental Concepts. P. 130-147. Chad Country Review.
3.) Ng, Kim Choon & Saha, Bidyut Baran, 2010. Application of Absorption Technologies for Energy Efficientcy. Vol. 31 Issue 11, p907-909, Heat Transferring Engineering. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&jid=B7G&site=ehost-live
4.) Demirbas, Ayhan, July 2010. Methane hydrates as potential energy resource: Part 1 - Importance, resource and recovery facilities, Vol. 51 Issue 7, p1547-1561. Energy & Conservation Management. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&jid=JDT&site=ehost-live
5.) Bayliss (April 2008). Putting the Puzzle Together. Vol. 7 Issue 4, p. 14-15, 2p. Retrieved from: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=prh&AN=31576582&site=ehost-live
6.) Joshua Westmoreland (2010). Global Warming and Orginalism: The Role of the Epa in the Obama Administration. Vol. 37 Issue 1, p. 225-256. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review. Retrieved from: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=48650843&site=ehost-live
7.) Chris Weisbrot (2004). Report 5: How Do We Contribute Individually To Global Warming? Retrieved May 7, 2010 from Hinkle Charitable Foundations website: http://www.thehcf.org/emaila5.html

Dawn Saves Wildlife

The advertisement I choose to analyze was the commercial “Dawn Saves Wildlife”. The commercial uses emotional appeal by showing baby ducks, baby seals, and baby begins covered in oil. In the beginning the tone is depressing and gloomy until the animals are washed cleaned using dawn soap making the tone happier. As soon as the tone changes dawn uses that opportunity to remind the audience they can help save wildlife by purchasing their product. For every bottle of special edition dawn bought, $1 will be donated to the save the wildlife conservation. Images used make the commercial extremely heart tugging. Anyone with a heart cannot help but be attracted to the ad and possibly feel the urge to go out and by a bottle or two of dawn liquid soap.
In the commercial the only words used besides lyrics from the background song are “thousands of animals caught in oil spills have been saved using dawn, now your purchase can help. Tough on grease yet gentle.” That statement alone shows the advertising company is trying to create an emotional appeal. If you are not convinced by that alone look at the choice of music used. “I got troubles oh, but not today cause they gonna wash away. This old heart gonna take them away.” The song is “Wash Away” by Joe Purdy.
The advertisement did not clearly state a target audience. Going by the traditional gender roles, it could be said women over the age of 20 may be the intended target audience. Traditional gender rules portray the woman to be a “house wife” and more emotional than men. The duties of a house wife are to cook, clean, and tend after their children. If women are doing the cooking and cleaning, it only makes sense for the advertisement to be geared toward them. By using emotional appeal in the commercial women are automatically drawn into it and more likely to go out and purchase the product.
The background takes place in what seems to be a science lab where animals are being shown being bathed in dawn liquid soap. No faces are shown, only the hands with gloves that are washing the animals. The only other shot used in the commercial is a picture of the dawn special edition bottle of soap.
Wildlife animals are clearly the theme to the dawn commercial. Throughout the commercial images of animals are shown, whether they are shown covered in oil or recently cleaned.
The item being advertised is dawn special edition liquid soap. Dawn created 3 different bottles of the special edition soap. One bottle is blue with a picture of a white seal on the bottle; the other is orange with a picture of a baby duck; the last bottle is green with a picture of a penguin. All 3 bottles say have the same words printed on the bottle; 1 bottle= $1 to save wildlife. The colors of the bottles are vibrant version of earth tone colors.
Over all dawn is doing a good thing by donating to wildlife conservation efforts but many people don’t know in order for their dollar to be contributed to wildlife conservation they must go onto dawn’s website. When on the website the consumer must register their bottle. Although they require the consumers to do so, they do not clearly state that in their advertisements or commercial. Dawn also states on their website up to $500,000 will be donated. What happens to the dollar consumers are promised to be donated after $500,000? Special edition dawn soap is misleading its consumers by not clearly stating the details.

The Banana Trade War

In the United States bananas are sold year round at every super market nation wide. With the produce aisle always stocked with 'fresh' bananas, do you ever stop to think where they are coming from? According to Info Comm: Market Information in the Commodities, Latin America and the Caribbean supplied 70% of banana exports in 2006, Central America imported an average of 70% throughout 2000-2010.

Published author Anup Shah wrote an article for Global Issues January 3, 2010 entitled; "The Banana Trade War". Intially the headline caught my attention; it is simple and straight forward. The article itself may not be so simple and straight forward but Shah does a great job reporting the details on the Banana Trade War while remaining un- biased.
Shah begins the article by giving a little background information about the trade war as well as the organizations involved.

September 1997, WTO (World Trade Organization) decided local farmers must compete with multinational companies as a way of moving toward free trade. The ACP (African, Caribbean, Pacific) doesn't feel ready to go along with WTO's decision. Oxfam (an organization aimed to fight poverty) feels the new agreement is extremely beneficiary to the European Union by giving them an upper hand in bargaining position.
March 1999, Washington started to pick and choose what countries they would except EU goods from; proving powerful countries have the ability to do as they feel whenever they feel necessary no matter how it affects other countries. Large companies such as Chiquita complained it was unfair trade.

In the article, Shah raised an excellent question without literally asking the reader; If Chiquita was exposed in 1998 for their horrible work tactics and illegal activities, do they really have the right to complain about un-fair tactics?

Shah ended the article by explaining the conditions workers in third world countries must endure. Who is truly at fault, the companies enforcing the conditions or the larger countries demanding the product?

Supermarkets are demanding lower prices for consumers, the money used to lower prices is being taken from plantation workers pay. These workers work long hours in poor conditions for very little pay. With the Caribbean being dependent on the banana industry workers have no choice but work in lousy conditions for low pay. According to the article larger countries have been manipulating smaller countries to be dependent upon them for many years to reap the economic benefits. If small countries depend on large countries, in what way is fair trade considered fair?

Article link: http://www.globalissues.org/article/63/the-banana-trade-war

Video on banana wars in the Caribbean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKLXpm9nrT0