Source: The following passage is excerpted from online article. It was published online by the BBC News on November 9, 1998. The title of the article is “Global Warming: The Fact.” The Web site address is http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/global_warming/202408.stm
Summary
Nowadays, the existence of global warming cannot be denied. Scientists have shown strong evidence to support that global warming is indeed occurring. The obvious evidence is the dramatically rising of surface air temperature. Scientists have proved that 1998 is the hottest year in the last thousand years. Besides, the ice caps have melted and the global sea level has risen by between 10cm and 25cm over the last century(BBC News, 1998). Most scientists believe that greenhouse effect is one of the factors, which directly encourage the global warming. Human activities have influence on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere too. Carbon dioxides is the main greenhouse gas which causes the climate changes. Global warming has brought catastrophic effects to human and plants. It causes more natural disasters occur. What can be done by the human to reduce the impacts of global warming? For instance, using low carbon fossil fuels, developing green and renewable energy sources, planting new trees and sustaining existing forest cover can reduce the human impacts on the climate change. However, the pollution we caused today will not cause the climate change immediately, it will cause the climate change after 30 years.
References
BBC News. (1998, November 9). Retrieved November 9, 2008, from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/global_warming/202408.stm
Monday, November 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Portfolio 5
Nowadays, the development of the science is grown rapidly. A lot of scientific researches have been processed over the world. Our world is full of the materials than our great-grandparents years. We can’t deny that the successful scientific researches have brought many benefits to human beings. However, some of the them cause unethical abuses such as the brain mapping and human cloning. If I were one of the researcher of any of them, I will absolutely prevent and minimize these unethical abuses of my work.
Firstly, I will ensure the privacy of the systems by building well security systems. All the images and the data of the brain mapping could only be read by the persons involved. Besides, the database would be protected by the firewall.
Secondly, I will enhance people’s knowledge by educating and campaign before conducting the research. Of course, I will also explain what are the pros and cons of brain mapping to the public. Also, I will collect feedbacks from the public and try to make brain mapping system more user-friendly to them.
Standards would be established too. People who do not want their mind be read, won’t be forced to go through this system. However, a criminal defendant has to do so under request of a judge that is necessary for the case. What would be the effects if a criminal defendant refuses? According to Caplan (Marano, 2003), “the refusal would affect a jury regardless of a judge’s instructions”.
In conclusion, by setting the standards and constructing a well protection of the privacy, the potential unethical abuses can be predicted and minimized. Each scientific research has its own risk, we can’t stop processing the research due to its ethical problems. In contrast, what we should do is to make them more acceptable.
References
Marano. (2003, June 3). Ethics and Mapping the Brain. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/brain_mapping_ethics.htm
Firstly, I will ensure the privacy of the systems by building well security systems. All the images and the data of the brain mapping could only be read by the persons involved. Besides, the database would be protected by the firewall.
Secondly, I will enhance people’s knowledge by educating and campaign before conducting the research. Of course, I will also explain what are the pros and cons of brain mapping to the public. Also, I will collect feedbacks from the public and try to make brain mapping system more user-friendly to them.
Standards would be established too. People who do not want their mind be read, won’t be forced to go through this system. However, a criminal defendant has to do so under request of a judge that is necessary for the case. What would be the effects if a criminal defendant refuses? According to Caplan (Marano, 2003), “the refusal would affect a jury regardless of a judge’s instructions”.
In conclusion, by setting the standards and constructing a well protection of the privacy, the potential unethical abuses can be predicted and minimized. Each scientific research has its own risk, we can’t stop processing the research due to its ethical problems. In contrast, what we should do is to make them more acceptable.
References
Marano. (2003, June 3). Ethics and Mapping the Brain. Retrieved November 6, 2008, from http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/brain_mapping_ethics.htm
Global Warming(Question 2)
Why global warming becomes a part of the debates of the USA president election? What is global warming? Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent” (Allianz). Although some of the people believe that it is too early to say that global warming had occurred, engineers and scientists have shown strong evidence to support that global warming is indeed occurring. On February, 2007, the United Nations scientific panel studying climate changes declared the evidence of a warming trend as unequivocal (Global Warming).
Nowadays, the existence of global warming cannot be denied. The obvious evidence is the dramatically rising concentration of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are one of the factors, which directly encourage the global warming. Concentration of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than they was for the last 420,000 years and probably the last 20 million years. This has caused some changes in temperatures. For decades, cars and factories have spewed billions of tons of greenhouse gases into atmosphere, led to the rising of temperatures between 0.6°C and 0.9°C (1.08°F to 1.62°F) over the past centuries (Earth Observatory). Global warming has brought catastrophic effects to humans and the Earth. Furthermore, for the past few years, there are more natural disasters such as tsunamis, storms and earthquakes.
Another proof is the climatic change. Our planet is heating up rapidly, and the rate of warming is accelerating. The intergovernmental panel on climate change has outlined a range of scenarios which predict a temperature rise of between 1.4 and 5.8 degree centigrade (Lamichhane, 2008). It is directly causing the temperatures of the ocean increasing and the number of storms increasing. For example, the stronger storms like Hurricane Katrina in recent years may be partially explained by global warming (Lamichhane, 2008).
Last, the melting of the ice caps and the rising of sea level also show that the global warming is occurring. For example, “last winter, the thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic fell by nearly half a metre (19 per cent) compared with the average thickness of the previous five winters” (Science News, 2008). The warm weather have driven this problem. Besides, the IPCC's Third Assessment Report, projected that the global average sea level would rise by between 9 and 88cm between 1990 and 2100 (Anonymous, 2006). All of these problems can be explained by global warming.
In summary, there are thousands of proofs already all around the world which show that global warming is occurring. The effect of Global warming is being seen widely all over the world. Some of the effects have provoked and challenged the entire ecosystem. We should stop to heat our earth. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to stop our earth from warming up.
References
Allianz. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/global_warming _basics/global_warming_definition.html
Anonymous. (2006, January). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/275
Earth Observatory. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/
Global Warming. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html#
Lamichhane. (2008, May). Global Warming. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://thesop.org/index.php?article=11264
Science News. (2008, March). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081027200309.htm
Nowadays, the existence of global warming cannot be denied. The obvious evidence is the dramatically rising concentration of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are one of the factors, which directly encourage the global warming. Concentration of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than they was for the last 420,000 years and probably the last 20 million years. This has caused some changes in temperatures. For decades, cars and factories have spewed billions of tons of greenhouse gases into atmosphere, led to the rising of temperatures between 0.6°C and 0.9°C (1.08°F to 1.62°F) over the past centuries (Earth Observatory). Global warming has brought catastrophic effects to humans and the Earth. Furthermore, for the past few years, there are more natural disasters such as tsunamis, storms and earthquakes.
Another proof is the climatic change. Our planet is heating up rapidly, and the rate of warming is accelerating. The intergovernmental panel on climate change has outlined a range of scenarios which predict a temperature rise of between 1.4 and 5.8 degree centigrade (Lamichhane, 2008). It is directly causing the temperatures of the ocean increasing and the number of storms increasing. For example, the stronger storms like Hurricane Katrina in recent years may be partially explained by global warming (Lamichhane, 2008).
Last, the melting of the ice caps and the rising of sea level also show that the global warming is occurring. For example, “last winter, the thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic fell by nearly half a metre (19 per cent) compared with the average thickness of the previous five winters” (Science News, 2008). The warm weather have driven this problem. Besides, the IPCC's Third Assessment Report, projected that the global average sea level would rise by between 9 and 88cm between 1990 and 2100 (Anonymous, 2006). All of these problems can be explained by global warming.
In summary, there are thousands of proofs already all around the world which show that global warming is occurring. The effect of Global warming is being seen widely all over the world. Some of the effects have provoked and challenged the entire ecosystem. We should stop to heat our earth. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to stop our earth from warming up.
References
Allianz. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_change/global_warming _basics/global_warming_definition.html
Anonymous. (2006, January). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/275
Earth Observatory. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/
Global Warming. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html#
Lamichhane. (2008, May). Global Warming. Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://thesop.org/index.php?article=11264
Science News. (2008, March). Retrieved November 4, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081027200309.htm
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