Causes of Air Pollution Essay Example for Free

Causes of Air Pollution Essay There are several main causes of air pollution, the vast majority of them can be attributed to man. Some natural sources of air pollution include forest fires, dust storms, and volcanic eruptions. Plants such as ragweed contaminate the air with pollen. Decaying leaves and other forms of vegetation release gases that contribute to air pollution and cause haze. (Morgan) Air pollution is the introduction into the atmosphere of chemicals, particulates, and biological matter that cause harm to humans, other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment. Stratospheric ozone depletion (contributed to air pollution) has long been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth’s ecosystems. The Earth is capable of cleaning itself of a certain level of pollution, but man-made pollutant have become too numerous for the Earth’s natural mechanisms to remove. We are seeing the results of this overload in the form of acid rain, smog, and the variety of health problems that can be contributed to our environment. (Godish) One of the main causes of air pollution is manufacturing. This source of pollution spews particulate matter and chemicals into the atmosphere. The exhaust from a factory includes, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and dioxide, as well as volatile organic compounds and particulates. There is not an area of the Earth’s atmosphere or an ecosystem that has not been altered by the long term effects of the pollution created by manufacturing. Strides have been made to filter the material coming from manufacturing plants, but it may take the Earth millennia to completely recover from the damage already done. (universe) A surprisingly link may exist between ocean fertility and air pollution over land, according to Georgia Institute of Technology research reported in the Feb. 16 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres. The work provides new insight into the role that ocean fertility plays in the complex cycle involving carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in global warming. (Cain) Finally, the burning of fossil fuels is a part of everyday life of every human on the planet. We burn fossil fuels in our cars, fossil fuel is burned to extract fossil fuel from the Earth, and fossil fuel is used to process fossil fuel into its individual components. Every step of the way releases sulfur and nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, heavy metals and particulates into the air. Each step in the process increases the number of asthma cases in the world, raises a person’s chance of having cancer, and increases the chance that your child will be born with congenital defects. (Turco) References Cain, Fraser. (2005). Air Pollution Linked to Growth of Life in Oceans. Retrieved from http://www.universetoday.com/10263/air-pollution-linked-to-gr Godish, Thad. 1997. Air Quality, 3rd ed. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, Fl. Morgan, M. T. (2003). Environmental Health, (3rd ed.). Belmont: CA: Wadsworth Turco, Richard P. 2001. Earth Under Siege: From Air Pollution to Global Change, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, New York.

A Digital Nation :: Internet Technology Technological Essays

A Digital Nation Have you ever heard someone say that we live in a digital nation? Do you know what a digital nation is? Well you should know because you are living in one. Our nation revolves around the use of computers. Can you go through a normal day without using something computer related? I don't think so. Many everyday things that you take for granted are computer based, such as: ATM's, credit cards, grocery check outs, and gas stations to name a few. I support Jon Katz's article The Netizen: Birth of a Digital Nation. Our nation would be a totally different place today if the computer was never invented. Computers have evolved incredibly in the past few years. Programs on computers help to make schools more organized and are used many times a day. Today most of the student's records are kept on a computer instead of in filing cabinets. Such as records of shots, attendance, grades, test scores, any problems the child has, and many others. With computers you can pull up a child's file within seconds instead of having to find the file in a cabinet, which could take several minutes. Computers keep all the files organized and make finding things easier for teachers, which helps them to get more things done in their busy day. Many teachers when assigning papers require them to be typed. Typed papers are a lot easier to read then hand written ones. Having a typed paper cuts down on the time needed to grade the papers and makes reading them a lot easier. Before computers, the time teachers needed to grade twenty papers was maybe four hours and now they can grade them in about two hours. Computers allow us to communicate with people all over the world. Thanks to the Internet you can talk with people from other counties and get a response within a few seconds. Instead if you had written a letter you might not get a response for weeks. The Internet also allows people who don't know each other to meet and become friends. Being able to connect to the Internet allows families to stay in touch even though they live thousands of miles away. The capabilities of being online makes things so much easier and faster, which we need, in order to keep up with the fast paced world we live in.

Miracle on St David’s Day by Gillian Clarke Essay

Miracle on St David’s Day is an enchanting, and ultimately optimistic poem relating to the theme of identity by Gillian Clarke. The poem tells the story of a man in a mental institution, who exceeds the expectation of both the nurses and his fellow patients when he regains the ability to talk. In the first stanza of the poem, Gillian Clarke describes the country house in what seems to be an idyllic setting, â€Å"The sun treads the path among cedars and enormous oaks, it might be a country house, guests strolling†. However despite the seemingly pleasant tone, implied by the use of her making it seem informal, through the relaxed wondering of what the House may have been,† might be a country house, guests strolling†, suggesting normality her use of the word might alerts the reader that this idyllic setting may be an illusion and not what it first seems. The illusion of normality is swiftly extracted by the opening line of the second stanza, â€Å"I am reading poetry to the insane†. This line ends with a certain finality, that is so abrupt that it disturbs the so far, flowing effect to the poem, also implying informality and normality, to the effects that it shocks the reader, not only in the disrupted rhythm of the poem but also in the disturbingly blunt reality of what she is saying. Furthermore this is shocking because it is not commonplace for people to be reading poetry to the insane. Gillian Clarke does this numerous times during the poem in order to stop the reader, so that the poem does not ramble, and make it more interesting, â€Å"A beautiful chestnut-haired boy listens entirely absorbed. A schizophrenic†. This use of contrast between the descriptive lines of the opening stanza and the flat, and remarkably blunt, tones of this line introduce the reader to the contrast between the setting and the guests. As we can observe from the line following, â€Å"I am reading poetry to the insane†, which instantly restores the mood of the poem to informal with the humor, of the old woman who is constantly offering the narrator coal, when it is March and she would have no means of getting coal. By the use of having the woman saying humorous things, Gillian Clarke is also contrasting her with the other patients at the home, as she is the only one who is talking. The poem also uses poetic devises such as personification, â€Å"An afternoon yellow and open mouthed†. It uses metaphors, â€Å"In a cage of first march sun†, and similes such as, â€Å"Outside the daffodils are still as wax†, to make the poem more interesting to read, and also without these techniques the imagery of the poem, that the people in the home are daffodils would not be portrayed and the final message of the poem would not be presented to the reader. Thus the poem would be pointless. Gillian Clarke also uses enjambment in the poem, which disturbs the flow of the poem, and I think is also relating to the disturbed personalities of the patients in the home. Enjambment is effectively used in the third to fourth stanzas, as this is a rambling scene of the immense man struggling to get to his chair, and so Clarke reflects this in the appropriate use of enjambment between the stanzas. The first March sun is described as a cage in the third verse as it is sa ying that for these people who have no freedom, even their enjoyment of the sun is trapping them, and they have no choice but to be out absorbed in it. These poetic devices are also used to build up the character of the man in the poem. In the third stanza where the man is introduced, he is described as a big, mild man, and a laborer, who is being tenderly led. This use of contrasting language informs the reader that even though the man is large in size he has to be tenderly led like a child, continuing to imply to the reader that there is something wrong with him. This is confirmed in the forth verse where he is described as rocking, a common action by insane people as it comforts them. His description is also emphasized by the repetition of the words big, mild and dumb. These words make him seem even more immense, which is odd when they are combined with mild. When the huge laboring man speaks he is in beautiful surroundings reciting a poem about daffodils, which is not only being ironic but is breaking the stereotype of laborers being very masculine and rather insensitive, whereas here he is being portrayed as almost feminine and extremely sensitive. What strikes me most prominently when reading the poem is the amount of imagery used to bring emphasis to the overall meaning of Clarke’s poem and to make it more interesting. She has chosen the â€Å"Daffodils†, by W. Wordsworth, as the music that the mute man chooses to speak after forty years of silence. I believe that she has also chosen to describe the man who cannot speak as mute as it is also a musical term, and so therefore is not just emphasizing that there is no speech in his life, but also that there is no music, relating with happiness and merriment, and therefore is saying that without speech there is no joy in the laborer’s life. However when the rhythm of the poetry he is read awakens him, it appears to turn apparent life into reality. The poem is a possible way to show his waking from a world of misery to a reality of nature’s beauty and rhythm, â€Å"Since the dumbness of misery fell he has remembered there was a music of speech and that once he had something to say.† This is also playing on the word dumbness, as dumbness aside from meaning stupidity also is relating to the man who cannot speak as a person who is mute can also be described as, â€Å"dumb†. Informing us that the poem is saying that music is good, as when he cannot speak, and there is no music, it is described as, â€Å"misery† and when this, â€Å"falls†, and he has remembered that there is something to say a thrush sings, representing happiness, and the once, â€Å"wax† still daffodils are flame, representing excitement, life and activity. Therefore Gillian Clarke is saying that the man was not properly alive until the music in his life was restored. He is reciting poetry because what he has heard from the nurses in the institution has restored his memory and he has remembered a poem that he had learnt as a child at school. We know this because Clarke informs us in verse thirty-one, â€Å"Forty years ago, in a Valleys school, the class recited poetry by rote†. I believe that Gillian Clarke’s poem is also relating to music through this imagery. â€Å"Since the dumbness of misery fell he has remembered there was a music of speech and that once he had something to say.† When he speaks there is an immediate exchange of characteristics, the once lifeless patients are alert and the nurses are frozen as the patients once were. I also notice that in Clarke’s poem the daffodils seem to represent the people at the home. At the start of the poem the daffodils are â€Å"open mouthed† showing the way that the patients don’t react to the poetry, as this is the face that people use when they are bored and not listening. Their open mouths show how unreceptive the patients are, once again removing any sense of normality as Gillian Clarke alienates them from ordinary sane people. When the miracle of the man speaking occurs the flowers are silent and still, showing that far from the boredom and lack of interest displayed before, everyone is amazed. We can deduct that the daffodils are not merely flowers, by the use of lines such as, â€Å"their syllables unspoken†, as obviously, flowers can speak no syllables. I think that the use of the candle related words throughout the poem are deliberate, when the flowers are as still as, â€Å"wax†, the man is not speaking and when he does they are a flame, which is representing that the man’s hope, which has always been there, the wax, but when he speaks it is â€Å"a flame†. It is alive. I think that the, â€Å"first bird of the year in the breaking darkness† is symbolic as the first bird of the year, is representing the first speech in the mans life for many years, and the darkness which is now breaking is the bad times of when he could not speak. His first words in many years are described as a bird, as this also relates to the theme of music. Gillian Clarke effectively alienates the patients in the home and portrays the fact that although they are physically there, they mentally are not by the constant use of word absent, â€Å"I read to their presences, their absences†. St David’s Day by Gillian Clarke illustrates the theme of identity through the use of including people in a mental institution, as they have no identity. Yet after forty years a man’s identity breaks through. I believe that this poem is trying to communicate the fact that everyone has an identity; no matter how masked it is from the rest of the world, and by the use of describing them with flowers that cannot speak (which have inner beauty, she is saying that everyone has some kind of identity and beauty. Emotion plays an important part in the poem humor, misery and shock are shown to us and this makes the poems more realistic. Ultimately I feel the reason this is a very effective poem is that the use of daffodils and Wordsworth is subtle but carries a significant meaning that is backed up by the tone of the rest of the poem. I find that the poem is truly touching and although the main message of the poem is quite discrete, the way that it is portrayed makes it seem that you, the reader are really experiencing the miracle.

Factors Leading to the Rise of the Nazi Dictatorship in...

The Great Depression played a big role in helping the Nazi Party capture power. Many nations were suffering from the Great Depression in 1930, including Germany who had to pay for the war reparations. During this period of economic and politic crisis, the country had been easily influenced by the politics parties. They wanted someone who is capable and had what it takes to be their leader to lead them through the huge crisis that they were facing. Most Germans who are in desperate state as they wanted Germany to be like once, able to be proud of and not in such a state where they had to struggle to fulfill the almost impossible terms of the Treaty of Versailles. They considered that period as a disgraceful decade in their history. Due to†¦show more content†¦In 1930, because of the Nazi Party’s good fortunes and careful planning, their votes increased from 12 seats to 107 seats. One of the factors that helped them captured more votes was because they mainly targeted o n people who were affected worst on the Great Depression like the farmers and small businessmen. He promised to cut taxes, protection on food prices for the farmers, and making policy of making trade unions powerless and stopped communisms to the small businessmen. It appealed them. Many male Germans also supported Hitler because of the military appearance. Female German also supported him because he made them feel very important as he wanted them to bear lots of Aryan children to serve the country. Hitler also made a point to declare through his speech that he detests the Jews, and naturally, those Germans who are mostly Protestants, too, blamed the Jews. In brief, Hitler appealed to a wide range of people in voting for him. And Hitler successful gained the support of the Germans and started his rule of dictatorship. Propaganda was also one of the main methods that helped the Nazi Party to gain power. It was used intensively by them, influencing them by using the press, the radio, the films, a form of art and more. Adolf Hitler’s speeches could also be counted as one of theShow MoreRelatedThe Policy Of Appeasement During The Outbreak Of War Essay1332 Words   |  6 Pagesaggression, appeasement became a policy adopted in the 1930s, especially by the British. Appeasement was developed in the belief that countries such as Germany were unfairly treated in the Treaty of Versailles. It was used in hope to prevent Germany and Italy going to war. â€Å"Appeasement was seen to be magnanimous, good business, idealistic and a form of security.† The policy of appeasement was widely pursued by Britain and France in the 1930s, refers to attempting to satisfy Germany s demands byRead MoreThe Rise Of Nazism By John Maynard Keynes3444 Words   |  14 Pageshistory it has experienced huge economic growth and profound economic failures. German politics also followed a similar fate . However, these changes were important to leading Germany into new grounds and new problems, the most significant of which includes, what some describe as an inevitable dictatorship of Germany. For many years the rise of Nazism has been put down to the idea of the Sonderweg, a ‘special path’ which would lead Germany through a change between both authoritarian and democratic ruleRead MoreThe Rise Of Nazism And The Holocaust1668 Words   |  7 Pagesworld wars. Historical events have causal factors and in certain instances can be traced to an individual level. Therefore, certain individuals do matter in history directly altering the course the world takes. Adolf Hitler is one of these individuals. Hitler, the figurehead of the Nazi regime that led Germany to World War II, and instigated one of the most infamous genocides in history, the Holocaust. The impact Adolf Hitler had on history, namely, the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust is also dueRead MoreThe Changing Attitu de of Germans Towards The Nazi Party Essay1697 Words   |  7 Pagescaused major economic problems for the relatively young country. From 1924 to 28, the Nazi party had little support from the German public. This lack of support was due to the success of Stresemann’s policies and the country was now stable and flourishing, after the events in the Ruhr and hyperinflation. Germany now had a low unemployment rate and had an improved international status. These conditions meant that the Nazi extremist ideologies had little appeal to Germany’s population. However this periodRead MoreTo What Extent Was the Rise to Power of the Nazis Due to the Wall Street Crash?2028 Words   |  9 Pagesthe rise to power of the Nazis due to the Wall Street Crash? Historian Carr writes It is inconceivable that Hitler could have come into power had not the Weimar Republic being subject to the unprecedented strain of a world crisis, thus he thinks that the Wall Street Crash was the cause of problems in Weimar leading to the rise of the Nazis. In 1933 the Nazi party took control of Germany, installing Hitler as chancellor. Evidence would suggest that the Wall Street Crash was a major factor in theRead MoreEssay about Evaluating the Historical Comparisons of Hitler and Stalin3458 Words   |  14 Pagesabsolutely, great men almost always are bad men.† Lord Acton 1887 No other men could fit this description of power and corruption more perfectly than Hitler and Stalin. Throughout history they have been both idolised and demonised leading to the overwhelming fascination the world has with them. Both successfully rose to heights of power in their own countries which was unprecedented, they were able to manipulate the public, had strong ideologies and regimes and between Read MoreDemocracies And Their Tendency to be More Peaceful Than Authoritarian States1144 Words   |  5 Pagesdemocratic. Authoritarian states are generally not as advanced economically or otherwise as their democratic counterparts that may be a contributing factor why they may be more hostile. Also the geographical layout of the states, namely in the Middle East and the grappling for resources, mainly oil may cause tensions leading to war or conflict (Iraqs invasion of Kuwait). Europe doesnt o have an essential commodity like oil; it relies on its economic strength through tourismRead MoreFactors Affecting the Success of Hitler, the Opportunist Essay1949 Words   |  8 PagesAdolf Hitler’s rise to power can be largely attributed to his ability to make use of events that happened in Weimar Germany, however much of his success came from careful, precise planning. Life after World War One was difficult for all Germans; the country was in political chaos with other factors leading to the relatively easy rise to power of Hitler. During the Stresemann years Germany started to rebuild itself leading which required Hitler to very carefully plan the ways in which he conductedRead MoreThe Rise Of The Great War2463 Words   |  10 Pageslooking for someone to lead them into a period of happiness and prosperity, like that of the years before WWI. In 1933, Adolf Hitler ascended to the position of Chancellor of Germany, and thus began his conquest for power, domination, and genocide. His rise to power can b e characterized by his own cunning and charisma, his exploitation of the Germans desperation caused by the Great Depression, and the way he created a scapegoat to carry the blame. Hitler became the leader the Germans were looking forRead MoreEssay on Economic, Political and Social Effects of Stalins Purges2356 Words   |  10 PagesSoviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred