Climate Essays (3901 words) - Climate History, Demographic Economics

Climate Change Over the past years most individuals have become acutely aware that the intensity of human and economic development enjoyed over the 20th century cannot be sustained. Material consumption and ever increasing populations are already stressing the earth's ecosystems. How much more the earth can take remains a very heated issue. Here a look at the facts sheds some very dark light. In 1950, there were 2.5 billion people, while today there are 5.8 billion. There may well be 10 billion people on earth before the middle of the next century. Even more significant, on an ecological level, is the rise in per capita energy and material consumption which, in the last 40 years, has soared faster than the human population. "An irresistible economy seems to be on a collision course with an immovable ecosphere." Based on these facts alone, there is grave reason for concern. Taken further, it is even more frightening to note that, while man has affected the environment throughout his stay on earth, the impact has been most intense in the relatively short industrial era. Since the industrial revolution, and over the past century in particular, man's ecological footprint on the earth has quickly grown from that of a child to one of a giant. True, this period is heralded as an economic success story, which it certainly has been. However, many argue that it seems increasingly likely that the path to man's success will soon slope downward to his demise. The climate is changing, and so must we. This paper will look at the coin of climate change, where on the one side the human impact on the earth will be shown, and on the other, the impact of earth on man. Such a study is inevitably somewhat polemical, as it is still open to debate what the precise effects of man have and will be on climate change, and also what climate change will mean to man. It will also be quite general in analysis, as a paper of this scope can allow no more. What will be made clear, nevertheless, is that the relationship between man and earth is clearly changing. More specifically, man is outgrowing the earth. If the relationship is to continue?indeed prosper?then a new balance needs to be found. The issue of climate change holds one important key to this balance. Man and the Environment Thomas Malthus is well remembered for his position as a doomsayer. When looking at the rates of population growth in Victorian England, he saw unchecked growth as leading to a rapid decline in the living standards of man. He blamed this decline on three main factors: the overproduction of offspring; the inability of natural resources to sustain rising human population; and the irresponsibility of the lower classes to prevent their overpopulation. Very generally, Malthus suggested that this trend could be controlled only if the family size of the lower classes was regulated so that poor families would not produce more children than they could support. He predicted that the demand for food would inevitably become far greater than the available supply of it. This prediction was rooted in the thought that population, when unchecked, increased geometrically; i.e., 2,4,8,16,32... while food products, or as he called it ?subsistence', only grew at an arithmetic rate; i.e, 1,2,3,4,5,...... He provided only a basic economic reason for this however, and generally attributed famine, poverty and other catastrophic occurrences to divine intervention (he was a very religious man, a clergyman, in fact). He believed that such natural outcomes were essentially God's way of preventing man from being lazy. The point here is not to provide an evaluation of Malthus, and one might well argue that he was wrong in many of his predictions; but rather to highlight the posit that man has long been living beyond his means. Sooner or later, this will have its consequences. As a species, our success has certainly been impressive, but it has come by turning a blind-eye to our surroundings. "A prime reason for our success is our flexibility as a switcher predator and scavenger. We are consummately adaptable, able to switch form one resource base?grasslands, forests or estuaries?to another, as each is exploited to its maximum tolerance or use up. Like other successful species we have learned to adapt ourselves to new environments. But, unlike other animals, we made a jump from being successful to being a runaway success. We have made this jump because of our ability to adapt environments for our own uses in ways that no other animal can match."

Comparison of the Species Composition of Various Land Plots Using Rarefaction Curves Essays

Comparison of the Species Composition of Various Land Plots Using Rarefaction Curves Essays Comparison of the Species Composition of Various Land Plots Using Rarefaction Curves Paper Comparison of the Species Composition of Various Land Plots Using Rarefaction Curves Paper The experiment shall create a comparison of the biodiversity of various land plots through the use of Rarefaction Curves derived from the samples. The curves shall be attained by sampling different plots (2, 4 and 9 m2) for plant and tree species along transects of the area dividing lines of the plots. The curves shall then be analyzed through the use of Eco-Tool’s Richness Estimators v. 2.1. Results of the experiment do not tally with the initial assumption of the proportionality of the sample size to the biodiversity. The analysis of the Rarefaction Curves indicate some dispersion of the curves, which may reflect a need to refine data. Introduction Biodiversity plays a role in the maintenance and enhancement of an ecosystem. In a food web, it can be seen that the loss of an organism which plays the same role as another organism is not as significant as compared to the loss of an organism which plays a single role in the food web. The changing physical environment, however, has thinned the biodiversity of ecosystem. Worm et. al. suggests that these changes have been more enigmatic for the oceans than for landscapes (2006). The loss of biodiversity in an ecosystem thus breaks the stability of a system and its subsequent recovery. Thus, there is a need to monitor biodiversity and specify the ecosystem’s characteristics along environmental gradients. Sampling is based on the assumption that the more samples that is drawn from a location, the more species that the sampling will gather. Thus, the diversity of the gathered species will depend on the quantity of organisms sampled. Complete census of the different environments, however, is not feasible. From time to time, new species are seen on environments that have been sampled for a long time (Rothamstead, 2010). The fact that complete census is not feasible is countered by the fact that as sampling increases in quantity, the new species discovered from the sampling gradually becomes asymptotic. Thus, the number of unique species that can be gathered in a place approaches a set value. Asymptotic species richness estimators, however, tend to overestimate species richness. The problems that the asymptotic estimators face are solved through the use of rarefaction curves. These curves simulate the concepts stated above since the curve rises quickly at first, where there is an abundance of unique discoveries of new species in the sample, until it reaches an asymptotic value. Rarefaction also simulates real-time situation through random re-sampling. This experiment aims to prove the assumptions of discoveries approaching an asymptotic value as the sample size increases and that the larger the sample size, the more diverse the sample shall be. The experiment also aims to develop rarefaction curves of the gathered plot samples.

Analysis of Being Steve Jobs Boss Article Assignment - 3

Analysis of Being Steve Jobs Boss Article - Assignment Example Jobs’ methodology actually starts â€Å"with the user and looking at the entire end-to-end system† (Bloomberg, 2). Schulley revealed Jobs’ admiration for Sony, which became the basis for his Mac factory, tailored to Sony’s elegance and design. He identified Dr. Edwin Land, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation, as one of the Jobs’ heroes. Ross Perot, founder of Electronic Data Systems, and Akio Morita, builder of Sony, were likewise explicitly looked up to by Jobs as his great inspiration and heroes. The interview likewise discussed Sculley's strategy to focus on marketing Jobs’ products in the market. However, his humility made him express that â€Å"Steves brilliance is his ability to see something and then understand it and then figure out how to put it into the context of his design methodology—everything is designed† (Bloomberg, 4). He acknowledged making two mistakes: not having to work with Intel and not going back to Steve. Schulley ruminated that â€Å"Why don't we go back to the guy who created the whole thing and understands it? Why don't we go back and hire Steve to come back and run the company?" (Bloomberg, 5). In hindsight, Schulley was convinced that â€Å"if Steve hadn't come back when he did—if they had waited another six months—Apple would have been history. It would have been gone, absolutely gone† (Bloomberg, 5). One shares the same contention and agrees to Schulley in the discussions proffered in the article.