Name: Quach Tran Trong Minh ID: 01-05-0-0102 •Look at the issue of global warming from several different disciplinary perspectives – economics, climatology, sociology, political science, agronomy. What might be some questions that each discipline could contribute to our understanding of global warming? Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders because it is related many perspectives n our life like economics, climatology, sociology, political science, and agronomy. Understanding the relationship between these perspectives can help us understand more about global warming. Firstly, global warming involves economics aspect. World economic in recently decade had great advance. Our lives are improved better. However, several industries play a key part in economic such as metallurgy, building industry, chemical industry or industries burn fossil fuel, coal, natural gas, etc are the main source of air pollution. It roduces a large amount of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide which are the main component of greenhouse gases (factor causes global warming). On the contrary, global warming also affects economic. Climate change and global warming can bring a change in gross world product; it may be plus or minus a few percent. But, even small changes in gross world product can bring about comparatively large changes in national economies. The most directly affected industry is the insurance industry. A 2004 report by the Association of British Insurers noted that hanging weather increases risks for households and property by 2-4% per year and the claims for storm and flood compensations in the UK had increased twofold over the period 1998-2003, weighing against the past five years. As a result, the insurance premiums have become so high that in some areas it will be nearly impossible for some to afford flood and storm insurance. Secondly, global warming involves climatology aspect. There are two major ways that global warming is affecting the climate. The first way is alarming rise in sea levels predicted.
The average temperature of the Earth has been on a steady uphill climb ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when societies began burning fossil fuels for energy. This greenhouse effect is melting the polar ice caps at an alarming rate. Some experts believe the Arctic could be ice-free within five years, raising sea levels by several feet worldwide and putting a huge damper on your next beach vacation. The second effect is more catastrophic weather events. In 2008 alone, more than 220,000 people lost their lives from natural disasters.
Hurricanes, as well as droughts, floods, wildfires, and heat waves, have become more common all over the world, wreaking. Thirdly, global warming also involves sociology. Increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming could also lead to more health concerns. As temperatures increase towards the poles, similar to farmland, insects and other pests migrate towards Earth’s poles. These insects and pests could be allowed to migrate up to 550 Km or 550 miles. Some insects carry diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. Thus, an ncrease in these particular insects and pests closer to the poles results in an increase in these diseases. The most obvious health effect is directly from the heat itself. With an increase in heat waves, there will be more people who will suffer from heatstroke, heart attacks and other ailments aggravated by the heat. Hot conditions could also cause smoke particles and noxious gases to linger in the air and accelerate chemical reactions that generate other pollutants. This leads to an increase in risk of respiratory diseases like bronchitis and asthma or the negative impacts f climate change on freshwater systems outweigh the benefits. On the other hand, all of the regions assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Latin America, North America, Polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic), and small islands) showed an overall net negative impact of climate change on water resources and freshwater ecosystems. Semi-arid and arid areas are particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change on freshwater. It was judged that many of these areas, e. g. the Mediterranean basin, western USA, southern Africa, and north-eastern Brazil, would suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change. In addition, stresses such as increased drought, water shortages, and riverine and coastal flooding would affect many local and regional populations. It was predicted that these stresses would lead, in some cases, to relocation within or between countries. This might have the effect of exacerbating conflicts, and possibly impose migration pressures. Thus, realize the effects of global warming to our society, verybody is trying to against global warming by real action like get educated, choose vegan meals, using recycling bins, composting… Another perspective global warming involved is political science. Global warming has received increasing political attention over the past thirty years, having constituted one of the key themes in the rise of green politics over the same period. This increasing political salience resulted in an intergovernmental meeting in Kyoto in 1997, at which 38 industrialized countries signed up to the Kyoto Protocol.
The terms of this agreement were that these nations would reduce their atmospheric emissions of CO2 by an average of 5. 2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. This is well below the 60 per cent target that scientists working on climate change claim is necessary to present further global warming, but the agreement was seen by many campaigners as a useful first step that established the framework necessary for further cuts in the future. The Kyoto Protocol will not, however, become effective until it has been ratified by 55 per cent of the ignatory nations, and only then if these nations contribute 55 per cent or more of global carbon emissions. On the other hand, global warming also involves agronomy. The agricultural sector is a driving force in the gas emissions and land use effects thought to cause climate change. Agriculture contributes to greenhouse gas increases through land use in four main ways: CO2 releases linked to deforestation, Methane releases from rice cultivation, Methane releases from enteric fermentation in cattle and Nitrous oxide releases from fertilizer application.
Meanwhile livestock and livestock-related activities such as deforestation and increasingly fuel-intensive farming practices are responsible for over 18% of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, including: 9% of global carbon dioxide emissions, 35-40% of global methane emissions (chiefly due to enteric fermentation and manure), 64% of global nitrous oxide emissions (chiefly due to fertilizer use). Livestock activities also contribute disproportionately to land-use effects, since crops such as corn and alfalfa are cultivated in order to feed the animals. Worldwide, livestock roduction occupies 70% of all land used for agriculture, or 30% of the land surface of the Earth. Because agriculture is one of the reasons cause global warming, global warming also affects agriculture in both bad side and good side. Climate change can affect agriculture in a variety of ways. Beyond a certain range of temperatures, warming tends to reduce yields because crops speed through their development, producing less grain in the process. And higher temperatures also interfere with the ability of plants to get and use moisture.
Evaporation from the soil accelerates when temperatures rise and plants increase transpiration—that is, lose more moisture from their leaves. The combined effect is called “evapotranspiration. ” Because global warming is likely to increase rainfall, the net impact of higher temperatures on water availability is a race between higher evapotranspiration and higher precipitation. Typically, that race is won by higher evapotranspiration. But a key culprit in climate change—carbon emissions—can also help agriculture by enhancing photosynthesis in many important, o-called C3, crops (such as wheat, rice, and soybeans). The science, however, is far from certain on the benefits of carbon fertilization. But we do know that this phenomenon does not much help C4 crops (such as sugar-cane and maize), which account for about one-fourth of all crops by value. In conclusion, global warming does not belong to science field but it also relates with many perspective such as economics, climatology, sociology, political science, agronomy. To find out information about these field helps me understand more about global warming.
These perspectives and global warming affect each other. Therefore, against global warming needs a combination between disciplinary perspectives. •“Vegetarian Diet helps protect environment”. How do you think of it? • Today, the world has to face many problems such as war, illness, starvation, especially environment pollution. To satisfy the personal demands, human was and in processing to destroy the environment. According to the survey, which was carried out in 18 economic branches and sectors, current urban area planning fails to incorporate waste reatment systems, resulting in alarming pollution levels in cities and industrial parks, with numerous businesses seriously flouting environmental management regulations. It is estimated that 119 out of the country’s total of 183 industrial parks do not have dedicated waste treatment systems. In addition, in urban areas, only 60-70 percent of solid waste is collected and processed or according to a recent survey conducted by the Industry Policy Research Institute has forecast that environmental pollution in
Vietnam will be four or five times higher than current levels by 2010. Therefore, many solutions are raised to cope with this urgent situation and one of them is vegetarian diet. So, in this essay, I will discuss the different types of vegetarian diet and why many people think that it helps to protect environment. A vegetarian diet focuses on plants for food. These include fruits, vegetables, dried beans and peas, grains, seeds and nuts. There is no single type of vegetarian diet. Instead, vegetarian diet is divided into these main types: •Vegans: Strict vegetarians who do not eat meat f any kind, eggs, dairy products, or even do not consume processed foods containing any animal-derived ingredients such as gelatin are termed as vegans. There also includes a subset of vegans who call themselves as ‘raw vegans’ who only consume unprocessed vegan foods. •Fruitarians: Some people have carried the concept of vegetarianism to another extreme wherein the people only eat fresh fruits, these people are called fruitarians. •Lacto-ovo-Vegetarians: Vegetarians who do not eat pork, beef, poultry, fish, or animal flesh of any kind, but do consume eggs and dairy roducts •Lacto Vegetarians: Vegetarians who do not eat any type of animal meat or even poultry and eggs but consume milk. •Ovo Vegetarians: Vegetarians who do not eat any kind of animal flesh or meat, and do not even consume milk, but eat eggs. •Pescatarian: Pescatarians are those who refrain from eating all types of meat with the exception of fish. Usually this type of diet results owing to the demand for nutritional requirements fulfilled by fish. •Flexitarians: Flexitarians are those who mostly stick to a vegetarian diet but occasionally eat meat. Pollo-Vegetarians: People who eat poultry, such as chicken, turkey, and duck but no other type of animal flesh and meat and the regular vegetarian ingredients are termed as pollo vegetarians. Let’s compare the vegetarian diet’s impact and the livestock industry’s impact on the environment to find out why vegetarian helps protect environment. With meat industry, it is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide. The production and consumption of meat and other animal products is associated with the clearing of rainforests, resource epletion, air and water pollution, land and economic inefficiency, species extinction, and other environmental harms. The first impact of meat industry is grazing and land use. Although it requires less land for the livestock, factory farming requires large quantities of feed which must be grown on large areas of land. Free-range animal production requires land for grazing, which has led to encroachment on undeveloped lands as well as clear cutting of forests. Such expansion has increased the rate of species extinction and damaged the services offered by nature, such as the natural rocessing of pollutants. In addition, raising these animals requires huge amounts of water, most of it used to irrigate the grains and hay fed to the animals or producing a certain quantity of food in meat requires much more water than producing the same amount of food in grain. The United States Geological Survey says that 40 percent of fresh water used in the U. S. in 2000 went to irrigate feed crops for livestock. Only 13 percent was used for domestic purposes including showers, flushing toilets, washing cars and watering lawns. On the other hand, meat industry also affects aquatic ecosystems nd it produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Raising animals for their flesh, eggs, and milk is one of the world’s leading emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2) which causes global warming. Animal agriculture is the leading source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which – combined with carbon dioxide – causes the vast majority of global warming. Meat industry also polluted the air, water because of the waste during the meat processing. On the contrary, vegetarian diet is good for nvironment. The first advantage of vegetarian diet is land use through meat production. It means that for the breeding and feed crop for the billions of animals are slaughtered worldwide every year large areas of land required, which are also often produced by deforestation. Overgrazing leads among others to the extinction of endangered plant species, erosion and desertification. In addition, vegetarian is more economical. Many animals, especially on factory farms are fed with corn and soybeans. The world’s livestock alone has a higher calorie than the whole of humanity. This extended ood chain (for human food suitable for animal consumption, to produce meat) is very inefficient. According to the authors Mark Gold and Jonathon Porrits result in a report to called “The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat” that it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of animal flesh. The vegetarian way of life is thus an effective way to food shortages. In addition, it can save water, acreage, fertilizer and pesticides, which would otherwise be used for the production of animal feed. On the other hand, the inefficiency of meat production is rooted also in the ncreased energy consumption. Rearing, slaughtering and processing of farm animals consume energy – for example for growing, transporting and processing of animal feed, but also for the operation of farms and abattoirs as well as for transportation and refrigeration of meat and meat products. Therefore, vegetarianism saves energy and protects the environment. The next advantaged of vegetarian diet are to saves and protect water. The water demand of the meat industry worldwide including the one drinking water for the billions of animals for slaughter, the ther water for irrigation of fodder crops and the cleaning of stables and slaughterhouses. The manufacture of animal feed used in fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides also charge the groundwater. In my opinion, people choose vegetarian diet because people want to reduce the demand of animal products and limit the development of meat industry it is not only good for health but also does not cause serious environment pollution. In conclusion, vegetarian diet is one of the simple ways to protect environment. We should popularize vegetarianism to save the earth.
