Traditions weigh on China’s women

Summary:

China is the only country where suicide is being committed by more women than men. The problem is that women commit suicide in rural areas more than cities by three times. The ready availability of the venomous pesticides in the rural areas and farms is one of the reasons that increase the number of women who kill themselves in China. Tradition is one of the reasons that affect the women because she’s being sold like an item and she needs to fit into the husband’s family. The women are being forced into another foreign environment; completely strange to her original family and she needs to accept this. When it comes to the planned marriages even the husband may feel that his wife doesn’t like him, she doesn’t suit him and that leads to fights and many arguments. Xie Lihua says that if women live in a friendly environment and they feel safe there won’t be any suicide and hey will live happily. Women in China often find that the best way to get away from misery is to commit suicide and leave everything behind. Arranged marriages are illegal but the traditions are hard to change. There is another problem that increases the danger which is that women are less numerous than men in China. This problem where women are less than men could lead to abduction of women, trafficking, prostitution, sexual violence and rape. Xu Rong's organization is trying to reduce these horrible numbers of suicides by offering women jobs and giving them some information on mental health. Xu Rong’s organization has decreased the number of women suicides in many rural areas and they are trying to spread nationwide to help other rural places.

Main idea:

Women in China are committing suicide because of the strict traditions of their families. The ways of suicide are easy in the rural areas where poison is easy to reach. Government is trying to reduce the number of suicides but it’s still hard to do that because of the birth control and the number of women to men. Xu Rong’s organization started to help women since 1998 and it has already helped a lot of women to continue their lives naturally.

Opinion:

In my judgment its China’s government’s responsibility and they have to lend a hand to all the families in China to reduce the number of women suicides. There are some organizations that are eager to help out the Chinese women and it’s effective for the Chinese women. They must maintain these organizations and support them.

Task 5 - My carbon footprint

The definition of carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activities directly or indirectly. In other words when I drive my car from home to work and it depends on my car type when the petrol burns it creates a certain amount of emissions and that’s called CO2. There are many other things that affect our footprint and that’s the way of producing food and goods which also creates CO2 during the process.

My own carbon footprint was 4.39 planets that means if all people were living like me we will need four more planets or more. I measured my own carbon footprint at (http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/). My main contributors on my footprint were traveling, stuff and food respectively. The class total average was 3.86 while our teacher Hedley had 4.10. I think most people would be around 3 and 4 since most of us use and do the same things.

I could reduce my carbon footprint if I bought a car that works on electricity but this technology is not yet released for the public and it’s expensive. My car uses a lot of petrol and I drive a bit too fast and I need to reduce my speed in order to reduce my car emissions. I don’t spend a lot on goods and food. I only buy goods when it’s running out and have time to go shopping. There are many things that we can’t stop using it like electricity since we have hot weather in the UAE and that does contribute a lot to my carbon footprint. I myself and most people are shocked when we see the amount of CO2 our activities create!

Reviews of 'An Inconvenient Truth'

A favorable review:

Brandon Fibbs, http://brandonfibbs.com/2006/05/24/an-inconvenient-truth , says Al Gore is correct and that all the scientists agree about global warming. Al Gore supported the movie with graphs, charts, time-lapsed photographs and scientific studies to make people believe. The movie showed that the evidence is everywhere in the world and every part of the world is already starting to be affected or will be affected by global warming. In addition he said that all the skeptics will be convinced from the evidence that Al Gore represented in his movie. In my opinion he made his points clear and he presented his scientific evidence in simple graphs and statistics.

An unfavorable review:

Scott,http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/review.php?movieID=inconvenienttruth%23Scott, criticizes the movie because it’s talking about Al Gore more than global warming and climate changing. He showed the audience some parts of his life and he told that his sister died because she had lung cancer. He made some jokes about Bush and some politicians. However, another criticizer called Eric asked if the pictures were original and wasn’t it in different seasons of the year. In my opinion why would someone take pictures of mountains that are covered on ice all the year to fool the audience? There would be some geologist sitting in the audience who would disagree with him.

Global Warming

Riches await as Earth’s icy north melts

Summary:

Canada and Denmark are fighting to claim Hans Island which is very hard to find on the map. The reasons are to get oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes. However, global warming took a part in this race by warming the ice cap faster than any other part of the world. This would help a lot of countries by making their shipping routes shorter. Another reason is that the Arctic holds almost 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas. These are all reasons which have made governments use advanced equipment to drill for oil and gas. At the moment the Norwegians are building innovative vessels that will sail on water and ice. The climate is changing as old studies said that the ice in the North Pole will take 100 years to melt, but recent studies said it will melt in 10 - 15 years. The article ends by highlighting the degrees of exploiting the Arctic, e.g. oil spills, and pointing out the rights of the indigenous people of the Arctic.

Main idea:

Countries are fighting to claim lands for making profit and on the other hand they are ignoring a bigger issue and that’s global warming. They started to introduce new technology to get to the North Pole and get the resources. They say when the ice melts it will open new routes for trading and traveling for shorter distances.

Comment:

These countries are fighting over land while the entire world is dying slowly because of global warming instead of solving other issues. In my opinion Hans Island is for everyone in the world and most importantly there are many people living in the Arctic already and we should think about them.

An Inconvenient Truth - ( Task 3 )

An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film about global warming directed by Davis Guggenheim, presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth records a multi-media presentation hosted by Al Gore in which he discusses the scientific facts behind global warming, explains how it has already begun to affect our environment, talks about the disastrous consequences if the world's governments and citizens do not act, and shares what each individual can do to help protect the Earth for this and future generations. Davis Guggenheim made the movie more interesting for the audience by showing them lots of evidence that attracted their attention and made them think about the consequences in the future if they ignore the issues without solving. Al Gore also supported his presentation with facts from all around the world and included many disasters that happened before and are going to happen soon. Everything happening in the world is connected to humans’ activities. The movie focused on how dangerously the earth’s temperature is increasing and what the temperature from thousands of years ago was. He presented global warming in an interesting way and made some funny points that kept all the audience attracted to the presentation. I think he covered many points on his presentation and supported his thoughts with figures and films that made me more cautious about this big issue.

Global Warming ( Task 2 )

I’m going to describe the causes of global warming and why it may be a serious problem in my own words and from my point of view of this serious problem. The cause of the global warming will affect all the human beings and it has most probably started to affect our climate. One of the major reasons that affect our atmosphere is the smoke emissions that our factories and machines release every day. Global warming is something that everyone who lives on the earth should be aware of and how dangerous it might be. The ice is melting and the weather is getting hotter .We have no time left!
I think we have to put some of the blame on the industrial areas that release a lot of emissions to the earth’s atmosphere and this might lead to acid rain and climate change. We are living in a world that only thinks about making profits out of products without thinking about the results on our environment. We should contain this big issue by telling people how to avoid this problem and by showing them some studies of what the results of climate change could be.