Finally we are at the end of this semester. its time to
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Essay #2
Story of stuff
Earth has limited natural resources and human beings must maintain
them from disappearing. Human life depends on the earth's natural resources
to meet all their basic needs. Since there is no human being can survive
without these resources we must keep them from disappearing. Natural resources are divided into two types:
renewable and non-renewable. Renewable resources include water, soil, air, fish
and agricultural crops, also the renewable energy resources like the power of
the sun, wind and water, and non-renewable resources include minerals and
fuels, coal and natural gas. People are consuming more than their needs of
these natural resources and wasting a lot this leads to damaging the earth and
causing a lot of problems such as global warming and pollution.
The story of stuff video by Annie Leonard
talks about the lifecycle of stuff and how it gets to the people. In the video
she said: “stuff moves thought a system from extraction to production to
distribution to consumption to disposal all together it’s called the material
economy” (Story of Stuff 2007). She said that we are running out of resources
and using too much stuff and mentioned that in the past 3 decades 1/3 of earth
natural resource has been consumed. The United States alone consume 30% of the
earth resources although they have only 5% of the world population.
Extraction:
“Extraction means taking the planet’s
resources- wood, minerals, coal, fossil fuel, water, plants, animals, and soil
out of the earth and starting their journey through the materials economy”( The Story of Stuff Project 2007). Annie
Leonard defined extraction is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation
and a fancy word for trashing the plant, by chopping down trees and blow the
mountains to get the metal and use up all the water, and that’s how Earth is
running out of resources. 80% of earth
original forests are gone, and the amazons are losing 2000 tree a minute.
“Global resource extraction grew more or less steadily over the past 25 years,
from 40 billion tons in 1980 to 58 billion tons in 2005, representing an
aggregated growth rate of 45% ”( The Issue | World Resources Forum 2012).
Production:
“The processes and methods used to
transform tangible inputs (raw materials, semi-finished goods, subassemblies)
and intangible inputs (ideas, information, knowledge) into goods or services” (The
Story of Stuff Project 2007). In this stage, they use toxic chemicals and add
them to the natural resources to make toxic products for people to buy. These toxic
products cause a lot of environmental problems such as climate change and toxic
pollution, and as long we use toxic in our products we well keep getting toxic
everywhere and in our bodies which will damage our health and cause lot of
illness.
Distribution:
This is very important step because it
sells all the toxic products cheaply and quickly as possible by keeping the
products cheap and the people buying.
Consumption:
This is the most important stage it is the
engine drives this system, and protecting it is the top priority for the
company’s and they succeeded. People don’t stop shopping and they shop more
than what they need and most of these goods don’t last for a long time.
Consumerism in UAE:
According to a study published by The
National news consumerism is one of the greatest threats to national identity
for the locals. Also the Etihad news published that the UAE have consumption of
water 3 times the global average for the person.
Disposal:
This is the last step in the system. After
using all of these productions where does it go? Most of these goods dumped
somewhere or burned which leads to air pollution and produce toxic waste, and
some of the disposal goods recovered for recycling. However recycling is not
enough because the waste people produce most of them can’t be recycling.
To save our plant we must change our way of
life and stop living by this system. We should look for the best solutions to
reduce our conception and waste. People
these days are more aware of the danger. We must use clean production and clean
energy for better life also for the generation coming after us.
Word: 703
References:
Gerson, J., & Richardson, A. (2008, April
4). 'Consumerism and foreigners' greatest identity threats - The National.
Latest and breaking news | thenational.ae - The National. Retrieved May 27,
2013, from http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/consumerism-and-foreigners-greatest-identity-threats
Natural resource -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2013, May 26). Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resource
Radford, T. (2005,
March 30). Two-thirds of world's
resources 'used up' | Science | The Guardian .
Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian |
guardiannews.com | The Guardian . Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/mar/30/environment.research
Story of Stuff (2007,
OFFICIAL Version) - YouTube. (2007, January 1). YouTube. Retrieved May 27,
2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
The Story of Stuff
Project. (2007, January 1). The Story of
Stuff Project. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from http://www.storyofstuff.org/
The Issue | World
Resources Forum. (2012, January 1). World Resources Forum | Shaping the Future
of Natural Resources. Retrieved May 27, 2013, from
http://www.worldresourcesforum.org/issue
APA formatting by BibMe.org.
Essay #1
NANOTECHNOLGY
My topic for the essay deals with the study
of extremely small particles, termed Nanotechnology. “Nanotechnology is the
creation of functional materials, devices and systems through control of matter
on the nanometer length scale (1-100 nanometers) and exploitation of novel
phenomena and properties (physical, chemical, biological, mechanical and
electrical) at that length scale” (Keczer, 2007). It is very tiny to be
detected even by a most effective conventional microscope. Nowadays,
nanotechnology implemented products are available worldwide and is used for
many different applications. For example in bicycle frames, tennis racket etc.
Basically nanotechnology can be defined as “the engineering of functional
systems at the molecular level” (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, 2008).
Nanotechnology has an inevitable role in medicine, electronics, biomaterials
and energy production as it can make many new products and devices with a wide
variety of applications. It is considered that the origin of nanotechnology
happened in 1959 with Richard Feynman but its 1st phase development took place
in eighties and in the beginning of nineties. He played a key role in the idea
of nanotechnology though the ‘term’ was never referred. The concept of
nanotechnology came from his famous talk called There’s a Plenty of Room at the
Bottom in which he mentioned about the idea that in the coming future the
chances of arranging atoms all the way down, in different ways we want can also
be considered. In 1974, Norio Taniguchi, a Tokyo Science University Professor
defined the term “nanotechnology” as the process whereby materials are
separated, consolidated and deformed to one atom or one molecule. According to
Feynman’s theory he advised that in course of time it will be possible to
manage atoms and molecules accurately. In this he used a set of accurate tools
to construct and operate another which is comparatively smaller one and so on
till the needed scale is reached. During this he noticed that some scaling
issues are formed due to the changing magnitude of certain phenomena like
gravity which would become less important most probably negligible while on the
other hand surface tension and Van der Waals attraction become important etc.
The birth of cluster science and the creation of Loading...Sultan Mohammed
Aljaberi H00204902 CGD 1103 scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) were the two
major developments in nanotechnology and Nano science during 1980. In 1986,
followed by this development, fullerenes and carbon nanotubes are invented. In
the beginning of 1996 NASA organized a Centre for Nanotechnology for their
future requirement on electronics, computing, sensors and system
miniaturization. The four generations of nanotechnology development was
detailed by Mihail (Mike) Roco of the U.S National Nanotechnology Initiative.
They are passive nanostructures (ex-aerosols, collides, coatings etc.) which is
considered as the 1st generation products. Then comes active nanostructures
(ex-targeted drugs, 3D transistors, amplifiers etc.) . The third is systems of
Nano systems (ex-3D networking, robotics etc.). The fourth generation is
molecular Nano systems (ex-designed molecular devices, atomic design). The 4th
generation is considered as the most modern development which is about to
happen in nanotechnology. Today the basic efficiency of nanotechnology is
expected to develop in four generations of recent nanotechnology products as
mentioned above. Nanotechnology is successfully using in many fields
commercially (home, for communications, medicine, agriculture etc.) and in
military (powerful weapons, tools of surveillance). It shows high efficiency in
every aspect of life As far as we know, nanotechnology stays as a science in
its beginning because its potential is much more than the products. It can
bring a noticeable difference in medical field as it could bring us the new
kind of drugs which helps in the treatment of cancer, Parkinson’s etc. The
after effects of treatment like chemotherapy will vanish. However
nanotechnology is a great blessing to the mankind it also has a dangerous side.
Nano particles and Nano fibers can cause disease in lungs, brain and can even
cause cancer when inhaled. Public awareness about the topic is clearly on the
rise and is becoming more common. Loading...Sultan Mohammed Aljaberi H00204902
CGD 1103 References History of Nanotechnology. (n.d.). Nanotechnology Research
Foundation. Retrieved April 30, 2013, from
http://www.nanotechnologyresearchfoundation.org/nanohistory.html Introduction
to Nanotechnology • Nanotechnology 101 • Nanotechnology Project. (n.d.).
Nanotechnology - Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Retrieved April 30,
2013, from
http://www.nanotechproject.org/topics/nano101/introduction_to_nanotechnology/
Keczer, A. (2007, April 13). Center for Nanotechnology. Center for
Nanotechnology. Retrieved April 30, 2013, from
http://www.ipt.arc.nasa.gov/index.html Kelty, C. (2007, May 6). The Early
History of Nanotechnology. Connexions - Sharing Knowledge and Building
Communities. Retrieved April 30, 2013, from
http://cnx.org/content/m14504/latest/ R, S. P. (2010, January 1). Ezproxy
Login. Ezproxy Login. Retrieved April 30, 2013, from
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.hct.ac.ae/science/docview/197487509/13DC191936173E888A6/8?accountid=1215
What is Nanotechnology?. (n.d.). Nanotechnology Research. Retrieved April 30,
2013, from http://crnano.org/whatis.htm APA formatting by BibMe.org
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