Pollution – Causes and Effects

Nowadays, pollution is a very harmful and serious problem, which most people do not care. Nevertheless people should contribute on the prevention and correction of this situation; but, if the situation continues the planet will no longer be habitable for neither animals nor people. There are several kinds of pollution; for example, the most common are air, water, and land pollution; it is important than every human beings have in mind the consequences if the pollution grows more each days and the future of children who would be starting their lives.

The land pollution is the degradation of Earth’s land surfaces; it is caused by human activities like exploitation of minerals, inadequate agricultural, and urban and industrial wastes. Some statics from the green students in the USA says that every year one American produces over 3285 pounds of hazardous waste and, over 80% of these items in landfills can be recycled, but they’re not.  In other words, the major sources of this problem are because people do not care about the end of their wastes or activities as a result of the Urbanization and Industrialization (wikipedia); as a consequence, people live or work in nearby areas, and also they could suffer from health-problems like deformities, cancers, respiratory and skin problems and it can lead to birth defects (buzzle and earthplatform).

Second type is Air pollution, that includes all contaminants found in the atmosphere, which dangerous substances can be either in the form of gases or particles. Every day, the average person inhales about 20,000 liters of air, according to "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1985"; therefore, every time we breathe, we risk inhaling these dangerous chemicals and contaminated gases. Air pollutants have sources that are both natural and human; however, most of this pollution is the result of human activity such as: excessive burning of fossil fuels, automobiles combustion and the utilization of agrochemical substances and aerosols. Air pollution has several bad effects over human health since it increases the appearance of diseases like: bronchitis, lung cancer, and heart disorders; plus, it affects the survival of both plants; because, their leaves become deteriorate and animals because they suffer diseases and die.

The water covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface, and it is a very important resource for the different species in the earth and the environment. However the pollution affects drinking water, rivers, lakes, and oceans all over the world. This type of pollution may not damage our health immediately but can be dangerous with the pass of the time causing diseases like colera, hepatitis illness that cause the death also the acid rain can cause harm the health of marine life in the rivers and lakes as a result can produce a disrupting the growth of photosynthetic plants, micro-organisms and other aquatic organisms that depends on this natural environment to survive created some extinctions of the species. These consequences start due some chemical pollution cause mainly to the technologies development that occurred with the pass of the time, the oil and petrol from the ships.

People know those problems about pollution, and most of us understand the harmful effects; however, we sometimes think that those consequences could never affect us, so we continue contaminating; destroying ourselves and also the environment, which nowadays is less habitable than before. The solution is that the people take in mind the consequences of pollution to start taking actions to stop it, like recycling, reusing and reducing waste. In conclusion, those actions (3R) could help us to decrease pollution levels in water, air and land.

Work Cited

Wikipedia.   “Land Pollution”. Was modified on 01/12/10. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_pollution.

Wikipedia.   “Air Pollution”. Was modified on 10/12/10. Taken the 09/12/10 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution.

Buzzle.com. “Land Pollution”. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/land-pollution.html.

EarthPlatform.com. “Land Pollution”. 2010. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://www.earthplatform.com/c/pollution/land.

GreenstudentU.com. “Pollution”. 2008-2010. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/pollution.

“Water Pollution”. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://library.thinkquest.org/26467/water_pollution.htm.

The Guides Network. “Water Pollution Guide”. 2003-2010. Taken the 06/12/10 from http://www.water-pollution.org.uk/health.html.

Tom Soncha. “Air Pollution Cause and Effects”. 09/11/2007. Taken the 09/12/10 from  http://healthandenergy.com/air_pollution_causes.htm.

Caroline, David, Michael, Mindy, Neil, and Vikas. ThinkQuest.com. “Air Pollution”. 1999. Taken the 09/12/10 from http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/air_pollution.html.

In Vitro Fertilization or Insemination

            The family is one of the most important aspects in our society; every person in every family represents an elemental part of this institution, and for the majority of the human beings the family is the core of the life. As we know, the common family is composed by parents and children; however some couples have problems to conceive kids, but know they have options to become parents, for example in vitro fertilization or artificial insemination. The problem is that in some countries this kind of practices are not allowed and have different positions regarding the methods used.

            In terms of law, the government of Costa Rica does not allow this kind of practice since 2000, but along this years, some couples have been claimed for the this law to change. At this time there are almost nine couples whom have been sued the government because this law in front of the CIDH (Inter-American Commission of Human Rights), they said that there is a human right to have a family and Costa Rica is violating this right for those families that cannot conceive children. Because of that and in order to avoid a trial, the government of Costa Rica has been presented a new law to allow the in vitro fertilization in our country, but with some conditions, for example: there is forbidden to store, freeze and discard ovules, and all the fertilized ovules must be implanted in to the uterus of the women who produced them; the use of this kind of conditions is to not go over the Costar Ricans idiosyncrasy which said: “To protect the human life before the born” 

            From the religious point of view, there are several important points regarding in vitro fertilization, between them are two principal procedures or methods: homologous or heterologuos fertilization, the legal procedure for the church is the homologous, because use the ovule from the wife and the semen from the husband,  working as a help or complement for the fecundation which is the principal purpose of the marriages; at the same time, the heterologous procedures has the same goal but in contrast of the homoluguos this use only one, the ovule or semen of the couple and the other part came from a bank of sperm, catalogs of donors, or use a surrogate-mother. The heterologous process it what the church is against, because interrupt the focus of the marriages including a third person in their life.  Another point of view is related to semen collection, for the church, this is not legal since this procedure use really often the masturbation and for them this is a sign of disassociation of the unit of the conjugal act.

            For the science part this procedure is preferred for the quality of the semen and for better results. One of the achievements is give the option for people that is unable to raise their own family due to different circumstances, for example infertility or genetics problems. Among with this the scientist has lost of enemies regarding these procedures, most of the time related to the idea that a fertilized cell is not yet a human being. During science history the discoveries of the most famous scientist have been discussed and discard by church most of the time and society as well. In the other hand, scientists believe that the development of the human body in women is not complete until they have a child; others say this is not true but lots of studies have proved them wrong.

           The constant development of technology has helped to increase the families that try new procedures like this one in order to have children, and every day more tools and ideas are in the market waiting for people needed to take them and complete their dreams.

           The moral / ethics position of the church is an issue because there is a lots points of view contrast the position of the science and put us to think about the right that the couples have to create or form a family. Related to the law, it is important the right of the humans being to procreate but also is important to take in mind the consequences that the children could have in a future when has to in front his or her reality.

Words cited

Enciclica Bioética, pages 603 to 695

The Blind Side

 The Blind Side movie shows a big difference between social classes and how the racism can affect the behavior of a person. This movie shows in one part, a child who has suffered throughout his life, with a dysfunctional family, educational problems, even without a place to live. In the other hand, the movie shows a family with a lot of money, a big house, with great cars, and accustomed to the good life.

             The child called Michael has a lot of qualities and talents, like protective instinct, sports talents, and facilities to learn; but due to poor quality of life he cannot explode these qualities. Michael is a shy boy, he does not believe in himself and has a low self-esteem; all these problems affect his behavior in the school and his development in the society. 

              Also, we can see in the movie how the influence of the social class is for some people, but it is important to mention the charity of Lean come out to help Michael and bring to him a better life. However, in our real life, we can not see much people doing these kinds of actions; on the other hand, it is what put us to think if we are available to help some with the profile of Michael or we will avoid it?

             Otherwise,  the movie emphasizes the importance of the family figure nowadays, and how this figure influences the environment where we as children grow up, the values and opportunities that we can choose, and the courage to confront it. Also, how with small actions we can change the entire life of a person, and see how the self-esteem is a big part of that.

              Finally, this movie put us to think until what I could be capable to help, and if we will help to change, we could do it without expecting anything return?

Advantages or disadvantages of immigrations

              Now a days there are a lot of people that lives in differents countries by necessity, work, studies or just to know others languages and cultures. First of all, those people that go to another country for necessity like security, necessity to work in order to send to their families money, and bring them a stability in their country involves differences issues between some co-workers or brings the opportunity to know a little of differents cultures.

Also, one advantage of the trasmigrants who do not expected to back to their homeland or to differents reasons that does not allow them to come back  produce to send money-lots of it. But, some of disadvantages of the immigration is the racism between the cultures, according the feeling of risk to lose their jobs; and as Nina Glick Schiller said: "whether the world in which we live is qualitatively changing to the detriment of the majority of the world's people, and if so, why. These questions are about those of us who are transmigrants and the states that continue to claim us as their own. But they are equally about how those of us who claim birth rights in states that are now experiencing major settlements of transmigrants understand our pasts, presents, and futures."

Works cited      

1. Source: "Transmigrants and Nation-States: Something Old and Something New in the U.S. Immigrant Experience" by Nina Glick Schiller in The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience edited by Charles Hirschman et al. Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th Street, New York, New York 10021. 1999. 502 pages. $65. (Order online from www.wfs.org/specials.htm.)

2.  http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/immigration

Weapons of Mass Destruction

             At the present a weapon is kind of common into the society, on news we hear about all the assaults, murders and their consequences, but everyone do not can do anything. However when we talk about weapons of mass destruction is not only a person affected, are hundred or thousands of them. The sad point of this situation is that this suffer is make or done at high level, due conflicts of power between countries or wrong religious believes, like: United States and Pakistan or Iraq, also the conflict between the Arab - Muslim people against the Israeli. All the people who die in the demolition of the two towers, and the daily bombs in the Asian countries. Also, these weapons create tough environments where innocent children and woman has to live without knowing what is living in a “peace” place. At the same time it is important to mention those organizations that works with the main idea to help these victims in and out their countries, like UNICEF and the ONU at international level with psychology, medical food and kind of security into refugees help. Besides we do not like this topic and even think that is something that a lot of people know as a daily routines we have to accept and pray that this weapon would be use against us

Global warming

            Nowadays we are seen a lot of natural disasters in our country and around the world, for example: these two mountains that felt down destroying a few humbles houses, where the families had to be evacuated and make then abandon all the effort and material things. Also, we can see how the ices in the highest Mountains are disappearing with the pass of the time, and how many species are in an extion risk.  However, there are differents legal entities or association like Greenpeace and governments that work against these gases produce by the human beings. Besides all the efforts there is not enough, the society has to continue developing optional sources of energy, fuel, building that are friendlier with the environment contrasting the contaminations made a lot of years ago. With these possible changes maybe the global warning can be delay a little or improve the impact in the good way for the future children that are growing behind us, because according to the movie of Al Gore The uncomfortable truth; due the concentration of the contaminations and the level of the gases producing the global warning by the unrestricted fossil fuel burning after the coming 50 years as a projection.

The domestic violence

              Nowadays is so common to heard about violence in the houses, streets and schools, but where borns, how can be an example of domestic violence in the middle class of our society. Well in my opinion the domestic violence is cause for the miss self-esteem, education in some way and the need to feel superior than the other person. For example the case of a woman that was married with a guy whose used to live alone, far of his family and with a childhood where the man was the only thing important in the house. With the pass of the years this couple has a baby boy, they looks happy at the beginning; however, they had some money problems and the guy started abusing verbally against the self-esteems of his wife just to feel superior. He told her that she was ugly and that he does not like the jewelry on the woman and neither the make-up. So, she starts go away of her family, also she stops putting make-up and her self-esteems was really low. After a while, she knows that her husband has another family, and the fights were more common for the couple. So, with the family support she decides putting the divorce demand, after three years they were divorced completely, but their child continues with some problems to express his feeling and been close of woman with jewelry and make-up. Also, she had problems because her ex-husband continues using their child as a tool to continue abusing verbal and psychologically to the women and the child. Besides this she starts working in her self-esteem and trying to help at the same time to her son in order to avoid that the father’s profile will be repeat it on the boy. This is one case that "ends" with a good final, but in not all the cases, the victims can not afford the professional help to overcome the violence or the abuse due the ignorance, lack of money, support or scare of the reaction of the aggressor.