Climate Change and National Security Essay

That same month, the UN Security Council—at the initiative of the UK government—held its first-ever debate on the potential impact of climate change on peace and security. In October 2007, the Nobel committee recognized this emerging threat to peace and security by awarding former vice president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change its peace prize. In November 2007, wo think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), released another report on the issue, concluding from a range of possible scenarios of climate change that, â€Å"We already know enough to appreciate that the cascading consequences of unchecked climate change are to include a range of security problems that will have dire global consequences. †2 The new interest in climate change and national security has been a valuable warning about the potential security consequences of global warming, but the proposed solutions that accompanied recent efforts have emphasized broader climate policy rather than specific responses to security threats. Because the links between climate change and national security are worthy of concern in their own right, and because some significant climate change is inevitable, strategies that go beyond long-run efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions are required. This report sharpens the connections between climate change and national security and recommends specific policies to address the security consequences of climate change for the United States. In all areas of climate change policy, adaptation and mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) should be viewed as complements rather than competing alternatives—and the national security dimension is no exception. Some policies will be targeted at adaptation, most notably risk-reduction and preparedness policies at home and abroad. These could spare the United States the need to mobilize its military later to rescue people and to prevent regional disorder—and would ensure a more effective response if such mobilization was nonetheless necessary. Others will focus on mitigation, 2 CSIS/CNAS, The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change, November 2007; available at http://www. cnas. org/climatechange. 2 which is almost universally accepted as an essential part of the response to climate change. Mitigation efforts will need to be international and involve deep changes in the world’s major economies, such as those of China and India. As a result, the processes of working together to craft and implement them provide opportunities to advance American security interests.

What Is Nationalism?

What is Nationalism? The easiest way to define such a complex and broad term like nationalism is to start with the definition of a nation. A nation, as Ernest Renan clearly defined in 1882, is â€Å"is a conglomerate of people who share a common past and have derived a strong bond, with an agreement to stay together and be governed by mutual consent in the future. † In other words, a vast group of people living under the same type of government that share a common language, culture, history and a similar background overall. These nations become unified by sport events like the Olympics or World Cups.Nationalism is a possible definition of the happiness and pride lived during these games but the term is so complex that further explanation is needed. The origins of Nationalism, its characteristics, the types of nationalism that concern and the huge complexity of the term could all join in to create a perfect definition of such term. The causes that arouse the feelings of nationa lism can lead to a clear definition of this word. Short-term political causes like the American and French Revolution led to the unification of its people to fight for what was theirs.The vernacularization of language and an easy access to books or newspapers were some of the effects that resulted from Martin Luther’s 95 theses, the translation of the New Testament, or the invention of the printing press. Consequently, nationalism started emerging as a political ideology. In John Stuart Mill’s article â€Å"Of Nationality, as connected with Representive Government â€Å"expresses the causes of nationalism from his perspective. Mill begins his article by explaining how people, being part of a nation, should be linked by common sympathies, should cooperate with each other, and agree to live under the rules of the same government.In addition, he mentions the fact that geographical limits are also one of the causes of nationalism. People living in the same area will cons equently end up having a common language and/or religion. â€Å"But the strongest of all† Mill emphasizes on, is the identity of political antecedents: the sharing of a common history together and experiencing emotions of pride and humiliation or joy and regret at any point given. From John Stuart Mill to Eric Hobsbawn, various authors help identify the different characteristics with the help of their own opinions and ideas on the subject of nationalism.Mill’s view on nationalism is completely optimistic. He explains how countries, in order for them to be nations, should unite under the same needs and demands. This being, cooperation between their own people and an aim to be under the same system of government. In contrast, English journalist and novelist, George Orwell, had a different and negative theory on this topic. He views the nationalists as power-hungry and with the unique goal of forcing their customs on others. Orwell believes there are three characteristics to a nationalist thought: obsession, instability, and indifference to reality.Obsession: thinking your own country is superior to all the rest. The instability between the nationalist rulers or dictators. And finally, indifference to reality describes how nationalistic behavior blinds people from noticing facts of the real world. Additionally, in his article â€Å"Nations and Nationalism since 1780† historian Eric Hobsbawn explains how nationalism always comes before a nation and it helps it form and develop from it. He also believes both political and national systems should be equal. These altered points of view help change our beliefs on nationalism and shape the definition of nationalism even more.The different types of nationalism are clearly explained in George Orwell’s â€Å"Notes on Nationalism† article. Positive, negative and transferred are the three types the writer focuses on while talking about Britain’s nationalism throughout the years. Sub divisions such as: Neo-toryism, Celtic, and Zionism are specified by Orwell under the positive nationalism category. He states that Neo- tories are anti- American (and sometimes anti- Russian) that do not recognize that Britain’s power and supremacy have declined. Orwell describes Celtic Nationalists as anti- English but have nothing to do with Anglophobic.These Irish, Welsh, and Scottish nationalists are known for their racist beliefs. These discriminatory beliefs are also a common denominator for the Jews that are part of Zionism. George Orwell’s next grouping known as Transferred Nationalism fall divisions such as: Communism, Political Catholicism, Color feeling, Class feeling, and Pacifism. The difference between transferred and the other two types of nationalism is the fact that it isn’t as serious as the other two but people still believe in it and are somewhat influenced by it.Class feeling and color feeling are similar in the sense of superiority between races or class status. White people over black people or upper classes over lower classes are some examples of this dogmatism. Pacifism is described as â€Å"hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism† against Britain and the United States. Lastly, George Orwell subdivides Negative Nationalism into: Anglophobia, Anti- semitism, and Trotskyism. Against their own country, Anti- Jews (against Jews) and against Stalin are the main motives of these three examples.Nationalism is one of those words whose current definition is based on opinion and belief. The complexity of this term is due to time evolution. As different periods of time passed, nationalism went to from being negative to positive or vice versa. Showing pride for the United States by singing the national anthem at the beginning of a school day wasn’t the same thing as yelling â€Å"Heil Hitler† to a soldier in Germany during the Holocaust. Propaganda was another main influencer of the people. The government put up posters and television ads showing the â€Å"bad side† of their opponents in order to get their country’s support during war.Lastly, as George Orwell said, nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Nationalism is the will to imply or even force a lifestyle or customs on others whilst patriotism is the showing of pride and joy of one’s way of living and commitment to a certain place. There are many other opinions on this complicated word such as Perry Anderson’s wrong belief of thinking nationalism was â€Å"the desire of people to form their own independent nation-state. † There are no right or wrong definitions of nationalism because they are all expressed by people in their each and own unique ways.Their surroundings and their experiences both influence how the feelings of nationalism are defined. However, one does not deny that a definition for such feelings is obviously subjective†¦ Bibliography Easto n, Mark. â€Å"Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!. ’† BBC. N. p. , 14 June 2010. Web. 29 Aug. 2012. . Hobsbawm, Eric. â€Å"Nations and Nationalism since 1780. † ASM IB History 1. The American School of Madrid, n. d. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. . Mill, John Stuart. â€Å"Of Nationality, as connected with Representative Government. † ASM IB History 1. The American School of Madrid, n. d. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. . â€Å"The Origins of Nationalism. † CSU Bakersfield. California State University, n. d. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. . Orwell, George. â€Å"Notes on Nationalism. † ASM IB History 1. The American School of Madrid, n. d. Web. 29 Aug. 2012. . Renan, Ernst. â€Å"Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? † [â€Å"What is a nation? †]. ASM IB History 1. The American School of Madrid, n. d. Web. 29 Aug. 2012. . Savich, Carl K. â€Å"Nationalism and War. † MakNews. N. p. , 1 Sept. 2010. Web. 29 Aug. 2012. . Wolfson, Ben, ed. â €Å"Nationalism. † Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N. p. , 1 June 2010. Web. 31 Aug. 2012. .

Case Study, Amazon: From Book Seller to Service Provider Essay

Niklas Zennstrom stated: â€Å"When we look at investing, we always think about ‘how defensible is this, how likely is it that somebody is going to copy this. ‘ E-commerce tends to be something easy to copy because it’s execution. † Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer since the company opened in the garage of Jeff Bezos’, and its yearly are over 10 billion dollars. Many companies subsequently have copied Amazon and now compete for e-commerce profits; therefore companies like Google and Microsoft become an issue for Amazon. This has instigated Amazon to develop products for other e-commerce businesses, and now Amazon offers business- to -business e-commerce. This paper will discuss whether Amazon is moving away from its core competency of a leading online retailer, and if this is a wise strategy. A brief description of the Amazon database, how Amazon uses each component, and what data management issues may be encountered by Amazon, the relationship between data, information, and how Amazon tackles each will be included in this paper. To survive the invasion of companies like Google, Amazon has resolved to supply a series of computing, storage and other services that make its infrastructure available to businesses and people to assist them administer the technological and logistical parts of their company. Amazon only uses 10 percent of its processing capability, and offering these additional services will not impair other segments of the online retailer. This is a move away from its core expertise; however, this is a shrewd decision on the part of the Amazon Company. This strategy allows the company to boost earnings by using resources already on hand. This is similar to a landlord deciding to rent out the empty apartment as a storage unit, because it was not used by a family. The space was already there the landlord just found a new use for the vacant space. The Amazon database is made up of the Simple Storage Service (S3), the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and the Mechanical Turk. These services programs are an attempt by Amazon to be a principal competitor in the next development of the Internet. The Simple Storage Service allows businesses to warehouse data and applications on Amazon disk drives at 15 cents per gigabyte per month. For 10 cents an hour Amazon offers processing power on the Elastic Compute Cloud which is the same as one rudimentary server. The Mechanical Turk is the most complex of the three Amazon database components, and is commission based. Rainer, Turban wrote in the: Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business, 2nd Edition, that the: â€Å"Mechanical Turk service combines processing power with networks of real people who are paid to do the kind of work that machines cannot do well, such as recognizing inappropriate content in images or transcribing audio. Companies post pieces of work onto the Mechanical Turk and pay people online, for which Amazon receives a 10 percent commission. † The data management issue that might be encountered by Amazon is how much space they can rent out before it takes away space and time from the online retailer system. A second issue would be what Amazon must do when Google and Microsoft start to copy and develop similar products at a lower price. Amazon concentrate on declining sales by increasing its productivity to ensure investors will see the profit growth they expected form the online retailer. Amazon decided to offer services that no other online retailer provided and this is how they tackled all their current issues. Amazon is helping thousands of companies store and debug their data information, therefore all three programs can be used together by a client to store e-mails after they check them for malware, and see what keywords draw prospective consumers to their sites. I think Amazon will succeed goal to revolutionize retailing as long as they understand how to adapt quickly in business.

Work Life Balance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Work Life Balance - Essay Example As the discussion declares deciding and maintaining a specific balance by an individual between work and personal life is an individual responsibility and the employer cannot decide for the employer. However, workplace environment can affect the choices, this is due to whether the work has unpredictable demands and schedule that is rigid, in this case balances work and life can be complicated.This paper discusses that  the article on the work life balance in a business environment covers all the aspects that pertain to work balance in an organization. It even gives a step by step checklist for human resource managers to check so as to provide their employees with a humble time to balance work and life. The strategies given are simple and conclusive towards achieving work life balance. Apart fro m discussing on the strategies, the article also explains how both the individual employee and the organization   gain in terms of productivity if work life balance is a success as it will result in a stress free employee who will therefore perform the work more effectively. Work–family conflict research also have been used to investigate how people meet the expectations of multiple roles and how one should divide between the roles that one has in life. Failure to balance the different roles other than the paid work can also result in stressors in life; Banwell gives working solutions on how to balance the roles relating to work and family

Policy frame work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Policy frame work - Essay Example This law only permitted marriage between two adults of different sex. (Cbc News, 2007)Argues that in 1965, a young man of 24 years confessed to the police that he had a strong urge for other men and that he had had sexual relationships with other men with fellow men long enough and he wasn’t willing to change .he was viewed as a law offender and was jailed for several years in Canada. In 1967, Pierre Trudeau proposed change on the general outlook of homosexuality in Canada. He wanted homosexuals to be seen as normal people and regarded the idea of the state meddling in the bedrooms of its citizens unnecessary. In December 16th 1977, Quebec was the first province in Canada to include homosexuality in its code of human rights. By 2001, almost all provinces of Canada except Alberta, island of Prince Edward and territories on the North West abolished criminal charges on homosexuality. In 1978, a press by the name of Pink Triangle was charged after being found guilty of possessing erotic material â€Å"men loving boys and boys loving men† for sale. It took them at least six years to solve this case at the courts and on 15th June 1982, a judge named Thomas Mercer gave a ruling that changed the view of homosexuality. "It is perfectly legal to advocate what in itself would be unacceptable to most Canadians." (Cbc News, 2007)The judge argued. In 1979, sexual orientation was added to the human rights act of Canada which was spearheaded by Canadian human rights commission. In Feb. 1981, at least 300 men were arrested in a crackdown by the police in Toronto and there was a mass action taken by about3000 people on the streets of Toronto to protest against the arrest.1985 saw the parliamentary committee release a report that stressed equality for all especially to the discriminated homosexuals. Homosexuals were treated with much despise, subjected to physical abuse, psychological oppression, and hate

Biochemistry Assessment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Biochemistry Assessment - Assignment Example his increase in boiling point is due to higher number of carbons in butyric acid as compared to acetic acid; number of carbons is one of the criteria on which boiling point depends. Aldehydes and ketones both contain carbonyl group (C=O). When C=O is at the end of carbon chain, and carbon has two single bonds, one with other carbon and one with a hydrogen, then it’s an aldehyde. Vanillin is a phenolic aldehyde which is added to beverages and foods as a flavoring agent. It’s also found in French fries (trans fats). 9.Sucrose and honey are commonly used sweeteners.   Suppose you had a sweet-tasting water solution that contained either honey or sucrose.   How would you chemically determine which sweetener was present? For sucrose, resorchinol (1, 3-benzenediol) can be used to detect for the presence of sucrose in the solution. Resorchinol indicator solution is prepared by adding 0.05 g of reagent-grade resorchinol in 100 ml of HCl solution. 1 ml of freshly prepared indicator solution is mixed with 5 drops of 1 % unknown solution and heated to boiling point. If it turns to cherry red color after a few minutes, it indicates presence of sucrose, if it turns to other colors like yellow or salmon then sucrose is not present. Denaturation of proteins results in disruption and destruction of secondary and tertiary structures. As the process is not that much strong to break peptide bonds, so primary structure (sequence of amino acids) remains intact. However, alpha-helix and beta sheets are disrupted resulting in random shapes. 1. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is responsible for carrying the genetic information which is copied from DNA. This information is copied as a series of three-base code â€Å"words,† which are specific for a particular amino acid. 2. Transfer RNA (tRNA) has an important role of understanding and interpreting the genetic code carried by mRNA. In this regard, each amino acid has a specific type of tRNA. This

What ideas about women and femininity do we see in the portrayals of Essay

What ideas about women and femininity do we see in the portrayals of Layla and Rabia - Essay Example Like other Muslim girls, she is bound to be loyal and humble to her the choice of her male guardians. Such position of the girls like Layla ultimately reveals that a woman in a Muslim male dominated society has lived as a plaything at the hand of the male counterparts. The story of â€Å"Layla and Majnun† starts with the description of a wealthy businessman, Sayyid, who reaches a position of power and prestige in his tribal society. But the grief of Sayyid is that he does not have any child. So he prays to Allah for a son who would inherit his wealth after he retires. Subsequently, his prayer is granted. Now, he has a son, named Qays, who is a beautiful young man. At the age of ten, Qays meets Layla and becomes amazed by her beauty. He â€Å"sought to woo her, but he knew not how: / He gazed upon her cheek, and, as he gazed, / Loves flaming taper more intensely blazed.† (Nizami 12) Both of the two fall in love with each other, as the poet says, â€Å"Love conquerd both—they never dreamt to part† (Nizami 16). But soon Layla’s tribe prohibited her to meet Qays in order to save her honor. Thus, Qays is detached from his lover and left open to meet his destiny: â€Å"A madman he became — but at the same time a poet, the harp of his love and of his pain.† (Nizami 7) This simple story of Qays and Layla’s love reveals a lot of the womanhood in the Arabian male dominated society. In a society, where women do not have their says, Layla lives â€Å"between the water of her tears and the fire of her love† (Nizami 25). In this society, she does not have the right to choose Qays as her husband; rather she has to comply with the tribe’s norms and traditions. In a sense, having no right to live on her own Layla has to live the life of a bandit in her tribe. Against her desire, she has been â€Å"removed/ Among the Najd mountains, where / She cherishd still the thoughts of him she loved, / And her