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An Inconvenient Truth

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary that his attempts to educate the nation about the crisis of global warming. He goes to schools, to science conventions, and all types of places both casual and professional to deliver the news that global warming is overtaking the planet. The film came out in 2006, and it’s gross revenue worldwide totals up to just below fifty million dollars.

The popularity of the film

The most important thing when thinking about the popularity of the movie is to consider the time that it came out. 2006 was just around the time of the biggest ecological crisis because it was right around the time when the collective world began to became hyper educated very rapidly on the process of global warming and what it is doing to the environment as well as all kinds of other atrocities that are coming to the earth as a result of things that were done involving over usage of coal and oil. The film is not a scientific one, but merely follows Al Gore around and shares his perspectives that are scientifically derived. The film maker makes no attempt to create a biased film, and both sides of the argument are presented, though the idea that global warming really does exist manages to shine through above all other discussion in this movie. The film has, to this date, become a cultural icon, and anyone familiar with global warming is usually familiar because of something that was expressed in An Inconvenient Truth. It was the first very popular documentary film of this decade to widely publicize global warming and its effects.

Plastic Planet

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Plastic Planet is an Austrian documentary film about the plastic industry and how it operates. It is in the style of a Michael Moore type documentary where one man goes out to uncover the truth about a mysterious corporation, the same narrator and interviewer being present in nearly every scene. The film debuted in early 2009 to mixed reviews.

What they have to say about Plastic Planet

Plastic Planet is most often criticized as not delivering any information that wasn’t already obvious. Most people, from what little information they probably know about plastic, will already know more about plastic than this film will teach them after they watch it. Many times the lead interviewer of the film will ask for an interview, be turned down, and then leave without exploring the issue further. Places where they say the film is strengthened are that it is not all just a gloomy portrait of the desolate wasteland that the Earth will become if plastic does not become more regulated. It is also just a fun and factual documentary about the history of plastic, and how plastic can show up in many places where we did not even know it could exist before. So while the director and creator of the film is not the most intrepid reporter, he at least has an interesting direction to take the film in when the plastics industry in unwilling to give away information on how their products work. This film proves that plastic is a very secretive thing and something which the industry likes to quiet down about, though it only shows the Austrian perspective on this. Europe could be much different from the rest of the world in this regard.

Refeed the World

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Refeeed the World is a movie made in the late 2000’s that shows the unethical and dangerous practices of agricultural and energy based businesses and how they are harming the planet in order to increase business.

What happens in the movie?

Viewers of this movie are exposed to many different images including rainforest being cut down and burned in Brazil to build soy bean plantations only to find out that the soil was entirely unsuitable to harvest soybeans in. Then the video cuts to show a lot of underprivileged children in Brazil without food and water and necessary resources to foster abundant life. This is a documentary that does little to show how things can be changed but does much to instruct the viewer on the things that are really wrong with the way that business is handled today. It is because of these unfortunate mistakes like cutting down trees and throwing away bread that is only slightly stale that the world is in the sorry state that it is in today. Grocery stores have a policy of not allowing food to be kept past the expiration date. While some then donate the expired food to charity, others simply throw the food away. This way nobody can benefit from the food, and all of it went to waste simply because the original batch was too large. While this is not necessarily an unethical practice, as the actual act of throwing the food away can’t be attributed to any single person, Refeed the World goes to show viewers that there is definitely something wrong with the way corporations conduct business in modern times and educates the viewer on the atrocities that go on behind the scenes.

Geothermal energy

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Obtaining geothermal energy is the process of taking the heat that comes from within the earth and harnessing that power in order to create electricity. It is not the most popular form of alternative energy available as it is still being worked on heavily, but as research continues, so will developments in this field and soon it can be one of the leading energy sources in the world.

How geothermal energy works

Geothermal energy has actually been around much longer than people realize, but that could just be because of the broad sounding term. Actually, geothermal energy has been harnessed by amateurs for ages. The Greek bath houses were usually built over areas where heat was known to come from the ground water. The water would be purified and would be hot enough to bathe comfortably in. This is how the baths could be heated before they knew anything about how to artificially heat anything in mass quantities. They didn’t boil all of the water over fire; some of it was due to geothermal energy. Also, the host springs in yellow stone and other areas are all the result of pressures built up and caused by geothermal energy. This form of energy dates back to the time of the earth’s formation. Radioactive particles as well as heat from the lava and fire at the earth’s core were what caused these springs to occur on the surface. There are even areas underwater where the bubbles leaking out of certain crevices can be so hot that any human that touches them will be instantly scalded. This is a waning to any divers that wish not to be cooked. It may be best to get a geothermal map and know where all of the pockets of unbridled energy are so they can be avoided.

Wind energy

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Wind energy is energy that is created by the wind. It is usually harnessed by systems of heavy duty industrial metal pinwheels arranged in a conglomeration known as a wind farm. When the wind hits the pinwheels they begin to spin, and due to their rotary nature, they can spin long after the wind is done blowing. This spinning creates kinetic energy which is then harnessed by the operators of the machines and can be dispensed into people’s homes later.
Why wind energy?
Since wind energy is a relatively recent development, people have been asking, why wind energy? After all, coal and oil seem to be doing the job fine so far. The truth is, not only are both coal and oil notorious for ruining the earth’s ecosystem and creating a slowly uninhabitable environment, but they are running out fast. Once the coal and oil are gone, there will be no more electricity except through natural sources like hydroelectric current, solar energy, and wind. Since wind is the most efficient of those three, it stands to reason that wind is one of the best investments a person can make. It is clean and it will not mess up the earth at all since it is natural product of the earth. Wind energy can be harnessed on the large scale or on the small scale. Some electric companies that use coal, partner with wind farms to lessen their coal expenditure each month. Some companies also offer these pinwheels of an appropriate size to be installed in the yards of homes, to take down the electrical usage of the household 33 to 50 percent each month, and the government also gives tax breaks to those that choose these installations.

Solar energy

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Solar energy is one of the best methods of harnessing non coal or oil related electricity and can be done easily from home after the solar panels are correctly installed. This is the process of taking energy supplied by the sun’s heat and then converting that into power that can be used by anyone that subscribes to a monthly electric bill, though this can also be done from home without ever getting an electric company involved.

How to get solar energy

Solar energy is easy to harness, even if it is not that light outside. A lot of small devices such as wristwatches and cheap calculators even have tiny solar panels built in to augment the performance of the internal battery with a constant source of energy, thereby increasing battery life by surprising amounts. This same technology used in these tiny trinkets can also work on a much grander scale. The most popular method of taking in this energy is by putting solar panels on the roof of a house or building, and for those that are more wealthy and conscious of the earth, there is even an option to have the entire roof of the building made out of solar panels, so there is never a worry about the energy the house will be receiving. Because the supplies of coal and oil worldwide are running thin, the government is doing anything it can to try to increase the longevity of the electric industry, thus, for those that do decide to purchase thermal panels for their homes, there are numerous tax breaks. Another incentive is that electric bills will be significantly less each month since half of the electricity will be supplied by solar panels.

Hydroelectricity

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Hydroelectricity is electricity that comes from the harvesting of energy created by water. The electricity is generated when the paddles placed in a continuous stream of water are pushed by the water, creating kinetic energy which is then stored away to be used by people that subscribe for an electric bill each month. It is a way of sustainable energy, because unlike coal and oil, water is a renewable resource, and nothing is used or expended in the process of creating this hydroelectricity.

Hydroelectricity and its place in the world

Hydroelectricity is really one of the least popular forms of alternative energy. People would much rather expend their money on developing wind farms and devices that will harness the kinetic energy caused by the wind. This is because there is much more profit in wind energy. The wind provides significantly less resistance than water, allowing the pinwheel to spin faster, thereby creating much more energy than a waterfall could. However, this does not mean that energy obtained through the water is any less potent or powerful, just that there isn’t as much of it. This is obvious, as there are fewer systems of moving water in the world than there are of rapidly moving wind. An advantage to hydroelectricity though is that it is safer to invest in. One tornado and an entire wind farm can be destroyed, whereas it would have a much tougher time damaging a hydro dam. The only disaster that directly affects water is the hurricane, which would also have trouble damaging something deeply buried underwater, or a flood, which would be beneficial to business, if anything. Even if it is less popular, that doesn’t mean it is worse.

Sustainable Cultivation

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

Sustainable cultivation can mean many different things depending on who is using the term. People will use the word on their products to show the public that they are conscious of the environment in the hopes that they will get more business this way, yet some are reluctant to actually go through with this fully because it will lose more money over time than they will gain. Therefore, sustainability has taken on many definitions that increase or decrease in degree of laziness. The core ideal of sustainability though is that all of the resources that a person has to use will be used to their fullest extent and never less in the process of cultivation. These resources include but are not limited to electricity, clean water, paper, and good soil.

Success of sustainability

The word sustainable has become loaded. Ever since the growing usage of the word “organic” on all kinds of food products and the increase in sales due to the inclusion of that word, sustainable has become the new big word that corporations like to advertise about their business practices in order to get the business of more world conscious patrons. Regardless of how unethical it is that this word is being twisted around and morphed into things it does not mean all to further big business, it still results in more good than harm overall. Even if a business only does one sustainable thing, if every business took this tactic then it would save the world so many more resources. For example if everyone in the world agreed to the sustainable practice of using 10 percent less electricity each year, then after a year’s time, the amount of coal and wind power the world over would increase by one tenth, and after ten years, there would be a full years worth of electricity in surplus.

Biological products

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

These medicinal products are leading the field in medical research currently. They are useful because what they are specifically designed to do is to replicate the cells and antibodies which exist in the human body. These can aid in creating vaccines and cures to common ailments as well as in temporary replacement of missing tissues and other cells that are vital to the processes performed daily by the human body.

The regulation of Biology

Because of their important nature, biological products are very carefully regulated by the FDA. The FDA ensures that allergy reducing products, blood, gene therapy kits and much more. These biological products can be donated by a willing donor, such as blood or bone marrow to be used in transfusions for patients with blood conditions, or they can be artificially replicated. The artificial creation of biological products is a fast growing field in medicine and is advancing a little bit every day. Recently a science team has found a way to artificially copy blood, and to make, in essence, fake blood. This will have mostly military applications, as it will be applied to military men that have been hurt in combat zones, but once it is sufficiently used to success on the military, it can be sanctioned for closer research and may someday even be able to be used in hospitals that are unable to keep large stocks of real human blood for some reason. The reason that biological products exist is to help stop the body from deteriorating due to physical illnesses, or to graft on new parts of the body altogether, which is what stem cell research attempts to do. This is certainly the way of the future.

Fair Trade Goods

admin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:20:45 +0000

These goods are products that are purchased with the idea of fair trade in mind. Fair trade is an organized movement that is tailored towards improving conditions for developing countries in the global market. It attempts to make trade conditions fair so that no one country has a monopoly on any export and each country’s stock of usable goods is purchased by more financially endowed countries in reasonable amounts.

How Fair Trade Works

Fair trade is admittedly loosely organized. As no rules regulate what fair trade means, it is up to the discretion of the company involved as to what regulations and limitations they are going to impose on their business practices in order to achieve a process that they deem to be fair. Many groups have gotten together in the past to try to organize an even more regulated version of governmentally sanctioned fair trade but this has not worked to full acceptance in the past. When it gets down to brass tacks, it is actually a good thing that this has not been accepted. Leaving it up to each business individually helps build up the reputation of small businesses with developing countries in a much greater way than large businesses that refuse to regulate their trade past government requirements. This way, small businesses, by establishing friendly networks of foreign trade, can reach the same status as large businesses internationally. This is a feat that small businesses, up against titans like wal-mart, would not be able to accomplish on their own territory, their credibility must be gathered steadily through overseas trade. With this system in place many businesses have helped to foster growing corporations in third world countries.