«Fallen Leaves The emphasis placed on environmental protection has steadily dwindled throughout history; today we find ourselves surrounded by cancer-causing ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
ecology & environment
school essay
date published
19/12/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 1 times
SummaryThe emphasis placed on environmental protection has steadily dwindled throughout history; today we find ourselves surrounded by cancer-causing products, gas-guzzling SUVs, dramatically shrunken forests and the impending doom of global warming. Citizens everywhere are playing the ignorance card, saying they never heard of these problems before and now it is too late for them to contribute in any way. However, if we consult women like Marge Piercy, Rachel Carson, and Octavia Butler, this threat is older than we may allow ourselves to believe. Their respective works, “The Common Living Dirt,” “The Obligation to Endure,” and “Imago,” all contain themes or warnings about the potential cataclysmic destruction that will occur if we as a people, a society, and a planet continue to disregard the flagrant warning signs Mother Nature is sending. However, humans, Americans in particular, are already too cemented in their gluttonous ways, hinging on selfishness, to save the planet, and consequently, themselves.
«Fallen Leaves Environmentalism is a concept that has been long argued on many fronts. There is a large rift between those who scream ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
18/12/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 1 times
SummaryEnvironmentalism is a concept that has been long argued on many fronts. There is a large rift between those who scream for the need to protect our planet and those who could not care less. Now, with the planet moving closer and closer to possible biological peril, we find ourselves stopping to consider arguments we might have never heard before – or perhaps we’ve heard them before but are just listening to them for the first time. We suddenly find ourselves taking Marge Piercy’s poem, “The Common Living Dirt,” close to heart. But then we open our ears to ecological pessimists like Rachel Carson and Octavia Butler and wonder, “is it too late?” Unfortunately, it may be. There is no reason not to appreciate the gentle, optimistic approach that Piercy provides when she implores us to “worship […] on our knees, the common living dirt” (Piercy 372). However, it does not coincide with our current lifestyles as a nation or even a planet. I fear it may be too late for society to fix its previous errors and mistakes in environmental protection due to our gluttonous desire for selfishness and instant gratification
« In "Neutral Tones," the winter day's "sun was white" and a few leaves "had fallen from an ash, and were gray," (2, 4). In "When You Are Old," the narrator ...» Document abstract
$1.95
2 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
07/08/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 1 times
SummaryWhile unrequited love is typically viewed as among the most torturous emotions one can imagine, when compared to experiencing the decay of a once fulfilled, true love, the ever-longing heart may have its merits. Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones” attests to the misery of love gone sour, painting a painful scene of the death rattle of a once vital, loving relationship. In “When You Are Old,” William Butler Yeats portrays another form of failed union in a regretful lament of unfulfilled, unrequited love. Both poems use similarly conventional structures to convey their somewhat “universal,” tragic themes, and both poems examine their loves through dreamlike recollections. In addition, the poems each employ bleak, colorless imagery to create a world where a personified Love has caused the dejection of their narrators. However, the romantic failures of the narrators result in differing attitudes concerning love. Betrayed by reality, the narrator of “Neutral Tones” projects a deeply cynical view of love, while the narrator of “When You Are Old,” uncorrupted by experience, maintains an ideal vision of the love that would have been had his feelings been reciprocated.
Table of Contents- Both poems use similarly conventional structures to convey their somewhat 'universal,' tragic themes, and both poems examine their loves through dreamlike recollections
- The narrator of each poem frames a dreamlike recreation of his past relationship
- Hardy and Yeats use similarly colorless imagery to convey the lifelessness of the scenes
- For both sorrowful narrators, the personified Love is to blame for their sadness rather than the actual lovers from whom they are separated
« Prices paid to coffee producers in real dollar terms, have fallen to a hundred the producer is lower than the cost of production, the peasant leaves the fields ...» Document abstract
$6.95
7 word format
Language : english
economics
presentation
date published
22/01/2005
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 16 times
Summary Recently, the global coffee market has fallen into a profound crisis. Prices paid to coffee producers in real dollar terms, have fallen to a hundred year low. Many families have been forced to abandon traditional farming. There is consequently an important wave of unemployment in the farming sector which is creating more candidates for emigration to the ‘Norte'.
Meanwhile, a growing percentage of small-scale coffee farmers have found a solution to the crisis. They have become Fair trade certified coffee producers, meaning that they have agreed to follow a set of social and environmental standards in the production of their coffee. For these efforts they receive a guaranteed price for their coffee which is higher than that for conventionally produced coffee. Fair trade has enabled these farmers to survive the crisis and think about the future while their neighbours out of this system have a future that will probably involve crossing the Sonora desert.
The interest in analyzing the current situation is to determine the possibilities that fair trade offer to resolve the crisis, and to see if it can work in the long run to save families who produce it, from hunger and exploitation. We do not really know its full potential as the market for fair trade products appeared only a few years ago. After Europe, North America is the new centre of the phenomena. But is it really due to a profound civic sense of consumers, or is it only a fashionable phenomenon?
This essay will try to give a response to these questions. First, we will analyse more deeply the current situation for the majority of small scale producers in Latin America by looking at the crisis and its consequences on an already weak system. Then, we will underline how Fair trade can benefit those traditionally forgotten populations of the world by empowering them. Finally we will present the weaknesses of Fair trade and how they can be overcome.
...
Meanwhile, a growing percentage of small-scale coffee farmers have found a solution to the crisis. They have become Fair trade certified coffee producers, meaning that they have agreed to follow a set of social and environmental standards in the production of their coffee. For these efforts they receive a guaranteed price for their coffee which is higher than that for conventionally produced coffee. Fair trade has enabled these farmers to survive the crisis and think about the future while their neighbours out of this system have a future that will probably involve crossing the Sonora desert.
The interest in analyzing the current situation is to determine the possibilities that fair trade offer to resolve the crisis, and to see if it can work in the long run to save families who produce it, from hunger and exploitation. We do not really know its full potential as the market for fair trade products appeared only a few years ago. After Europe, North America is the new centre of the phenomena. But is it really due to a profound civic sense of consumers, or is it only a fashionable phenomenon?
This essay will try to give a response to these questions. First, we will analyse more deeply the current situation for the majority of small scale producers in Latin America by looking at the crisis and its consequences on an already weak system. Then, we will underline how Fair trade can benefit those traditionally forgotten populations of the world by empowering them. Finally we will present the weaknesses of Fair trade and how they can be overcome.
...
Table of Contents- A population facing an historical crisis.
- Fair trade and organic production as the main solution to the current situation.
- Fair trade system is facing problems it has to solve.
« with all [their] soul, and with all [their] mind," a responsibility that leaves no room And while much of religious reasoning has fallen to by the wayside, the ...» Document abstract
$4.95
5 word format
Language : english
social sciences
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
SummaryHomosexuals are not a recent plague, their fight for marriage not a new phenomenon. Gay couples have been seeking this right since the day straight couples were guaranteed it. But the times have changed, and the debate over the issue is no longer unequal; in its continuous strive to assert homosexual marriage as the end of the world, the institute of marriage itself has, in theory, asserted most marriages as evil. Marriage has never been a private matter. As a right sanctioned by the state, it is inseparable from politics. It is a tool applied toward the benefit of society. While the meaning behind a marriage may be important to the individuals, both the meaning and the individuals themselves are not in the eyes of society. What is important is the reason for that marriage, the reason determined by those on the outside of the union. Individual reasons like love and the consummation of that love fall at the feet of social reasons, reasons that change as often as religion and psychology. However, what never seems to change is the exclusion of homosexuals from this global plan. Homosexual marriage cannot fulfill the requirements that have appeared and faded through the centuries; to allow it is to allow marriage for the benefit of the individuals alone. And therein lies the sin; marriage for the sake of marriage itself, existing as nothing more than the greatest of proofs of the greatest of loves. Marriage has become a means to an end, a means that has grown more vitally important with each passing year, and the threat of homosexual marriage is the threat of marriage as an end in itself.
Table of Contents- Homosexuals are not a recent plague, their fight for marriage not a new phenomenon.
- One of the first explorations of marriage as purposeful outside the realm of love is contained within Plato's Symposium.
- With the dawning of Christianity, however, such a choice was no longer offered. Marriage had one purpose and one purpose only: God's purpose.
- The sanctions forced upon marriage by the Church drove much of Europe to a 'love rebellion' in the fifteenth century.
- Although society will benefit eventually from superior offspring, Sigmund Freud found in his studies a more immediate social benefit for marriage: the prevention of sexual perversion
- Scientific connections between marriage and the survival of society are just the beginning of the pressures shaping relationships into tools.
- This political joke, this manipulation of marriage into the greatest savior of mankind, has succeeded only in blinding society.
« who has seen a domesticated animal wandering through a neighborhood, fallen dead alongside of stricter animal welfare laws, but this only leaves local shelters ...» Document abstract
$3.95
4 word format
Language : english
social sciences
term papers
date published
11/12/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 0 times
SummaryAnybody who has seen a domesticated animal wandering through a neighborhood, fallen dead alongside a busy road, or watched as a lost pet notice goes unanswered has witnessed many of the effects of a poor animal shelter system. Those who have adopted a pet out of rescue, or had a pet go missing that was never recovered are aware of shelter problems at a much more personal level. According to the Humane Society of The United States, there are currently over 160 million cats and dogs owned as pets. Of these, less than 15 percent were adopted out of animal shelters (“Overpopulation”). With so many animals being sheltered each year, those responsible for their well-being are trying to tackle the problem at hand to create the best solution for the animals and people involved. The financial restrictions and limited resources have left many shelters unable to care for all of the animals taken in, and as such, the problem becomes worse each year.
«Knowledge, growth without scale effects, and the product life cycle. ...» Document abstract
$9.95
260 word format
Language : english
economics
theses
date published
27/07/2006
review : not yet assessed
level : Expert
requested 33 times
SummaryFor several reasons, knowledge cannot be treated like any other commodity. One of these reasons is the nonrivalrous nature of knowledge, which means that one person’s use of certain knowledge does not diminish another person’s use of the same knowledge (at the same time). This important property of knowledge is used in several early models of R&D-based growth1,
e.g. Romer (1990), Grossman and Helpman (1991), and Aghion and Howitt (1992). In these models this property leads to a scale effect, which boils down to larger economies growing faster than smaller economies (with the measure of size suitably defined (cf. Backus, Kehoe and Kehoe 1992)).
In an influential paper, Jones (1995a) pointed out that growth with scale effects, as predicted
by the early models of R&D-based growth, is inconsistent with empirical facts. Over the last
40 years the OECD countries have experienced a tremendous rise in the number of people involved in R&D activities whereas the growth rates of per-capita income have shown no corresponding increase. This is a puzzling observation and has led to new models of R&D- based growth that did not incorporate scale effects e.g. Jones (1995b), Smulders and van de Klundert (1995), Young (1998), Li (2000), and Peretto and Smulders (2002).
Generally, however, these models suffer from the ‘Solow critique’; Solow (1994) criticizes
(some) growth theorists because they “… often just insert favorable assumptions in an unearned way; and then when they put in their thumb and pull out the vary plum they have inserted, there is a tendency to think that something has been proved.” (p. 53). In the models
of growth without scale effects the prediction of a scale effects in growth of the early models
of R&D-based growth is removed by limiting the extent of the spillovers associated with knowledge’s nonrivalrousness, but often the much-needed (micro-)economic foundation for
the crucial assumption in these models regarding the extent of knowledge spillovers - and the
mechanism limiting their extent - is lacking. Assuming that knowledge is rivalrous (not nonrivalrous) to limit spillovers and dispose of the scale effects prediction of the early models
of R&D-based growth simply does not shed much light on the issue of growth without scale effects however.
provide background information regarding, amongst others, work discussed in the main text, data used in figures, etc.
e.g. Romer (1990), Grossman and Helpman (1991), and Aghion and Howitt (1992). In these models this property leads to a scale effect, which boils down to larger economies growing faster than smaller economies (with the measure of size suitably defined (cf. Backus, Kehoe and Kehoe 1992)).
In an influential paper, Jones (1995a) pointed out that growth with scale effects, as predicted
by the early models of R&D-based growth, is inconsistent with empirical facts. Over the last
40 years the OECD countries have experienced a tremendous rise in the number of people involved in R&D activities whereas the growth rates of per-capita income have shown no corresponding increase. This is a puzzling observation and has led to new models of R&D- based growth that did not incorporate scale effects e.g. Jones (1995b), Smulders and van de Klundert (1995), Young (1998), Li (2000), and Peretto and Smulders (2002).
Generally, however, these models suffer from the ‘Solow critique’; Solow (1994) criticizes
(some) growth theorists because they “… often just insert favorable assumptions in an unearned way; and then when they put in their thumb and pull out the vary plum they have inserted, there is a tendency to think that something has been proved.” (p. 53). In the models
of growth without scale effects the prediction of a scale effects in growth of the early models
of R&D-based growth is removed by limiting the extent of the spillovers associated with knowledge’s nonrivalrousness, but often the much-needed (micro-)economic foundation for
the crucial assumption in these models regarding the extent of knowledge spillovers - and the
mechanism limiting their extent - is lacking. Assuming that knowledge is rivalrous (not nonrivalrous) to limit spillovers and dispose of the scale effects prediction of the early models
of R&D-based growth simply does not shed much light on the issue of growth without scale effects however.
provide background information regarding, amongst others, work discussed in the main text, data used in figures, etc.
Table of Contents- Grouth and scale effects
- Knowledge, R&D and spilovers, at the firm
- Grouth without scale effects and structural
- Measurement issues in the study of R&D-based
- The product life cycle, demand
1
knowledge network
Sort by
Subject :
Type :
Extension :
Language :
Size :