The cutting edge of nuclear weapons

The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima after the dropping of little boy
















The fat man mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki













The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks during the World War II against the empire of Japan by the United States of America under US president Harry S. Truman. On Aug 6 1945, the nuclear weapon “little boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima followed by the denotation of the “Fat man” nuclear bomb over Nagasaki on August 9 1945. It is estimated that as many as 140,000 had died in Hiroshima by the Bomb and its associated effects, such as radiation exposure. The estimated number of deaths in Nagasaki is roughly 74,000.

On Aug 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied powers, signing the instrument of Surrender on September 2 which officially ended World War II. The bombings did ended the war months sooner than would otherwise have been the case, saving many lives that would have been lost on both sides if the planned invasion of Japan had taken place. However, the bombings brought about a more critical controversy, the invention of Nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon is significantly more powerful that the largest conventional explosives and a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city.

From the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the destructive side of technology has become an inexorable fact. Technology has brought about great destruction with its modern advancements in Weaponry. With increasing developments in nuclear weapons and more weapons of mass destruction, the potential annihilation of the human race increase. There were claims that if such devastation was brought about over half a century ago, the destructive potential of today’s weapon is unimaginable. Such weapons of mass destruction have certainly squeezed the Earth into a size so small and vulnerable. We are living in constant fear from the cutting edge of Science and Technology which will only bring more harm than good. Technology shrinks and threatens the world with such massive capabilities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombings_of_hiroshima_and_nagasaki

Technological Expert - Ernest Ting

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12748

Chinese banks have been critisized by green groups for their increase in funding for environmentally hazardous and controversial projects both in developing nations around the world and at home.

Many of these projects will be huge enrivonmental problems, involving building of dams and such. The responsibility too cannot be solely laid on the Chinese banks, for international banks such as HSBC, RBS, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America all own large shares in Chinese banks.

This lack of environmental financing standards is causing much harm on the environment. Such large international corporations should be good role models of environmental-friendliness. It indeed is globalisation which has enabled the international banks to obtain control of the Chinese banks and used them as fronts to gain from the environmental projects available without tarnishing their name.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12751

Bottled water costs from 240 to 10,000 times as much as water straight from the tap. However, world consumption of bottled water more than doubled between 1997 and 2005. In the quest for cleaner water, bottled water has become all the rage. For the record, here is a fact- bottled water in developed countries such as Singapore could be scrutinised using lower standards compared to our tap water.

The cost of producing bottle water is expensive, both environmentally and economically. The plastic bottles, deposited in landfills after they have served their purpose, take a long time to decompose. The natural springs the water is derived from are pressured too, as the supply gets rapidly depleted due to excessive withdrawal for bottled water. Add that to the energy cost of producing the plastic, bottling, packaging, storing and shipping bottled water all over the world.

Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, is normally what is used to bottle the water. It requires less energy to recycle and does not release chlorine into the atmosphere when burned. But recycling rates have declined. 23.1% of PET bottles were recycled in the USA in 2005, compared to 39.7% ten years before.

More public education perhaps will help increase recycling rates. But it is globalisation that has brought about the want of bottled water, for convenience, for cleanliness and for the social prestige involved in drinking bottle water.

Nathaniel

http://www.enn.com/invest.html?id=1578

The hotel industry has shown steps to become more eco-friendly. There have been an emergence of eco-hotels. These hotels fall in several categories; those that conserve ecologically significant habitats, "green" hotels that reduce, recycle, minimize waste, and conserve water, sustainable hotels that harvest food from gardens on the hotel property or obtain part or all of their power from renewable energy, hotels that encourage community involvement, and hotels that offer some form of environmental education to their guests. These are all different steps taken by different hotels, which have earned them the title of ‘eco-hotel’.

This is definitely a step in the right direction. This shows that people are indeed doing something for the environment. These hotels may be just trying to attract more customers with their title, but ultimately, these steps are benefiting our environment.

Even though none of these certification programs are regulated and compliance is voluntary, but that has not stopped any of these eco-hotels from becoming certified. In fact it's to their advantage. According to them, hotels see a net benefit to transforming their facilities and operations, meaning the benefits including savings in operating costs and increased revenue from attracting a responsible tourist outweigh the costs (e.g., equipment, human resources, consulting fees, and certification

However, as the article shows, these awards are given out by different bodies, so there is no really certified body judging them. Thus, these hotels are in varying degrees of their title. As such, it may become quite confusing when differentiating. If there was a central committee to give out these titles, they will become more standardised.

Nathaniel

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12746

Gir National Park in Ahmedabad, an Indian state, houses the only Asiatic lions surviving in a natural habitat. However, in the last two months, more than a dozen lions have died, seven of which had been the victims of increased poaching. The state has been asked to relocate its lions to a reserve in a neighbouring state, Madhya Pradesh, deemed the most suitable site as an alternate home for the lions. Conservationists say keeping all the big cats in Gir is also a serious risk as a single epidemic or natural disaster could wipe out the entire population, which was 359 in 2005.

The locals are refuse to, though, as they say the lions are the pride of their state. The federal government is instead asking for an expedited move and have prepared the sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh for the lions.

The increase in poaching is indeed a huge threat to the lions, considering that half of the lions lost in two months were poached. And it is obvious which lions were poached, their claws, teeth, and some bones are removed from their carcasses.

Indeed, with globalisation, the black market for rare animals has increased. This of course leads to people turning to poaching to make a living, especially in the region of Africa and its surroundings, where the world’s poorest are and will do anything to make some money. If there is no market for these poached animals, there would not even be any poachers. Another example is whaling, which is a very big thing happening, and greenpeace being one of the leading organisations stopping it. Also, the culling of sharks for their fins. These are leading to imbalances in the ecosystem, due to global demand.

Thus, the effect of globalisation on the environment, this time on the ecosystem.

Nathaniel

Email shrinks the world

Email shrinks the world
“The theory that almost everyone on Earth is connected to anyone else via a small number of acquaintances seems to hold true for email, too.” BBC news
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3132023.stm

In this article, social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to establish an idea that almost everyone is only six friends or acquaintances distant from anyone else. In his investigation, Stanley Milgram randomly selected people in the US mid- West to help get letters to a stockbroker friend in Boston in the East. However, the letters are not to be directly sent to him. Instead, those who are taking part were asked to hand them to people they knew well who might have social ties that might take the message closer to the target.
Technology indeed has shrunk the world into a miserable size. People now are connected to each other through a worldwide network of thousands of computers and computer networks, called the internet. The world today is no longer a vast and troublesome world where information takes ages to reach a target. It is an internet world, where long distance communication is being taken care of. From online chatting to online video conferencing like Skpecast, human are now stuck comfortably in their little cells. The internet world today inexorably makes face-to-face human contact redundant these days.
The world present today is a vast and complex world with millions of ways to communicate with one another and make new friends. Popular online websites such as Friendster uses chains of acquaintances to help people meet and make new friends. Online shopping have even witness a rise in popularity in recent years. Websites such as ebay and amazon have made shopping so much easier for people in the comfort zones of their homes.
However, even though technology such as email have made lives for people so much easier, face-to-face human contact and interaction is still vital and should not be compromised. Even till today, business deals are still done face-to-face, strategic partnership, large scales agreements, hiring, firings, acquisitions are still primarily done face-to-face. Technology shrinks the world, making people from all around the world closer. However, it still has it pros and cons and they are illustrated in the above discussion.
technological expert
Ernest

GLOBALISATION IN TJC!