quangpham94world-blog

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An Interesting Perspective of Climate

Following the previous post about the climate, I decide to dig around the same topic but this time under the economic and policy perspective. There is a bill that the USA government signed in 2009 really interest me because it may give us an opportunity to help improving our living condition so lets have a brief review of this bill below.

In 2009, the House of Representatives proposed the ACES (American clean energy and security act of 2009- H.R. 2454 (111th)) or the Waxman –Markey cap and trade bill as a solution for the climate change issue and finding new sources of energy to replace the old ones.

ACES is a bill introduced by Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, the representatives of California and Massachusetts based on the theory of cap-and-trade, a system that give a limit to the pollutants emitted out to the environments by the firms then they can sell to other companies their unused part to get profits. In other words, it is a “strategy to reduce carbon emissions via financial incentives; “caps” establish emissions limits and fines for exceeding those limits, while companies operating below their carbon limits can sell or “trade” their offsets to companies that are operating above the limits”( clevelandcarbonfund.org, “Sustainability Dictionary”). The ultimate goals of ACES is to “create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy” (Waxman and Markey, H.R.2454, Govtrack.us) through setting a limit on the amount of Carbon Dioxide emitted out to the nature.

Clean energy jobs or green jobs are occupations that relates to produce goods and services in renewable-energy field such as Hydro-electric energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, solar energy, tide and ocean -based energy. The responsibility of those jobs are protecting “ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high efficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution"(United Nations Environment Program). ACES planned to “authorize additional funding for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program from $125 million to $150 million annually” (H.R.2454: Title IV, “newsletters.agc.org”) so that they can "focused on emerging careers and jobs in the fields of clean energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation". They could also “establish a Green Construction Careers demonstration project "to promote middle class careers and quality employment practices in the green construction sector among targeted workers and to advance efficiency and performance on construction projects…." (H.R.2454: Title IV, “newsletters.agc.org”).  ACES gives out an opportunity to create more clean energy jobs because of two reasons. First, the companies working in green energy field such as U.S Green Building Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group or SIMTANO need more employees for many different positions. If we use the phrase “clean energy jobs position” to search on Google, there will be 203,000,000 results appear including, Greenjob.com, sustainablebusiness.com or with the keyword “Renewable Energy” on careerbuilder.com, you can find 1,698 different companies that need people work for them. Second, the number of employment in green energy industry also raised 4.9% in 2011 from 2010 and is the highest growth rate compare to the restaurant, healthcare or manufacturing (Don Lee, Los Angeles Times). These data is the solid evidence for the needs of human resources in clean energy industry as well as showing the demand of the people who currently looking for those jobs.

ACES make a goal to archive energy independence, the freedom to use the energy without depending on some certain sources of energy. In the first parts of this bill, Waxman and Markey defined “the term ‘renewable electricity’ [as] electricity generated (including by means of a fuel cell) from a renewable energy resource or other qualifying energy resources” and setting a plan to use 20% renewable electricity instead of the old type of electricity by the year 2039 (H.R.2454, Govtrack.us). Many decades ago, the power stations used fossil fuels and nuclear power to generate electricity. However, humans realized that using the energy sources such as oil, coal, natural gas or the nuclear power to create electricity is too dangerous because of those reasons. First, burning the fossil fuels will make those resources become more and more scarcely in the near future, more than that it will emit a large amount of CO2 to the environment, the primary cause of climate change. Second, using nuclear power is a dangerous type of energy because it can create many catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 or Fukushima Daiichi disaster of Japan on 11th March, 2011. ACES recommends using cleaner energy sources including wind, solar, geothermal, Bio gas and Bio fuels derived from renewable bio mass, qualified hydropower or marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy to generate the electricity (Waxman and Markey, H.R.2454, Govtrack.us) to avoid climate change. In other words, if humans manage to generate the electricity without depending on fossil fuels or nuclear power, we will be able to archive energy independence, one of the important goals of ACES.

The ultimate goal of ACES is providing more clean energy jobs, archive energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy (Waxman and Markey, H.R.2454, Govtrack.us) which is a solution for humanity to avoid more climate change, the primary cause of natural disasters and finding new sources of energy which is friendlier to the environment. In other words, this bill providing humans many opportunities to have a sustainable development, “which implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (UN.org, “42/187. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development”).

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What Do We Know About the Environment through “The Inner Climate” of Pico Lyer?

Nature is the mother of all living things in the earth including humanity. However, what humans know and what kind of things that we did to this planet are not what many people really care about. Pico Lyer has showed what he knows, he did and what he wants everyone to think through his article “The Inner Climate”. This article has become a big success in his life because Lyer managed to draw out his opinions through providing many solid evidences to support his claims, his skillful use of Ethos and how he use the inductive argument also help him to persuade the readers to agree with his ideas.

Mother Nature has become scarier to humans than she used to be many years ago. Pico Lyer has provided many evidences to show how the nature has changed itself in recent years to support this idea. He said in his essay “the temperature is higher than it usually is” (Lyer, 693). Why did he want to talk about the temperature first of all the other reasons? Because the change in temperature is easy to notice, we will know whether this winter is colder or warmer than the previous ones, it will not be hard to notice that every day the temperature is changing everywhere in the world like Lyer mentioned “every year brings the same autumn in the midst of shifting (and enduring) circumstances” (693). The second issue in the change of nature is rain; it gives humanity many benefits but also makes many natural disasters as well. Lyer told the reader the incident occurred in “California, where [his] mother lives, they are all wondering where the rain has gone.” (694).We all know what happen if the rain will not fall in a long time right? Lyer also mentioned one of those disasters that the rain may possibly cause to the humans and it is “forest fire”, one had “came within two miles of [his mother’s] house last August-smoke rose above the hills for two months and [Lyer’s] car got so coated in ash that it roof corroded” (Lyer, 694). The evidences of how the temperature and rain changing provided by Pico Lyer are showing how scary our mother nature can be and the natural disasters such as a forest fire are the results of her anger. The first question for everyone who read “The Inner Climate” may be why do humans have to face all of those misfortunates?

Lyer demonstrated his knowledge of how our planet has been damaged by the hand of humanity “polluted water, […] shrinking forest, the madness we’ve loose on the air” (694). Why would mankind have to pollute the nature and then we have to suffer all those disasters? The reasons that lead our earth to this condition is because of human’s selfishness and irresponsibility just like what Lyer said “Action without reflection is what got us into this mess in the first place, and the answer is not action, but, first clearer reflection” (694). Even though this is “our” planet- “our […] water, our […] forest” (Lyer, 694), people still not recognize how the nature really affect to our life and we really have “forget that the source of our problems- and solutions-is invisible” (Lyer, 694). Lyer borrowed the words of Jerusalem people to show how the humans really are when we face with nature “A peace treaty signed by men who are still territorial, jealous, or unquiet” (694). This is our true face, we want to live peaceful and harmony with nature, we want to get all kind of benefits from the natural resources yet we do not care what will happen after getting everything that we want from the nature and do not intend to do anything in return. Obviously, the results will be natural disasters, lacking of natural resource such as gasoline, oil, and coal, the world that we know will change into the humanity’s worst nightmares. In the past, we did lots of bad things to damage our earth but can we fix everything at this moment?

Lyer had told us many natural disasters because of climate change, he also pointed out what humanity have done to this planet and what kind of attitude that we have when facing this issue. When asking how to deal with a big problem that has the global scope such as the environment, people donot really care much about it because this is not their responsibility, the governments and the scientists will find the solutions by themselves, or “how [can a normal person] find the right heat that can bring focus and determination and light to the issue, without raging out of control?” (Lyer, 694). Actually, just like Lyer said “Things don’t necessarily go forward; they come around” (694), every individual can “make [their] own effort to play [their] part” (694). Normally, we cannot do much but at least we can save the environment by turn off any electric appliances that we do not use at the current time, try to save the water using for our garden, try to use public transportation, bike or walking instead our own car and many other little things that we can do to protect the nature. Lyer also has his own way to save the earth by “living in a small room […], with no bicycle or car or printer or IPod or cell phone. [He] try to keep [himself] clear by not bringing newspaper or magazines or TV programs or Word Wide Web into this space” (694). Saving the nature from the pollution is the most important thing humans have to do for this planet; even one person can turn off a light that they do not need at that moment, do not drive your car even for a day and use bus or walking then we can make a “tiny difference” (694) for our earth.

The natural disasters such as a fire forest is not an unfortunate thing, it is the effect of the climate change. The reasons for all of those that we called disasters are actually the results of our “action without reflection” (Lyer, 694). What we can do from now on is to recognize our mistakes through all of those disasters and start to save our planet. In his conclusion, Lyer said that “Take care of the roots, and the flowers will take care of themselves” (694). If you plant a tree with enough water, sunlight, soil and many things else then the results will be the beautiful flower, the delicious fruit. However, if you do not do anything for the plant then you will not get anything from it. Similar to the tree, humans can live harmony with the nature, getting all the resources that we want as long as we find a way to protect it, but if we continued to treat the environment the way we used to then the “flowers” (Lyer, 694) that humans will get is what we called the anger of nature.  

What do we know about the environment through “The Inner Climate” of Pyco Lyer? The things that humans know about Mother Nature are very little but we know that the natural disasters can take the life of many people and make humans suffer a lot, we know the reasons for our suffering is because of our selfishness and responsibility and now we have to find the ways to fix our errors.

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In Person or Online Class, Which One Will You Choose?

Currently, I am a full time student at a local college and been taking both in person and online class at the same time for several semesters; and recently, I just think if I was a junior especially if I was a junior and come from different education system outside of USA, which type of education methods should I choose: In Person or Online?  

There are many similarities and differences between in person and online class including, they both providing knowledge to the student, every assignments that the teacher give you must be done by yourself because they will reflect if you truly understand what you are studying or not and finally the student can ask their teacher anything they don’t understand about the course with no difficulties. On the other hands, there are also several differences between those two types class such as the location, the time and the method that the student will study.

Education is a process where a group of people that transferred knowledge from one generation to the next one. Education has been known as teaching and learning face-to-face between teacher and student at a campus, in an actual classroom with little amounts of time, around one to three hours per week and we called these traditional classes as “in person classes”. This type of class allow the student to hear the lecture directly from the teacher and let the teacher know whether their student understand their lesson or not. The student want to understand a lesson have to do many things before, during and after class. Before coming to class, a good student has to preview what they will study by reading the chapters that they are going to learn, they have to take note what concepts or explanations that they don’t understand and look up in the internet if it’s necessary to make everything clear before going to school. During class, the teacher will help you understand more about every problem that involve with the lesson, so the responsibility of a student is taking note carefully everything that they think it will be important for them to study and asking questions about things still unclear to them. Right after class, you can always ask your teacher anything that involves with the course and they will gladly answer all your questions right at that time or you can send to their email a question and wait for the respond. Doing every assignments that the teacher giving to you is another responsibility of a student. After learning a new lesson, students will be assigned with homework to do at home, those will help them review things that their teacher discuss in class and the student will take a test or an exam after some chapters or lectures in class with their teacher working as the proctor and of course all of those assignments will be graded, those scores will be the best mirror that reflected your understanding of the lesson and an encouragement for you to study harder for the next ones. Therefore, you have to do all of those assignments by yourself without asking anyone to do it for you. Even though, there are lots of advantages when taking “in person class” but when making a comparison with the online class, there are several disadvantages as well.

In the 20th century, the internet has become indispensable around the world. Thanks to this development, the education itself has changed to give the student and teacher the most comfortable environment to studying and teaching, as a results distance education or online class was born. Similar to the in person class, the ultimate goal of the online class is also to help the student have a necessary amount of knowledge for their future career. However, the online class itself is not like the traditional class. The definition of the “distance education” allow the student to study anywhere they feel comfortable like their living room, bedroom, kitchen…, this also means they can study at any time they are available, the  student can study early in the morning, lunch time or even midnight as long as they are with their computer and have internet connection to it. If a student wants to understand a lesson, he/she has to know and preview what they will learn just like in the traditional class yet they will not be able to get a lecture directly from your teacher but through many other sources that they will give to you through email or in some certain websites that you will be told before starting the class. Therefore, you can study by yourself without going to class and hearing any lecture from any teacher but these also bring some problems to the students as well. The student of an online class only study through websites and books that they are assigned by their teacher, they can also look for many other sources but in the end this is just study from one side. Unlike the student of an in person class, who have time learning face-to-face with their teacher, those in the online class have to study by themselves. In fact, they will find some problem that will make them confused during the course and here is where the biggest problem when taking an online class comes up, when you want to ask questions, how and who will you ask? - The answer is sending email to your teacher, they will answer your question but you will have to wait at least a few hours instead getting the answer right away like in a traditional class. Fortunately, even if you think that the answers your professor gave didn’t satisfied you then the student can find a tutor at your campus as a resolution, this is also a way to solve the problems for the student in the traditional class when they are under some specific circumstances. Although online students have their time doing homework at home, they still have to be honest and do it by yourself as well as when the student taking the test either it is assigned to do it at home or at a testing center. In other words, both in person and online class, score of those assignments will be the best measurement to measure your hard work and knowledge to the lesson.

Even there are many advantages and disadvantages when taking an in person class or an online class. These two classes will give their student the opportunities to study in the most comfortable way and let the student have the best results they can possibly get so which type of class you ever considered to choose, it would be your best choice ever.

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A Sight into the World of Oil and Gas Industry

Recently, I just watch this documentary film about the oil and gas industry and see how a company operated in Ghana. It may seems to be taking place many years ago but the consequences of the operation will still impact for a very long time may be a century or more, that is the reason why I decide to share with you on my thought about this story

In the 21st century, the humanity’s society has been developed to a point that people believe they have the right to live in a better environment than decades ago; they desire for better products and services, and this demand has risen constantly and in an unimagined speed. This is the tendency of a developing civilization and in order to react to such a demand, people around the world have to find many appropriate solutions as possible to satisfy what the majority of the society wish for; and in return, people try their best to improve both the quality and quantity of the products or services in any possible means. On the other hand, history proved that enhance the quality and produce more goods domestically alone is not a good option to satisfy everyone in the society anymore because the resources, technology, and experts in just one nation is no longer enough to keep up with the constantly increase in people’s demand. Therefore, trading goods with another country become the best solution for people to meet their own desire. However, in the documentary known as “Big Men” of director and producer Rachel Boynton, the win-win trading relationship between countries is portrayed through many challenges and political risks that Kosmos Energy, an America company based in Dallas, Texas, USA faced when they deal with a new found commercial oil in the West African Republic of Ghana in 2007. Furthermore, this documentary of Boynton also raises many arguments whether the globalization should be realized or not which are many experts concerned as one of major problems that humanity has to face in this century as well.

In “Big Men”, people have seen the challenges and the confrontations of a foreign company may have to experience when they deal with oil and gas, one of the most desired goods around the world in another nation. From this documentary, people can also see that there are both good and both sides to globalization; even though, the world will be even more developed if globalization can fully realize but as how people approach it right now, there are still so many concerns that need solutions. Therefore, in order to get into the world where globalization can fully and truly come true, there are still lots of works have to be done and it will surely need the effort not one or two but every single individual that exist on Earth in this 21st century

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The Beauty of Indian Artworks

Today I will talk about my opinions of the bronze sculpture of Shiva, Shiva Nataraja (India), and this sculpture is currently exhibiting in the Museum of Fine Art of Houston. The sculpture was created in the 13th century in South India and under the Chola Kingdom.

Firstly, let’s talk about the assessment on gallery set up, The overall appearance of the exhibit is organized very reasonable because the audiences can see every art works at the time they come in; the museum has tried to create an open space with not much things that can block the view of the visitors and also attract the audiences to see the art works in the exhibit. In other words, the organization of the exhibit is very logically since it makes the visitors easily to see and choose what they want to attend. The dark blue wall with soft yellow light making the art pieces become more easily to enhance because most of the works are clay sculpture. In other words, the museum intends to attract the audiences in the art works since the dark blue wall will create an impression on the light yellow clay which also makes the works become more beautiful and standout to attract the audiences

This 3D art work is a very abstract sculpture which represent for Shiva, the god of dance and cosmic movement. This round, equivalent sculpture is made from bronze with slightly green. The sculptor used the bronze casting technique to create this brilliant piece. The artist gave the audiences a good impression of the Shiva Nataraja by created a balance between his arms and legs. Furthermore, the techniques of this sculptor reach to another level by creating a slender body of the deity, and a smooth movement that make the audiences think that the sculpture itself is dancing which fitting the title of Shiva. The details of clothes, jewelries, crowns also being created very details and beautifully.

Shiva Nataraja is created during the Chola period in thirteenth century. During this time, the Chola sculptors had reached an advanced level which they created many unique and remarkable bronze sculptures; the artists under Chola dynasty managed to create many poses, facial expressions and mudras as well. In the case of Shiva Nataraja, the sculptor created the presence of a respected Hinduism’s deity which is also an important part in the belief of Indian. The sculpture is very special since it makes the figure seem like dancing around with many pose of mudras which are the characteristics of sculpture under Chola’s reign.  

The sculpture is about Shiva, lord of dancing and cosmic movement, so it is very easy to notice that there are many characteristics of Shiva Nataraja that relate to dancing or cosmos. This sculpture has many arms represent for the protection of worshippers; the figure is known as the representation of the creation, preservation, and destruction cycle in the world. The small figure beneath Shiva is called Apasmara which stands for ignorance, forgetfulness, and recklessness of humanity; the drum that he hold in one of his multiple arms is called damaru that symbolizes the creation. The front hands’ gesture of Shiva Nataraja called abhaya mudra means do not fear that is quite similar to the mudras in Buddhist. The unique third eye on Shiva’s forehead is said to distinguish the truth and illusion in this world

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A Look into Greek Artwork

I have just been to the Museum of Fine Arts in the middle of downtown Houston recently and decide to write this review since I always inspired the art of Greek especially the sculptures works. The work I want to talk about is the Head of Poseidon exhibited in the Antiquities - Splendors Of The Ancient World collection in MFAH.

First, let’s talk about the room or how they present the artworks in this collection, the captions at the side of the art work are very useful since it manages to show the visitor the information of the pieces that being exhibited and pretty detailed which is not something everyone can find as well. For example, it provides the information about the pieces’ era, title, the medium of the works and brief description about their appearance as well as pointing out meaning of these pieces under the period that they were created. Furthermore, the exhibit is easy to attend and understand by general public because of many reasons. First, visitors can easily know what kind of art works they are seeing due to the information in the captions. Second, the art works in this exhibition are mostly from Hellenistic period in Greece and Roman period which is the time when art pieces were more lifelike or closer to the daily life of humans which is very easy for the visitors to capture the idea and the meaning of the pieces. As a visitor, it is very easy to see that the overall appearance of the exhibit is organized in logically way which help the audiences easily to see every art pieces right at the time they enter the room which holds the exhibition. In other words, the gallery’s organization make the visitors have a general view about what they will see in the next minutes and let them decide which pieces they want to see first easier. In this exhibition, the wall is green and the light is yellow which is not very strong. The perfect combination between green background and yellow light has made the art pieces which are mostly made from bronze become more beautiful and create good impression for the audiences. The direction of the light also manages to create the shade for the works which make every detail of the art pieces become more impressed in the eyes of visitors.

Second, the bronze sculpture of Head of Poseidon (227–221 BC), a 3D Art work and a representation one as well. This round, mass sculpture describing very detail the god of sea’s head. The sculpture is larger than life-size head with the color of black, a special characteristic under Hellenistic period. The bronze cast Head of Poseidon is famous for its deep eyes, curly hair as well as the beard also similar to the waves of sea. Furthermore, the sculptor managed to create the facial expression for the head, the audiences can notice that this piece has an expression of an old person, but it still make people feel the power of a respected god. In other words, the sculptor had a very advanced technique which not only create a brilliant life-like work but also managed to add details that could make the piece be easily recognized as Poseidon, god of the sea through details that use to describe the ocean such as deep eyes, curly hair and beard which look like sea waves.

Conclusively, the piece is about Poseidon’s head which the creator wants to make the work resemble to a real life old man while having a presence of a noble man, an emperor or a heroic figure. Furthermore, this sculpture is not only about a god but also the lord of sea so it is very simple to see that the head has the characteristics that fit to the title of an important god in Greek’s culture. Therefore, the sculpture represent for both humans and immortal deities

Under Hellenistic period, the artists preferred to create their works based exactly on what they saw in their daily life. The Head of Poseidon  was created during Hellenistic period; therefore, the artists inspired the Classical Works,  but still adding many details such as the winkle, curly hair and beard, the upturned nose and the open lip which making the work looking more closely to real life. However, during this time, the Greek believed in god and Poseidon is one of the most important deities who represent the sea in their belief; so audience can notice that even if the sculpture of Poseidon has been made to look like a real life senior male, it still has a presence of a god.

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