Post by Harley Scarow on Apr 24, 2006 20:51:42 GMT -5
Peter Dang
April 24, 2006
Social Studies Essay
Our planet is changing and many environmental indicators have
moved outside their range of the past half-million years. If
we cannot develop policies to cope with this, the consequences
may be huge. We have made progress. Life expectancy and
standards of living have increased for many, but the population
has grown to six billion, and continues to grow. The global
economy has increased 15-fold since 1950 and this progress has
begun to affect the planet and how it functions. For example, the
increase in CO2 is 100 PPM and growing. During the 1990's, the
average area of tropical forest cleared each year was equivalent
to half the area of England. The impacts of global change are
complex, as they combine with regional environmental stresses.
Coral reefs, which were under stress from fishing, tourism and
pollutants, are now under pressure from carbonate chemistry in
ocean surface waters from the increase in CO2. The wildfires that
hit the world last year were a result of land management,
ignition sources and extreme local weather probably linked to
climate change. Poor access to fresh water is expected to nearly
double with population growth. Biodiversity losses, will be
exacerbated by climate change. Beyond 2050, regional climate
change, could have huge consequences. The Earth has entered
the Anthropocene Era in which humans are a dominating
environmental force. Global environmental change challenges the
political decision-making process and will have to be based on
risks that events will happen, or scenarios will unfold. Global
environmental change is often gradual until critical thresholds are
passed. Some rapid changes such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet would be irreversible in any meaningful
timescale, while other changes may be unstoppable. We know
that there are risks of rapid and irreversible changes to which it
would be difficult to adapt. Incremental change will not prevent
climate change, water depletion, deforestation or biodiversity
loss. Breakthroughs in technologies and resource management
that will affect economic sectors and lifestyles are required.
International frameworks are essential for addressing global
change. Never before has a multilateral system been more
necessary. Will we accept the challenge or wait until a
catastrophic, irreversible change is upon us?
Human population rates are greatest in poor countries, because
of the way that there are more resources there.
The average person uses so much energy in one year, that all of
them combined would be a big waste of money and power.
Especially since there is birth being given so much that in some
parts of the world can be considered a baby boom.
Travelers are often cautioned against viewing other countries
through the lens of their own cultural bias. Economists must be
warned as well about the pitfalls of evaluating the performance
of economies that differ greatly from those that they are
accustomed to examining. Although Mexico joined with the United
States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement
in 1994, this alliance should not cause one to lose sight of the
fact that Mexico’s economy continues to differ considerably from
those of its northern neighbors. The application of the usual
measures of "employment" and "unemployment" to evaluate
Mexico’s economic performance in the 1990s reveals many such
differences.
For the first 4 years of the 1990s, Mexico’s economy grew at an
annual rate of 3.6 percent, continuing the long recovery from the
1982 "debt crisis." The economy experienced a sharp decline in
1995, however, as a result of the "peso crisis" of late December
1994. Gross domestic product fell by 6.2 percent, but
employment actually rose slightly. Unemployment rose sharply,
although the level reached was not particularly high by world
standards. The impact of the crisis, both in severity and duration,
shows up more clearly in other indicators, such as those for the
composition of employment and the trend in real wages. This
article focuses on the employment side, but includes some
information on the wage trend.
In economies such as Mexico’s, the "informal sector," made up
primarily of small establishments providing marginal, insecure,
and low-paying jobs, looms large in the best of times.1 Because
Mexico lacks a broad social safety net, this sector takes on added
significance in hard times, as the data clearly revealed in the
immediate wake of the 1994 peso crisis. Overall, employment
continued to increase, but the rate of growth slowed.
Employment in the smallest establishments and in jobs with no
fringe benefits grew at a much faster rate than did employment
overall. Employment also rose much more in Mexico’s less urban
areas, where the data suggest the informal sector is more
dominant, than it did in the more urban areas.
Real wages fell substantially in 1995. But while gross domestic
product rose sharply in the following years, real wages remained
well below pre-crisis levels through 1998. The lingering effects of
the downturn also still could be seen on the employment side of
the labor market. By 1997, unemployment had returned to pre-
crisis figures, and the rate of employment growth was greater
than before; even so, the aggregates conceal a
disproportionately high rate of growth over the longer term in a
number of key indicators of informality.
At this rate, the entire world will be overpopulated with
marauding humans that will continue to drain all of the natural
energy sources that other plants and animals need in order to
survive on Earth. If nothing is stopped, and all of the humans are
allowed to live, then we might as well worry about the air we
breathe and the water that we drink more than we already do in
the present moment. Something must be done about this and it
must be accomplished fast.
April 24, 2006
Social Studies Essay
Our planet is changing and many environmental indicators have
moved outside their range of the past half-million years. If
we cannot develop policies to cope with this, the consequences
may be huge. We have made progress. Life expectancy and
standards of living have increased for many, but the population
has grown to six billion, and continues to grow. The global
economy has increased 15-fold since 1950 and this progress has
begun to affect the planet and how it functions. For example, the
increase in CO2 is 100 PPM and growing. During the 1990's, the
average area of tropical forest cleared each year was equivalent
to half the area of England. The impacts of global change are
complex, as they combine with regional environmental stresses.
Coral reefs, which were under stress from fishing, tourism and
pollutants, are now under pressure from carbonate chemistry in
ocean surface waters from the increase in CO2. The wildfires that
hit the world last year were a result of land management,
ignition sources and extreme local weather probably linked to
climate change. Poor access to fresh water is expected to nearly
double with population growth. Biodiversity losses, will be
exacerbated by climate change. Beyond 2050, regional climate
change, could have huge consequences. The Earth has entered
the Anthropocene Era in which humans are a dominating
environmental force. Global environmental change challenges the
political decision-making process and will have to be based on
risks that events will happen, or scenarios will unfold. Global
environmental change is often gradual until critical thresholds are
passed. Some rapid changes such as the melting of the
Greenland ice sheet would be irreversible in any meaningful
timescale, while other changes may be unstoppable. We know
that there are risks of rapid and irreversible changes to which it
would be difficult to adapt. Incremental change will not prevent
climate change, water depletion, deforestation or biodiversity
loss. Breakthroughs in technologies and resource management
that will affect economic sectors and lifestyles are required.
International frameworks are essential for addressing global
change. Never before has a multilateral system been more
necessary. Will we accept the challenge or wait until a
catastrophic, irreversible change is upon us?
Human population rates are greatest in poor countries, because
of the way that there are more resources there.
The average person uses so much energy in one year, that all of
them combined would be a big waste of money and power.
Especially since there is birth being given so much that in some
parts of the world can be considered a baby boom.
Travelers are often cautioned against viewing other countries
through the lens of their own cultural bias. Economists must be
warned as well about the pitfalls of evaluating the performance
of economies that differ greatly from those that they are
accustomed to examining. Although Mexico joined with the United
States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement
in 1994, this alliance should not cause one to lose sight of the
fact that Mexico’s economy continues to differ considerably from
those of its northern neighbors. The application of the usual
measures of "employment" and "unemployment" to evaluate
Mexico’s economic performance in the 1990s reveals many such
differences.
For the first 4 years of the 1990s, Mexico’s economy grew at an
annual rate of 3.6 percent, continuing the long recovery from the
1982 "debt crisis." The economy experienced a sharp decline in
1995, however, as a result of the "peso crisis" of late December
1994. Gross domestic product fell by 6.2 percent, but
employment actually rose slightly. Unemployment rose sharply,
although the level reached was not particularly high by world
standards. The impact of the crisis, both in severity and duration,
shows up more clearly in other indicators, such as those for the
composition of employment and the trend in real wages. This
article focuses on the employment side, but includes some
information on the wage trend.
In economies such as Mexico’s, the "informal sector," made up
primarily of small establishments providing marginal, insecure,
and low-paying jobs, looms large in the best of times.1 Because
Mexico lacks a broad social safety net, this sector takes on added
significance in hard times, as the data clearly revealed in the
immediate wake of the 1994 peso crisis. Overall, employment
continued to increase, but the rate of growth slowed.
Employment in the smallest establishments and in jobs with no
fringe benefits grew at a much faster rate than did employment
overall. Employment also rose much more in Mexico’s less urban
areas, where the data suggest the informal sector is more
dominant, than it did in the more urban areas.
Real wages fell substantially in 1995. But while gross domestic
product rose sharply in the following years, real wages remained
well below pre-crisis levels through 1998. The lingering effects of
the downturn also still could be seen on the employment side of
the labor market. By 1997, unemployment had returned to pre-
crisis figures, and the rate of employment growth was greater
than before; even so, the aggregates conceal a
disproportionately high rate of growth over the longer term in a
number of key indicators of informality.
At this rate, the entire world will be overpopulated with
marauding humans that will continue to drain all of the natural
energy sources that other plants and animals need in order to
survive on Earth. If nothing is stopped, and all of the humans are
allowed to live, then we might as well worry about the air we
breathe and the water that we drink more than we already do in
the present moment. Something must be done about this and it
must be accomplished fast.
