Sherry’s Blog

*The capital of India is New Delhi

Summary-
India has a mostly subsistence economy and is still an LEDC, and they depend greatly on water. Whether it rains or not has a huge impact on their lives. No one is able to predict when or how the summer monsoon will arrive, if it arrives at all. The people living in India’s lives are wrapped up in the rain. This is because most farmers often borrow money to buy fertilizer and seeds, which need to be planted ahead of time of the rain. If they borrow money and plant the seeds, and the rain doesn’t come, the hot weather causes the seeds to bake and die in the ground. Or if the rain falls too hard before the seeds take root in the ground, it might cause them to all wash away. Therefore, it is very difficult for the people living in India to be sure about their next harvest, or how their next year will turn out.
The people in India believed in gods and goddesses, and they used to go to the temples and pray to them, wishing for rain and a good harvest. Nowadays more and more people are beginning to lose faith in their gods and goddesses, and realizing that whether the rain comes or not is more of a case of chance. The lack of good rainfall has even begun to affect peoples’ beliefs and religion. People used to be able to more or less predict what would happen with the rains by looking at the constellations. It is a skill and tradition that has been passed down for many generations by families living in India. However, with global warming skewing weather patterns lately, it has become even more difficult for the people to predict what will happen with the monsoons. Whether the rain comes or not is a huge part of life in India, and sometimes families starve to death because there is no rain. People’s lives revolve around the weather, which is a very unpredictable source to live by.

Reflection-
It is very difficult for people like us, who are relatively quite rich and are from MEDC’s, to imagine what life must be like in an LEDC, such as India. For me, personally, I cannot even imagine living without a common source of water, or having to live my life depending on the rainfall or amount of water available. Subsistence economies are very unstable and unpredictable. I think that the governments of India should try and get a more stable and reliable source of water for the all the people of India, not only the rich people. Perhaps they could build wells, or have water pipes. Although those things may cost a lot, in the long run, it would be very helpful to the people. It is not fair for them to have to base their entire lives on such an unreliable source, the rain. You never know how it will turn out.
Also, part of the cause for the lack of rainfall in India has to do with global warming, like so many other issues. Global warming has so many negative effects, this being one of them. We must try to stop it, or at least reduce it, in some way or another because it is ruining the way of life for so many people. The people who are actually causing most of the global warming are not even the ones who are the most affected. The people that are most affected are the people living in LEDC’s, such as India in this case. It is unfair that these people who are much poorer than us and have a lower living standard have to pay the price for what rich people, like us, have caused. Therefore, one of the biggest main issues the MEDC’s of the world today must deal with is the issue of global warming.

Questions-
•    Have the governments of India done anything about the lack of rain/water that they have?
•    What is the average price of water in India? Is it unaffordable for the average class of people there?

Definitions-
1.    Constellation: a group or configuration of ideas, feelings, characteristics, objects, etc., that are related in some way
2.    Furnace: A place characterized by intense heat
3.    Fallow: land that has undergone plowing and harrowing and has been left unseeded for one or more growing seasons
4.    Monsoon: (in India and nearby lands) the season during which the southwest monsoon blows, commonly marked by heavy rains; rainy season.
5.    Speculate: to engage in thought or reflection; meditate
6.    Deprive: to remove or withhold something from the enjoyment or possession of (a person or persons)

Works Cited-

Corbett, Sara. “A Harvest of Water.” National Geographic Nov. 2009: 112-19. Print.

Picture Credit-

That was our debate topic for geography. I was assigned to be be on the Against Team for this issue. From the beginning, I felt very strongly on this issue, and my own opinion was that we should NOT drill for more oil. As I did my reasearch, I found numerous points to back me up, seeing as there are quite alot of bad effects to drilling for oil. Drilling for oil harms the enviornment and causes global warming, gets us to be too dependent on oil, has false promises, raise the chances of getting oil spills, and the fact that there is not actually enough oil at the moment to even make a huge difference. I firmly believed in my side of the argument.

However, once the actual debating began, and everyone began talking at once, I began to also see the other point of view. The ways in which drilling for more oil could actually be good. Drilling for more oil will lower the oil prices, and even with alternative energy sources, we need to use oil to make the machines that use alternative energy sources. Now, my point of view is slightly changed. I think that drilling for more oil is okay, under certain cicumstances. I think we should drill for a certain amount, and use it up slowly, saving it. We can use the oil drilled to come up with the alternative energy resources and use the oil.

Picture Credit:

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/files/2008/08/oil_drilling.jpg

Today in class, we watched a video on how computers get infected and about viruses and botnets. A botnet is a group of computers that use the same application that is controlled by the owner or the software creator. Once the robot software has been successfully installed in a computer, this computer becomes a zombie or a drone, unable to resist the commands of the bot commander. Usually, the owners of the computers do not even know that their computers and their computers’ resources are being remotely controlled and exploited by an individual or a group of people. What a botnet does is it can send out hundreds of thousands of spam mail using the computers that they control. If the spam can hook at least one or two of the people that it is sent to, then they have succeeded because then they will get their information or the money that they want.

Another thing that you can control botnets to do is to shut down an entire website. What people that control the botnets do is  order all the botnets to go to a certain website. When/if a website has too many people at one certain time, it ends up shutting down and beocming unavailable and people cannot acces that site.

There are ways, however, to try and prevent these outcomes. You can set up firewalls to protect your computer from viruses and botnets. You must always be careful with computers. Humans aren’t the only ones that get sick. Computers can get sick too. The only problems with computer viruses nowadays is that an infected computer will have no symptoms.

Picture Credit:

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg172b/images/botnet.png

The millennium development goals are:

• Eradicating poverty and hunger
• Achieving universal primary education
• Promoting gender equality
• Reducing child mortality
• Improving maternal health
• Combating disease
• Ensuring environmental sustainability
• Developing a global partnership

In this blog post, I will be focusing on ensuring enviromental sustainability. Ensuring enviromental sustainability basically means that we must use our resources wisely in order to achieve sustainable development. Poor people living in LEDC’s have mostly subsistence economies, and are the ones that are most affected by environmental degradation and natural disasters. MEDC’s especially have got to start using their resources wisely. Even though the countries make enviromental laws, big TNC’s always seem to somehow find ways around those rules. On top of that, nowadays, the TNC’s are going to LEDC’s where there is much fewer enviromental laws and more cheap labor. Now, they are also destroying the land and using up all the natural resources of other countries as well.

Some ways to try and achieve enviromental sustainability is for the governments all over the world, including LEDC’s to create very effective and good enviromental laws. Also, they should build more nature preserves and parks. Governments should try and switch more to alternative energy sources and not rely so much on only sources such as oil, gas, etc.

Picture Credit:

http://www.sthilda.ca/images/img_millenium-goals-hdr.gif

Question:

Why should we care about the poor people? They don’t affect us in any way, do they?

Answer/My Opinion:

Because what the world is, or should be, trying to achieve is sustainable development. Sustainable development includes all three different development ideologies – economic, environmental, and social. We are, and should be trying to develop including all three of those ideologies which means development where we include economic factors (trade, money,GNP), environmental factors (carbon emissions, deforestation rates), and social factors (literacy rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy).

Another point is that if the gap between poor and rich gets too large, then its actually bad for the richer people as well. This is because  the MEDC’s trade and sell alot of their products to the LEDC’s. If the LEDC’s become so poor that they can’t even afford most things, not only will alot of them die, but the MEDC’s will lose alot of their customers and a big portion of profits. Especially since alot of families living in LEDC’s tend to have alot of children, so they probably purchase more.

Finally, we should care because it is the “morally right” thing to do. Even if everyone in the world is not religious, everyone still has a conscience and a small part of themselves that tell them what is “right” and what is “wrong” . Leaving all the poorer people living in LEDC’s simply die because we, the richer people living in MEDC’s, don’t want to donate or help out by giving just a relatively small portion of our money is not morally right.

Picture Credit:

http://www.donatecharity.net/images/Donate%20Charity_edited_html_26db936b.jpg

“Magazines, TV shows and films are chock-full of toned women and muscular men without an obvious trace of body fat. Although such bodies can be the product of intense diets, workout regimens, genetics, cosmetic surgery or even photo retouching, adolescents are trying to get those same physiques through dietary supplements, hormones and steroids.” (“Lawrence Journal-World & News”) http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/aug/16/study_teens_see/?living

Nowadays, so many young teens are obsessed with their physical appearances. Most teens are not satisfied with their looks and/or body and wish that they looked differently. Sometimes this obsession with how their bodies look can lead to severe mental problems such as eating disorders. For example, Anorexia and Bulimia. Most of the cause for the obsession with how we look is from the media. The media is constantly showing us pictures of “perfect” people. These images are everywhere. They’re on television, in magazines, on the internet, etc. They are giving people the wrong impression that you need to be beautiful to be happy.

Magazines, however, state that they assume that the readers of their magazines know that a lot of their photos have been edited and retouched. However, that is not true at all. When young teens look at the glossy pages of a magazine, they believe that’s what you have to look like to be liked by everyone. We get the wrong impression that being thin means being beautiful and being happy. Young girls and boys do not realize the fact that all the pictures of “big stars” and the “top celebrities” that appear in magazines and on the internet have probably all been edited or retouched in one way or another, and that no one in the world is completely perfect.

Therefore, I think that magazines should either show more pictures of real people that aren’t edited and look as they actually should. It is terrible that people have this false perception of how beauty equals happiness. The media is causing a lot of problems nowadays showing the viewers all these false images. It is especially corrupting the young teens, and it is very bad, and it should be stopped.

For more information:

http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/problems/body_image.html.

http://parentingteens.about.com/od/bodyimage/f/media_bodyimage.htm.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/28/48hours/main551362.shtml.

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/retouch/glamour-model-retouch.jpg.

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/10/18/media_advertising_reality_and_the.htm.

http://www.baysideonline.com/8082/medias-teachings-of-beauty-to-our-teenagers/.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/aug/16/study_teens_see/?living

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/cfta-tdb071603.php.

Picture Credit:

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/retouch/glamour-model-retouch.jpg

http://pixelperfekt.com/gallery/albums/userpics/normal_retouch2.jpg