Volunteer Rachael Castle relates her experiences of double
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Marine and Wildlife Conservation - Madagascar
Volunteer Rachael Castle relates her experiences of double
Life After Gap Year
Olivia McAlpine BA (Hons) MSc MRICS is a Chartered Surveyor at Strutt & Parker LLP and most importantly a Leaper in 2005.
At the moment I work at Strutt & Parker as a
chartered surveyor working in commercial property. Not at all what I was
gearing up for when I went away travelling but perhaps the building projects at
the school in Diani managed to persuade me away from the History of Modern Art
degree that I ended up doing on my return, and lead me towards the Real Estate
Management Masters that I completed at Oxford Brookes 4 years after my travels.Degrees and serious stuff aside my experience in Kenya London
The Leap was an excellent company to go with mainly
from my perspective because the money that i paid for the experience was ploughed back into the
projects and local communities that you worked with, but from my parents point
of view, as my little hospital trip was handled by them fantastically and they
were reassured throughout the whole process that I was in good, safe hands!!From a professional point of view I believe that
having something like this on your CV can set you apart from the crowd, and I
have always been asked about my experience in job interviews and I have found
that it gives you the chance to show the skills and life lessons that you have
learnt, which are inevitably reflected in your day to day work and general
outlook and approach to life.
Olivia's three month gap year programme was arranged
with Year Out Group member The Leap.
Gap Year Changes Your Life!
The Benefits of Taking a Gap Year
One morning a few summers ago my housemate and I were lying on the sofas in our university house, still drunk from the night before, and with good reason: we’d received our degree results the previous afternoon and had thankfully both done very well.
I can’t remember who first suggested it – I can’t remember much about that morning – but we soon found ourselves in the student travel shop on campus. Before we knew what was happening we’d booked round the world flights and committed to a seven-month adventure.
Following a predetermined path
Until that point my whole adult life had been determined by choices I made as a 14 year old school boy. I chose my GCSEs, which heavily influenced the subjects I picked for my A-Levels, which in turn heavily influenced the subject I picked for my degree. Each stage limited the next, and before I knew it I’d graduated with a BA in Biochemistry and absolutely no idea what to do with my life
Apart from fulfilling my educational obligations I’d never actually done anything. I’d never been anywhere on my own for more than a few days. I’d never worked anywhere other than a garden centre as a general dogsbody. And I’d never done anything that had inspired me to follow a particular career path.
Gap years can benefit those with a plan and without
Part of the reason I went on a gap year was because I just didn’t know what else to do. But don’t make the mistake of thinking travelling is only for people who are unsure of their path. Even if you know exactly what you want to do as a career, whether it’s a horse whisper, astronaut or dolphin trainer, it’s still worth taking some time out before university. The longer you settle on the hamster wheel of your chosen path the harder it is to go on a gap year, because you won’t want to risk getting left behind when things start getting serious.
Another reason I went on a gap year was to delay the real world but what I didn’t foresee was that travelling would actually prepare me for the real world – more so than my education had ever done. Even just giving yourself some time to save up for your big adventure might give you the opportunity to begin formulating a life plan. You never know – the job you take to help save money might actually inspire you to follow a particular career path. In my case, I ended up working for a scientific recruitment company which led on to several future job opportunities and gave me a very useful taste of the world in which adults exist.
How you should approach your gap year
The question still yet to be answered is what you should actually do with your gap year. Fortunately there is no right or wrong answer to this, but based on my personal experience I can draw these conclusions.
Begin your travels by conforming to some of the stereotypes. Spend time working and travelling in Australia or New Zealand and get your first taste of Asia by travelling around places like Thailand and Cambodia with everyone else. You’ll become comfortable with new experiences, new people and new challenges, all within the confines of a well-trodden path and with lots of other backpackers in the same situation as you.
Once you’ve experienced the well-trodden path you can begin pushing yourself a bit more: go trekking in Nepal, volunteer in Peru, Couchsurf around India. Take on these new challenges and you’ll be rewarded with extraordinary experiences and a real sense of achievement which not all backpackers have.
What travelling can do for you as a person
During your gap year you’ll grow as a person and prepare yourself for the challenges of the real world. Maybe you’ll even realise what you want to do with your life.
For me, a gap year didn’t solve any of life’s great mysteries or even give me a life plan to follow. But it did open my eyes to the world and, five years later, travelling, for me, is the ‘real world’. At the moment I manage a travel shop in a beautiful town in Australia, have visited over 50 countries and have met incredible people all over the world.
My only regret is that I took my first gap year after university and not before!
Saturday, June 13, 2015
WHY PLEASURE IS IMPORTANT
Why is the origin of things so deeply important to us?
We have a biological adaptation called “essentialism,” which is a particularly clever and important adaptation that drives us to focus on the deeper aspect of things. For instance, it matters, when you look at people, not to be entirely moved by what they look like, but also to be influenced by what you believe to be their histories and their hidden properties. For food, it matters where it came from and what it touched. For animals, you want to know what they can do to you and how they behave, not just their surface appearance. For these reasons, I think we’ve evolved to have an essentialist bias.
Having said that, a lot of the specific phenomena I talk about are what scholars like Stephen Jay Gould call “spandrels”— biological accidents. They’re built from an innate basis, but they aren’t themselves adaptive.
In my TED Talk, The origins of pleasure, I discuss briefly our attraction to objects that have been in contact with celebrities, such as George Clooney’s sweater. I don’t think that that’s an adaptation in any sense of the term. I certainly don’t think that those individuals in the past who liked objects that were touched by celebrities reproduced more than those who didn’t. My view, then, is that the general bias towards essentialism is an adaptation, but some of its most interesting manifestations are accidents.
I’m fascinated by these wine studies you cite — that how expensive we think wine is influences how much we enjoy it. Is there an element of pleasure that is not tied to our notion of where things came from?
I wouldn’t deny that a lot of what matters about wine is its chemical composition. After all, if somebody hands you a glass of gasoline, you’re not going to like it, even if they also tell you that it’s from a thousand-dollar bottle of wine.
So, plainly we have sense organs that give us information about things. Plainly the reason why we like things more than others is because of their superficial qualities. It would be crazy to deny that. The strong point that I’m making, though, is that for all of our pleasures, even those that seem the most sensory — like the taste of wine or sexual orgasm or stepping into a hot bath — your beliefs about the true nature of these experiences will always make a difference.
So wine is a good example. Like I said, part of your response to wine is based on its chemical properties. But how you experience it will always be affected by your beliefs about what you are drinking. Now this opens you up to being fooled. Given that we’re creatures who respond to the history of things, we can be exploited. You could be lied to about the price of wine, you could be lied to about where your sweater came from, you could be lied to about whether your painting is an original or a forgery, and so on. This is the bad news. On the other hand, our essentialism opens up a world of pleasurable experience that no other creature has. Our essentialism is why we have art, for instance. Other creatures might respond to colorful patterns, but they can’t be moved by an act of creation because they aren’t essentialist.
Here’s another case: We find a face more attractive if we like that person. So, is that stupid? Is it a cognitive illusion? I don’t think so. Yes, if you start with a core belief saying the only thing that should matter about attractiveness is bone structure and facial geometry and the clarity of skin and so on, then it’s a mistake to respond on the basis of liking. But who says that it’s only the superficial that should matter? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a pleasure that goes deep.
Does knowing that this is where our pleasure comes from change how we “should” approach our pursuit of pleasure?
I’ve often wondered that, and I think it does in a couple of ways. For one thing, if I’m right, it makes respectable some aspects of pleasure that people have often been ashamed of. Art is a good example. Some people think that to prefer original artwork or to be interested in who created the art is a sign of some sort of moral or intellectual laziness or snobbery. I don’t think that’s true at all. I think caring about who the artist is and how the painting was created and where it came from is just part and parcel of what it is to be a human being who is reacting to art. At the very minimum, then, what you learn from the science of pleasure can help you have a better understanding of your own pleasures.
The only practical implication I can think of for this work is: if you want to enhance the pleasures of your every day life, one way to do so is through knowledge. If you want to enjoy wine more, the trick is to learn more about wine. If you want to enjoy art more, the trick is to learn about art. The more understanding you get, the richer your experiences will be. I think music is the perfect example of this. For young kids most classical music sounds terrible (and for some people it will always sound terrible). But the more you listen to it, the more you will understand it, and the better it will sound to you. Like everything else I talk about, this is a real, visceral, phenomenological change. It’s not like you say, “Oh this music is boring and unpleasant but now I know a lot about it.” It’s that “it no longer sounds boring and unpleasant; it sounds rich and nuanced and exhilarating.”
That feeds into that old question about whether learning the science of biology kills the beauty of the flower. You would argue that it enhances it quite a bit.
I would. Now many people do worry that science kills beauty, but I don’t think this is true at all. It is just not true that studying something from a scientific point of view diminishes the richness of it. It’s just not the case that scientists who study sex lose interest in sex or evolutionary biologists find that they no longer love their children. [Laughs]
It’s funny to present as an empirical claim, which clearly it should be, but it’s rarely ever presented that way.
Yes, and I do think it’s worth studying. My own view is along the lines of what Richard Dawkins said in his book Unweaving the Rainbow — it will turn out that the serious study of someone enhances one’s appreciation of its beauty, it doesn’t diminish it. Certainly this is true when you look at the human mind. When you start to explore research into psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science, it turns out that the mind is just so much cooler than you could have ever imagined.
A personal example I can think of actually comes not from psychology, but from cosmology. I was once in a terrible mood, and I just happened to stumble on a book by Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes, about the origin of the universe. I brought it with me on a hike, and read it while stopping for lunch — and man, I just thought it was incredible. It cheered me up so much. It struck me that the scientific ideas he talked about it were so much cooler than, say, the religious ideas. The religious ideas of creation of the universe are basically that some big guy made it. Religions have held these ideas because they’re natural and intuitive and commonsensical, but the cosmological ideas aren’t any of that. They were just gorgeous.
When I read work by someone who has thought deeply about something, it could be a scientist or philosopher or theologian or art critic, I end up with more of an appreciation of that thing. As a rule, studying something, knowing a lot about it, enhances your pleasure, it doesn’t reduce it. I don’t think Robert Ebert hates movies.
You talk about how we don’t like forgeries because the history isn’t what we thought it is, but do you know of people who get attracted to the idea of forgeries and who collect good forgeries?
Yes. My claim is that history matters. And in the normal course of things an original is worth more than a forgery, because an original is more creative and so on. But you can think of exceptions. In fact, we’ve had laboratory studies showing that even your normal person under the right circumstances will find the forgery more valuable than an original.
As a real world example, take The Supper at Emmaus. When it was discovered not to be by Vermeer, but to be a forgery, its value dropped horrendously. I looked for where it ended up when I wrote my book and I found it was in a traveling exhibit on forgeries. It would never regain its value. On the other hand, it will develop its own special value because it now has a distinct history as a famous fraud.
We find the appeal of negative history in other studies — I talked about the George Clooney sweater study, but we also did a Bernie Madoff study. We asked people to name somebody that they really don’t like and asked what they would pay for a sweater that was worn by them. Now some people say, “Absolutely nothing.” They don’t want anything to do with it. But others will pay a lot. There’s also something called murder-abilia, where people want Jeffrey Dahmer’s sweatshirt and John Wayne Gacy’s finger painting and so on. I think that that sort of history can be valuable too, at least for some people.
Much of what I end up doing for a living involves studying fairly subtle laboratory effects. But one thing I like about this topic is that the effects aren’t subtle at all — our intuitions concerning forgeries and history are so often incredibly strong. There are Vermeers right now on sale that people worry are van Meegerens. Nobody says “Who cares?”. The difference is an extraordinary amount of money, a deep shift in our emotional and aesthetic responses.
There’s a wonderful story of this person who had his Picasso tested to see if it was forgery; and found out the paints were from a period they couldn’t be made from, so it had to be a mistake. In fury, he destroyed it, smashed it up, and threw it in a dumpster. He discovered later that the person who tested it was mistaken.
You can’t see me, but that produced a visceral reaction at the thought of that that painting being destroyed.
But if the story had ended that he threw out the painting and it actually was a forgery, you’d think, “Yeah, well ok…”
This presumably applies to things that aren’t objects as well. Does the fact that I know you’re a Yale professor affect my perception of your ideas?
Yes. I think that it does. The issue here is messy, because there are all sorts of considerations having to do with status and association that don’t work in exactly the same way as for paintings. But certainly, your belief about where an idea comes from will affect how you evaluate it and how you appreciate it. The same idea from two very different people will be interpreted in two very different ways, based on what you know about the people.
It seems like that has immediate implications in policy more than anywhere else.
It does, and in part it’s common sense. If we’re talking politics and I say, “my friend told me such and so” versus “A Nobel Prize winner told me such and so,” you would respond differently. The value of an idea is so strongly related to who you think has it.
There’s a nice study by Geoffrey Cohen who told people about imaginary welfare policies. One of them is insanely generous by American standards and the other insanely strict. He told the subjects that they were either by Republicans or Democrats. It turns out that the subjects didn’t care at all about the merits of the policy, whether it’s strict or lax; they just cared who said it. If you’re a Democrat and think it is a democratic policy you’ll say “Oh, this is terrific. This is so smart.” You won’t even know this is why you like it; you’ll think that you are moved by the merits of the proposal itself. We’re influenced in ways we don’t know by the source of things.
Is there a way of thinking about that fact without me getting incredibly depressed?
[Laughing] Why would you get depressed about it?
At face value, it tells me I’m not nearly as capable of making a rational evaluation of things as I think I am. Then it leads me to think that maybe, if I extrapolate this probably past where I should, maybe there isn’t a lot of rationality going into our policy decisions at any level.
A lot of people draw that conclusion. You’re right, we are subject to a lot of these biases to some extent. Some of these biases are benign or even good, like seeing someone you know as more positive than a stranger. Others are sinister and stupid and terrible.
But here’s the thing: we are such smart creatures that when we’re troubled by a bias, we can change the world so as to exclude the contaminating factors we are worried about.
Here’s an example: When people listen to auditions from a symphony orchestra, music sounds different from a woman than from a man. It doesn’t sound as good from a woman. But this perceived difference isn’t due to a real difference in skill; it has to do with unconscious sexist biases. The solution here is fairly clear, and it’s what they’ve done in symphony orchestras — you have men and women audition behind a screen. Once you do that, the problem disappears.
So maybe a conclusion is we need to think more about the fact that this happens so we can put the screen up when it’s called for.
Yes, exactly. But in some cases, you choose not to put a screen up. One could have a museum and decide not to tell anybody where the paintings came from, but I don’t think that’s the right way to do things. I think it’s worthwhile knowing whether it’s a Chagall or a Picasso or whoever. Now, people might disagree. But in any case, we’re smart enough that if we find some sort of influence morally troubling we can work to make this influence go away.
Was there anything that you wanted to talk about, that you really wanted to get across that didn’t make it into the talk?
I think the one thing that I wish I could have discussed is that the depth of pleasure is a good thing. It makes it possible to get pleasure from art. It makes it possible to enjoy fiction, which is a topic I didn’t touch on at all in my talk. I think it enhances the pleasures of sex, the pleasures of food, the pleasures of music.
I think that the presence of essentialism in humans and the absence of it in other creatures is something that really matters. The life of a chimp, for instance, is much less pleasurable than a human’s can be, because a chimp can’t appreciate things in an essentialist sort of way. This is the good news. The bad news is that humans can experience miseries that no other animal can appreciate.
Surprise! You’re the president: A conversation with the first female president of Mauritius
You’ve heard of a philosopher king. But what about a biologist president?
Ameenah Gurib-Fakim — the biologist who gave the TED Talk “Humble plants that hide surprising secrets” — was sworn in today as the sixth president of Mauritius, a small island off the coast of Africa, about 500 miles past Madagascar. Gurib-Fakim was appointed to the position by Mauritius’ parliament, and is the country’s first female president. And as she tells the TED Blog: The whole thing comes as a shock.
The TED Blog spoke to Gurib-Fakim about how she became an accidental president — and how she’ll approach the presidency differently, as both a woman and a biologist.
What sparked your interest in politics?
If I tell you the story, you won’t believe it. Last year, the outgoing government wanted to change the constitution, to give the outgoing prime minister more powers. In reaction to this, the opposition party said, “We don’t want any constitutional change. And we are going to propose a woman president.”
When they asked me, I said, “I don’t see myself as a politician. I’m not going to play that game.” The post of the president is not an executive one here, but it’s a lot of responsibility. They said, “We just want you to be there. You don’t have to campaign; we will do all the work.” So I said, “Okay. Let’s go for it.” I thought, in my small mind, they were going to lose anyway; this was a case of David against Goliath. But lo and behold, they won. It was a landslide. This all happened when I came back from TEDGlobal. So there I was.
When the party won, the current president claimed his mandate through 2017. So I thought, “Well, I’ve still got time to get prepared.” Then he resigned last Friday, on May 29. That’s the story of how I got pushed into the limelight of the presidency.
Did you know that the current president would be resigning?
I had no idea. I started hearing echoes last Thursday, and on Friday he signed his resignation. My party said, “We will need to appoint you very quickly.”
Fortunately, here president is a constitutional post — you are the guardian of the constitution. You are also commander in chief — we don’t have an army, but we do have aparamilitary. Then within the role, there is enough space for you to do other things.
I want to drive think-tanks on science and technology. Since TEDGlobal, we opened BioPark Mauritius, the first technology park in this part of the world. We have quite a few clusters and institutions in operation now — but there is potential for a lot more. Another area I want to focus is on the environment. Climate change is a big concern for us — it can be felt in terms of the seasons, and we’re seeing very strong, violent storms. A strong voice needs to be heard. Sustainable development has everything to do with our identity of being Mauritian and of being a biodiversity hotspot.
Of course, we have to pay good attention to education. And my party is focused on getting the economy right — because they know that with the economy comes employment, and with that comes social welfare. We have free healthcare and free education.
As a biologist, do you bring a different vantage point to the role of president?
I think not just as a biologist, but as a woman biologist. I’ve gone through the glass ceiling, and that’s an important message to send to young women and girls. Increasingly, young people are leaving the sciences, so I hope to be a role model to promote the learning of science, to make it interesting and sexy. I want to tell people, “Yes, it’s possible if you are a woman.”
So it feels significant to be the first female president?
Oh yes, it’s very big — for Mauritius and for the continent. In Africa, there aren’t many women at the helm of countries. The same is true globally. It’s really making history.
In Mauritius, we live in a very patriarchal society. I was lucky when I was a young girl, because my father had no objection to his daughter getting an education. When I was young, education wasn’t free, so this was not the case for many girls. Girls got more and more access to schools after 1976, and yet women who are professionals still suffer from what I call the leaky-pipe syndrome. A lot of girls come in to the schools, but by the time we look out the other side of the tube, there’s hardly any left. We need to see how this can be capped. [My appointment] has a lot of symbolism attached to it. That’s one of the reasons why I think it’s just so wow-ing.
Earlier, you mentioned the Mauritian identity. How would you describe that?
The Mauritian identity is constantly being built and rebuilt, because we come from so many parts of the world. We are a people of Indian, African, Chinese and European origin. People think along ethnic lines, and tend to only remember they’re Mauritian on Independence Day, on March 12, when people rally round the flag and national anthem. The next day, they have forgotten about it. So this is something that needs to be constructed systematically.
Mauritius has some very good practices. We’re a country with no natural resources, and yet we have a good per-capita income, one of the highest in Africa. We have a mix of people, and we’ve developed a rich social fabric which has stayed generally strong. All these practices, we should be exporting to the world. I think this has not been done properly over the last few years.
Of course, we have a unique biodiversity. That can be turned into economic opportunity with sustainable development.
How do you anticipate that being president will change your everyday life?
I’ve been traveling quite a bit, and this will clip my wings. My family is also discussing whether to move. For the past five months, they’ve been getting used to the idea [of me as president]. Once my name was mentioned and the party won, we realized it was going to happen at some point.
What are you most excited about — and nervous for — with being sworn in?
It’s daunting. It’s a huge responsibility. Something that requires a lot of psychological preparation, which I’m trying to get. I’m a scientist, so I’m used to saying things as I see them. As president, [I] need to be much more diplomatic. I have to be careful and go in with kid gloves.
WORLD POVERTY
“We think sometimes that poverty is
only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved
and uncared for is the greatest poverty.”
Mother Teresa
Poverty was and still is the biggest
and the most serious killer in the world. Many people don’t die because of
illness like AIDS and Malaria but because of the fact that they are so poor
that they can’t survive.
Poverty is a real problem, which
needs an immediate solution. Here are some facts from March 2009:
1. Almost half the world- over three billion people live on less than 2.50
dollars a day.
2. At least 80 per cent of humanity lives on less than 10 dollars a day.
3. More than 80 per cent of the world’s population lives in the countries where
income differentials are widening.
4. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of
global income. The richest 20 per cent accounts for three- quarters of world
income.
5. Around 27-28 per cent of all children in developing countries are estimated
to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the
deficit are South Asia and sub- Saharan
Africa.
6. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or
sign their names.
7. Less than 1 per cent of what the world spend every day on weapons was needed
to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
8. 2.2 million Children die each year because they are not immunized.
9. 1 child is dying every 3.5 second.
10. 17-18 children are dying every minute.
11. Over 9 million are dying every year.
12. Some 70 million children died between 2000 and 2007.
This statistics show how serious the
problem is. It is not from one or two years, it is has gone on from a long time
ago and now we need to do everything possible to stop poverty and to stop these
statistics from increasing.
Which is more important- poverty or
climate change? These are two very important causes. They both are connected
but I think now we need to be concentrate more on poverty. The reason is that
we have bigger possibilities to help people, who live in poor countries without
food, water, clothes and education. We are not able to find a solution to the
problem of climate change, because it’s nature and we can only delay it but
can’t stop it.
People, who die of hunger, lack the
money to buy enough food so they become less able to work, which is another
condition of poverty. Poverty hits children the hardest. They need to grow up
healthy but a lot of them don’t have this possibility. The worst thing is that
hunger doesn’t affect only childrens’ health, but also their development in
every way- emotional, physical and spiritual. Children are the future of our
planet, so we can’t let them die. They should have money for food and
education, because later they will be able to do something to help their
country and the Earth. Many children want to develop themselves but
unfortunately
they don’t have this opportunity. And it is not fair because all of us should
have equal rights and a level playing field.
Some days ago I read something that
attracted my attention. It is something that Mother Teresa said and it is
sounded like thist: “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry,
naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is
the greatest poverty.” I really like that quote because it shows a real
situation of poverty. Mother Teresa’s words make us think over this and realize
that hungry people don’t need only food and a safe place to live, but also they
need to see that they are loved.
The fate of these people is so sad.
They are not interested in having luxury things- jewels, fancy clothes, big
houses or expensive cars. All that they want is to have health and not to see
how their closest are dying every day because of hunger. They want to have
better conditions to live and it is the only thing that can make these people
happy. In my opinion we can give them happiness. I realize that it cannot happen
for one day, or one week because supplying food and immunizations demand more
time but it is possible to happen.
If we stop poverty, we will save
many peoples’ lives. Life is so hard and if we don’t help these people, who
will do that? Let’s support this cause, because this is the way that we can see
smiles on childrens’ faces and we can make some childrens’ dreams come true.
Poverty destroys many childrens’ dreams and it is time to say stop. It is time
to integrate with each other for one cause because these people need us, it is
time to show that we have golden hearts and we really understand how serious
the problem with hunger is and it is time to be people and to show that we care
not only for ourselves, but also for others in our planet. So let’s help before
it is too late and let’s show these people that they are not alone and
somebody, somewhere cares about them.
Climate Changes
Nowadays climate change is the
biggest problem of the human being. It is already happening and represents one
of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet.
The warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average
air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising
global mean sea level. The Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by
0.76° C since 1850. Most of the warming that has occurred over the last 50
years is very likely to have been caused by human activities. In its Fourth
Assessment Report projects that, without further action to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions, the global average surface temperature is likely to rise by a
further 1.8-4.0°C this century, and by up to 6.4°C in the worst case scenario.
Even the lower end of this range would take the temperature increase since
pre-industrial times above 2°C – the threshold beyond which irreversible and
possibly catastrophic changes become far more likely.
The climate can affect every person
and our health directly through increases in temperature. Such increases may
lead to more extreme heat waves during the summer while producing less extreme
cold spells during the winter. Particular segments of the population such as
those with heart problems, asthma, the elderly, and the very young can be
especially vulnerable to extreme heat. There can be extreme floods and droughts,
hurricanes.
Nowadays there are so many factories
that exhale really destructive substances and pollute the air. We all know very
well that air is something we can’t live without. When we breathe the polluted
air, we can get seriously ill. Ground-level ozone can damage lung tissue, and
is especially harmful for those with asthma and other chronic lung diseases.
Sunlight and high temperatures, combined with other pollutants such as nitrogen
oxides and volatile organic compounds, can cause the ground-level ozone to increase.We cannot escape from the polluted air-it’s everywhere,
even in our homes and we are breathing it non-stop. This can cause cancer and
other serious diseases.
Another huge problem is that the sea
levels are rising worldwide. Also the expansion of ocean water is caused by
warmer ocean temperatures.. Mountain glaciers and small ice caps are melting as
well as Greenland ’s Ice Sheet and the
Antarctic Ice Sheet. The temperature is rising which means that ice is melting
faster and faster.
However, these are not the only problems. Another issue are the greenhouse
gasses. They are gasses which trap heat in the atmosphere. Some greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide occur naturally by natural processes and other are
created and emitted solely through human activities. For example carbon dioxide
is entering the atmosphere because of human activities like burning of fossil
fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal). All vehicles exhale too much damaging
substances. People have been trying to reduce them but the problem is still
topical and I think we have to do something like ride a bike not a car to work
or school, we should take the shortest route possible, and plan our drive so
that we will not backtrack or travel out of our way.We also may choose a clean-burning fuel, which reduces
ozone-forming pollutants and buy a car that produces fewer emissions or runs
using an alternative fuel.The taxes of cars should be higher and most of the people
will prefer to use the public transport and we will no longer have traffic jams
and we will reduce the damaging emissions.
As a conclusion, I think that when
it can not do both, The UN should prioritize combating climate change over
reducing poverty. Of course, poverty is a big issue, which needs a solution but
have you ever asked yourself why the poor countries like Bangladesh , Gambia ,
Zambia
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
The New Inspiring Video Called EGYPT
Since five days, I have published a new video on channel on my YouTube called Egypt, it is snapshots of some inspiring places and very important in Egypt, I was very very happy and excited when i filmed this video and I enjoy myself when i edit this amazing video , I hope that you like it and you can watch it on this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjZyZVVu470
Thursday, May 28, 2015
A Beautiful Pregnant
Ari Davidson shared this
post on her Instagram account and it inspired me and i'd like to share it with
you guys :) Enjoy xxxx
Pregnancy is not glamorous. What I mean by that statement is not
to be negative, but to really be honest, pregnancy is a full sacrifice. Your
emotions, your body, your eating habits, your sleep cycle..that ALL changes.
Stretching pains, an active kicking baby throughout the night, and tension in
my back is mainly what I feel most of the time. All an easy distraction from
the main purpose, which is this little life inside of me. Last night I prayed
out, almost in tears, because my tummy was so tight and my ligaments are
stretching more for this baby to have more room to grow. I asked that He would
fill me with His peace and wisdom. I told Him I wasn't able to move forward
without Him in every single step.
Every time I am in my small amount of pain, I think of Jesus and His sacrifice.
I have never felt closer to Him. This pregnancy has taught me so much already
about becoming more selfless and has given me more of an awareness of the
unknown. This gift of life does not cause this process to be glamorous, but it
prepares me to reach past my limits and rely on Jesus' strength and sacrifice.
All I know is that Jesus is very much alive and very much in love with us.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
My Facebook Friend Ieva Blaževičiūtė Is A Professional Photographer
Since about two months I've added an inspiried friend on my Facebook. He is a professional photographer and this latest work:
PLEASE, DON'T FORGET TO VISIT IEVA'S SITE http://www.ieva-photography.com/
PLEASE, DON'T FORGET TO VISIT IEVA'S SITE http://www.ieva-photography.com/
Monday, May 25, 2015
What Is Wrong With Our Culture ( Alan Watts )
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make community structures work. I’ve been reflecting and meditating on the many possibilities we could create, trying pull together the common limitations and complaints people generally have about our world and how it currently functions, and then find a common thread. What drives us? What do we really want? How much of our displeasure is actually a result of our own thoughts and limitations vs just our external world?
What about people who convince themselves that they don’t need to grow, yet aren’t in the greatest of places within themselves? How do we go about living as a group, community, humanity, etc., when we have all these different ideals? What exactly drives our world to be the way it is? Is it the fact that it is, what appears to be, ‘poorly designed?’ Is it our consciousness and view of the world that makes it this way, and therefore we keep repeating it, since we are still searching for answers?
The State of Our World
Alan Watts draws attention to the state of our world and what we hope to get out of it in a powerful way. He touches on our thoughts as they relate to the world, and looks at how those thoughts drive our creation of it.
In my view, we need a drastic shift in our consciousness and thoughts towards ourselves and our world. We can recognize and see the ‘problems’ around us, but recognizing the solution to them is often a challenge. Is it entirely physical? Do we need to change our minds and perceptions of things? With so many brilliant ideas out there that seem to continue to get suppressed and limited, one has to wonder whether or not the world simply isn’t ready for such a shift yet. By this I mean, maybe as a whole there aren’t enough of us who are ready for such drastic changes – maybe, unconsciously we are holding those changes back. There is no doubt that there is a power structure out there that is also suppressing things, but what is allowing and supporting that power structure to be that way in the first place? Is it perhaps us?
Certainly something to think about.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
A Conversation With Bill Gates
"An epidemic is
one of the few catastrophes that could set the world back drastically in the
next few decades," Bill Gates warns in an essay he wrote for the March 18
edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.
In
the article, titled "The Next Epidemic — Lessons From Ebola," he says the Ebola epidemic is a
"wake-up call."
"Because
there was so little preparation, the world lost time ... trying to answer basic
questions about containing Ebola," writes Gates (whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a supporter of NPR).
That's why, he
continues, "the world needs a global warning and response system for
outbreaks." And part of that system must be a better way to get supplies
and "trained personnel" to the scene, where they can work with local
efforts
Few people would argue with that
goal. But there's a lot of debate around how to execute his proposal.
For
example, some global health gurus
aren't so sure we need to create a response system. Maybe we already have one.
Look at the response
to the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines
The response
wasn't so fast when Ebola struck West Africa .
Actually, many agencies agree with Gates that it was way too slow. And the
question is why.
It wasn't
that there weren't enough volunteers, Aylward says. Rather, the volunteers
needed to know what would happen if they were to contract Ebola. And there
weren't reassuring answers early in the epidemic.
"There
was no way anyone could guarantee the right of medical evacuation for people
affected by Ebola," he says. So for any future force of emergency health
workers, it's critical to offer what Aylward calls "duty of care" —
the ability to ensure the needs of aid workers can be met if anything were to
happen, in terms of their health, security or safety.
Then there
are questions about whether flying in outsiders is the best solution.
"I'm
going to speak frankly," says Emmanuel d'Harcourt, senior health director of the
International Rescue Committee. "While there's probably some value in the
margin [of a global response system], it's not the heart of the issue, and it
has the potential to distract us from the real issues."
Which are?
"Local
preparedness and local response," d'Harcourt says. "We know that in
most disasters, not just epidemics, but all kinds of disasters, the people who
are able to respond the earliest are local. If you have local preparedness, you
don't really get a major epidemic at all."
A team on the
ground has another advantage, he says: They know the terrain. After the Pakistan Pakistan
And it's
easier for disaster victims to trust their fellow countrymen. In the early
months of the Ebola outbreak, the citizens of West Africa
often believed that the virus was part of a conspiracy — that Western doctors
were making patients sick. Those rumors made many people reluctant to seek
treatment. To debunk that kind of thinking, d'Harcourt says, you need fellow
citizens who can say, "I know you think it's a plot, but here's why I
don't think it's a plot."
D'Harcourt
also believes that the idea of a rescue mission "infantilizes"
people, treats them like children awaiting salvation. "You know, nobody,
not even children, likes to be treated like children," he says. "I
say this as a pediatrician. Children are always asking for more responsibility,
more autonomy."
A
textbook example of how a person native to a country can help, he says, is the
story of Alpha Tamba, a Liberian physician's assistant. During
the Ebola crisis, Tamba went to villages in hard-hit Lofa County
For example,
he provided the chlorine and buckets for hand washing, but the villagers set up
their own quarantines. When outsiders impose quarantines, d'Harcourt says, that
doesn't always work out.
Of
course, outsiders can, as Gates writes, play a critical role in quashing any
future outbreak. But they have to have the right mindset and even the right
garb. If workers come in with white helmets, says Dr. Joanne Liu,
international president of Doctors Without Borders, "it gives them a sort
of a militarized label. In my organization, we do not feel comfortable with the
idea that there are blurred lines of humanitarian aid and military
action."
She also
stresses that any group of emergency workers must be prepared to follow orders
from the agency they're working for. "You need people who are able to be
disciplined, to follow the rules, so you would not put yourself in
danger," she says.
Volunteers
must heed both medical and cultural instructions, she says. A volunteer who
thinks he or she knows it all could end up creating problems.
"You
just cannot improvise and be the humanitarian Ebola tourist of the day,"
she says.
So
Gates' essay is doing what it
should be doing: opening up a conversation. "Now that Gates has written
his article," Liu says,
"I need to write mine."
One point she
would make has to do with something as seemingly mundane as time away from
work. Some medical workers in the U.S.
were lined up and ready to go to West Africa ,
she recalls. But when it turned out they would miss not only a month of work
when they were in the field, but another three weeks afterward for quarantine,
"some of them just could not go."
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