Houtaaneh

My topic for this unit came forth to me through a Frontiers of Science lecture whose subject revolved around how to stop, or at least decrease the effect of, global warming. Professor Ritchie, the speaker, specifically outlined 2 ways in which harmful CO2 could be extracted from the air in order to stop greenhouse gases from destroying the ozone layer. Firstly, trees capture and store CO2 in their trunks, so one could clean the air by planting trees all over the face of the planet. Secondly, and more controversially, soil captures CO2 when it is maintained under optimal conditions, such as when it is grazed by animals to an ideal extent. Now, the controversy lies in the fact that the places in which there exists enough soil for there to be a considerable amount of progress in extracting CO2 is in places such as Africa, where people must eat the animals that graze on the grass in order to survive. Logically speaking, people who live off of the land are not willing to surrender their very survival in order to save the planet, because to them, survival is obviously the more important issue at stake. Thus, a new system, called the carbon market, has been devised wherein people get paid to capture CO2 in the soil, and then corporations who emit more gas than they are allowed simply buy “carbon credits” from this carbon market in order to balance the amount of gas they emit with the amount of CO2 that is being captured by the soil that the workers maintain. This idea is controversial in numerous ways. Some argue that the people who are taking care of the land are being manipulated in an unfair way by large corporations who could very easily turn their backs on them. Another perspective on this same issue is that if the people who trap CO2 for some reason are not able to meet their quota, they will not get paid, and will therefore not be able to live their lives. For example, if one year a drought occurs, and the grass cannot be maintained well enough to trap CO2, what happens? Supporters of the carbon market say that these problems are being worked through as they occur, because this system is highly valuable to saving our planet. They argue that this system has been devised for the greater good of all humanity, and therefore, any hardships must be dealt with, but the operation cannot be abandoned. Yet another group of people insist on knowing how the amount of CO2 that is trapped in the soil can be measured, in order to make sure that the people trapping it are not merely pulling scams to obtain money. Scientists say that the CO2 is measured by simple scientific means, through special equipment and subsequent lab work. My concern is that using certain groups of people to do the “dirty work” of large corporations is a bit unethical, because essentially, what the carbon market means is factories and corporations can emit as much greenhouse gases as they wish, as long as they pay people to painstakingly maintain land that will later trap the gases that they produce. What if too much gas is being emitted and the grasses cannot keep up with the intake? What if there is a natural disaster and the land that was used to trap CO2 is no longer functional? Conversely, cleaning the air in the environment is of utmost importance to me, because I believe that it is every human being’s duty to uphold the Earth not only for the current generation, but for subsequent generations. In regard to my research strategies, I plan to utilize Google profusely, and with many different key words. Also, I think Wikipedia is a good source to obtain general information about the subject in general. As for more reliable sources, I plan on visiting websites of organizations that sponsor or use the carbon market to find out their view on the carbon market, and how the details work. After this, I will use JSTOR for scholarly articles, and hopefully for opinionated articles, which I can use to build the atom which represents the central topic and the varying viewpoints that surround it.

It's very interesting that you got something out of the bio lecture and came up with a great idea for an arugment paper. It is a very controversial and interesting issue but since most people do not know about it I believe most of your essay would consist of a summary/explanation instead of analysis. A question to think about is: Why does the government support these industries, in letting them buy carbon credits and then release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Isn't it the government's role to run the nation while taking the world into consideration? Also with global warming as a hot topic right now, why are people allowing this to happen? ~Moeed

You seem to know what you are doing and your stance. For research consider the SU library-find articles then go to the "Science" portion, its really helpful, just in case JSTOR doesnt give you as much as you wanted. Are you going to present the opposing views on your topic? Danielle

A thing to consider is how much pollution and toxins are recycled. Breast milk has the highest toxicity out of anything we eat, and it is fed to infants. Toxic chemicals combine to super-toxic chemicals in factories, and Americans create 30% of the world's waste. I worked in a resturaunt and asked why we don't recycle and my boss answered that it was too expensive. Many materials, like juice boxes, cant be recycled because of the different thin layers of materials. We just throw away pens and dont even think about it when we could refill old pens. - david