e-portfolio for Kan Sum Lau

Sam Lau's choice for best paragraph

The best way to make changes in our environment is to make changes in our economy. Optimists like Rachel Carson and pessimists like Carolyn Merchant have very valid points, but fail to see the picture as a whole. David E. Nye understands that all of our decisions are made culturally. Yet our culture and our nature itself put economics in front of environmental sustainability, as can be seen in Maslow’s hierarchy. Only when the choice of environmental protection is the choice that is most economical, will we be willing to save our environment. Our governments realize this and are making changes. As policies become more bent towards environmentalism, the outlook for the future becomes brighter. These trends will continue, and 50 years from now, earth will be overflowing with natural life.

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Paper 4 (Second Draft)
What will happen to our earth in fifty years? What would the future of human civilization and life on earth be like in fifty years? Many things in the future may be different from the world we live now. Oil and gases that run our automotive technologies may run out in fifty years. More animals may be endangered or extinct from the mess that we create with our technologies to the ecological chain. If we continue to use technologies as how we do now, all these events may be worse than our expectations. David E. Nye, the author of Technology Matters, Carolyn Merchant, the author of Ecological Revolution, and Leo Murray, the short animated film producer of “Wake Up, Freak Out- then Get a Grip”, warn people to stop using technologies in a way that accelerate global warming, causes huge amounts of pollution and many other problems. They express their points of views and predictions of human civilization and life on earth fifty years from now. David E. Nye predicts that the future is determined by the demand and cultures of human beings, which limited resources will not satisfy different cultures’ wants. Carolyn Merchant thinks that the ecological chains of the world would be ruined. Leo Murray thinks that humanity will survive, but will live miserably. He believes that global warming will cause many countries to become inhabitable and many people to starve. Habitable countries will use their remaining resources to fight to keep out the starving people from inhabitable countries. I believe that the pollution we produce from using technology and global warming will continue, and they will have serious impacts in the future. Understanding that natural resources are limited, I think that the way of how we consume oil and gases will lead to a shortage in fifty years, which people will not be able to use fuelled-run automotive technologies.

David E. Nye believes that the human civilization and life on earth fifty years from now is determined by human being’s demand and culture, including food, clothes, shelter and transportation. Although he warned the people in his texts, he still thinks that human beings will continue to use technologies the way they use them now. He predicts that fresh water will be lacked because many people from different cultural backgrounds demand water for showering and bathing. Also, many people from cultures in developed countries demand swimming pools that are required to be filled with fresh water. The ways of using water that humans from different cultures will create a shortage of water fifty years from now. Furthermore, the abuse of technologies will lead to tremendous effect to the world fifty years from now. The pesticide technologies that we use will bring us huge undesired impacts on our food and our bodies. The use of pesticides has extremely serious negative impact on the ecological chain and the society. Nye used an example in Silent Spring, where Rachel Carson “warned that the abuse of pesticides such as DDT had poisoned many areas and undermined their ecological system.” (Nye 100). When pesticide is sprayed in the farmland, the insects that eat the crops with pesticide residue will absorb these chemicals to their bodies. These chemicals are hard to break down; therefore, the chickens that ate these insects will also absorb the pesticide residue to their bodies. When we eat more of these chickens each day, our bodies will contain an increasing amount of pesticide residue that is harmful to health each day. Pesticides may affect human’s nervous system and hormones in their bodies. Nye believes that if we don’t stop using pesticides, we will have more illnesses from the residues fifty years from now.

(INCOMPLETE PARAGRAPH) Carolyn Merchant believes that the human civilization and life on earth fifty years from now

Leo Murray’s prediction of the human civilization and life on earth fifty years from now is the most dramatic. If we continue to use technology as how we are doing now, acceleration in global warming will cause catastrophic experience in the human history. Similar to Nye’s view, Murray believes that humanity will experience “steeply declining access to fresh water, as rainfall patterns change, glacier-fed rivers dry up, and rising sea levels contaminate aquifers” (Murray). Water is one of human beings most essential goods for survival; human being surviving for a week without water is a miracle. In addition, the rising temperatures will cause the natural world to “suffer a mass extinction event which will wipe out the majority of the plants and animals with which we currently share the planet- although there will be a lot more rats, flies, cockroaches and mosquitoes as the world’s ecosystems go into meltdown” (Murray). Habitats of animals will be destroyed not only by human destructions, but also natural disasters such as forest fires, drought and flood. When the number of animals that are in higher level of food chain, such as hedgehog, decreases, the insects in the lower level of food chain that can live almost everywhere will increase. Moreover, he believes that “as crops fail, forests burn, deserts spread and coastal regions flood permanently, people will start to pack up their things in their billions and move on in search of a better life elsewhere” (Murray). The increasing temperature causes crops unable to grow and stay alive, increase the number and accelerate the speed of wildfires, and increase the areas to have drought. The increasing water level will flood the coastal region with water, where places will be inhabitable and people will be forced to leave their homes. People will choose go to “countries which remain habitable- like Britain”, but these countries can even hardly support their own citizens. These habitable countries will then use their “remaining resources fighting to keep out the starving millions who can no longer live in their own countries because of what we have done” (Leo Murray). Government will use violence to block the entry of people from foreign inhabitable countries, which the people will have nowhere to go and eventually die chaotically.

I believe that the ways of how we use our technology will create many problems fifty years from now. Agreeing with Nye and Murray, I think that water pollution and global warming will cause the lack of fresh water. I predict that the desire for fresh water in the future will cause a war. We pollute water in many different ways; they include pollution from ships, oil spills, and chemical wastes dumped by firms. Global warming will create droughts in many areas, where water will be extremely scarce in many areas. Today, many areas in northern China and Australia are already experiencing water scarcity problems. Approximately one out of six people in the world has no access to fresh water. Pollution and global warming will worsen the problem, which I believe in fifty years, more regions will encounter shortage of fresh water. More powerful countries will start attacking weaker countries to have access for fresh water. In addition, natural resources are limited, but they are very important to us. We need these resources, such as oil and gases, to run our automotive technologies. If we continue to consume and use these resources as how we are doing now, they will be in shortage. The price of these natural resources will continue to increase and eventually, people will not be able to afford these resources. By that time, people will be forced to use non-fuelled run automobiles like bicycle or walk.

The future of human civilization and life on earth fifty years are hard to determine. By looking at the way we use our technologies now, the predictions of Nye, Merchant, Murray and me are tremendous and frightening. Nye and Merchant believe that we should stop pollutions and abuse of technologies. Murray believes that the government “remains committed to a doctrine that prioritizes endless short-term economic-growth over the survival of human life on earth. There is no great mystery about what we need to do to reduce emissions in line with the science; we simply need to consume less” (Murray). “Preventing runaway global warming is the single most important task in all of human history – and it has fallen to us to do it” (Murray). If we don’t stop global warming and abuse of technologies, the predictions may come true. We should really act before it is too late.




How Hydroelectric Power Works

Hydro-electric power is a low-cost energy source that is renewable and create little pollution, which is extremely environmentally friendly. This video explains how energy is generated by the cycle of water in Ontario, Canada. The water at the higher level flows into a pipe, which carries the water to a turbine water-wheel at the lower water-level. When the water flows from higher level to lower level, water pressure increases. This pressure drives the turbine water-wheel that is connected to a generator. Electricity is created, sent to transmission lines, and then to homes. The water will then rejoin the main stream of the water and continue the water cycle.

Paper 3 (Second Draft)
What is the highest population of human the earth can support? For now, we can only estimate with no clear answers. Analysts estimate that the earth can hold the range of one billion people to over one hundred billion. However in the article “Sustainable Abundance, or Ecological Crisis?” from Technology Matters written by David E. Nye, Nye expresses that “ultimately, the world’s carrying capacity is not a scientific fact but a social construction.” (Nye 108). Nye believes that the carrying capacity of the earth is not only a value that is determined by the population, but it is also something that is determined by the things that the population has been creating and demanding. In short, the carrying capacity of the earth is determined by the culture, including food, clothes, shelter and transportations.
Improvement and innovation of technology led to the increasing of demand for resources in different cultures, which affect the carrying capacity of the earth. When new useful technology is introduced to the community, the demand of the technology for people in the community would increase. This leads to an increase in the resources that are used to produce the technology. In the early 20th century, Henry Ford’s Model T had introduced to the world. In 1926, Henry Ford’s “factories had pioneered the assembly line and built more than half of the world’s automobiles.” (Nye 92). People highly demanded Model T cars because they were convenient and “they got cheaper each year while improving in quality” (Nye 92). To produce these cars, resources are needed; thus, the demand for raw materials had been increasing. Many technologies require raw materials like Model T, which lead to pollutions when getting the resources. People’s “demand for gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and nickel created extensive mines and open pits, immense slag heaps, and polluted groundwater.” (Nye 97). People’s industrial methods “led to extensive air and water pollution”, while farming methods “dramatically accelerated soil erosion” (Nye97). Although these actions improve the human’s quality of living as well as the economy, they have strong negative impacts on the environment that affects the carrying capacity.
Technology that is introduced to the community may be useful, but also harmful. Sometimes, whether or not a technology is harmful depends on the way of how people use it. Abuse of using one kind of technology may cause serious problems to oneself and to the society. Good use of pesticides would benefit the people more than harm. However, the abuse of pesticides has extremely serious negative impact to the ecological chain and the society. Nye used an example in Silent Spring, where Rachel Carson “warned that the abuse of pesticides such as DDT had poisoned many areas and undermined their ecological system.” (Nye 100). When DDT is sprayed in the farmland, the insects that eat the crops would have DDT inside their bodies. The chickens that eat these insects would also keep the DDT inside their own bodies. When we eat these chickens, the DDT would stay in our bodies. Not only the abuse of pesticides negatively affects the ecological system and us, but the abuse of many other technologies would also create huge negative impacts. For example, the abuse of nuclear plants would be extremely dangerous. Good use of nuclear plants would be an excellent source of energy; however, the abuse of nuclear plants creates huge destruction and extra radiations that are harmful to health. The accidents that happened in Three Mile Island and Chernobyl “demonstrated the dangers of nuclear plants, Amory Lovins attacked nuclear power generation as a brittle, centralized system that was costly, created long-term pollution, and was vulnerable to terrorism. If terrorists successfully steal the nuclear plants, it would be a threat to the peace of the world. Terrorists would attack any nation with the nuclear weapon that they dislike, and the people in these nations would suffer from radiation-cause diseases such as cancer. Therefore, the abuse of technology would have huge impacts on the environment and also the carrying capacity of the world.
The carrying capacity of the world may be the ranged from one billion people to over one hundred billion, but the cultures in our society would affect the carrying capacity of the earth more than the population would. If we demand more resources that are limited, the world would not be able to support as many people. If we continue to demand resources, such as oil that may be used up in thirty years, our future generations may not be able to live by the time the resources are used up. Because the world is carrying a limited amount of resources but increasing amount of people, the world would not be able to support the people who demand the resources that are scarce. Therefore, the carrying capacity of the earth is determined by the culture.





This video, created by students from Indiana University, shows the advantages and disadvantages of technology being used at school. One advantage is students may have more fun during lectures when professors show videos and visuals in class. From this, it may help students to understand more easily. One disadvantage is that students may be distracted by "Facebook" or text messages, which may negatively affect students' learning experience.



ROUGH DRAFT OF PAPER ONE

Kan Sum Lau

The examples and arguments that David E. Nye presents in his essay “Does Technology Control Us?” refute Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lament that “Things are in the saddle / And ride mankind”. Emerson’s lament is excerpted from “Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing”, and it suggests that “things” that human created are sitting on the “saddle” and riding on human. The second stanza of the poem suggests that technology builds the shelters and protections for human, but it goes out of control, and eventually causes human to loose the power. In short, Emerson believes that human is being controlled by what they have created-technology. On the other hand, David E. Nye’s essay “Does Technology Control Us?” suggests that technology is not controlling human beings by using historical examples and cultural examples.

Nye believes that human beings can reject using powerful technologies. He used the example of Japanese in the 16th century and the Mennonites and the Amish’s attitude towards technology to prove his point. In the 1543, Portuguese traders introduced guns to Japan, but the Japanese thought that guns would replace the traditional weapons, which would ruin the culture of Japanese Samurai’s culture. Because of this thought, the Japanese banned guns and kept using traditional weapons. For the Mennonites and the Amish, any device cannot be used before carefully evaluated its potential impact its community. They believe that by doing this, it would “make the community far more self-sufficient than it would be if each farmer annually spent thousands of dollars on farm machinery, gasoline, and artificial fertilizer, all of which would necessarily come from outside the community” (Nye 18). These examples refute Emerson’s ideas that technologies that “are in the sable” may not “ride mankind” (Emerson).

As mentioned by Nye, television has brought changes to the society and culture. Racism against African American in the United States of America is getting weaker each year. In the past, the social status of African American was low because of slavery, but “television has ‘helped change the deferential Negro into the proud Black’” (Nye 19). Not only the music and dances of African American have an impact on the United States’ culture, but also the fashion. Many people in the United States love to listen to rap and rock music performed by African American singers. However, Nye asked, “But is this the inexorable effect of introducing television into China or the Arad World?” (Nye 19) Because the culture of different regions is different, television may give negative effects on other countries. In these countries, the governments block many programs to prevent them to “corrupt” its citizens’ thoughts. Since it is human who determines what to show or block, it is human who controls the technology. Nye used the example of television to refute Emerson’s idea of technology controls human.

I personally believe that technology controls human beings. Although one may argue that people could still live happily in the past without the inventions we have now, people who are already introduced to the inventions would not live happily without inventions. For example, many people who live in Rhode Island work in Boston, and it takes approximately one hour to drive from Rhode Island to the downtown of Boston. The human creation of automobiles has already introduced to the people nowadays, which if it suddenly disappears, the people would not be able to go to work; thus, people would live happily without this invention. Another example would be the invention of refrigerators. In around a thousand years ago, people didn’t have the technology to preserve food, which they needed to finish up eating the animals that they hunted in a few days. After hundreds of years, people discovered a way to preserve food by using spices. When spices were introduced in Europe, it became extremely desirable and important in the economy. When the Muslim in Ottoman Empire blocked up the trade between Asia and Europe, European tried extremely hard to find new route to Asia. This is because this technology of preserve food had already introduced to the people in Europe.

Moreover, the gaming industry would be a huge example of technologies that control human’s life. Many people, mostly teenagers, are introduced to high-technology games such as computer games, Play Stations, and X-Box. There have been cases of death caused by spending too much time on computer online games all over the world. In Hong Kong, a male teenager who was addicted to an online game killed his mother when she asked him to stop playing online games. The power of technology is strong enough to cause a teenager to kill his mother; this shows how much technology controls human. There are many people who are addicted to electronic games and spend hours on the games daily; and it would be a chaos if the games disappear.

Today, refrigerators are already introduced to our society for preserve food, which almost every family owns one at home. Without it, our lives would significantly change. Not only we would need to find other less efficient ways to preserve food, we would also need to find other ways to keep food cold. It would be extremely inconvenient for us to live without refrigerators because we are already introduced to the technology. However, if we are not introduced to the technology, we wouldn’t know about it, and we could live conveniently and easily like the people who didn’t have the technology in the olden days. Refrigerators, like other human inventions, have huge impacts to human’s lives; human beings are relying on these inventions to live less comfortably. Technology that is already invented and introduced to us controls our lives; it is not easy to live without it anymore.

Bibliography:

Nye, David E. Technology Matters: Questions to Live With. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT, 2007. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing.” (1846) Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company: 1899