Affirmative Action Essays (2733 words) - Social Inequality

Affirmative Action Affirmative action works. There are thousands of examples of situations where people of color, white women, and working class women and men of all races who were previously excluded from jobs or educational opportunities, or were denied opportunities once admitted, have gained access through affirmative action. When these policies received executive branch and judicial support, vast numbers of people of color, white women and men have gained access they would not otherwise have had. These gains have led to very real changes. Affirmative action programs have not eliminated racism, nor have they always been implemented without problems. However, there would be no struggle to roll back the gains achieved if affirmative action policies were ineffective. The implementation of affirmative action was America's first honest attempt at solving a problem, it had previously chosen to ignore. In a variety of areas, from the quality of health care to the rate of employment, blacks still remain far behind whites. Their representation in the more prestigious professions is still almost insignificant. Comparable imbalances exist for other racial and ethnic minorities as well as for women. Yet, to truly understand the importance of affirmative action, one must look at America's past discrimination to see why, at this point in history, we must become more "color conscious". History Of Discrimination In America: Events Leading To Affirmative Action. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal." Yet America is scarred by a long history of legally imposed inequality. Snatched from their native land, transported thousands of miles-in a nightmare of disease and death-and sold into slavery, blacks in America were reduced to the legal status of farm animals. A Supreme Court opinion, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), made this official by classifying slaves as a species of "private property." Even after slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, American blacks, other minorities, and women continued to be deprived of some of the most elementary right of citizenship. During the Reconstruction, after the end of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, making blacks citizens and promised them the "equal protection of the laws." In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, which gave blacks the right to vote. Congress also passed a number of civil rights laws barring discrimination against blacks in hotels, theaters, and other places. However, the South reacted by passing the "Black Codes, " which severely limited the rights of the newly freed slaves, preventing them in most states from testifying in courts against whites, limiting their opportunities to find work, and generally assigning them to the status of second or third class citizen. White vigilante groups like the Klu Klux Klan began to appear, by murdering and terrorizing blacks who tried to exercise their new rights. "Legal" ways were also found for circumventing the new laws; these included "grandfather clauses", poll taxes, white only primary elections, and constant social discrimination against and intimidation of blacks, who were excluded form education and from any job except the most menial. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared a key civil rights statute, one that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations, unconstitutional. And in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson (163 U.S. 537 [1896]), the Court declared that the state of Louisiana had the right to segregate their races in every public facility. Thus began the heyday of "Jim Crow" legislation. In Justice John Marshall Harlan's lone dissent, he realized it was a mockery. He wrote, " We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our peoples above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts a brand of servitude and degregation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law. This thin disguise of 'equal' accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, or atone for the wrong this day done." Not until sixty years later, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (347 U.S. 483 [1954]), was Plessy overturned. Chief Justice earl Warren declared the unanimous opinion of the court by saying: "We cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written." In today's world, "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." This decision sparked racial tensions all across America. in 1957, President Eisenhower had to call federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, after the state's governor forcibly barred black children from entering white schools. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined, for not moving to the back of a public bus, Affirmative Action Essays (2733 words) - Social Inequality Affirmative Action Affirmative action works. There are thousands of examples of situations where people of color, white women, and working class women and men of all races who were previously excluded from jobs or educational opportunities, or were denied opportunities once admitted, have gained access through affirmative action. When these policies received executive branch and judicial support, vast numbers of people of color, white women and men have gained access they would not otherwise have had. These gains have led to very real changes. Affirmative action programs have not eliminated racism, nor have they always been implemented without problems. However, there would be no struggle to roll back the gains achieved if affirmative action policies were ineffective. The implementation of affirmative action was America's first honest attempt at solving a problem, it had previously chosen to ignore. In a variety of areas, from the quality of health care to the rate of employment, blacks still remain far behind whites. Their representation in the more prestigious professions is still almost insignificant. Comparable imbalances exist for other racial and ethnic minorities as well as for women. Yet, to truly understand the importance of affirmative action, one must look at America's past discrimination to see why, at this point in history, we must become more "color conscious". History Of Discrimination In America: Events Leading To Affirmative Action. The Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal." Yet America is scarred by a long history of legally imposed inequality. Snatched from their native land, transported thousands of miles-in a nightmare of disease and death-and sold into slavery, blacks in America were reduced to the legal status of farm animals. A Supreme Court opinion, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), made this official by classifying slaves as a species of "private property." Even after slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, American blacks, other minorities, and women continued to be deprived of some of the most elementary right of citizenship. During the Reconstruction, after the end of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, making blacks citizens and promised them the "equal protection of the laws." In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, which gave blacks the right to vote. Congress also passed a number of civil rights laws barring discrimination against blacks in hotels, theaters, and other places. However, the South reacted by passing the "Black Codes, " which severely limited the rights of the newly freed slaves, preventing them in most states from testifying in courts against whites, limiting their opportunities to find work, and generally assigning them to the status of second or third class citizen. White vigilante groups like the Klu Klux Klan began to appear, by murdering and terrorizing blacks who tried to exercise their new rights. "Legal" ways were also found for circumventing the new laws; these included "grandfather clauses", poll taxes, white only primary elections, and constant social discrimination against and intimidation of blacks, who were excluded form education and from any job except the most menial. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared a key civil rights statute, one that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations, unconstitutional. And in 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson (163 U.S. 537 [1896]), the Court declared that the state of Louisiana had the right to segregate their races in every public facility. Thus began the heyday of "Jim Crow" legislation. In Justice John Marshall Harlan's lone dissent, he realized it was a mockery. He wrote, " We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our peoples above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts a brand of servitude and degregation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law. This thin disguise of 'equal' accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, or atone for the wrong this day done." Not until sixty years later, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (347 U.S. 483 [1954]), was Plessy overturned. Chief Justice earl Warren declared the unanimous opinion of the court by saying: "We cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written." In today's world, "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." This decision sparked racial tensions all across America. in 1957, President Eisenhower had to call federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, after the state's governor forcibly barred black children from entering white schools. In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested and fined, for not moving to the back of a public bus,

Water Pollution Explained

Water Pollution Explained Water pollution is when water contains contaminants. In the context of environmental science, a contaminant is usually a substance which can be harmful to living things like plants or animals. Environmental contaminants can be the result of human activity, for example a by-product of manufacturing. However, they can also occur naturally, like radioactive isotopes, sediment, or animal waste. Because of how general the concept of pollution is, we can assume that polluted waters have been around even before humans were here. For example, a spring might have high sulfur levels, or a stream with a carcass in it would have been unfit for other animals to drink from. However, the number of polluted streams, rivers, and lakes multiplied rapidly as the human population increased, agricultural practices intensified, and industrial development spread. Important Sources of Pollution A number of human activities lead to water pollution harmful to aquatic life, aesthetics, recreation, and human health. The main sources of pollution can be organized in a few categories:   Land use. We have a heavy impact on the land: we cut forests, plow grasslands, build homes, pave roads. Land use activities intercept the water cycle during precipitation events and snowmelt. As water flows over the land and into streams, it picks up anything small enough to be carried away. Vegetation does an important job of holding back organic and mineral components of the soil, but clearing that vegetation means a lot of substances make it into streams, rivers, wetlands, and lakes, where they become contaminants.Impervious surfaces. Most man-made surfaces cannot absorb water like soil and roots would. Rooftops, parking lots, and paved roads allow rain and snowmelt runoff to flow with great speed and volume, picking up along the way heavy metals, oils, road salt, and other contaminants. The pollutants would otherwise have been absorbed by the soil and vegetation, where they would have been naturally broken down. Instead, they concentrate in runoff water, overwhelming the streamsà ¢â‚¬â„¢ capacity to process them. Agriculture. Common agricultural practices, like exposing soils to the elements, using fertilizers and pesticides, and concentrating livestock, routinely contribute to water pollution. Nutrient runoff, mostly phosphorus and nitrates, leads to algae blooms and other problems. Mismanagement of farm soils and livestock can also lead to significant soil erosion. Soil picked up by rain makes its way into streams where it becomes sediment pollution, with harmful consequences on aquatic life.Mining. Mine tailings are the piles of rock discarded after the valuable portion of the ore has been removed. Tailings can leach to surface and ground waters large amounts of contaminants, some occurring naturally in the waste rocks, others a product of the ore processing methods. Mining by-products are sometimes stored in impoundments as a slurry or sludge (for example, coal ash), and failure of the dams holding back these artificial ponds can lead to environmental disaster. Abandoned coal mines are a notorious source of acid mine drainage: water in flooded mines and in contact with mine tailings sometimes oxidizes sulfur-bearing rocks, and turns extremely acidic. Manufacturing. Industrial activities are a major source of water pollution. In the past, liquid waste was dumped directly into rivers, or put into toxic waste barrels which were then buried somewhere. Those barrels then deteriorated and leaked, resulting in heavily contaminated sites we are still dealing with today. In the United States, regulations now severely limit these practices, notably the 1972 Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act of 1976, and the Superfund Act of 1980. The release of toxic materials at industrial sites continues, either at levels below regulatory thresholds, or simply illegally. In addition, accidental spills occur all too frequently – for example with the recent West Virginia MCHM spill. In developing countries, pollution from industrial sources is still widespread and dangerous to human and ecosystem health.Energy sector. The extraction and transportation of fossil fuels, notably oil, is prone to spills that can have long lasting e ffects on aquatic systems. In addition, coal-fired power plants release large amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the air. When those contaminants dissolved in rain water and enter waterways, they significantly acidify rivers and lakes. Coal plants also emit mercury, a very toxic heavy metal, polluting lakes throughout the world and making fish unsafe to eat. The production of electricity through hydropower produces much less pollution, but still has some deleterious effects on aquatic ecosystems. Household practices. There are numerous actions we can take every day to prevent water pollution: avoid lawn pesticides, slow rainwater runoff, collect pet waste, properly dispose of household chemicals and medicine, avoid products with microbeads, attend to oil leaks on the mower or car, have the septic tank maintained and inspected.Thrash. A lot of trash persists in the environment, and plastic matter breaks down into harmful microplastics. Are Contaminants Always a Substance? Not always. For example, nuclear power plants use vast amounts of water to cool down the steam generator by the reactor and used to spin the turbines. The warm water is then released back into the river it was pumped from, creating a warm plume that affects downstream aquatic life.

Physics134 Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Physics134 - Coursework Example The Ministry in charge of energy conservation established standards of energy consumption for the sector. The Chinese government has also established fees and tax rebate system for low energy buildings to encourage constructions. Under the feebate system, one either pays a fee or receives a rebate when one connects to electric system or gas. The amount received or paid relies on the size of the subscription of the efficiency of the building. Efficient buildings receive a rebate while inefficient buildings pay a fee. The system is politically attractive and cost neutral. This model is workable for the United States, and can help in conserving energy in the construction sector. it is a desirable approach for the United States due to the energy conservation benefits, its political desirability, and cost neutrality. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) improves cars’ average fuel economy. It has been a successful program to a greater extent because some of its auto manufacturing set goals has been met. CAF has managed to regulate fuel economy with its strict fuel economy standards. The major purpose of CAF is to reduce consumption of energy through increasing the cars’ fuel economy. CAF in collaboration with NHTSA improves the country’s energy security. Compared to a tax added gasoline purchased at the pump, CAF standards are still effective. This is because the fuel economy rises as CAF standards increase. However, using tax added gasoline purchased at the pump would mean that the prices of gasoline increase. This will, in the long-run, increase the average fuel economy of the passenger car fleet. Due to the energy consumption, the increasing fuel economy would drive the gasoline price down. Therefore, CAF standards prevail over tax added gasoline purchased at the pumps. CAFÉ standards, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/business/energy-environment/04mileage.html