Global Climate Change and Evolution

It seems like every time a new story is created by the media about science, there needs to be some sort of controversial subject or debate included. The Theory of Evolution is no stranger to controversy, especially the idea that humans evolved over time from other species. Many religious groups and others do not believe in evolution because of this conflict with their creation stories. Another controversial science topic often talked about by the news media is global climate change, or global warming. Most people do not dispute that the average temperature of the Earth is increasing every year. However, the controversy comes in when there is an assertion that human actions are causing the process to speed up. The majority of scientists believe both evolution and global climate change to be true. So how does one affect the other? Global Climate Change Before connecting the two controversial scientific subjects, it is first important to understand what both are individually. Global climate change, once called global warming, is based on the annual increase in the average global temperature. In short, the average temperature of all places on Earth increases every year. This increase in temperature seems to be causing many potential environmental issues including the melting of the polar ice caps, more extreme natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes, and larger areas are becoming affected by droughts. Scientists have linked the increase in temperature to an overall increase in the number of greenhouse gases in the air. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are necessary to keep some heat trapped in our atmosphere. Without some greenhouse gases, it would be too cold for life to survive on Earth. However, too many greenhouse gases can have extreme effects on the life that is present. Controversy It would be pretty hard to dispute that the average global temperature for Earth is increasing. There are numbers that prove that. However, it is still a controversial subject because many people do not believe that humans are causing global climate change to speed up as some scientists are suggesting. Many opponents of the idea claim the Earth cyclically becomes hotter and colder over long periods of time, which is true. The Earth moves in and out of ice ages over somewhat regular intervals and has since before life and long before humans came into existence. On the other hand, there is no doubt that current human lifestyles do add greenhouse gases into the air at a very high rate. Some greenhouse gases are expelled from factories into the atmosphere. Modern automobiles release many types of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, that get trapped in our atmosphere. Also, many forests are disappearing because humans are cutting them down to create more living and agriculture space. This makes a large impact on the amount of carbon dioxide in the air because trees and other plants can use carbon dioxide and produce more oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Unfortunately, if these large, mature trees are cut down, the carbon dioxide builds up and traps more heat. The Effect on Evolution Since evolution is most simply defined as the change in species over time, how can global warming change a species? Evolution is driven through the process of natural selection. As Charles Darwin first explained, natural selection is when favorable adaptations for a given environment are chosen over the less favorable adaptations. In other words, individuals within a population that have traits that are better suited to whatever their immediate environment is will live long enough to reproduce and pass down those favorable traits and adaptations to their offspring. Eventually, the individuals that have less favorable traits for that environment will either have to move to a new, more suitable environment, or they will die out and those traits will no longer be available in the gene pool for new generations of offspring. Ideally, this would create the strongest species possible to live long and prosperous lives in any environment. Going by this definition, natural selection is dependent upon the environment. As the environment changes, the ideal traits and favorable adaptations for that area will also change. This could mean that adaptations in a population of a species that were once the best are now becoming much less favorable. This means the species will have to adapt and perhaps even undergo speciation to create a stronger set of individuals to survive. If the species cannot adapt quickly enough, they will become extinct. Polar Bears and Other Endangered Species For example, polar bears are currently on the endangered species list due to global climate change. Polar bears live in areas where there is very thick ice in the northern polar regions of Earth. They have very thick coats of fur and layers upon  layers of fat to keep warm. They rely on fish that live under the ice as a primary food source and have become skilled ice fishermen in order to survive. Unfortunately, with the melting polar ice caps, the polar bears are finding their once favorable adaptations to be obsolete and they are not adapting quickly enough. The temperatures are increasing in those areas which make the extra fur and fat on the polar bears more of a problem than a favorable adaptation. Also, the thick ice that was once there to walk on is too thin to hold the weight of the polar bears any longer. Therefore, swimming has become a very necessary skill for polar bears to have. If the current increase in temperature keeps up or accelerates, there will be no more polar bears. Those who have the genes to be great swimmers will live a bit longer than those who do not possess that gene, but, eventually, all will most likely disappear since evolution takes many generations and there just is not enough time. There are many other species all over the Earth that are in the same sort of predicaments as the polar bears. Plants are having to adapt to differing amounts of rainfall than what is usual in their areas, other animals need to adjust to changing temperatures, and still, others have to deal with their habitats disappearing or changing due to human interference. There is no doubt that global climate change is causing problems and increasing the need for a quicker pace of evolution in order to avoid mass extinctions all over the world.

My Career As A Software Developer Working For Metricstream...

Q1. I started my career as a Software Developer working for MetricStream where I worked on their proprietary platform â€Å"AppStudio†. â€Å"AppStudio† is a rapid application development tool which is built on top of another tool called â€Å"Enterprise Governance Risk Compliance Platform†(EGRCP) . Both these tools very tightly coupled together and most of my work involved adding new features and widgets to this tool. My first major project involved creating a widget for editing templates and emails associated with business workflow (Workflows were developed using Workflow Designer). The sponsor for this project was our team’s product manager. We decided to adopt agile methodology for the development of this feature. We spent about a week in the†¦show more content†¦At the end of first cycle, when we showed the UI to the product manager, he was not satisfied. He felt that the UI was not consistent with our current theme, and asked us to implement an altogether different theme. All our hard work involved I was laid waste. Since this was my first major project I was quite upset about it and in fact felt that I was to be partly blamed for this fiasco as I did not work harder to understand requirements. This change impacted not only our deliverables but also created bad breath amongst the product manager and team members. After the end of second cycle, however, when we delivered the revised theme to the product manager, he was highly impressed and commended us for being able to maintain the same timelines despite changes in the requirements and expectation. We all felt greatly appreciated and were highly satisfied with the results of our hard work. Unknowingly, to ensure that we did not mess up the deadlines, we had reduced the amount of time we spent on unit testing. This impacted our third cycle as more bugs than expected were reported during it and we spent more time than allocated on fixing it. Finally, when the product was showcased by the product manager to other stakeholders, our product was greatly appreciated for being intuitive, attractive and user friendly. I believe despite the fact the requirements were changed when it came to designing the user interface it was greatly beneficial as the customers

Contract Act in Australia Business Law

Question: Discuss about the Contract Act in Australia for Business Law. Answer: 1 (a)Issue To find the existence of consideration in the given situation, and comment whether there is an enforceable agreement between Jane and Jack. Law According to the requirement of the contract law, there are two requisite aspects for the conclusion of any valid agreement i.e. a lawful offer from the offeror and lawful acceptance from the offeree. However, lawful consideration is another vital factor for the parties to enter into an enforceable agreement (Carter, 2012). Consideration is the amount or any value in return to the respective offer. If the offer from the respective offeror is having lack of valid consideration as per the contract law, then such promise/offer is termed as gratuitous promise. No enforceable agreement can be enacted on the basis of the gratuitous promise (Gibson Fraser, 2014). Application In this situation, Jane the concerned offeror has offered her vehicle to Jack, because she has made a plan to go overseas and hence, she offers her car without asking for any return amount from Jack, while she knows that the real price of the car is $25,000. Jack the offeree has confirmed to take car from Jane without any conditions. According to the above facts and respective law, Jane has not asked for any return amount of the car from Jack. Hence, in this scenario, valid offer and acceptance is present. However, the given promise is gratuitous promise (lack of consideration), as Jane has not stated consideration amount from Jack, and it is essential that there must be some consideration amount for the enactment of enforceable agreement. Thus, there is no enforceable agreement for offeree Jack. Conclusion Hence, there is no enforceable agreement between the respective parties as consideration is absent. (b) Issue To find the existence of consideration in the given situation, and comment whether there is an enforceable agreement between Jane and Jack. Law The following key features are essential for the enactment of an enforceable agreement as per the provisions of contract law (Richard, 2003) Valid offer from the offeror Valid acceptance from the offeree Presence of valid consideration amount No counteroffer from the respective offeree It is essential that the offeror must mention the consideration amount for the exchange of the offer. It can be anything like a numeric value, any assessable object, any property etc. Even, few pieces of peppercorn is a valid consideration in return to a large house. It depends on the willingness of the parties who are entering into agreement (Taylor Taylor, 2015). Application Jane has clearly asked for the return amount of $25,000 of the car from Jack. This selling amount is exactly same as the real rate of the car i.e. $25,000. Jane asks a valid consideration amount of $25,000 and Jack is willingly to pay this consideration amount to Jane. Hence all the requisite features for an enforceable agreement have been satisfied by the parties. Conclusion Presence of valid offer, acceptance and consideration lead to enactment of an enforceable agreement between Jane and Jack. (C) Issue To find the existence of consideration in the given situation, and comment whether there is an enforceable agreement between Jane and Jack. Law An element for the enactment of any enforceable agreement is termed as adequacy of the consideration value. As per the relevant provisions of the contract law, valid consideration is sufficient for the parties to enter into an enforceable agreement, any small thing can also be considered for the consideration, equality of the consideration amount is not essential (Harvey, 2009). This can be explained in the arguments of the case Chappell v Nestle (1960) case, in which an empty small wrapper of chocolate was hailed as valid consideration. If any of the unsuspicious conduct has been encountered between the parties, then the adequacy of the consideration amount is needed and will be considered for the further decision (Paterson, Robertson Duke, 2015). Application In this situation, the offeror Jane has asked for a return amount of $ 2,500 in order to sell her car to Jack. This value of $2,500 specifically indicates the valid consideration, which is accepted by Jack. However, the next step to determine the presence of any unsuspicious conduct between them, because this offered amount is lower than the real rate of the car i.e. $25,000. As per the given information, Jane and Jack both are willingly accepted this consideration amount and no unsuspicious conduct is present between them. This indicates that both parties have an enforceable agreement in place. Conclusion All the respective elements required for the enactment of an enforceable agreement are fulfilled. Hence, an enforceable agreement is binding on given parties. 2. Issue The core issue is to discuss the relevant legal aspects of contract based on which and opinion needs to be tendered with regards to the claim made by North Ocean Tankers for recovery of $ 3 million. Law While consent is a key constituent of any enforceable contract, but at times this may be obtained through the usage of threat. Such situation is classified as duress and contracts involving duress are voidable as the agreement is not voluntary (Davenport Parker, 2014). The application of force may be physical or economic and both are accepted in the court as valid defences for recovering damages as has been made clear in the verdict of the Electrcity Generation Corporation t/as Verve Energy v. Woordside Energy Ltd. [2013] WA SCA 36 case. One of the key steps in order to establish duress is to prove that decision taken under duress would not have been taken in its absence (Pendleton Vickery, 2005). In case economic duress needs to be proven by the plaintiff, there are some indicators based on previous cases that need to be satisfied. Evidence needs to be present for indicating that superior economic position has been acted upon in bad faith to gain acceptance of plaintiff on a demand which is unreasonable (Carter, 2012). Under the influence of duress, the plaintiff should be left with no choice worth taking except giving in to the demand of the defendant. The agreement by the plaintiff is binding and hence results in contractual relation. The satisfaction of the above conditions leads to economic duress being proven which presents an opportunity to the plaintiff to recover losses caused due to unreasonable terms (Gibson Fraser, 2014). A very significant aspect is the timing of claim filing in such cases. The courts should be approached for relief at the earliest and if possible when the delivery of the product is completed. However, if immediate filing is not an option, the case must be brought before the court in reasonable time. The reasonable time has not been defined in any statute and essentially would be decided by the court only after taking into consideration the relevant circumstances and reason of delay (Pathinayake, 2014). A useful case highlighting the importance of timing in such cases is North Ocean Shipping v Hyundai Construction (The Atlantic Baron)[1979] QB 705 case (Carter, 2012). In this case, the plaintiff only filed for the claim when eight months had already gone from the delivery time. The court rejected the plaintiffs request for claim of damage even though it did recognise the plaintiffs right of holding the contract as void as economic duress was apparent. However, the beyond reasonable d elay resulted in the plaintiff providing tacit acceptance to the condition and thus making the contract valid (Harvey, 2009). .Application The given situation revolves around a contract for the building of tanker between North Ocean Tankers acting as the buyer and shipbuilder acting as the seller. The buyer enacted a charter with a customer for the under construction tanker. However, USD suffered a devaluation of 10% and hence the seller indicated that extra payment of $ 3 million was to be made. Since the executed contract between the parties had no clause regarding such payments, hence the buyer resented. However, the buyer was cornered with the threat of breach of contract which prompted acceptance. The payment was made and now nine months post tanker delivery, the buyer has brought the matter before court. The various elements of economic duress are apparent in this case. The seller by threatening to breach contract has misused their economic position and with the charter in place, the buyer had no alternative but to pay the $ 3 million to the shipbuilder. There was protest from the buyer as the payments were not in accordance with the executed contract. Thus, it cannot be denied that economic duress is present and it gives the buyer the right to hold the contract voidable and also claim damage within the passage of reasonable time. However, here the buyer waited for nine months before bringing the matter before the court. Clearly, taking a cue from the judgement in the North Ocean Shipping v Hyundai Construction (The Atlantic Baron)[1979] case, it seems that this delay is unacceptable and amounts to the contract becoming valid. Conclusion The discussion above clearly leads to the conclusion that the buyer i.e. North Ocean Tankers would not have success in the claim case brought before the court even though elements of economic duress are indeed present in the case. References Carter, J 2012, Contract Act in Australia, 3rd eds., LexisNexis Publications, Sydney Davenport, S Parker, D 2014, Business and Law in Australia, 2nd eds., LexisNexis Publications, Sydney Gibson, A Fraser, D 2014, Business Law, 8th eds., Pearson Publications, Sydney Harvey, C. 2009, Foundations of Australian law. 3rd eds., Tilde University Press, Prahran, Victoria Pathinayake, A 2014, Commercial and Corporations Law, 2nd eds., Thomson-Reuters, Sydney Paterson, J, Robertson, A Duke, A 2015, Principles of Contract Law, 5th eds., Thomson Reuters, Sydney Pendleton, W Vickery, N 2005, Australian business law: principles and applications, 5th eds., Pearson Publications, Sydney Richard S 2003, The Modern Law of Contract, 5th eds., Cavendish, London Taylor, R Taylor, D 2015, Contract Law, 5th eds., Oxford University Press, London

Night Dehumanization Essay free essay sample

To deprive of human qualities or attributes; divest of individuality. This definition scarcely scratches the surface of the horrifically inhumane conditions the Jewish people were placed under by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was dehumanized, and as a result of this dehumanization he became numb. At the beginning of the novel, Elie was a naive young Jewish boy with an incredibly strong faith, who wept â€Å"over the destruction of the temple† (Wiesel 14). By the end, years of concentration camp life have broken his spirit and Elie is no longer fazed by the death and torture occurring all around him (Wiesel 103). This numbness manifests itself in varying ways throughout Night, each more disheartening than the last. First, Elie loses his faith in God. He then becomes selfish, disregarding others completely at times. Finally, Elie loses his will to live, deciding that suffering is no longer worth it. Dehumanization occurs countless times during this memoir, and affects each of its victims differently. We will write a custom essay sample on Night Dehumanization Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Detachment due to dehumanization causes Elie to stop believing in God and His power. Before his family is deported, Elie is a very devout believer who reads Jewish texts on a daily basis and aspires to study the religion’s mysticisms for a living (Wiesel 14). Gradually, Elie stops thinking of the Lord as his Rock, questioning how He could allow such injustice to occur to His â€Å"Chosen People† (Wiesel 74). Eventually, Elie decides that he is actually stronger than God because he is incapable of making his problems simply go away (Wiesel 75). This clearly caused numbness for Elie because he speaks of a â€Å"great void† in the depths of his heart (Wiesel 76). Elie’s faith had been a huge part of his personality. Losing his relationship with God was the beginning of a total loss of his original identity. Suffering from dehumanization robs Elie of his compassion, and he becomes a rather selfish boy. When they first reach the labor camp, Elie’s only desire is to stay with his father, and he believes that everything will be all right as long as they are together (Wiesel 44). But later on after their separation, Elie learns of the selection, where the weak prisoners are â€Å"selected† to be sent to the crematory, and he is hyper-focused on his own life. The thought of his own father doesn’t even cross Elie’s mind until a full hour after the announcement (Wiesel 77). When his father is on his death bed, the head of Elie’s block explains to him that it is impossible to maintain any relationships in a concentration camp. â€Å"Everyone lives and dies for himself alone,† he says, and unfortunately Elie comes to believe him after fighting it for so long (Wiesel {}). Selfishness is a heartbreaking outcome of the numbness that follows dehumanization. Lastly, dehumanization takes away Elie’s desire live. He is incredibly disturbed by the killings occurring at the beginning of Night, which one would expect given what he was seeing (Wiesel 41). Near the end of his journey however, Elie ceases to bat an eye at the death occurring all around him (Wiesel 109). In fact during the long march towards the final camp, he begins to wish it upon himself. Wiesel writes â€Å"Death wrapped itself around me till I was stifled. It stuck to me. I felt that I could touch it. The idea of dying, of no longer being, began to fascinate me. Not to exist any longer. Not to feel the horrible pains in my foot. Not to feel anything, neither weariness, nor cold, nor anything. To break the ranks, to let oneself slide to the edge of the road. † (Wiesel 92). All of the suffering he had undergone took from Elie the drive that had kept him going for so long in the first place, his yearning to survive. Elie Wiesel became a completely numb person because of all of the dehumanizing experiences he endured during the Holocaust. He strayed away from God, his father, and ultimately, himself. Dehumanization is an awful process, and no one should ever feel entitled to treat another person as less than human.