Additional post, Autism

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability. People who have this kind of disease are in need for a help. In this article I will mention the causes of the autism, the characteristics of the affected people and what we can do for them.



Investigators are still searching for the causes. However, they suggested that it might be a matter of genetics and environment. Children who are born with autism, they grow up with it.
Autistic people aren’t the same. There is some difference. They are divided into 3 groups;



§ People having difficulties with social communication like understanding body language, jokes and facial expressions.



§ People having difficulties with social interactions like recognizing other people’s emotions and feelings. This make them appear as if they have no feelings. Also they like to be alone rather than spending time with other people.



§ People having difficulties with social imagination like understanding other’s behavior, predicting what’s going to happen and planning for the future. Children with autism are stick to some imaginary games and they keep playing the same game over and over.



In a conclusion, whatever we do we can’t eliminate the effects of autism. But we can give them the support. Specialists can evaluate each case and try to work on their weaknesses. At the end they are humans and they need our help as well as we are when we need a hand.






Bibliography:



"Autism, what is it?" The National Autistic society. .

Additional post, Pizza

Many people think pizza was first created by Italians. It is true that they are the best in making it, but it has been originated somewhere else. I will show a brief history of pizza and the reason why people think it’s originally Italian.



It was first made by the early Greeks who were making round flat bread and they added herbs, oil, spices and dates to it. In the 18th century, the idea of the round bread flew to Italy were they name it “Pizza”. The Neapolitans had their touch on it by adding tomatoes to it. It was sold in the streets to the poor in Naples. Queen Margherita had tasted it during her tour in the Italian kingdom. So, she brought a chef from his pizzeria to the palace to make a selection of pizzas for her. Chef Rafaelle Esposito decided to make a special pizza for her by adding the colors of the Italian flag to it and it became the queen’s favorite food.



Now, Pizza has spread to most of the countries all over the world, and the queen’s pizza is sold in most of the pizzerias in the world having her name on it and people are enjoying it.






Bibliography



"Pizza history." In mama's kitchen.

Task7: Deforestation

Deforestation is the logging or burning of trees in a forested area. Humans do that for many reasons. They can sell their woods or burn them to turn them into charcoals and use their lands to serve their own benefits without being concerned about the consequences of that. In this research I will mention some advantages of the trees, the effects of deforestation and some possible solutions to reduce the problem.

Planting trees is a method to offset carbon emission by absorbing Carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. However, forests affect weather and climate. When it rains, water goes to the roots of the trees. They exchange gases with the atmosphere and lose water in the same way by the pores in their leaves. The water loss makes these trees let their materials out to the sky to replenish the clouds. As long as the water loss is not more than its need, then it is beneficial and it keeps raining. Once these forests are cut, rainwater will become like a river flowing to seas and let this area dry (Effects). Besides that, with their wood we make things that we can’t let go with them such as plywood products, furniture, papers, fibers, gums and the list goes on. Trees provide shelters for people and animals. It can offer us beautiful scenery as well.

Almost half of the United States and almost all of Europe were forested (Global). It has been destroyed. I am wondering if the destroyers ever think about the consequences. One is that the sun keeps on hitting this area, the soil gets heated and there is nothing to prevent the water from quickly evaporating into the atmosphere. So, the soil become dry then cracked (Effects). In addition to that, trees release water vapor into the atmosphere. Therefore, less trees means less rain. Deforestation can also cause flooding. Trees can lessen the impact of winds associated with the storm. Also in the rainforests there is a very little possibility to find some plants which contains materials that can be used in some medicines (Graf). Once these rainforests destroyed, the hopes are gone. That exactly what happened in Brazil in the 70’s and the beginning of the 80’s (Deforestation).

These days, the cautionary have increased, but still the deforestations rates have not decreased. Food and Agriculture Organization “FAO” said that deforestation rates increased by 8.5 percent from 2000-2005 when compared it with the 90’s (A WORLD). Food companies are mostly behind that. They bought the lands, cut down the trees and turn it into a farm, plant whatever can increase their selling rates and other plants to feed their cattle.

In a conclusion, governments have to set rules to cut trees. Specially the baby ones. They shouldn’t cut more than their needs. As individuals, we can reduce that by following some plans like recycling things we usually use like paper and shopping bags. It takes just days to destroy a forest, but it would take years to grow a single tree.

Bibliography

"Global Deforestation." Global Change. University of Michigan. http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html

"Effects of Deforestation." Earlham. Ed. Robert K. Innes. 20 Nov. 1996. Innes Production. http://www.earlham.edu/~pols/17Fall96/inneske/effects.HTM

"Deforestation in the Amazon." Mongabay. Ed. Rhett A. Butler. http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.html

A WORLD Imperiled: FORCES BEHIND FOREST LOSS." Mongapay. http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0801.htm

Graf, Christine. "The vanishing Amazon and the fight to save it." Feb. 2009. Resources and e-learning. Hct, Abu dhabi. http://0-find.galegroup.com.library.hct.ac.ae/srcx/retrieve.do?subjectParam=Locale%2528en%252C%252C%2529%253AFQE%253D%2528su%252CNone%252C13%2529deforestation%2524&contentSet=IAC-Documents&sort=DateDescend&tabID=T003&sgCurrentPosition=0&subjectAction=DISPLAY_SUBJECTS&prodId=SRC-1&searchId=R1&currentPosition=7&userGroupName=971hctnet&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&sgHitCountType=None&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28SU%2CNone%2C13%29deforestation%24&inPS=true&searchType=BasicSearchForm&displaySubject=&docId=A198349195&docType=IAC

Cool Cities

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there have been some of the problems connected to the economic development like energy consumption, rising population and CO2 emission that were affecting on our environment. Precisely, we need to decrease the amount of CO2 emitted into the air. Lately, there was a Japanese company named (SDCJ) that tried to give a solution to this problem by designing a cool city. But for me it doesn’t seem to be the right solution.
Economically, companies which are handling these projects will have to pay millions or maybe billions to build these cities. However, for some people these cities would be too expensive to live in. These cities can take up to 50000 people (Masdar’s). This means a huge number of such cities are needed. Therefore, more billions are to be thrown on these projects. I don’t think they can provide it.
Also it is kind of difficult for some people to live in these cities if they are used to live in large ones because it has a limited space. Yes there will be solar panels and wind turbines but it is walled (Masdar’s) which would make some people feel like they are locked up.
In a conclusion, I don’t think it’s a good idea to build these cities because it will be just for people who can afford to pay and live in such cities. Freedom is one of the main reasons for happiness and we may miss a apart of it if we lived in a walled residence

Bibliography

"Masdar's green dream is not forall." The national (2009). The national. 08 May 2009. .

Task 5: Carbon footprint

A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). I have measured my carbon footprint in two websites. I am going to report them here.

In the first website, there was a four category questions to get some information about my life. It asked about the food am eating, the way I use for travelling and the kind of households am using plus the way of using them. My score was 2.56 (WWF). The second website asked about the consumptions for UAE households. It shows and measures our footprint in some categories like cooling, drying, etc. The result was 1.4(Heroes of the UAE).

My average from the two websites is 1.98. I compared it with my mates Basel and Khalil. My average and the average of khalil are almost equal with little more for khalil. While basel is ahead of us by nearly 0.5. Our results were ay below our country’s average which is 10.33.

If we want to save our little home, the earth, we should work on reducing our carbon footprint as much as we can. We can do that by reducing our use of energy. We can dry our clothes by hanging them under our lovely sun instead of the electrical dryers. We can travel by buses or trains in the future hopefully instead of cars.



Bibliography
"Carbon footprint calculator." Wwf. .
Heroes of the UAE. .

An Inconvenient truth

Millions of people have watch the movie "An Inconvenient truth" by Al Gore. Many of them have given their reviews on it and they are split in two. Positive reviews which is the most and negative reviews.

Many people think the movie was horrible. Some of them think that it was a 96 minutes commercial supporting Al Gore in the Elections (Hall). While some others see that he is trying to make himself the savior for the earth(Carr).




On the other hand there are people who ignored the film's political subtext and simply concentrate on the message (butler). Saying that it's real, we're responsible for it and we can do something about it without ruining the economy. But thinks that we are running out of time.



In my opinion, I agree that we should focus on what Al Gore is trying to deliver. He may have done all that for a reason. But we should work from now to save the next generations.



Bibliography

Butler, Robert. "Reviews of An inconvenient truth." Rotten tomatoes. 16 June 2006. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/?page=3&critic=columns&sortby=date&name_order=asc&view=#contentReviews

Carr, Kevin. "Reviews of An inconvenient truth." Rotten tomatoes. 9 June 2006. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/?page=4&critic=columns&sortby=date&name_order=asc&view=#contentReviews.



Hall, Phil. "Reviews of An inconvenient truth." Rotten tomatoes. 02 June 2006. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconvenient_truth/?page=8&critic=columns&sortby=date&name_order=asc&view=#contentReviews

An Inconvenient truth

Al Gore has talked about the global warming in the movie"An inconvenient truth". He talked about the causes and why it is a serious issue.

CO2, which is released by us, humans, increases as our needs increases, is the main reason. However, the increasing of CO2 means the temperature will increase as well. Therefore, The results of that has started slowly that people in some areas of the world don't feel it. That's why they are not aware of it. However, hot temperature will cause many crisis. Ice in the Arctic ocean will melt rising the sea level all over the world. Because of that alot of people will be affected. Specially people who are living in small islands or on the coasts. That will affect polar animals and fishes as well.

we should start from now to think about the future. Our future and the future of our kids. We should also think about keeping the earth green and beautiful.