April 19 writing

Jeremy Williams
4/19/10

Warm, Warmer, Warmest

“Warm, Warmer, Warmest” by Nicholas D. Kristof, is yet another piece of writing on global warming. It’s been a fad for the last few years in the media and seems to keep growing. This is another example of “facts” and examples of when the earth is going to be covered by water. This particular writing talks about glaciers mainly, saying they are melting at an alarming rate which will raise sea levels. The author talks about the immediate importance of this issue and that people are not taking it as serious as we should. In the end of the article he even lists his ideas to stop global warming, what a shock two of them came in the form of taxes, this made me laugh. Overall an informative story on different examples and situations of global warming.

Electronic Corpses

The story “Electronic Corpses” by Pierre Haski is about a part of Southern China which specializes in recycling of waste from richer countries. They get things like computers, strip them apart, and then do as they please with the parts. The story then goes into talking about the dangers of these people who work in the plants. All the chemicals they are exposed to, breathing in and around all day. According to the story they wear no protective gear and just do as they are told. The story goes into not just the health of the workers but also its negative effects on the environment. At the end of the story they talk about the environment, but also that if the government puts too much regulation, they will not be able to feed their families.

A Clone is Born

The third story, by Gina Kolata, is called “A Clone is Born.” This story is about the famous sheep “Dolly” who was a clone. The story goes on to talk about a little bit of history of science and then goes into the making of Dolly. The scientist who developed Dolly, Ian Wilmut, goes on to talk about the endless possibilities of cloning, from going back in history and cloning historical figures, to making clones of oneself. I thought it was interesting that after he cloned the sheep, he said there is no reason that a human cannot be cloned, but “all of us would find that offensive.” So even though he discovered the way to do it he still did not believe it was right to clone humans. The story then goes on to talk about all the religious beliefs that would come and go with the cloning of humans and the effect that would have on people. I think this was a very good story with tons of information. It goes not only into the process of cloning, but also the effects, religious and otherwise.