Review: US Government Supports Renewable Energy Systems.

Tittle of the Article: Here Comes The Sun Shower.

Author: Larry Hunter
Date of Publication: February 9, 2009
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/opinion/10hunter.html?ref=opinion


Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The Obama Administration will launch a program to develop renewable enery sources. It is expected that the program will also create jobs at the same time that it will serve to limit pollution by the use of sun's energy for solar hot-water systems, which is nowadays a well developed and relatively low-tech method.This method is an alternative to the electricity generating solar panels and it is believed to be more effective than the later.

Hot water systems can create the same amount of useful energy with fewer panels than the electricity generating solar panels method. Another advantage of hot water systems is that the cost to install it, is cheeper in comparision to solar panels. The hot water system also works better than panles in areas where there are less hours of solar sunlight.This means that in places like the southwest where there are more hours of direct sunlight per day much more energy can be produced.All these benefits make the hot water system a more effective method than the solar panels which are almost useless in some places of the world.

Since January, the government of the US is helping the homeowners of these systems with 30% of the install system cost for both, hot water and solar panels systems. Beside of the differences betwen them, the basic idea of the program is to encourage society to use sustainable energy which has no side effects for our natural environment.

Review: Think of stress as something good.

Tittle of the Article: I love stress.
Author: Cath Janes
Date of Publication: Saturday 31, January 2009
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jan/31/work-life-balance-stress-at-work



Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The article "I love stress" by Cath Janes deals with the wrong use that people makes of the word "stress". The truth is that there are more than 650 definitions of stress and even the most well-known specilaists don't know what it really means.

According to Cath Jnaes people perceive stress as a common way to interpret any feeling of anxiety everywhere. Stress is many times even perceived as a disease and sometimes, the problem is not so but a simple imposibility to cope with challenges in life. In other words, people confuse stress with lack of courage.

This doesn't mean that stress doesn't exist at all. It is real and in some occasions it can be really dangerous. Stress can easily be felt at workplace and turn up in a real disease, but what happens is that in most of the cases people just overeact when facing problems and exaggerate. It is then when people tend to assume that they are stressed.

An specialist on the field explains in the article that nowaday people tend not to assume that stress is an integral part of the workplace. It's something inevitable that goes hand in hand with work. If people assume stress like that it wouldn't be so much discussion about it.There are also specialists who belive that stress is not only common in workplace but also necessary since it forces people to their full potential.

Nowadays, there's a huge "stress industry" which supports the belief that stree should be erradicated from people's lives. People is encouraged to fight against stress, to assume that they are stress when they are not, and even to undergo medical treatments when it isn´t necessary.On the other hand, there are those who believe that stress makes people more resilient and helps to deal better with challenges of working life. According to the author of the article, this is the only way in which we should think about stress.

The less we ask, the less they learn.

I recently attended a meeting at my workplace in which my colleagues and I were given instructions as regarding the begining of classes and what the authorities of the school expects from us for the new year.
It really caught my attention what the headmistress ask to the literature teachers: "Don't insist on students reading Garcia Márquez or Borges, just ask them to read magazines". Inmediatly, a discussion begun between the headmistress and some of the teachers attending the meeting. They all argued about what students should or shouldn't be ask to do.
The truth is, as one of the literature teachers said, that there are objectives already planned by the Minister of Education of our province as well as content for each subject already decided, to which teachers should adjust as much as possible. It is supposed that those contents and objectives were carefully planned and are what students need to handle after leaving school. So, if we don't adjust, and teach whatever we want, we are not giving them the necesary elements, or what the system considers to be the necessary elements to develop in our society.
The headmistress seemed not to understood, or care about this, and continue arguing insisting on another truth: we cannnot demand students to read those kind of literature, before they learn to read. This demostrates the failure that our educational system is going trhough in which studenst arrive secondary school without having learn all the basic contents that they are suposed to learn previously. Nowadays we can easily find in our schools students of the higher courses of tehn secondary school who cannot read or spell words, or who have no reading comprehension skills at all.
Both sides were right. unfourtunatelly, anybody could reach to the conclusion of which is teh ebst way to dela with thi reality ( or theses realities). Towards the end of the meeting, the phsycopedagogue of the school said that the situation is such because students are every time asked to do less and less, and that maybe is time to start asking them to read what they are supose to read at secondary school, and try to revertwhat was done wrong in the past. we all left the meeting thinking of that words.....

Global Warming, Global Warning

I recently read an article about global warming and the lastest discoveries about the issue and I got really shocked about the fact then we have only 4 years left to save the planet. This was the declaration made by a climotologist of the United States who works for Nasa. This specialist has spent the last 20 years studying global warming and the green house effect caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
Another information that caught my attetion was that he was banned by the government authorities of the US and the UK in different oportunities for the declarations he made as regarding global warming. But now, he is not treated like that, but as the best specialist on climate change. What made the governments of UK, US and several other countries to consider him to be right on what he declares is the fact that it has been proved that he is telling the truth. It is truth what he predicts as it is truth what he said in the past.
The warnings of this man were listen by few people. And not so many countries joined with him in his fight against global warming. Now, we are suffering the consequencies of that. We are near the deadline, and just now we decided to listen. This is tipical of our kind, to listen to the truth and act when we are in real danger, near the end, insted of preventing.
We finally decided to listen to the ones who know about climate change, but this is only the very first step. What follows now is to act, and we should do that quickly.

Review: Global Warming, we should act quickly.

Tittle of the Article: We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead.

Author: Robin Mckie.
Date of Publication: 18 January, 2009
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-climate-change

Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

Jim Hansen, director of Nasa's Institute for Space Studies, is a distinguished climatologist who believes that the world's future generations are threatened by a global greenhouse catastrophe. As many other specialists on the field, Hansen points out the carbon dioxide emissions that derive from industry and transport as the main causes of the problem.
The US climatologist explained that the country new president, Barak Obama, has in his hands the last chance to save the world from the climate catastrophe. He says that humans have only four years left to save the world from melted sea caps, flooded cities, species extintion and spreading deserts.

The former president of the US, George Bush, didn't participate so much in the wolrd's attempts to stop carbon dioxide emissions, moreover, he didin't sing the Kyoto Climate Treaty. For Jim Hansen, Obama's first duty is to counteract the mistakes that the Bush administration did as regarding climate change in the past. He believes that the best option to start solving the problem of the carbon dioxide emissions will be a carbon tax, imposed to the world through political preassure. This will raise the prices of fuel across the world making the use ñless attractive.This should also be accompained with programs for bilding wind, solar and renewable energy plants.

The British administration banded Jim Hansen for the declarations he gave about climate change and the announcementshe gave on radio and TV warning the population about the issue. However, most of his reserches gave accurate information and now it is proved that he was right about climate change.

In 1998 he announced that global warming is to blame for the weather change and he persisted with this warning over time. In 2005, he confirmed that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and in this time the White House banned him because of that declaration.

Hansen has recently sent a letter to the actual goverment authorities of the US, Germany and the UK, countries which are responsible for most of the atmosphere carbon dioxide, asking them to join in the fight against of global warming, but unfortunately he is still waiting for an answer.

Review: Skateistan, a Park of Hope for Afghan Youth

Tittle af the Article: Skateboarding in Afghanistan Provides a Diversion From Desolation
Author: Adam B. Ellick
Date of Publication: January 25, 2009
Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/sports/othersports/26skate.html?pagewanted=1

Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

In the violent reality in which people live in Afghanistan, Oliver Percovich, a 34 years old skateboarder from Australia, tries to give youth a little bit of fun. In this country where war is an everyday reality, children find it very difficult to have the normal life a child deserves.

Violence, shootings and suicide bombers have become common aspects of their lives, taking into account that children in Afghanistan grow up among them.

Oliver Percovich has the will to open the first skateboarding school park of Afghanistan, which will offer Afghan youth an alternative to their violent and devastating reality.

Its important to recognize the will of Kabul authorities to approve Percovich's project although they didn't give him yet an official authorization.

For most of Afghanistan children, skateboarding will be their first sport. However more than offering them the chance to practise a sport and to have fun, Percovich's idea also has a democratizing sense. His school will try to "mend the nation's deep social and ethnic division". The skateboarding park will be open for children of all the country despite they social status and ethic origin. In this school children will have the posibility to share more time with other children of a different ethnicity as well as with children of a different economical position than their. The idea is to join Afghanistan youth under one single cause.

Afghanistan has the highest proportion of school age children in the world, according to the United Nations. For the vast majority of them, sports are virtually nonexistent and most public schools don't even have a playground. For Afghan children, a new positive environment is the best way to seek for a better future, and this is what Skateistan, the first skateboarding school of Afghanistan, will try to offer them.

Review: To Uploud Videos for You Tube Became a Job

Tittle of the Article: You Tube Videos Pull In Real Money

Author: Brian Stelter
Date of Publication: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/media/11youtube.html?hp


Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

Filming videos and uplouding them for You Tube used to be just a pastime for web surffers, but to many of them it has already become a full time job.

You Tube, the online video site, invited members of the web page to become "partners" of the company.

These people are an example of the Internet's democratizing effect. Sites like Yuo Tube allow anyone with a high speed connection to find audience and clientele, simply by posting material and promoting it online.

The director of product management for YouTube explains how the partners program grew including nowaday thousands of participants who have turned their hobbies into business.

Some of the You Tube partners are major media companies such as Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and Warners Brothers. But individual users are now able to compete alongside with them. You Tube denied to give the exact number on how much money partners earn on average but a spokesmen from the company said that "hundred of partners are making thousands of dollars a month".

Review: Tea Not Longer Profitable In China

Tittle of the Article: A County In China Sees Its Fortune In Tea Leaves Until a Bubble Burst
Author: Andrew Jacobs
Date of Publication: January 16, 2009
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/world/asia/17tea.html


Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The Southwest of China owns its prosperity to the production of green tea. It's brand of tea known as Pu'er enabled tea farmers and manufactures to become millionaries in the past. In recent yeras, the situation has changed dramatically due to the collapse of the tea market and as a result, thousands of Chinnese farmers became poor.

The few tea traders who survived the implosion of the Pu'er market admitted to be ruined. They explained that the rise and falls of the Pu'er market partly reflects the lack of investment opportunities that the government provides to the rural areas of the Southwest of China. They also affirmed that there's a concentration of cash in the big cities of the country.

The Southwest of China used to get crowded during the harvest and buyers came from all over the country to buy Pu'er tea. The prosperity encouraged producers to invest in the tea fields but after the crash of the market most were left with nothing but a valueless production of tea.
The fewer producers and farmers who survived the crash of the tea market hope the situation improves soon. There's an old belief in the southwest of china and that is that tea tastes better with age. For all those farmers who still have their production of tea in that area this is what gives them hope. They believe that al least they have a product that will be sold at a very high price, but only if the market reopens for them.

Review: Men And Women Change Roles Due To Recession

Tittle of the Article: As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men In Job Forces

Author: Catherine Rampell

Date of Publication: February 5, 2009

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/business/06women.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The recession that the US is experiencing in the post war era has left the country with more women employed that men, being the mayority of employers women for the first time in American history.

This is simple because women tend to be employed in areas which suffer less the ups and downs of the country's economy, such as education and health care. However, a study has revealed that women are less capable of being breadwinners. It is a fact that women have more permanent jobs than men but at the same time women also occupy the mayority of half time jobs with no health or unemployed insurance. These types of jobs have a lower salary than the average salary of men who generally work full time and in better conditions Even in full time jobs women are payed less than men.

Due to the recession women represent the 47.1 % of the work force in America and most people who loss their jobs were men. The problem is that despite women may be saffer in their jobs they find it very difficult to support a family.

To this situation women add the reality that they are also householders. They do most of the housework being employed or not. Husbands do lees work at home than wives, despite if they do have a job or not and this is the result of the way in which housework has been traditionally organized. And even if nowadays it is common for women to work outside home it is not so common for men to do the housework.

The recession the US is undergoing has put pressure on the roles of men and women and being more men unemployed than women has push husbands to help their wives with the house duty while women work outside.

Review: The Film Industry Vs. Internet Piracy

Tittle of the Article: Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios
Author: Brian Stelter and Brad Stone
Date of Publication: February 4, 2009
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/business/media/05piracy.html?em

Gabriela Garcia Fernandez

On July 2008, the film "Batman, The Dark Knight" arrived in theatres. With its premier Warner Brothers plannned an ambitious antipiracy campaign. Unfortunately, the campaing failed and by the end of the year 2008 more than 7 million people had already illegaly downlouded the film from the Internet.

This clearly demostrated that Hollywood is lossing the battle against piracy and that whatever measure they take, Internet users always find the way to obtain film copies, even when the films are not yet found in DVD. The online film piracy ends up then being a growing problem, contrary to what the film industry expected.

Specialists affirmed that for Internet users is quite easy to find an illegal copy of almost any film on the Net, which are in most of the cases free copies. The illegal copies can be dowlowded using computer programmes that anyone can have and install on their PC. As it is suggested in the article, the conclusion is that "anyone can find free copies of movies still in theatres, in a matter of minutes".

The problem when attacking illegal piracy is that many of the sites that allow free downloud of films and music are locatted in countries which have a low piracy control and are then, hard to monitor.

The result in what respects to the film industry is devastating. The Picture Association Of America has admitted that "illegal downloads are now responsible for about 40% of the revenue the film industry losses anually as a result of piracy". With this data, film producers have no other option that to admit that they are not able to win the battle against piracy whithout a bigger support from part of th Justice. Most part of the film industry declared that to have better laws in relation to the crime of Internet piracy will help them a lot.

Organic Food: Good For You And For the Earth

It is widely known that the quality of the food produced through agriculture has gone down due to the effects of pesticides and hormones that farmers use in their fields. The mass competition related to the production of food has obliged them to do everything they can to obtain bigger amounts of crops per year.And to counteract the effects of plagues a wide variaty of quimicals are being used. All these measures causes changes in the natural balance of the products. And the result, is a product full of hormones and quimicals, and less vitamines and nutrients.
On the other hand, there is a big group of farmers who choose to produce organic products. These means that they grow crops without additives of any kind, that’s why those products are called organic. These are products that consumers can eat in their natural state, without risking their health.
The big problem around organic food, is the cost of it. Since it is food of higher quality, the fields are fewer in comparision to conventional products, as well as the mount of consumers of them. The result of these is a high cost in a product difficult to find.
The benefits of organic food are widely known. The only last thing to do about it is to support it producers. If we all change our diets, little by little to a helthier one, we will be impoving our helath and life as well as supporting small producers who have the intention to offer consumers a healthy product.
Whats more, it has also been proved that the growing of organic food has less environmental side effects than the growing of convemntioanl food, since the fields are not treated with quimicals that polluted the earth. This is for me, another important reason to support the growing and the consumption of organic food.

Review: Experiment proved the benefits of Organic Food

Tittle of the Article: For Three Years, Every Bite Organic

Author: Tara Parker-Pope
Date of Publication: December 1, 2008
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/health/02well.html


Gabriela Garcia Fernandez.

The pedriatician and author Dr. Alan Greene conducted an experiment on himself in an attempt to prove if people can be 100 percent organic. He devoted 3 years of his life to incorporate organic food into the everyday living.

The experiment lasted 3 years because that is the amount of time it takes to have a breeding animal certifictaed organic by the Department of Agriculture.

Among the challenges that the experiment represented for Dr. Greene, to find organic food to eat was the most difficult one. Sometimes he dind't find organic food at all.

Dr. Greene experiment offered a new insight into the organic food industry. One of his most important discoveries was the fact that consumers can pay twice as much for organic food as for conventional products and to cut back the cost of an organic diet Dr. Greene said that consumers have to cut back on meat.

Dr. Greene took the experiment after wondering if becoming 100 percent organic might improve his own health. Three years later he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier, and he's rarely ill. All these benefits are proved to be the result of having eaten more vitamins and nutrients.

Alongside with his experiment, he proposed a consciuos rise about what organic food means, since he also discovered that few people know about it. In simple words, he explained that organic food means without pesticides, antibiotics or hormones.