Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Nobel peace prize speech

I really thought that the "GREEN BELT MOVEMENT" speech by Wangari Maathai was a really srong speech and had a lot of motivation behind it. Caring about the environment and taking care of trees is something that's ignored by the majority of the population. She emphasized this and also had made a big responsibility for everyone, especially women. Planting trees not only gives us shelter and food, but it also helps regulate the climate change in our planet. More people are taking action because people like her are stepping up and adressing these kinds of issues that are ignored throughout the world.
i chose to talk about the pictures. i went somali retuarent and all the arise a food they have.i interview one of the emplayee in the restuarent and he told me the restuarent was open 15 years. and cook all the food in every cultures. alot of deferent racial come to the restuarent. when i went their it seems they were so busy. actually he was nice guy he was asnwering every question that i ask him.

exploration 9

the speach that enteresting me most was nelson mandela the end of partheid. when he said" shall we live because we will have created a society which recognizes that all people are born equal, with each entiled in equal measure to life, liberty,prosperity, human rights and good governance."he basically saying that a nation should allow people have equal rights their human rights. the resond he said that because his country had segregation and he was fighting human rights.. he was one of the popular for freedom fighters like luther king. he stop the segregation that was going on in his country and brought the country great change.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Exploration 9: a Nobel speech by Kofi Annan

The United Nations in the 21st Centuary is a speeech by former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Annan starts the speech by remembering the bombing of the World Trade Center, and explains what needs to be done after the incident- what change needs to take place.
Annan warns the world that after the horror of September 11, a new security has flooded everyone's mind, and that instead of working as nations, we need to focus on the individual citizens of the Earth to bring global peace and prosperity. As Annan states in paragraph 6, "We must focus, as never before, on improving the conditions of the individual men and women who give the state or nation its richness and character." He basically says that to weave peace through the lives of all, we need to not just look at a macro perspective, but also look at the micro perspective. We need to look past the barriers of smiley politicans, and wipe the tears off the individual civilains. Only then can we achieve true world peace. Every human being is equal, and so everyone deserve the most fundamental rights, regardless of power, race, religion and culture.

Not much has been done since the speech to aid the situation, because people take the issue too lightly. They do not realize the great impact a better democracy can make- it can make our lives a lot easier by allowing for more prosperity. The issue has redefined the idea of democracy- it has enlarged the idea by stressing the value of every individual than whole nations. After the speech, an effort to allow more people in little cities to vote could be made.

Exploration 9

In the speech "A Planetary Emergency," Al Gore says that everyone on the earth is in jeopardy from the pollution that humans have emitted over the past few hundred years. This pollution is the cause of what we now know as global-warming. Gore informs, "So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun." Obviously, this severely effects our planet in a very negative way. Since this speech has been presented, there might have been a slight increase in awareness and recycling; however, if we are serious about preventing global-warming we are going to have to get to a point where there will be virtually no additional pollution emitted. This seems like a impossible task, but once all the nations/cultures of the world (most importantly the United States) gets on board with "getting green," we might be able to make this happen. I think that additional pollution-preventing laws are going to be inevitable to keep our environment safe, though.

Response to a nobel speech

As Wangari Maathai said, "Entire communities come to understand that while it is necessary to hold their governments accountable, it is equally important that in their own relationships with each other, they exemplify the leadership values they wish to see in their own leaders, namely justice, integrity and trust." This quote is a really great issue that affect every country. We as individuals all blame our governments for the foods that we eat, the diseases that we have and even the smells that we whiff through our nostrils everyday. What we do not pay attention to is that we make up the government. We put those foods in our mouths and we are the basic structure of the government.
In everyday lives we all here people blame the president for everything that is going wrong in the economy, even global warming but we as individuals are the people who hate to recycle and pollute the environment not the president. Wangari's speech makes a lot of sense because like telling a person to feel good about his/herself to be confident is the same as fixing our individual leaderships before we can talk about that of the government's.
What has been done about this since this speech? I don't believe much because as humans we feel much more better blaming others than facing the truth so i believe this situation of blame is a long way from solved.
What could be done is us as individuals taking a stand and stop blaming our governments and gear toward building our own individual leaderships, then coming together to help the big leadership in general.

Exploration 9: Responding to a Nobel Speech

The speech I though to be most interesting was Nelson Mandela's, The End of Apartheid (1993). He really ephasizes the simple things that people have taken for granted like equality, democracy, and justice. My favorite passage was, "The value of our shared reward will and must be measured by the joyful peace which will triumph, because the common humanity that bonds both black and white into one human race, will have said to each one of us that we shall all live like the children of paradise" (631). Nelson lends credit for his Nobel peace prize to many people not just himself, because the effort of the nation brought an end to injustice. He also references the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Since the speech, there has been a large effort to bring democracy to other nations in Africa. Not only that, but all over the world, things are changing and for the better. There is always room for growth in the future. But for now, I think that the only thing that can be done to continue to move forward is to share the idea of democracy to the world. Also, to portray equality in our own lives.

Exploration 9

The Nobel Price to Wangari Maathai, "The Green Belt Movement" (2004) was very influential to me. By experiencing poor environment in Kenya when she was a child, she thought she could change the place. When she was young, she saw destroying the forests, lack of water, and poor rate of income. She helped by planting trees, which became a symbol of peace, by African women and ended up planting 30 million trees. They plant those trees on farms, schools, and churches. The trees helped to create an environment, clean water, and provide food.
The change she made was beneficial because other people who lived in Kenya had not experience what she experienced when she was a child. She was giving people a better life. So by planting trees, not only she made better lives, she also made better environments. She made a big contribution to the well being of everything.

Wangari Maathai

I found Wangari Maathai’s impact in Africa to be particularly interesting. She says much of her motivation for what she did came from her childhood and was nurtured by a good education. I found it interesting how she focuses on the women of Kenya and how they are the ones who are most affected by environmental damage. She talks about how since the women are the caretakers, they notice when recourses to feed the family are diminishing. She came up with a solution to meet the needs of the women of Kenya, “we have planted over 30 million trees that provide fuel. Food, shelter and income to support their children’s education and households needs.” Maathai had to help the women realize that “meeting their needs depended on their environment being healthy and well”.

The Green Belt Movement also developed a “citizen education program” to help people understand the connections between their society and the environment. The program educates people in diseases particularly HIV/AIDS and how much of a pandemic it can be. They discover they can be a solution to stopping disease and healing the earth.

This issue is an example that can be used world wide of how we can be solutions to the damaged earth. We can reverse some of the damage. The Green Belt Movement is doing a great job in not only taking action directly on the earth, like planting trees, but also spreading the knowledge and educating others on how to help.

exploration 9 response to A Planetary Emergency

The speech that I found inportant was "A Planetary Emergency" by Al Gore. In the speech he talks about global warming which is an issue that affects the entire world. It is an issue that affects the whole world because we are destroying our atmosphere by the pollution that we produce today. He says, "Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger or creating a permanent "carbon summer". Some changes that have been made to aid the situation or help reduce global warming are the smart cars, green tires, hybrid cars, and semi-world alliance has been formed. I agree with Al Gore that a world alliance should be formed. Currently, we have an alliance but not a full alliance of all the world and I think we should strive for that. I also think that we, especially as Americans, should watch the amount of CO2 that we produce.

Exploration 9 Nobel speech

The noble speech "A Planetary Emergency(2007) by Al Gore sent a really strong message to everyone in the world about global warming. He is trying to persuade the people stop doing something wrong, which will affect everyone in the near future. In his speech he says that " So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun."(616) this is shows the readers how important this problem to our life and also we can see that Al Gore gives us lot of scientific information throughout his speech. As we here in news that glaciers are melting in the northern region and animals living are either dieing or moving to a new location were they can survive. we could also be in the same situation if we don't stop polluting the world. Nowadays, people around the trying to find new ways to reduce this pollution, for example car companies like Toyota, created a new hybrid which has low emissions and could make big difference in the world. Also i feel that people should try not to use cars for short distances, this could reduce the level of carbon emissions.

I found the speech given for the United Nation very interesting and it contained many elements that helped the reader realize that there is a similarity between all humans and that we are all part of the “human family”(627) I feel like this speech called us to action to promote the welfare of all people all across the world. It describes three main priorities “eradicating poverty, preventing conflict, and promoting democracy.”(627) It says that these are the visions of the United Nations but the speech invokes feeling that seems to evoke the audience or reader that they have a responsibility and a role in bettering today’s world. I also like how the speech unites the peoples of the world through similarities in religion. Although some beliefs of various religions differ they share many aspects which include “ to love our neighbor and to pray for those who wish to persecute us”(628) I find this speech the most influential of them all because it not only states the facts and goals of the United Nations but still leaves us with a sense of responsibility to accept the wonderful diversity of the human family.

Exploration 9

This issue effects our world greatly, it is about our world. Every one knows about global warming and it's effects. However, there are skeptics to the theory which makes the process of reversing global warming effects nearly impossible. Al Gore stated in 2007 "70 million tons of global warming pollution was dumped into a thin shell of the atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer..... As a result the Earth has a fever. And the fever is rising." He goes on to talk about the polar ice cap and how scientists predict that in as little as seven years the ice cap could completely disappear.
Sadly, to my knowledge, not much has happened for this cause. Global warming is a very touchy issue. Many people do not want to deal with it at all. So it take quite a bit of time for any rules or regulations to pass about this hot topic. I think that a lot, however, could be done. We could take little steps to insure our world will not change drastically. We need to take steps to stop or reverse global warming before it is too late for us or even our grandchildren.

A Planetary Emergency

"A Planetary Emergency" is a Noble Peace Prize speech made by Al Gore, who is the former vice president. Al Gore is an environmental activist and in his speech, he drew our attention to the current climate change issue.
He said, "We are what is wrong, and we must make it right". He is calling for people to change. We human is the major reason for global warming and the rapid climate change. In order to raise our living standards, we do a lot of harmful things to the originally green environment. Today, the concern is how to best utilize lands which is already cleared by massive deforestaion, we ignored the fact that we are the largest greenhouse gases emitters and keep on damaging the natural environment. Al Gore told us how extreme the temperature is nowadays, and how rapidly the glaciers are melting, which cause the rise in sea level and floods in some places. There are tsunamis, earthquakes and different kinds of natural disasters happening in the past few years which proves that the climate is getting worse day by day. There are sayings that the world will end because of the twisted climate but Al Gore's speech made it clear that we still have the chance to make thing right and we should start making peace with the planet and the nature.
I think that there's a lot we can do in our daily lives in order to save ourplanet. We can turn off electrical devices when we're not using it, we can recycle paper and simply go green. Al Gore mentioned that China and the United States are the largest CO2 emitters in the world. China and the United states are the world's leading economic power, however they are also contributing the most in destroying our planet. I think that the government should start making measures for conserving our natural environment and raise public awareness of the importance of environmental protection. We should all contribute in "making peace" with the planet because we are the one who will bare all the enormous consequences if we keep damaging it.

A Planetary Emergency (2007)

The noble lecture presented by U.S House of Representatives Al Gore was directed towards the quick shifting of our world's climate change and other destructive issues created by mankind that are about to put us in a major crisis.
The horrible affect is proven as Gore states, " So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun." I felt that this was one of the most moving sentences in his whole speech. It really put things into perspective for people to realize the drastic damage we are doing to the very world that we live in, and possibly creating our own death sentence. Reading this speech, I think that Al Gore is a great speaker and uses many good metaphors such as " The Earth has a fever. And the fever is rising" and catching sentences to keep the audience engaged.
I think this speech could have helped build the turning point to so many people in the mass movement to "go green" and positively change our planet. This issue continues to affect our world and there are two choices we can make. The first is to sit back and continue to the damage until eventually animals along with so many trees and other CO2 inhibitors are so wiped out, the world will be unlivable. The second is to continue to work towards cleaning our own mess we have created such a pollution, deforestation and limited space and take little steps into cleaning up our environment. Since then, there have been growing campaigns and companies working to creating "greener" grocery bags, lighting, chemicals and other uses that have already made a huge impact in our everyday lifestyles. As we continue to slowly change our bad habits, we can train younger generations to do the same in a way they only see acceptable.

The United Nations

Kofi Annan The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize along with the United Nations. The reason they won was for, “their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.” That was the main idea of Kofi Annan’s Nobel speech, The United Nations in the 21st Century (2001). He wanted to change the world for the better. His message was to break the separation and the gap that is widely noted throughout the world based on race or religion. He said that we should look deeper and find truth, basically in every person and accept what they have to share with us as a nation. The main reason the United Nations was created was to bring forces together and find the value of every person. They also wanted to protect people’s peace and progress made.
One passage I really liked from his speech was, “ We understand, as never before, that each of us is fully worthy of the respect and dignity essential to our common humanity. We recognize that we are the producst of many cultures, traditions and memories; that mutual respect allows us to study and learn from other cultures; and that we gain strength by combining the foreign with the familiar.” This makes me think of compromise. Two people struggling to get along, what is the best solution? I think is it to compromise. Both ideas could be goo but together they could be great. Having ideas from several cultures and sever races or religions could help us all as a whole. We will never know unless we try. I feel as though some people are open and understanding but at the same time we could be doing more.
I don’t think very much is being done to bring the nations together, to break down the wall separating everyone. Instead I feel like sometimes nothing is being done or it looks like nothing is being done. We are all trying to live in America and earn our way but if people are not letting others then how is anything going to get accomplished. Many people say they are open to change but maybe they just say that to make themselves feel like a better person because when it comes down to it, most people go back on their word because change is different. That’s what change is. And change scares people. I think people need to be more open about things that need to change and the only way to do this is try to make a change for themselves.

Exploration 9

Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem De Klerk's Nobel Peace Prize speeches were powerful to me. Even though they both had different views they both wanted the same thing, peace, stability, progress, and prosperity. De Klerk says in his speech, "We will do it-and many others will do it with us- because there is no other road to peace and prosperity for the people of our country. In the conflicts of the past, there was no gain for anyone in our country. Through reconciliation all of us are now becoming winners." They wanted hope for their country and looked towards the future instead of looking at past mistakes. They both believe that as long as they give hope to the people, the future will be better.
This affects our world greatly. If people don't agree and work together there will never be world peace. I think there will always be a controversy going on somewhere in the world, but if we focused more on the future and we could eliminate huge problems that could occur. Mandela and de Klerk did not see eye to eye on things, but they came together and gave the world hope.

A Planetary Emergency

Al Gore's speech titled, "A Planetary Emergency" was very thought provoking. He started out the speech by explaining was a planetary emergency was, and it was very helpful for me as a reader: "confronting a planetary emergency- a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here." I thought this was very important because it made me feel like we have to take immediate action on this issue because it is happening right in front of us today. Also, Al Gore gives the earth human characteristics by saying that, "The earth has a fever and the fever is rising." It is scary to think that bad things are happening to our planet that will effect not only our lives, but all of the generations to come if nothing is done to prevent it. 
I believe that a key idea in this speech is that global warming, due to pollution, will destruct our planet. Al Gore uses very important facts stating that major cities in our country and several other countries are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Also, people living on low-lying Pacific Islands have to evacuate from their homes. Al Gore used a very powerful quote at the end of his speech saying, "In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, "Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk." This was very significant because I think he is saying that nobody is going to do the job for you, you have to pave the way for yourself. I believe that this speech created awareness for thousands of people around the world and will encourage countries to work together. The world needs to step up and make the world a cleaner place if we do not want to create a "permanent carbon summer."

Exploration #9: Resping to a Nobel Speach

The Noble Speech titled, “The United Nations in the 21 St Century (2001),” by Kofi Anna, was a words of motivation. I believe the overall intention of the speech was to make the world a better place to live in regardless of color, race, religion, and so on. The united nation was created to stop the violence that’s going on around world. The world is not a safe haven for all of us, there are people suffering in Africa and all around the world, lack of freedom, and the violence is at the top of the ladder. There were several key passages in the speech, but the one that stood the most to me was, how Kofi Annan used the Quran, Bible, Torah, and Buddhist tradition. he mentioned, “The Quran, for example, tell us that, we created you from a single pair of male and female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other.” Today people are killing each because of tribes, and how every tribe wants to be on top and have the higher power. Tribes are there, so that we might recognize each other and know where we came from, but it is not there, so that we kill each other; commit great crime onto the innocent civilians. He continued, “Each of us has the right to take pride in our particular faith or heritage. But the notion that what is ours is necessarily in conflict with what is theirs is both false and dangerous.” This affects our world, because if everyone continues being hardhead then innocent people will continue losing their lives and the past will never be solved. Since the speech, things have just been getting worse although the UN is trying to be great peacekeepers; still there are no solutions to stop the crimes that’s happening all over the world. We have the war in Iraq, suicide bombers, war on terrorism, tribal conflicts, racism, and so on. In order to get things done, I believe that our world must work together, each nation should take responsible for their action, and we must educate our children and create a loving and caring community all over the world in order to prevent hatred.

Monday, March 1, 2010

The United Nations

The key idea in the Nobel speech titled," The United Nations of the 21st Century (2001)," by Kofi Annan, is to make the world an overall better place. The United Nations was created in order to join forces and create a better sense of peace, security and and growth for all kinds of people. More recently it has become a place of sanction for many people, in regards to their race and religion. The point that stood out to me the most in this acceptance speech was the part of immigration. In the speech, Annan writes, "The rights of the individual are of no less importance to immigrants and minorities in Europe and the Americas than to women in Afghanistan or children in Africa. They are as fundamental to the poor as to the rich; they are as necessary to the security of the developed world as to that of the developing world" (627). He is trying to get the point across that each and everyone of us is significant in our own, unique way. I think this issue (meaning immigration,) affects our world in particular because many immigrants from mostly Mexico, and South American countries immigrate to the United States, and are called/portrayed as being "aliens." My father and his family are immigrants from Colombia, South America, and I know first hand, and can guarantee you that they are not aliens. Calling them this gives us a sense that they are completely different, and do not stand for the same values that we Americans do. This is not the way things should be. We call it the "American Dream," and America is the "melting pot," then we should be able to accept these people who are in search of this dream.
In my opinion, I do not believe that there has been much down to help aid this situation. Yes, America has become more open to the idea of allowing immigrants into this country, but so many people are ignorant. They may chose to not see the hardship and struggle that these people might be facing back in their home country. Some further things that we could do in order to better this situation, is sit down and look at the issue threw their eyes. We should try and understand their struggle, and instead of calling them "aliens," maybe we can call them a father in search of a better life for his family.

Essay 3 Ideas

One option I have come up with for essay number 3 is to take pictures at the mosque. THe mosque I visit every Friday that I am available is called The Omar. It is located off of North Broadway and every week I see the same woman wearing their usual veils and hijab. Usually I am one of the last to take my spot before the prayer begins but I see the same woman in their same spots sitting next to the same sisters they normally would sit be. As they sit there in silence I always wonder what each of them thinks about as the prayer goes on. I think for myself but then wonder about the other ladies. I think through a picture I could really capture deep emotion and thought.

Another option I have which doesnt interest me as much would be to do prompt 1 from The Essay Connection. Where I am to research 3 Noble Prize winners. I would defintely do Barack Obama as one of the winners because it shows how far our genertaion has come. I need to do more reaserch and see what else I can find. I am sure this will be difficult but well worth it.