The green revolution : A summarized version

take a look at what green revolution is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HucSCNQ01X4

Health or Food for all? That is the question.

Dr Terry Sicular from the department of economics at the University of Western Ontario was the fourth speaker at the Biology 4243G lecture series.  Dr. Sicular’s topic was Green Revolution (GR), which is the plan to change agriculture technology. In order to increase or multiply harvest all around the world with the aim to cure world hunger in low developed countries (LDCs).  Dr. Sicular gave us a look at GR history, its creator, some of the outcomes of GR and the lessons learn from the development of GR.

Briefly, she talked about Norman Borlaug an agronomist and the father of The GR. She showed us all the efforts he made to fight world hunger, through the use of science.  Borlaug was so effective that his efforts won him a Nobel Peace Prize which was the first one being science related. After going through the GR history, Dr Sicular went through the consequences that GR has brought to the world in the economical and scientific sense. Some of the things that she talk about was the consequence of irrigation dependency causing salination of solid  and the farmers having to spend money on new technologies replacing some of its workers for machines. At the end, Dr Sicular said that we shouldn’t analyze GR as a matter of right or wrong but, instead how can we make this better for all.

Something Intriguing from this lecture for me, was that Green Revolution has been around for 71 years and this is the first time I heard of it. Something new or transcending that I learn about GR is high yield varieties in maize, wheat and rice. This is transcending for me, because these products were genetically modified to dwarf versions so that they could grow in more types of soils and absorb more nitrogen. Something that I find controversial is the health related issues that the new technologies and methods might bring to humans when they consume these types of foods, and the risks that farm workers are exposed. The amounts of pesticides are harmful and they have more chances of getting cancer. So the controversy  is  that in one hand the modification of  farming methods to produce more food helps the hungry , but is it worth it  if these methods affect our health?. Another controversy is the loss of jobs and debts that some farmers have to face. The new methods to multiple crops require some equipment, which costs money and replaces human workers. So most farmers have to ask for loans in order to buy this equipment and some are on debt. Plus, farm workers are being replaced by machines. So, if people don’t have jobs how are they going to afford to buy the food they need without a proper job.

No everything is negative about GR.  In my opinion is a great idea, because it helps the production of crops in a world that is becoming more and more urbanized and the fact that we have methods to multiply the crops give us a peace of mind.  Also the multiplication of these crops helps feed a lot of children in many parts of the world that are not getting lots of food.  I agree with Dr. Sicular that instead of inventing something new, we should use what we have now and try to improve it.  We have a lot of ground to improve on. For example the health and pesticide problems and developing new methods of multiplication like in the deserts. If something new is created it would add more problems to the ones we already have.

Are we joiners or thinkers?

In the third installment of the Biology 4243g lecture series, Dr. Graham Smith from the department of geography at University of Western Ontario talked about ecomyths, specifically global warming. The key points in his lecture were:

•Smith beliefs Global Warming is a myth created by politicians for power and money.
•Smith claims that climate is very dynamic and complex therefore is poorly understood.
•He claims that governments use media such as emotive pictures to promote alarmism, in order for people to belief on an idea such as global warming and thereby justifying government spending.
•Says that CO2 is not to blame as it is a trace gas in the air.
•He also defined two key terms Climategate which is the misconduct by scientist to manipulate data in favour of global warming and Axiomatic Dogma which are statements that sound too evident to question or provide proof.
•Finally, Smith says that politics and science are not the same, and when they mix, they take advantage of the public’s criteria.

What I learned from Dr Smith was that we should not conform with one view, just because our government leaders promote an idea or say that something is not good for us, doesn’t mean we have to believe them. We should permit ourselves to hear both sides of the coin and draw our own opinion.
Something I found intriguing was that according to Dr Smith, politicians benefit from Global Warming, to an extent that they have to manipulate scientific data to sound convincing, making everyone reach one consensus and regulate their economy. Something I found controversial was that the sceptics, the ones that don’t believe in Global Warming are gaining as much as the pro-global warming crowd. Because companies pay sceptics to denying global warming, so companies don’t have to start making new changes. Believing this is a myth also causes people to be lay back about the way they are living today. Thus, over spending sources like hydro, oil and water.
I haven’t made up my mind yet, if Global Warming is a myth or not, but I don’t agree with Dr Smith that natural disasters and climate fluctuations happen naturally. I think everything happens for a reason. The fact that things are happening simultaneously in many places is not coincidence. For example the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the massive snow storms in Europe and North America, and the unstoppable rains and floods in Colombia, Venezuela and Australia.
Even though CO2 is a natural component of our air and it is important for photosynthesis, I think that CO2 is partly to blame, because the lack of threes to clean the air has caused accumulation of CO2 and everything in excess is not healthy. One thing that I do agree on is that politics want power and  meetings such as Copenhagen or Cancun are a waste of time and money. Governments never reach to an agreement, they only talk and no actions or improvement are seen. Also the media, which is a way for politicians to induce fear, always keeps saying that the world is coming to an end.
In collusion, just because something sounds right or intelligent doesn’t mean it is true, we cannot just support a cause because someone higher in academic knowledge than us says is right or not. We should investigate and agree on what we consider is moral. Just keep in my mind that if we choose  not to belief in Global Warming, doesn’t mean we should stop caring and worrying for the environment and how future generations will handle it.

Earth: Climate wars

This videos explain the controversial topic of global warning:

Next Lecture

lecture # 3 in Biology 4243 series is about ecomyths, so if you want to get a heads start, go to this blog: http://ecomythsmith.blogspot.com/

I have reach a 100 views that is awesome :)

The lack of women in science: An unrealized reality

The second lecture of the biology 4243G lecture series held at the University of Western Ontario was led by associate professor Dr. Amanda J. Moehring. The scheme of the lecture was a summary of statistics and facts of women in science and then a question period with four women panelists: two associate professors, one postdoctoral fellow and a PhD student. Dr. Moehring began by showing us pictures of 16 women scientist that have made important contributions to science and encourage us to visit a website about them. She emphasized that women in science are not as recognized as men scientist; therefore it would be hard for us to identify them. Moehring showed us a bar graph that supported the fact that the number of women working at the UWO biology and chemistry faculties is substantially lower than the number of female undergraduate science students.
Then some linear graphs were comparing the years 1999 and 2007, showing the career path of a professor from undergraduate to full professor as the independent variable and the number of women that have masters, PhDs, etc. as the dependent variable. The results from the graphs showed one full professor in 1999 and 6 in 2007. Moehring said that there is a significant increase over the years but it’s still a very low number. The conclusion of these line graphs was that many women in science for some reason don’t make it all the way to be full professors not only at UWO, but also around the world.
Moehring gave us some examples of how women in science were not given the same opportunities as men for example in the European Union, women are less likely to get fellowships, and had 50% less chance of success than men. Another example was at MIT, a university in the US, which is predominantly male. A study showed that women in science at MIT were paid less, had smaller lab spaces and less grants. The difference was so significant that MIT had to make 95% changes. The issue here is: why are not women perusing higher education, making us wonder, if this trend is a matter of discrimination, aptitude, ability, society expectations or culture.
I was very surprise to learn that there is a lack of women in science, in the 21st century, where supposedly we have surpassed inequalities between women and men. I think that women are not pursuing higher education because of standardized testing and lack of opportunities to those that don’t pass these tests. Not everyone learns the same way and undergraduate degrees are mostly based on these standardized testing such as multiple choice, which don’t show our hard work. In contrast, graduate degrees are more hands on learning such as experiments, posters and publications, which are hard work but with good results. I notice that none of the panelists experienced discrimination from men, but they did have difficulty when they were pregnant because the ten year system to be a full professor looks down on people that take time off. The panelist and I agreed that now days, it’s a matter of choice and believing that you are good enough. This leads me to conclude, that we are not realizing that issues from the past are still true today, because we have kept old systems instead of adapting them to our changing world. Incentives and opportunities to women students and reforms in the 10 year system have to be made in order to accommodate women’s needs. Furthermore, it is essential to constantly review the issue so things like in MIT don’t happen again.

Next phase of my blog

Hello everyone !

I will be talking about a series of lectures in my class, for now look at this article and my response to it ...any comments are welcome.

Article:
http://m.lfpress.com/17064061.1?fullscreen#news
Response:
http://www.lfpress.com/comment/letters/home.html?p=42130&x=letters&l_publish_date=&s_publish_date=&s_keywords=&s_topic=&s_letter_type=Letter%20to%20Editor&s_topic=&s_letter_status=Active&s=letters

if you have an ipod touch or iphone join text plus and then join the community debates hope to see you there.