why is deforestation such a problem?

source: https://www.pexels.com

The majority of the world is very aware that deforestation is a problem. However, most of the time it is brushed aside in order to deal with all the other issues that our world is dealing with. In my opinion, if we could solve our deforestation problem, we could also solve some of the other pressing issues that are currently happening in the world. One question I keep thinking to myself is, why is deforestation so bad? Can't we just plant more trees? But in my research, I found that it is so much more than just planting some more trees. 

According to Live Science, "about half the forests have already been cleared" so far. That's 30% of the worlds land mass! (national geographic) We are destroying the only planet we have to live on! Soon all the trees we cut down to make paper and other goods wont matter in the slightest because we will literally all be dead. Another shocking statistic I found was this: "since the last century, Indonesia has lost at least 15.79 million hectares of forest land, according to a study by the University of Maryland." So many people, animals, and plants have lost their lives so we could have some paper. 

In my opinion, cutting down the only supply of trees we have should not be happening. Deforestation should be stopped immediately. This modern era we live in could easily be sustained by going paperless. Not to mention the amount of money, lives, and opportunity cost we would save. 

What sets Vinyl apart? (cont.)

https://sites.google.com/site/jsalsburey/macintoshsemiotics

This post is going to explain the differences between digital music files and vinyl records.

Digital music excels in one category, ease of use. No question about it. Music on your phone can be paused, rewound, shared, streamed, anything. In fact on your phone you have access to almost any piece of music ever recorded. It really is an amazing thing. However, everything comes at a cost, and with such a great gain, there is a great cost.

Quality. Simple as that. you cant compress music that once took up two full sides of a 12 inch disk into a microscopic space without losing some sound quality. That's obvious. The only question is how much do you lose? 

Quite a lot. Thanks to something called The Loudness War. It's not something that most people will complain about aside from certain audiophiles. And you lose it in two ways; dynamic range, and loudness. Dynamic range is the difference in volume between the softest note and the loudest. Loudness is, well, loudness.

Caity Tirakian Blog Post #5 "Free Range Helicopter"

PP #5

Caity Tirakian Period-1 

Title: Free Range Helicopter

Image source: www.parenting.blogs.nytimes.com 

According to the Developmental Psychology Department at Vanderbilt, there are four main styles of parenting: Neglectful, Authoritative, Permissive, and Authoritarian. Obviously there is no one clear formula that will work on every child but the most effective in raising normal children is the one that falls between the extremes which is Authoritative. 

Neglectful is one of the most ineffective and harmful parenting tactics. Neglectful parents fail to care for the child’s emotional and physical needs, they don’t seem to have an understanding of what’s going on in the child’s life (who/what their friends, teachers, or hobbies are), or leaving the child alone frequently. “Neglectful parenting is damaging to children, because they have no trust foundation with their parents from which to explore the world.” Additionally, children who have a negative or absent relationship with their parents may struggle to create meaningful relationships. 

Authoritative parenting is widely regarded as the most beneficial parenting style for both the parent and child. Authoritative parents “are easy to recognize, as they are marked by the high expectations that they have of their children, but temper these expectations with understanding a support for their children as well. This type of parenting creates the healthiest environment for a growing child, and helps to foster a productive relationship between parent and child.” Authoritative parents create structure for their children with reasonable schedules and expectations. They have a healthy communication system with their children where they try to understand the child’s perspective but still expect the child’s respect. This parenting style is a happy medium between strict and too easy going. 

Permissive parenting can also be known as indulgent parenting. “These parents are responsive but not demanding. These parents tend to be lenient while trying to avoid confrontation.” While these parents tend to be very nurturing and loving, few rules are set for their kids. This inconsistency and lack of discipline can lead to the child’s misunderstanding of societal norms and expectations. It was found that, “that teens with permissive parents are three times more likely to engage in heavy underage alcohol consumption.”  These children often find difficulty following the rules in a school or work environment because they aren’t used to them in family life. “It may seem as though this would be a child’s favorite parenting style as it provides a sense of freedom without consequences, however, children crave a sense of structure to make them feel safe and. It is important in a child’s development for there to be clear cut parental and child roles.” It is important for the permissive parent to begin to set boundaries and rules for their child, while still being responsive before it is too late.

Finally, there is Authoritarian parenting which is also known as “helicopter parenting” or a parent who takes an “overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child or children.” These parents are typically strict with high standards and even when those expectations are met is the parent satisfied with the result. They “usually rely on punishment to demand obedience or teach a lesson.” While it is important to have structure in a child’s life and show interest in their activities and academics, this “support” can easily become overdone into obsession. This opposite end of the extremes can also lead to negative outcomes. “Children of authoritarian parents are prone to having low self-esteem, being fearful or shy, associating obedience with love, having difficulty in social situations, and possibly misbehaving when outside of parental care.”

All in all, there are several different extremes and happy mediums aside from helicopter parenting. In order for your child to have the highest likelihood of a positive self-esteem but still successful social and academic skills, the best style of parenting is Authoritative which has strong expectations for their child but it is pairing with understanding and respect for their child. This healthy combination helps aid the raising of well-rounded kids. 

Institutions are the “rules of the game” that influence choices

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE: People respond to incentives in predictable ways.

THESIS: With the effects of concussions being all negative, we can see that by playing contact sports it is a harm to the athlete physically, mentally and can cause death.

SYNTHESIS PARAGRAPH: What are the effects of concussions in sports?  Through my research over the past couple of months I have found out that concussions are nothing to play with and can be very harmful to someone's health.  Then the question is why do athletes play these sports?  With the economic principle that people respond to incentives  in predictable ways is true in the fact that many of the pro athletes are getting concussions and withstand them because they are getting paid so much money.  When these athletes get that many concussions playing professional sports they developed a terrible disease called CTE.  Boston University states that “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub concussive hits to the head” (Boston University).  This disease is starting to make a huge impact in the community of the NFL and other contact sport corporations.  Even know the players know that there is a huge possibility of getting CTE and know that the disease can cause dementia and eventually death they continue to play contact sports like football professionally because it plays them an incentive, really good money.  A recent study shows that Riddel one of the major companies that makes NFL helmet was found that it did not test its helmets for concussions hits. Udall and Rockefeller state “during the hearing, it was revealed that sports equipment manufacturers have repeatedly made claims that their equipment "prevents concussions" or "reduce the risk of concussions" without scientific evidence to back those claims.” (U.S. Congress Documents) If NFL players are getting the information that they are completely unsafe when playing football and are likely to get concussions then it can only be the incentive of money that persuades players to play a unsafe sport like football.  Overall the effects of concussion are very negative and therefore contact sports should not be played or should be changed in order to help the athlete and not negatively impact the athlete.

summarizing deforestation

source: http://www.giluy.com

Economic principle: Choices have an opportunity cost

Thesis: There are always going to be numerous choices and decisions one has to make throughout their life. In my research I found that every single choice someone makes has an opportunity cost and an effect in their life.

Synthesis paragraph: 

Every day we make hundreds of choices. From something so simple as what shoes we think look best with the pants we have on or something as complex as what tests to run in order to cure cancer. We all make these choices in life and when I began my research I assumed that with each decision came one opportunity cost, but I soon realized that was far from the truth.

Most people assume that deforestation doesn't affect people who don't live in that country but they couldn't be more wrong. According to national geographic, deforestation causes a huge loss in trees which in turn worsens global warming which makes for warmer winters and summer. this results in farmers in the US not being able to maintain the amount of fruit or vegetables they need in order to sustain themselves. Just that is multiple opportunity costs wrapped into one choice. Another opportunity cost is the money that goes into deforestation. Cutting down trees is costing $2-5 trillion dollars a year! 1/2 of the national debt is being used to cut down trees! That is an opportunity cost for millions of americans!

The way in which people cut down the trees is an opportunity cost in itself because it is so harmful. Most companies use the Slash and Burn method. This entails cutting down all the trees just to burn the land. Doing this is so harmful for so many reasons. The first being the obvious that it is not healthy for humans or the animals living in those trees to be near so much smoke and harmful tools. And the second reason being that putting so much carbon dioxide into the air is causing holes in the ozone layer and causing more green house gases to get into our atmosphere, according to National Geographic.

There are so many decisions that people have to make every day, and they all have a price. Deforestation has many opportunity costs that affect a lot of people's every day life styles.

Caity Tirakian Blog Post #4 "How to Stop Whatever the Heli is Going On."

PP#4 

Caity Tirakian Period-1

Title: How to Stop Whatever the Heli is Going On. 

Image Source: http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2012/12/snooper-and-blabber-scoop-snoop.html

As we’ve learned, helicopter parenting is an overbearing parenting style in which the parent becomes obsessed with the child’s activities or academics and often lives vicariously through them in order to obtain a sense of authority and perfection. This type of parenting is predominantly negative for both the child and the parent and must be prevented or stopped in order to better the child’s future. In Deborah Skolnik’s article, “How to Stop Helicopter Parenting,” she explores different ways in which helicopter parents can ease off of their intense parenting habits. She begins with why this hands on parenting has spiked recently and claims “You can go online and find out every scary thing that could happen to your child. You can also investigate every illness. So there's endless opportunity for fear. At the same time, ‘the rules for setting your little one on the path to lifelong success have become murkier than ever’, adds Margaret Nelson, a professor of sociology at Middlebury College, in Vermont, and author of Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times. ‘Even if you've managed to be financially comfortable and happy, you're aware your child may not be able to duplicate what you've accomplished, even if he does exactly what you did,’ she explains. ‘So you ask yourself ‘What should I provide him with?’ Without an answer, you start trying to provide absolutely everything you possibly can, including too much help.” These nervous parents need to stop exhausting themselves while impeding on their children’s development. One way Skolnik recommends this is to be a “submarine” parent instead. This means that instead of hovering, you “stay close by—in case of real danger—but mostly out of sight, so he gets out of the habit of running to you for every problem.” Another tip is to ask what your child does when you aren’t present. If your child can tie his shoes alone at school but makes you do it when you’re around, then you need to back off on the assistance there. Perhaps you can make incentives for your children using the idea of a token economy. She recommends making a chart with various chores and the child getting stickers when they can complete said tasks on their own, “Practice some basic playground skills with your child... Show him how to kick a ball, climb on the mini-monkey bars, or even just go down the slide. If you see he can do these things safely, you'll feel more comfortable sitting back on the bench during his next park playdate”, count to ten before taking action. This means that when your child begs for your attention (as long as they aren’t in danger), to wait 10 seconds before taking action. In that time, you may realize it’s not really necessary to rush to the rescue after all. Finally my personal favorite, “Sit down and have a cup of coffee. Make a brief time every day when your butt's in a chair and your metaphorical copter is on the landing pad, too. “If your child calls for you and it isn't an emergency, say ‘I am drinking coffee right now,’” advises Caine. “If he really needs you, he'll come to you, and if you do this enough, he may stop asking for help with every little thing so often.” This is the epitome of the point I’m trying to make. Parenting is a 24/7 hour job but it shouldn’t be made more draining than it needs to be. It’s okay to sit back and relax every once in a while which in turn, will actually be a benefit to your child as well. 

Further Research Question: How does this type of parenting compare to other kinds? Is there one kind that is the best? 

Caity Tirakian Blog Post #3 "Helicopter Crash"

PP#3 Caity Tirakian Period-1 

Title: Helicopter Crash 

Image source: www.lmhcmy.com 

It may seem as though making things easier for your child or choosing their decisions may be helpful for them, but in fact, these actions lead to more negative implications for both the parent and the child outweigh the good ones.  The first implication is that kids with parents who try to live through them vicariously are losing their self-esteems because of the pressures of perfection.  Not only do kids have the pressure to be perfect, but they have the pressure that if they do succeed the parent will become jealous of the child’s success. According to “A Matter of Personality” written by David M. Allen “If the child succeeds in getting through medical school, the mother may become depressed… In response, the “successful” children may then get depressed themselves.”  There’s no way to win. Children think that no matter what parents won’t be satisfied. Kids already have the pressure to be perfect from the pressures of society, coaches, or other peers meaning that losing can “feel like a double-failure to the child,” when they have parent who is applying this same intense stress on them. Regardless of parenting style, most parents want the best for their children. Yet, these “helicopter parents” take it to the extreme; they don’t want their children to face any hardships so they take matters into their own hands. Children with these types of parents aren’t being given the space to struggle on their own which means they lack the development of problem solving skills and independence.  

Further research question: How can helicopter parenting be prevented or stopped?