According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a ripple effect is defined as “ a situation in which one event causes a series of events to happen”. In the story “ Top of the Food Chain” by T.C Boyle, it is evident that a ripple effect is present. This is present in many factors of the entire story. Clearly, Boyle’s message he is trying to get across to the reader is everything has a ripple effect therefore you have to make wise thought out decisions rather than irrational ones. In the beginning of the story, a certain quotes foreshadows these events. The man speaking to the Senator says, “ And no one could have foreseen the consequences, no one, not even if we’d gone out and generated a hundred environmental impact statements- it was just one of those things, a freak occurrence, and there’s no defense against that”. This shows in the beginning before going into detail, that they do something which causes other “ freak occurrences” to happen as an effect. They say no one could have predicted it, but when you make decisions you just really have to think them through first. …show more content…
Starting with lots of bugs and they need for help with DDT which is banned in some countries. The banned part let alone foreshadows bad events are going to take place. So they spray the DDT, and the insects reduce success? Not exactly. The spray accidentally killed the wasps who ate the caterpillars. These caterpillar then ate the roofs of people's homes, making the shelter unsafe. It also brought in tons of flies carrying disease. The geckos who ate these flies stuffed themselves with flies and died from the disease. Then the cats who ate the geckos stuffed themselves and died from the disease also. These cats weren’t able to take care of all the geckos so they had parachuting cats dropped down of all sorts to do the job. This displays a ripple effect of DDT to wasps to caterpillars to flies to geckos to cats to more
“It must be understood that we cannot feed the people” (Kinealy Calamity 75). The mid 1800s in Ireland were characterized by extreme poverty, death, and emigration. The Great Potato Famine, also known as “The Great Hunger,” first hit in 1845; however, its effects lasted into the 1850s and can still be seen today. Prior to the famine, Irish manufacture and trade was controlled and suppressed by British government, which made Ireland an extremely poor country. Farmers in Ireland were forced to export crops such as corn, wheat, and oats to Britain, which left the potato as the main dietary staple for the people, especially the poor. Therefore, when the fungus Phytophthora infestans caused some, and eventually all, of the crop to rot over the next couple of years, the reliance on the one crop made the people of Ireland extremely susceptible to the famine. The effects were devastating, and poverty spread across the nation causing a huge increase in homelessness, the death-rate, emigration, and a change in the Irish people and country overall.
The environmental movement in politics is often overplayed causing people to loose interest in the issue, but Jarred Diamond makes it impossible to ignore the issue in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond hopes to catch as many peoples attention as he can; the name alone, “Collapse”, makes him appear to be an alarmist looking for attention. He has just cause though for blowing the whistle on society. He makes parallels to previous failed societies and to modern societies showing how the practices that we employ are similar to these failed societies. He is suggesting that America, as well as other countries, are headed down the path of ecocide more possible a global ecocide. Through his extensive research and numerous examples he makes it impossible to argue with his thesis. While all of examples seem redundant and like he is over emphasizing the point he does this to show his thoroughness. He also does it to show that he is correct. Diamond does not want to be wrong; he is a major author who gets a lot of attention when he releases a book. People look to discredit Diamond’s work. Due to this he gives ample resources to support this thesis.
Bryson believes that the government does not care about the environment as much as it should. He shows this by saying the National Park Service is responsible for the extinction of multiple wildlife species. He also says that the NPS does not do anything but build roads to cover up the nature it's supposed to be protecting. Bryson's journey causes him to gain a greater respect for nature and a disgust for those destroying it. The government is also going through an internal strife and had been through a shutdown in the months leading up to the start of the hike. Congress finds that saving nature conflicts with their plans for solving the country's economic problem. The political climate also shows the affect of religious practices on laws. The legislature trying to pass the law is located in the South and it is a foreign climate for Bryson. The government is influenced by the culture of the people in charge of running it. At this period of time society can take legal action against teaching science to
made it difficult to grow food. Overpopulation is the condition of having a population so
The roles that people play in society are often affected by the way everyone interacts with each other. “All the worlds a stage”, a quote by William Shakespeare, fits well with this theme because in a plays script every action has a reaction. Every character is affected by another character at some point in time, a domino effect in a way. In the books The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men as well as the play Twelve Angry Men, every character is influenced by the other characters in there respectable stories. This is a direct example of cause and effect, what happens to one man will change another actions or thoughts.
During 1845-1846 events in Ireland would change the lives of many. The Great Potato Famine was a major incident that shocked the entire world. This incident was cause by a disease that traveled from ships overseas. The Great Potato Famine affected one of the biggest crops at the time, which was the potato. Many people got sick from this disease otherwise known as, Phytophthora Infestins. Phytophthora Infestins killed about 1 million people in Ireland.
As described in novel The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference the course of any trend, movement, social behavior, and even the spread of a virus has a general trend line that in essence resemble a parabola with 3 main critical points. Any trend line first starts from zero, grows until it crosses the first tipping point, and then spreads like wildfire. Afterwards, the trend skyrockets to its carrying capacity (Galdwell, 2000). Then the trend gradually declines before it reaches the next tipping and suddenly falls out of favor and out of memory. Gladwell defines tipping points as the “magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire” (Gladwell, 2000).
The blight caused a catastrophic effect on the Irish peasantry. The blight is a combination of parasitic fungus and bird droppings imported as fertilizer (Kelley 136). Furthermore, the farmers did not know what a problem this fertilizer would cause, which ended up ruining all of the Irish crops. The parasitic fungus, also known as phytophthora, is a destructive spreading fungus causing a brownish rot in plants. In addition, the blight first infected Irish potato crops in September of 1845 (Kelley 136). The blight caused the potato to rot in the ground, making it inedible (Kinealy, The Great Irish Famine 34). In addition, spreading the fertilizer all over the land not only ruined the crop, but the crop field as well. Consequently, the crop fields were in no condition to produce new crops for many years because the land was ruined. There were “recurrent infestations of the blight, which led to the failure of the potato crop in three seasons out of four” (Kelley 136). The blight traveled to Ireland from North America and Cont...
famine, however, was far more than just a lack of food. Its effects were felt
On February 26th 1972, Dam 3 of the Buffalo Mining Company a subsidiary of the Pittston Coal Company, failed resulting in a flooding of the Buffalo Creek Hallow. The disaster caused property damage, wrongful death, and psychic impairment. West Virginia prohibited any dam built any dam built over “fifteen feet in height across any stream or watercourse without a prior determination by the state that it is safe” (15). The state’s failure to properly enforce this law gave Pittston the ability to claim the disaster was an act of God; this was supported by President Nixon who referred to this as a natural disaster (187). In his testimony Mr. Spotte, head of the Pittston Coal Group, stated the accident was a natural occurrence beyond the company’s control. However he admitted that this particular dam (3) was not built in the custom of the company other dams lacking a spillway system. This failure to ensure a standard constituted a negligent breach of duty (134-137).
Early in history DDT was a very effective chemical that killed many parasites and stopped the mass spread of malaria. But the reward is not worth the damage that it does to the environment, especially in modern day where we have other ways to prevent parasite and diseases from getting to us. "Top of the Food Chain" by T. Coraghessan Boyle, is a story about the absolute absurdity of things that human beings do to their world and to their fellow living beings. Set during a Senate hearing by a chemical company executive on the defensive about the effects of DDT in Borneo. Basically, poison was used to get rid of mosquitoes. Didn't work. So they brought in geckos, that died from the poison. Cats ate dead geckos, and cats died. This brought on rat infestation. So they brought in more cats and cycle started over again. He is arguing that humans are wrong for destroying their planet with pesticides and other harmful things; this satirical piece effectively supports his argument.
Over two hundred years ago, Thomas Malthus proposed the theory that world starvation is directly linked with the population living on earth. He argued that the world’s population would increase at a faster rate than compared to the rate of the food production. This imbalance would in turn lead to mass starvation for there would not be enough food to feed all the mouths of the world. Malthus acknowledged that food is necessary for human existence; therefore, in order to eliminate world hunger population and food production must be kept at an equal balance.
Rachel begins her book by painting us an image of a small quiet town. Keep in mind though, this town isn’t a real place, but is a parallel of our society. In this town, she describes the people living modest lives, and all is well. This is used to represent the calm before the storm, so to speak. The people start to notice strange things, such as birds dying and strange sicknesses. The people themselves are blissfully unaware of what is happening, and that they are to blame. This example is used in parallel to our world. We are unaware of the effects of Pesticides in the long term and if we don’t become aware of these effects, permanent damage will be done.
For every action, there is always a consequence that follows. When it comes to the economy and politics, one single action has been able to change the whole world forever. As stated by John Ruskin, “What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.” What the author is trying to tell is that thoughts are useless without an action to follow. If a person wants to make a difference in society, they need to go out of their comfort zone, go the extra mile, and make a difference. Or, perhaps, a great thought can end up to be a waste.
...was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Carlin who was a senior research analyst at the EPA, wrote their “Internal Study on Climate” Report. After reviewing all research compiled by the EPA, he concluded that the available data invalidated the Manmade Global Warming Theory. He wrote, “Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 there is no particular reason to rush into decision based upon a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data” (Bell, 2011, p. 9). Because of his finds Alan Carlin, a thirty eight year employee, was forbidden from speaking to anyone about his report and was moved away from any climate related work. Shortly after the report was suppressed, the enacted the endangerment finding in the Clean Air Act which enable them to set limits on greenhouse gases produced by the American people.