Good Citizenship and Global Citizenship

Good Citizenship and Global Citizenship Introduction The 21st Century has witnessed integration and increased cultural interaction among people on a previously unprecedented scale. This frequent interaction between people from varied countries and cultures has risen mostly as a result of the advances that have been made in transport and communication technologies.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Good Citizenship and Global Citizenship specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More As a result of this interaction, there has been the major integration of economies and cultures in a process known as globalization. As a result of globalization, governments are increasingly being required to link together different levels of their activities: national and global. This has resulted in the building of a global citizenry which sees the world as their country. However, the global citizen continues to be heavily influenced by the traditional notion of citizen, a term that is â₠¬Å"wrapped up in rights and obligations and in owing allegiance to a sovereign state (Lagos 1). This paper shall argue that it is hugely necessary for one to be a good citizen so as to become a global citizen. To reinforce this claim, this paper shall analyze the extent to which it is necessary to be a â€Å"good citizen† in order to be a â€Å"global citizen†, and vice versa. Good Citizen needed to make a Global Citizen The world is full of social injustices mostly perpetrated by the stronger members of the society against the weaker ones. A defining characteristic of a good national citizen in such an environment is his/her concern about the injustices that occur within their boundaries. This concern normally manifests itself in protests and public demonstrations calling for action by the government in place to counter the perceived injustices. A report by the World Bank demonstrates that the global citizen shows the same concern for the welfare of the globe and is m oved to free their fellow men from dehumanizing conditions (1). As such, it takes a good citizen to make the global citizen who will be keen to decry social injustices against other human beings. Core to the agendas of the good citizen is the preservation of peace in his country. A good citizen will strive to preserve peace especially within the boundaries of his/her country. This is mostly because the citizen recognizes the destruction and loss that war culminates in. For this reason, the good citizen seeks to mobilize against all wars through peaceful demonstrations and advocacy against wars. The United Nations declares that peace is a precondition of global citizenship. The global citizen views war and strife as being contrary to his/her agenda. A good citizen who is committed to preserving peace is therefore needed to make a global citizen.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More One of the attribute that a good citizen in any democratic society should possess is an understanding of public policies in his/her country. An understanding of this policies will result in enlightenment on ones country position on issues such as energy, free trade, agriculture and the environment to name but a few. It is only by understanding the public policies adopted by ones country that a person can act so as to shape certain conditions such as protection of natural habitat. A global citizen is also concerned with the protection of the environment and establishment of free trade. It would therefore take a good citizen who is well versed with public policies to make a global citizen. A good citizen is concerned about the impact that his individual actions and daily personal choices have on the country. This is an ideal that is also desirable in the global citizen since as a global citizen should make his/her decisions bases on an awareness of the impact that the decision s will have on the planet. A good citizen who is aware and conscious of the impact that his actions have on a larger scale is therefore needed to make a global citizen. The international community is characterized by a rich diversity of cultures among its people. The global citizen is therefore prepared to operate amicably in this intercultural environment. The global citizen realizes that there should be unity in diversity and nobody has the right to impose their ideology on anybody or any group of persons. An ideal citizen should also demonstrate this values and pay respect to people from different cultures and strives to live harmoniously with them. The good citizen should recognize that differences may exist within members of the country and this should not be a cause of strive. By acting as a global citizen who operates in a multicultural sphere, a person can be a good citizen and exist harmoniously with other citizens of varied backgrounds. Global Citizenship needed to make a Good Citizen Lagos documents that while globalization is acclaimed for having opened up the world and led to the emergence of a global village, the same force has paradoxically resulted in localization and local communities have taken greater and greater importance (9). In such an environment, it is the global citizen who holds the separate entities together and seeks to iron out the differences that the various local communities seek to advance. For a citizen to pass for a good citizen in such an environment (the environment where local communities have taken great importance), he must have the global perspective of the global citizen. It is only by taking the global perspective that a citizen can give fair consideration to ideas with which they disagree.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Good Citizenship and Global Citizenship specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Global citizenship is increasingly working towards making the planet sustainable for all people. The efforts directed to this end are mostly in the form of advocacy for conservation of the environment, reduction of pollution and the reliance on renewable sources of power. A good citizen is supposed to work towards the preservation of the countrys resources for future resources. As such, the good citizen has to be a global citizen who is concerned with making the planet sustainable. As a global citizen, one is expected to be non judgmental and overlook the religious differences that divide humanity. The UN states that the global citizen should have values such as rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. A good citizen should also have these values enshrined in them. A good citizen should avoid engaging in religious discrimination since this threatens unity among the citizens of the nation. Discussion This paper has demonstrated that being a global citizen is intrinsically connected to being a good citizen. As such, being a gl obal citizenship implies a responsibility to be a good citizen. However, there are instances where being a global citizen may cause one to be a â€Å"bad citizen†. For example, a global citizen is not expected to advocate for war or side with any party during war. Good citizenship calls for one to back their country when it is involved in a war. Acting as a global citizen in such instances can therefore prevent one from being an ideal citizen. Lagos indicates that a citizen obtains a certain amount of protection from his/her country in return for abiding to some restrictions that the government may impose on him/her (3). A good citizen is therefore required to abide by some laws and allow some bureaucratic control from his/her nation. A global citizen on the other hand does not have any kind of protection and has some amount of degree from bureaucratic control. Lagos states that the hallmark of global citizen is the lack of allegiance to any body of laws to control the indivi dual. In this light, being a global citizen goes contrary to what being a good citizen entails. Conclusion This paper set out to argue that to a large extent, it is necessary to be a good citizen in order to be a global citizen and vice versa. The paper performed a detailed analysis of how a person may be obligated to be a good citizen so as to qualify as a global citizen and vise versa.Advertising Looking for essay on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This paper has shown that global citizens borrow most of their rights and obligations from the traditional citizen who is defined by a civic engagement to a nation existing in a particular geography. In particular, the paper demonstrates that values such as tolerance, civic education are innate in both the good citizen and the global citizen. However, the paper has also shown that global citizen differs significantly from the citizen and in some instances, being a global citizen may cause one not to fulfill his role as a good citizen. Lagos, Taso. Global Citizenship- Towards a Definition. Mar. 2002. Web. http://depts.washington.edu/gcp/pdf/globalcitizenship.pdf The World Bank. â€Å"Global Citizenship- Ethical Challenges Ahead†. Conference on Leadership and Core Values. 3 July 2002. Web. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/PARTNERS/EXTDEVDIALOGUE/0,contentMDK:20357631~menuPK:64192472~pagePK:64192523~piPK:64192458~theSitePK:537298,00.html UN. The Universal Dec laration of Human Rights. 2010. Web. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html

Geothermal Energy - Tapping the Earths Heat Supply

Geothermal Energy - Tapping the Earths Heat Supply As the costs of fuel and electricity rise, geothermal energy has a promising future. Underground heat can be found anywhere on Earth, not just where oil is pumped, coal is mined, where the sun shines or where the wind blows. And it produces around the clock, all the time, with relatively little management needed. Heres how geothermal energy works. Geothermal Gradients No matter where you are, if you drill down through the Earths crust you will eventually hit red-hot rock. Miners first noticed in the Middle Ages that deep mines are warm at the bottom, and careful measurements since that time have found that once you get past surface fluctuations, solid rock grows steadily warmer with depth. On average, this geothermal gradient is about one degree Celsius for every 40 meters in depth or 25 C per kilometer. But averages are just averages. In detail, the geothermal gradient is much higher and lower in different places. High gradients require one of two things: hot magma rising close to the surface, or abundant cracks allowing groundwater to carry heat efficiently to the surface. Either one is sufficient for energy production, but having both is best. Spreading Zones Magma rises where the crust is being stretched apart to let it rise- in divergent zones. This happens in the volcanic arcs above most subduction zones, for instance, and in other areas of crustal extension. The worlds largest zone of extension is the mid-ocean ridge system, where the famous, sizzling-hot black smokers are found. It would be great if we could tap heat from the spreading ridges, but that is possible in only two places, Iceland and the Salton Trough of California (and Jan Mayen Land in the Arctic Ocean, where no one lives). Areas of continental spreading are the next-best possibility. Good examples are the Basin and Range region in the American West and East Africas Great Rift Valley. Here there are many areas of hot rocks that overlie young magma intrusions. The heat is available if we can get to it by drilling, then start extracting the heat by pumping water through the hot rock. Fracture Zones Hot springs and geysers throughout the Basin and Range point to the importance of fractures. Without the fractures, there is no hot spring, only hidden potential. Fractures support hot springs in many other places where the crust is not stretching. The famous Warm Springs in Georgia is an example, a place where no lava has flowed in 200 million years. Steam Fields The very best places to tap geothermal heat have high temperatures and abundant fractures. Deep in the ground, the fracture spaces are filled with pure superheated steam, while groundwater and minerals in the cooler zone above seal in the pressure. Tapping into one of these dry-steam zones is like having a giant steam boiler handy that you can plug into a turbine to generate electricity. The best place in the world for this is off limits- Yellowstone National Park. There are only three dry-steam fields producing power today: Lardarello in Italy, Wairakei in New Zealand and The Geysers in California. Other steam fields are wet- they produce boiling water as well as steam. Their efficiency is less than the dry-steam fields, but hundreds of them are still making a profit. A major example is the Coso geothermal field in eastern California. Geothermal energy plants can be started in hot dry rock simply by drilling down to it and fracturing it. Then water is pumped down to it and the heat is harvested in steam or hot water. Electricity is produced either by flashing the pressurized hot water into steam at surface pressures or by using a second working fluid (such as water or ammonia) in a separate plumbing system to extract and convert the heat. Novel compounds are under development as working fluids that could boost efficiency enough to change the game. Lesser Sources Ordinary hot water is useful for energy even if it isnt suitable for generating electricity. The heat itself is useful in factory processes or just for heating buildings. The entire nation of Iceland is almost completely self-sufficient in energy thanks to geothermal sources, both hot and warm, that do everything from driving turbines to heating greenhouses. Geothermal possibilities of all these kinds are shown in a national map of geothermal potential issued on Google Earth in 2011. The study that created this map estimated that America has ten times as much geothermal potential as the energy in all of its coal beds. Useful energy can be obtained even in shallow holes, where the ground isnt hot. Heat pumps can cool a building during summer and warm it during winter, just by moving heat from whichever place is warmer. Similar schemes work in lakes, where dense, cold water lies on the lake bottom. Cornell Universitys lake source cooling system is a notable example. Earths Heat Source To a first approximation, Earths heat comes from radioactive decay of three elements: uranium, thorium, and potassium. We think that the iron core has almost none of these, while the overlying mantle has only small amounts. The crust, just 1 percent of the Earths bulk, holds about half as much of these radiogenic elements as the whole mantle beneath it (which is 67% of the Earth). In effect, the crust acts like an electric blanket upon the rest of the planet. Lesser amounts of heat are produced by various physicochemical means: freezing of liquid iron in the inner core, mineral phase changes, impacts from outer space, friction from Earth tides and more. And a significant amount of heat flows out of the Earth simply because the planet is cooling, as it has since its birth 4.6 billion years ago. The exact numbers for all these factors are highly uncertain because the Earths heat budget relies on details of the planets structure, which is still being discovered. Also, Earth has evolved, and we cannot assume what its structure was during the deep past. Finally, plate-tectonic motions of the crust have been rearranging that electric blanket for eons. The Earths heat budget is a contentious topic among specialists. Thankfully, we can exploit geothermal energy without that knowledge.