The Social Cost of Carbon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5250 words

The Social Cost of Carbon - Essay Example The adverse impacts may be in the form of poorer health outcomes, loss or harm to biodiversity, economic weakening of agricultural, timber, water and energy industries, as well as the loss or destruction of coastal resources. The important feature of these detrimental effects is that they are not borne by the immediate parties in any economic transactions. In economists’ terminology they are ‘externalities’; however, they are experienced by the wider society (Putnam, 2007). In choosing the carbon reduction policy to be implemented, the social cost of carbon can be used at least in theory, as an indicator of whether society would be benefited by using the policy. Thus, if a social cost of carbon at  £70 per tonne is accepted, a carbon reduction policy that reduces emissions at more than  £70 per tonne would be rejected. However, the â€Å"social cost of carbon has been criticised as being too uncertain to provide the basis for policy decision making† (Putnam, 2007, p.28). It has been argued that it is not possible to monetarily assess climate change damage such as loss of ecosystems and large-scale population displacement, because of the difficulty in establishing the upper limit of the costs. Hence, for policy decision making, a single financial evaluation of the social cost of carbon should be avoided. The Government and Committee on Climate Change is also required to include the factor of sustainable development, because an exclusive emphasis on carbon reduction may result in adverse outcomes in other environmental areas such as biodiversity. For example, it is essential to consider certain substitutions and transactions between â€Å"the need to reduce carbon emissions, the impacts on local wildlife, and the financial costs of minimising such impacts† (Putnam, 2007, p.28), when planning key renewable energy projects such as wind farms and tidal barrages. A fairly recent and

Time :: essays research papers

Time? Time travel is no longer regarded as strictly science fiction. For years the concept of time travel has been the topic of science fiction novels and movies, and has been pondered by great scientists throughout history. Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity can be used to actually prove that time travel is possible. Government research experiments have yielded experimental data that conclusively illustrate that fast moving aircraft have traveled into the future. This phenomenon is due to the principal of time dilation, which states that bodies moving at high velocities experience a time that ticks slower than the time measured at zero velocity. Not as much time elapses for a moving body as does for everything else. Phenomena known as wormholes and closed time like curves are possible means of time travel into the future and the past. Traveling into the past is a task which is much more difficult than traveling into the future. This feat has not yet been accompli shed -to our knowledge- and its theory involves complicated scenarios of tears in four dimensional space-time, and traveling near the speed of light. Obstacles which prevent our hubris attempts to cheat time include our inability to move even close to the speed of light, and finding a source of energy as powerful as an exploding star. Simply because the proposal of time travel is backed by scientific theory, is no reason to expect that it is easily achievable. Numerous arguments are proposed that that prevent time travel into the past. Both common sense and scientific fact can be used to paint scenarios that become serious obstacles. Not to fear, we have all the time in the world to overcome these minor limitations. Imagine if you will, that you are one of the people sill alive today that was born prior to 1903, when the first airplane took flight. When you were young the idea of flying would probably have been quite exciting. Some scientists believe that we may presently be living through an identical scenario. The thing that would be so exciting however, would not be flight, but time travel. Leading scientists believe that our children will live to once again see the impossible become routine. Professor Michio Kaku of the University of New York believes that space flight may one day unlock the secret of time itself. This will require the development of spacecraft that can travel at speeds on the order of two hundred million meters per second, that’s about four hundred and fifty million miles per hour.

Comparing the Book of Job to Ecclesiastes Essay

The Old Testament is often viewed as a creaky, incomprehensible tome, full of history, violence and a wrathful, bombastic God. Often, it is used as a manual: This is what God wants, this is what would displease the Creator, and so on and so forth. There are two particular books of the Old Testament, Job and Ecclesiastes, stand out from the crowd. They ask and seek to address the fundamental questions of life and spirituality. Before diving into content and themes, it is important to acknowledge structural differences between the two books. Job is told from the third person and is a story with a clear sequence of events and plot. In fact, â€Å"it is likely that versions of Job were told by many peoples of the region.† (Seow, HB 726), and â€Å"That the final form is the product of a complex history of transmission†. It consists of a narrative, focused in the introduction and epilogue, with a series of dialogues between them. Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, is more akin to an essay, interspersed with poems, proverbs and songs to support his conclusions. This requires a much telling and little showing, but allows for more wisdom to be dispensed. In both books, the mysterious workings of the world, ostensibly controlled by God, cause consternation. Job’s livelihood is ruined, even though he was a decent man. As for Ecclesiastes:†I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.† (Ecclesiastes 9:11, King James Bible)Through much of Ecclesiastes, he laments the mysterious unfairness of existence and the apparent powerlessness of mankind. The first parts of the book are about accepting that this is just the way the world is. His conclusions are as follows: That life must be enjoyed when it can be, for they are few; that we are largely powerless over our own destinies, and that God is in an unfathomable and entirely separate, wonderful realm without mortality or time. Ecclesiastes also contended that the only true judg ment of worth was from God itself. Job’s plot makes for a slightly different conclusion. Job, bewildered, speaks  with his comforters, who offer that varied interpretations of the events that transpired, which Job argues against. God enters the scene and speaks, chastising Job, who had disputed God’s will. Additionally, Job’s friends, who had so far been speaking on behalf of the deity, were punished. The message that no mortal can comprehend the will of God, and that to do so is an offense to the Creator, is stronger than in Ecclesiastes. While Ecclesiastes warns against false piety and talking as if one knows when one does not, direct justice is applied to a specific case to cap off the book of Job. The final lessons are, for the most part, trite and oft repeated in scripture: That good deeds and worship are the only sure resolution. Both of these scriptures look at the fundamental senselessness of the way the world works and put God in charge of it; both acknowledge the relative powerlessness of the individual. Both also acknowledge that an individual cannot transcend our frustrating state of being without turning to God. Sources Cited: An explanation of sources:I am aware that sacred texts would normally count as â€Å"Popular† sources, but the Oxford Annotated is garnished with ample commentary from dozens of theologians; Footnotes and essays consume about half of the text. I am considering the King James Version a popular source, which is the only sacred text that does not require notation in the Sources Cited page (Raimes, 158). Raimes, Anne. Keys for Writers. Fourth. New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (NRSV) Ed. Coogan, Michael. Oxford University Press. 2001.

European Countries Ranked by Area

The continent of  Europe varies in latitude from places such as Greece, which is in the range of about 35 degrees north to 39 degrees north latitude, to Iceland, which ranges from around 64 degrees north to more than 66 degrees north. Because of the difference in latitudes, Europe has varying climates and topography. Regardless, it has been inhabited for about 2 million years. It consists of only about 1/15th of the worlds land, but the contiguous continent has about 24,000 square miles (38,000 sq km) of coastline. Stats Europe is made up of 46  countries that  range in size from some of the largest in the world (Russia) to some of the smallest (Vatican City, Monaco). The population of Europe is about 742 million (United Nations 2017 Population Division figure), and for a landmass of about 3.9 million square miles (10.1 sq km), it has a density of 187.7 people per square mile. By Area, Largest to Smallest The following is a list of the countries of Europe arranged by area. Various sources may differ in size of a countrys area due to rounding, whether the original figure is in kilometers or miles, and whether the sources include overseas territories. Figures here come from the CIA World Factbook, which presents figures in square kilometers; they have been converted and rounded to the nearest number. Russia: 6,601,668 square miles (17,098,242 sq km)Turkey:  302,535 square miles (783,562 sq km)Ukraine:  233,032 square miles (603,550 sq km)France:  212,935 square miles (551,500 sq km);  248,457 square miles (643,501 square km) including overseas regionsSpain:  195,124 square miles (505,370 sq km)Sweden:  173,860 square miles (450,295 sq km)Germany:  137,847 square miles (357,022 sq km)Finland:  130,559 square miles (338,145 sq km)Norway: 125,021 square miles (323,802 sq km)Poland:  120,728 square miles (312,685 sq km)Italy:  116,305 square miles (301,340 sq km)United Kingdom:  94,058 square miles (243,610 sq km), includes Rockall and Shetland IslandsRomania: 92,043 square miles (238,391 sq km)Belarus: 80,155 square miles (207,600 sq km)Greece: 50,949 square miles (131,957 sq km)Bulgaria: 42,811 square miles (110,879 sq km)Iceland:  39,768 square miles (103,000 sq km)Hungary: 35,918 square miles (93,028 sq km)Portugal: 35,556 square miles (92,090 sq km)Austri a: 32,382 square miles (83,871 sq km)Czech Republic: 30,451 square miles (78,867 sq km)Serbia: 29,913 square miles (77,474 sq km)Ireland: 27,133 square miles (70,273 sq km)Lithuania: 25,212 square miles (65,300 sq km)Latvia: 24,937 square miles (64,589 sq km)Croatia:  21,851 square miles (56,594 sq km)Bosnia and Herzegovina: 19,767 square miles (51,197 sq km)Slovakia: 18,932 square miles (49,035 sq km)Estonia: 17,462 square miles (45,228 sq km)Denmark: 16,638 square miles (43,094 sq km)Netherlands:  16,040 square miles (41,543 sq km)Switzerland:  15,937 square miles (41,277 sq km)Moldova: 13,070 square miles (33,851 sq km)Belgium:  11,786 square miles (30,528 sq km)Albania: 11,099 square miles (28,748 sq km)Macedonia: 9,928 square miles (25,713 sq km)Slovenia: 7,827 square miles (20,273 sq km)Montenegro: 5,333 sq miles (13,812 sq km)Cyprus: 3,571 square miles (9,251 sq km)Luxembourg: 998 square miles (2,586 sq km)Andorra:  181 square miles (468 sq km)Malta:  122 square m iles (316 sq km)Liechtenstein: 62 square miles (160 sq km)San Marino:  23 square miles (61 sq km)Monaco:  0.77 square miles (2 sq km)Vatican City: 0.17 square miles (0.44 sq km)