The Study and Findings of Climatology in Nepal Essay -- Climae Environ

The Study and Findings of Climatology in Nepal In many areas in Nepal, the history of climatology only dates back to 1956. Around this time, the Indian Meteorological Department instituted stations in various areas around the country, which were eventually taken over by the Nepalese government in 1966. Having these stations in place has given scientists significant insight into the Nepalese climate. However, some of the Indian equipment remained in the Nepalese stations, and unfortunately many Indian findings vary significantly from the Nepalese records of the same areas. Therefore, some information is unreliable, coupled by the fact that not all stations have operated since the start of the program (Thyer, 645). However, there are other sources of NepalÕs climate history, like extracts from articles written by climatologists from other countries, like Japan, the US, Germany, and France (Thyer, 645). Nepal is a small country, land-locked between India and the Tibet region of China in South America. It is 900 kilometers from east to west, and 150 to 250 kilometers from north to south (Spence, 223). Nepal is home to eight of the ten highest mountain peaks in the world, most notably Mount Everest, which lies at 8,848 meters. In contrast, some of the areas that are situated lower in Nepal are only about eighty meters above sea level. Clearly, Nepal has much climate variation; in fact, the climate progresses from tropical to arctic within a 200-kilometer area from south to north (Agrawala, 12). There are five geographical regions in Nepal (though, sometimes the mountain regions are grouped together as one). The Terai plain is the southernmost strip, bordered to the north by the Himala... ... Works Cited Agrawala, Shardul, Vivian Raksakulthai, Marteen van Aalst, Peter Larsen, Joel Smith, and John Reynolds. Development and Climate Change in Nepal: Focus on Water Resources and Hydropower. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2003. Spence, Captain F.S. Himalayan Survey. The Geographical Journal. Vol.153, No.2. July 1987. Thyer, Norman. Looking at Western NepalÕs Climate. The University of Calgary. June 1985. Unknown-1. Introductions about Nepal: Geography and Climate. Himalayan Dreams.com http://www.himalayandreams.com/climate.html Unknown-2. Nepal Weather. Adventure Travel with iExplore. 2007. http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/Nepal/Weather+and+Climate Unknown-3. Kathmandu Climate and Weather. Globe Media Ltd., 2007. http://www.wordtravels.com/Cities/Nepal/Kathmandu/Climate

Enviromental Effects of Air Pollution and the Urban Area

Air pollution has been and is a growing environmental problem that is closely related to the growth of urban settlements. While the cities and towns of the world grow larger they emit more and more toxic emissions are put out into the air. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues that surround air pollution such as the long term impacts of air pollution, the short term impacts of air pollution, the long term outlook of air pollution, the short term outlook of air pollution and the potential solutions to the air pollution problem. Air pollution is an environmental problem that affects each and every one of us to some degree and it is important to understand why air pollution happens and how we can take steps to control it. Air pollution has a direct connection with urban environments all over the world. With an increase in industrialized countries ,the of use of cars, factories and also the use of fuels such as fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, into the air, there has been a definite rise in air pollution over the world (Mayer, 1999). There are many short term effects that air pollution causes to the urban areas and to the people who are living in those areas. The first short term effect of air pollution is that it can cause health issues for the inhabitants of the area. Air pollution can cause the inhabitants to get itchy throats and irritated eyes. It also has been linked to causes bronchitis and pneumonia (Silverman, et al, 2007). Short term air pollution exposer can also cause an increase the rate of allergy infections and asthma diagnosis to the people who live in the area. The short term effects on environment range from smog clouds can cause the health issues, like the ones previously mentioned (Silverman, et al, 2007). There are also long term effects of air pollutions that are very serious to the environment and the people who live in high polluted areas. Long term air pollution exposer can have devastating effects on the health of the people who live in the area. Some of the health risks that have been linked to long term exposer consist of chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and damage to the brain, kidney’s or liver (Mayer, 1999). Children who are living in a highly polluted area risk developing theses diseases at a higher rate the normal children who do not have long term exposed to air pollution. Long term air pollution also has devastating effects on the environment. One of the more serious effects is that air pollution is slowly deteriorating the Ozone layer. The Ozone layer is found in the stratosphere and it plays an important role in protecting the earth from the suns ultraviolent rays. Due to the increase in greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, the Ozone has developed holes and this allows harmful ultraviolet B-radiation to reach the earth. The increase of B-radiation is harmful to humans, plants and animals, and it is a known cause of Melanoma. The increase of B-radiation is always extremely harmful to plants. It causes a decrease in plant growth, height and damage to the leaves of plants (Tong, 2011). There are some potential ways to reduce, but not fully solve, the air pollution problem that is effect most urban areas. One of the ways that the countries around the world have decided to reduce air pollution was in 1997 at a United Nations conference in Kyoto, Japan. During the conference countries signed a treaty, the Kyoto Protocol promising to combat global warming by reducing the emission s of harmful greenhouse gasses that a produced my industrial factories. Unfortunately, claiming that that the treaty was not in the best interest for their county, the United States did not sign the treaty (Murray, 2001). Another potential way to reduce air pollution is through technology advancement. Using the new technologies to replace fossil fuels, such as coal burning and oil use, would substantial lower the gas emissions that cause air pollution and eventually cause the ozone layer to deplete. The short term outlook of air pollution on urban society is somewhat hopeful. Many cities and countries have begun or are beginning to take action in reducing the amount of pollution that is released into the air by the industries, cars and citizens. Many cities have started using different sources of energy, like solar power, in place of the fossil fuel energy sources that are the main contributors to air pollution. The long term outlook of air pollution is that, with many countries pledging to reduce the pollution over the coming years, the levels of air pollution will be lower in the future. Unfortunately, there is much debate over how greenhouse gases affect the ozone layer and global warming. Until this debate is over and people can agree, not enough action will be taken to help reduce the air pollution in the urban setting.

Why Not Just Print More Money

If we print more money, prices will rise such that we’re no better off than we were before. To see why, we’ll suppose this isn’t true, and that prices will not increase much when we drastically increase the money supply. Consider the case of the United States. Let’s suppose the United States decides to increase the money supply by  mailing  every man, woman, and child an envelope full of money. What would people do with that money? Some of that money will be saved, some might go toward paying off debt like mortgages and credit cards, but most of it will be spent.   Wouldnt We All Be Wealthier If We Printed More Money? Youre not going to be the only one who runs out to buy an Xbox. This presents a problem for Walmart. Do they keep their prices the same and not have enough Xboxes to sell to everyone who wants one, or do they raise their prices? The obvious decision would be to raise their prices. If Walmart (along with everyone else) decides to raise their prices right away, we would have massive inflation, and our money is now devalued. Since we’re trying to argue this won’t happen, we’ll suppose that Walmart and the other retailers don’t increase the price of Xboxes. For the price of Xboxes to hold steady, the supply of Xboxes will have to meet this added demand. If there are shortages, certainly the price will rise, as consumers who are denied an Xbox will offer to pay a price well in excess of what Walmart was formerly charging. For the retail price of the Xbox not to rise, we will need the producer of the Xbox, Microsoft, to increase production to satisfy this increased demand. Certainly, this will not be technically possible in some industries, as there are capacity constraints (machinery, factory space) that limit how much production can be increased in a short period of time. We also need Microsoft not to charge retailers more per system, as this would cause Walmart to increase the price they charged to consumers, as we’re trying to create a scenario where the price of the Xbox won’t rise. By this logic, we also need the per-unit costs of producing the Xbox not to rise. This is going to be difficult as the companies that Microsoft buys parts from are going to have the same pressures and incentives to raise prices that Walmart and Microsoft do. If Microsoft is going to produce more Xboxes, they’re going to need more man-hours of labor and obtaining these hours cannot add too much (if anything) to their per-unit costs, or else they will be forced to raise the price they charge retailers. Wages are essentially prices; an hourly wage is a price a person charges for an hour of labor. It will be impossible for hourly wages to stay at their current levels. Some of the added labor may come through employees working overtime. This clearly has added costs, and workers are not likely to be as productive (per hour) if they’re working 12 hours a day than if they’re working 8. Many companies will need to hire extra labor. This demand for extra labor will cause wages to rise, as companies bid up wage rates in order to induce workers to work for their company. They’ll also have to induce their current workers not to retire. If you were given an envelope full of cash, do you think you’d put in more hours at work, or less? Labor market pressures require wages to increase, so product costs must increase as well. Why Will Prices Go Up After a Money Supply Increase? In  short, prices will go up after a drastic increase in the money supply because: If people have more money, they’ll divert some of that money to spending. Retailers will be forced to raise prices, or run out of the product.Retailers who run out of product will try to replenish it. Producers face the same dilemma of retailers that they will either have to raise prices, or face shortages because they do not have the capacity to create an extra  product and they cannot find labor at rates which are low enough to justify the extra production. Inflation is caused by a combination of four factors: The  supply of money  goes up.The supply of goods goes down.Demand for money goes down.Demand  for goods goes up. We’ve seen why an increase in the supply of money causes prices to rise. If the  supply  of goods increased enough, factor 1 and 2 could balance each other out and we could avoid inflation. Suppliers would produce more goods if wage rates and the price of their inputs wouldn’t increase. However, we’ve seen they will increase. In fact, it’s likely that they’ll increase to such a level where it will be optimal for the firm to produce the amount they would have if the money supply had not increased. This gets us to why drastically increasing the money supply on the surface seems like a good idea. When we say we’d like more money, what we’re really saying is we’d like more  wealth. The problem is if we all have more money, collectively we’re not going to be any more wealthy. Increasing the amount of money does nothing to increase the amount of  wealth  or more plainly the amount of  stuff  in the world. Since the same number of people are chasing the same amount of stuff, we cannot on average be wealthier than we were before.