Animal Extinction Essay Example for Free

Animal Extinction Essay Animal Extinction the greatest threat to mankind In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death. Such is also the path of a dying species. Beyond a critical point, the collective body of a unique kind of mammal or bird or amphibian or tree cannot be salvaged, no matter the first aid rendered. Too few individuals spread too far apart, or too genetically weakened, are susceptible to even small natural disasters: a passing thunderstorm; an unexpected freeze; drought. At fewer than 50 members, populations experience increasingly random fluctuations until a kind of fatal arrhythmia takes hold. Eventually, an entire genetic legacy, born in the beginnings of life on earth, is removed from the future. Scientists recognise that species continually disappear at a background extinction rate estimated at about one species per million per year, with new species replacing the lost in a sustainable fashion. Occasional mass extinctions convulse this orderly norm, followed by excruciatingly slow recoveries as new species emerge from the remaining gene-pool, until the world is once again repopulated by a different catalogue of flora and fauna. From what we understand so far, five great extinction events have reshaped earth in cataclysmic ways in the past 439 million years, each one wiping out between 50 and 95 per cent of the life of the day, including the dominant life forms; the most recent event killing off the non-avian dinosaurs. Speciations followed, but an analysis published in Nature showed that it takes 10 million years before biological diversity even begins to approach what existed before a die-off. Today were living through the sixth great extinction, sometimes known as the Holocene extinction event. We carried its seeds with us 50,000 years ago as we migrated beyond Africa with Stone Age blades, darts, and harpoons, entering pristine Ice Age ecosystems and changing them forever by wiping out at least some of the unique megafauna of the times, including, perhaps, the sabre-toothed cats and woolly mammoths. When the ice retreated, we terminated the long and biologically rich epoch sometimes called the Edenic period with assaults from our newest weapons: hoes, scythes, cattle, goats, and pigs. But, as harmful as our forebears may have been, nothing compares to whats under way today. Throughout the 20th century the causes of extinction habitat degradation, overexploitation, agricultural monocultures, human-borne invasive species, human-induced climate-change increased exponentially, until now in the 21st century the rate is nothing short of explosive. The World Conservation Unions Red List a database measuring the global status of Earths 1. million scientifically named species tells a haunting tale of unchecked, unaddressed, and accelerating biocide. When we hear of extinction, most of us think of the plight of the rhino, tiger, panda or blue whale. But these sad sagas are only small pieces of the extinction puzzle. The overall numbers are terrifying. Of the 40,168 species that the 10,000 scientists in the World Conservation Union have assessed, one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, one in three conifers and other gymnosperms are at risk of e xtinction. The peril faced by other classes of organisms is less thoroughly analysed, but fully 40 per cent of the examined species of planet earth are in danger, including perhaps 51 per cent of reptiles, 52 per cent of insects, and 73 per cent of flowering plants. By the most conservative measure based on the last centurys recorded extinctions the current rate of extinction is 100 times the background rate. But the eminent Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, and other scientists, estimate that the true rate is more like 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate. The actual annual sum is only an educated guess, because no scientist believes that the tally of life ends at the 1. 5 million species already discovered; estimates range as high as 100 million species on earth, with 10 million as the median guess. Bracketed between best- and worst-case scenarios, then, somewhere between 2. 7 and 270 species are erased from existence every day. Including today. We now understand that the majority of life on Earth has never been and will never be known to us. In a staggering forecast, Wilson predicts that our present course will lead to the extinction of half of all plant and animal species by 2100. You probably had no idea. Few do. A poll by the American Museum of Natural History finds that seven in 10 biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, a more serious environmental problem than even its contributor, global warming; and that the dangers of mass extinction are woefully underestimated by almost everyone outside science. In the 200 years since French naturalist Georges Cuvier first floated the concept of extinction, after examining fossil bones and concluding the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some sort of catastrophe, we have only slowly recognised and attempted to correct our own catastrophic behaviour. Some nations move more slowly than others. In 1992, an international summit produced a treaty called the Convention on Biological Diversity that was subsequently ratified by 190 nations all except the unlikely coalition of the United States, Iraq, the Vatican, Somalia, Andorra and Brunei. The European Union later called on the world to arrest the decline of species and ecosystems by 2010. Last year, worried biodiversity experts called for the establishment of a scientific body akin to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide a united voice on the extinction crisis and urge governments to action. Yet, despite these efforts, the Red List, updated every two years, continues to show metastatic growth. There are a few heartening examples of so-called Lazarus species lost and then found: the wollemi pine and the mahogany lider in Australia, the Jerdons courser in India, the takahe in New Zealand, and, maybe, the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States. But for virtually all others, the Red List is a dry country with little hope of rain, as species ratchet down the listings from secure to vulnerable, to endangered, to critically endangered, to extinct. All these disappearing species are part of a fragile membrane of organisms wrapped around the Earth so thinly, writes Wilson, that it cannot be seen edgewise from a space shuttle, yet so internally complex that most species composing it remain undiscovered. We owe everything to this membrane of life. Literally everything. The air we breathe. The food we eat. The materials of our homes, clothes, books, computers, medicines. Goods and services that we cant even imagine well someday need will come from species we have yet to identify. The proverbial cure for cancer. The genetic fountain of youth. Immortality. Mortality. The living membrane we so recklessly destroy is existence itself. Biodiversity is defined as the sum of an areas genes (the building blocks of inheritance), species (organisms that can interbreed), and ecosystems (amalgamations of species in their geological and chemical landscapes). The richer an areas biodiversity, the tougher its immune system, since biodiversity includes not only the number of species but also the number of individuals within that species, and all the inherent genetic variations lifes only army against the diseases of oblivion. Yet its a mistake to think that critical genetic pools exist only in the gaudy show of the coral reefs, or the cacophony of the rainforest. Although a hallmark of the desert is the sparseness of its garden, the orderly progression of plants and the understated camouflage of its animals, this is only an illusion. Turn the desert inside out and upside down and youll discover its true nature. Escaping drought and heat, life goes underground in a tangled overexuberance of roots and burrows reminiscent of a rainforest canopy, competing for moisture, not light. Animal trails criss-cross this subterranean realm in private burrows engineered, inhabited, stolen, shared and fought over by ants, beetles, wasps, cicadas, tarantulas, spiders, lizards, snakes, mice, squirrels, rats, foxes, tortoises, badgers and coyotes. To survive the heat and drought, desert life pioneers ingenious solutions. Coyotes dig and maintain wells in arroyos, probing deep for water. White-winged doves use their bodies as canteens, drinking enough when the opportunity arises to increase their bodyweight by more than 15 per cent. Black-tailed jack rabbits tolerate internal temperatures of 111F. Western box turtles store water in their oversized bladders and urinate on themselves to stay cool. Mesquite grows taproots more than 160ft deep in search of moisture. These life-forms and their life strategies compose what we might think of as the body of the desert, with some species the lungs and others the liver, the blood, the skin. The trend in scientific investigation in recent decades has been toward understanding the interconnectedness of the bodily components, i. e. the effect one species has on the others. The loss of even one species irrevocably changes the desert (or the tundra, rainforest, prairie, coastal estuary, coral reef, and so on) as we know it, just as the loss of each human being changes his or her family forever. Nowhere is this better proven than in a 12-year study conducted in the Chihuahuan desert by James H Brown and Edward Heske of the University of New Mexico. When a kangaroo-rat guild composed of three closely related species was removed, shrublands quickly converted to grasslands, which supported fewer annual plants, which in turn supported fewer birds. Even humble players mediate stability. So when you and I hear of this years extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin, and think, how sad, were not calculating the deepest cost: that extinctions lead to co-extinctions because most living things on Earth support a few symbionts, while keystone species influence and support myriad plants and animals. Army ants, for example, are known to support 100 known species, from beetles to birds. One of the most alarming developments is the rapid decline not just of species but of higher taxa, such as the class Amphibia, the 00-million-year-old group of frogs, salamanders, newts and toads hardy enough to have preceded and then outlived most dinosaurs. Biologists first noticed die-offs two decades ago, and, since then, have watched as seemingly robust amphibian species vanished in as little as six months. The causes cover the spectrum of human environmental assaults, including rising ultraviolet radiation from a thinning ozone layer, increases in po llutants and pesticides, habitat loss from agriculture and urbanisation, invasions of exotic species, the wildlife trade, light pollution, and fungal diseases. Sometimes stressors merge to form an unwholesome synergy; an African frog brought to the West in the 1950s for use in human pregnancy tests likely introduced a fungus deadly to native frogs. Meanwhile, a recent analysis in Nature estimated that, in the past 20 years, at least 70 species of South American frogs had gone extinct as a result of climate change. In a 2004 analysis published in Science, Lian Pin Koh and his colleagues predict that an initially modest co-extinction rate will climb alarmingly as host extinctions rise in the near future. Graphed out, the forecast mirrors the rising curve of an infectious disease, with the human species acting all the parts: the pathogen, the vector, the Typhoid Mary who refuses culpability, and, ultimately, one of up to 100 million victims. Rewilding is bigger, broader, and bolder than humans have thought before. Many conservation biologists believe its our best hope for arresting the sixth great extinction. Wilson calls it mainstream conservation writ large for future generations. This is because more of what weve done until now protecting pretty landscapes, attempts at sustainable development, community-based conservation and ecosystem management will not preserve biodiversity through the critical next century. By then, half of all species will be lost, by Wilsons calculation. To save Earths living membrane, we must put its shattered pieces back together. Only megapreserves modelled on a deep scientific understanding of continent-wide ecosystem needs hold that promise. What I have been preparing to say is this, wrote Thoreau more than 150 years ago. In wildness is the preservation of the world. This, science finally understands. The Wildlands Project, the conservation group spearheading the drive to rewild North America by reconnecting remaining wildernesses (parks, refuges, national forests, and local land trust holdings) through corridors calls for reconnecting wild North America in four broad megalinkages: along the Rocky Mountain spine of the contine nt from Alaska to Mexico; across the arctic/boreal from Alaska to Labrador; along the Atlantic via the Appalachians; and along the Pacific via the Sierra Nevada into the Baja peninsula. Within each megalinkage, core protected areas would be connected by mosaics of public and private lands providing safe passage for wildlife to travel freely. Broad, vegetated overpasses would link wilderness areas split by roads. Private landowners would be enticed to either donate land or adopt policies of good stewardship along critical pathways. Its a radical vision, one the Wildlands Project expects will take 100 years or more to complete, and one that has won the project a special enmity from those who view environmentalists with suspicion. Yet the core brainchild of the Wildlands Project that true conservation must happen on an ecosystem-wide scale is now widely accepted. Many conservation organisations are already collaborating on the project, including international players such as Naturalia in Mexico, US national heavyweights like Defenders of Wildlife, and regional experts from the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project to the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council. Kim Vacariu, the South-west director of the USs Wildlands Project, reports that ranchers are coming round, one town meeting at a time, and that there is interest, if not yet support, from the insurance industry and others who face the reality of car-wildlife collisions daily. At its heart, rewilding is based on living with the monster under the bed, since the big, scary animals that frightened us in childhood, and still do, are the fierce guardians of biodiversity. Without wolves, wolverines, grizzlies, black bears, mountain lions and jaguars, wild populations shift toward the herbivores, who proceed to eat plants into extinction, taking birds, bees, reptiles, amphibians and rodents with them. A tenet of ecology states that the world is green because carnivores eat herbivores. Yet the big carnivores continue to die out because we fear and hunt them and because they need more room than we preserve and connect. Male wolverines, for instance, can possess home ranges of 600 sq m. Translated, Greater London would have room for only one. The first campaign out of the Wildlands Projects starting gate is the spine of the continent, along the mountains from Alaska to Mexico, today fractured by roads, logging, oil and gas development, grazing, ski resorts, motorised back-country recreation and sprawl. The spine already contains dozens of core wildlands, including wilderness areas, national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and private holdings. On the map, these scattered fragments look like debris falls from meteorite strikes. Some are already partially buffered by surrounding protected areas such as national forests. But all need interconnecting linkages across public and private lands farms, ranches, suburbia to facilitate the travels of big carnivores and the net of biodiversity that they tow behind them. The Wildlands Project has also identified the five most critically endangered wildlife linkages along the spine, each associated with a keystone species. Grizzlies already pinched at Crowsnest Pass on Highway Three, between Alberta and British Columbia, will be entirely cut off from the bigger gene pool to the north if a larger road is built. Greater sage grouse, Canada lynx, black bears and jaguars face their own lethal obstacles further south. But by far the most endangered wildlife-linkage is the borderland between the US and Mexico. The Sky Islands straddle this boundary, and some of North Americas most threatened wildlife jaguars, bison, Sonoran pronghorn, Mexican wolves cross, or need to cross, here in the course of their lifes travels. Unfortunately for wildlife, Mexican workers cross here too. Men, women, and children, running at night, one-gallon water jugs in hand. The problem for wildlife is not so much the intrusions of illegal Mexican workers but the 700-mile border fence proposed to keep them out. From an ecological perspective, it will sever the spine at the lumbar, paralysing the lower continent. Here, in a nutshell, is all thats wrong with our treatment of nature. Amid all the moral, practical, and legal issues with the border fence, the biological catastrophe has barely been noted. Its as if extinction is not contagious and we wont catch it. If, as some indigenous people believe, the jaguar was sent to the world to test the will and integrity of human beings, then surely we need to reassess. Border fences have terrible consequences. One between India and Pakistan forces starving bears and leopards, which can no longer traverse their feeding territories, to attack villagers. The truth is that wilderness is more dangerous to us caged than free and has far more value to us wild than consumed. Wilson suggests the time has come to rename the environmentalist view the real-world view, and to replace the gross national product with the more comprehensive genuine progress indicator, which estimates the true environmental costs of farming, fishing, grazing, mining, smelting, driving, flying, building, paving, computing, medicating and so on. Until then, its like keeping a ledger recording income but not expenses. Like us, the Earth has a finite budget.

Holocaust 6 Essay -- essays research papers

The Holocaust   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Throughout history the Jewish people have been scapegoats; whenever something was not going right they were the ones to blame. From Biblical times through to the Shakespearean Era, all the way to the Middle East Crisis and the creation of Israel, the Jews have been persecuted and blamed for the problems of the world. The most horrifying account of Jewish persecution is the holocaust, which took place in Europe from 1933 to 1945 when Adolf Hitler tried to eliminate all the people that he thought were inferior to the Germans, namely the Jews, because he wanted a pure Aryan State.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In January of 1933, Adolf Hitler, who was part of the Right Wing National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazis, became Chancellor of Germany. Chancellor was the highest and most powerful position in all of Germany, and this gave Hitler the control of everything and everyone in Germany, after that nothing would ever be the same. Hitler wanted a pure Aryan State, a country that had a superior race to the rest of the world. This meant that he would have to kill all of the people who stood in the way of his purification. This was called a cleansing of Germany. Hitler had most of the Jews, Romani (Gypsies), Poles, Slavs, homosexuals, the anti-social, communists, socialists, trade unionists, Jehovah Witnesses, and the mentally and physically handicapped people whom were holding back the advancement of the Aryan’s executed, this was called â€Å"Aryanization†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Knowing who was and who was not a Jew was one of the problems that faced the Germans at beginning of the Holocaust. You were considered a Jew if you had three or four Jewish grandparents who were Jews, even if you weren’t a part of the Jewish community. You were known as a Mishlinge or half-breed if you had one Jewish grandparent, and you were considered a half-Jew if you were part of the Jewish community or married to a Jew. All these people were known collectively as â€Å"non-Aryans.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  People often wonder why no one put a stop to the elimination of the Jewish people; but most people did not know what happened in Germany and the rest of Europe until the end of the war. If they did know about it they chose not to believe that it existed and thought that it was only a bunch of lies. Aryan’s knew that if the... ...d because he did not like a group of people he felt that he was superior to them. It is also scary to think that so many people believed that he was right and that they truly could get rid of all the Jews and non-Aryans. In my opinion it is disgusting that people could actually have thoughts like that, it just proves that he are not as great as we think we are and maybe we are not the smartest and most intelligent creature on the earth. We have to stop blaming others for something that we are not or for something that we did, it’s just not right. During the Holocaust six million Jews died whether from the extermination camps, malnutrition, disease, being executed or by medical experimentation. In 1933, before WW II there were approximately nine million Jews living in twenty-one European countries, which Germany would soon occupy. At the end of WW II six million Jews had died. A jolting sixty six percent of all Jews died that means two out of every three Jews died because of Adolf Hitler and his followers. Jews were not the only ones to be persecuted hundreds of Gypsies, Poles, Slavs and other ethnic groups, along with homosexuals and other â€Å"insuperior† races were also persecuted.

Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois

No two persons have had a greater impact on the black person's right movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cenury American history more than W. E. Burghardt Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Both have gained millions of followers in their quest to elevate the black people's place in society with their show of great intelligence and wisdom. Yet, their philosophies and ideas on how that goal can be achieved were as different as the racial differences that separated the whites and the blacks in their time.According to Ellis Washington, author of The Devil Is In the Details: Essays on Law, Race, politics, and Religion, â€Å"If the philosophy of Du Bois and Washington can be reduced to one word it would be rights vs. duty† (Washington, â€Å"Du Bois vs. Washington†, para. 21). Indeed, while Du Bois was a very vocal advocate on the black man's right to an equal treatment as the white man without reservation or apology, Washington espouses more on the idea of ra cial accomodation and gradual acceptance between the two races.This was nowhere more evident than in their respective speeches, â€Å"The Talented Tenth† and â€Å"The Atlanta Compromise†. In â€Å"The Talented Tenth†, Du Bois asserts that only through the cooperation of the best and the brightest of the black people can the general masses be elevated to the standards that they deserve. He argues that for this to happen, black people needed to also be accorded the elite educational training that is given to the white people, saying that â€Å"The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men† (Du Bois).Washington, on the other hand, appeals to the white Americans in a way that was almost pleading and submissive. In his speech at Atlanta in what came to be known as the â€Å"Atlanta Compromise†, he said: Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to educatio n of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories.While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people the the world has seen (Harlan, 583-587). Such a difference in ideologies, of course, is bound to elicit a reaction from one or both of the leaders, and indeed, Du Bois was the most influential critic of Washington, saying that Washington had encountered the most criticism from his own people, amounting to bitterness, even though generally held in silence (Du Bois, â€Å"Of Mr.Booker T. Washington and Others†). The contest between the two ideologies has long been debated, but the Du Boisian perspective have gained the upper hand, mainly due to the followers of it's leadership paradigm making major contributions to Black communitarian advancement during th e era between the two World Wars, resulting in the eventual demise of Washington's leadership legacy (Kilson, â€Å"Booker T. vs DuBois†). There is no question, though, that whichever became more influential, both will always be a defining force in Black American history.Works Cited Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. â€Å"Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others. † The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. Cambridge: University Press John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, USA, 1903. —. â€Å"The Talented Tenth†. The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Negroes of To-day. New York: 1903. Harlan, Louis R. , ed. The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 3. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. 583-587. Kilson, Martin.â€Å"Booker T. vs DuBois: Retrospective on the Washington/DuBoisian Black Leadership Paradigms: Part II. † The Black Commentator: Think Piece. 2 March 2006. 19 December 2007 Washington, Ellis. â€Å"Du Bois vs. Washington: Old Le ssons Black People Have Not Learned. † Issues & Views. 2001. 19 December 2007

Analysis of the Connection of Religion and Terrorism Free Essay Example, 1750 words

Since the September 11 attack in 2001, things were never the same again between Christians and Muslims. The tension between the two religions never came to subside, instead, it continues to intensify, as the Christians incessantly hold the Muslims responsible for bombings, kidnappings, and other acts of terrorism. changed America forever (1). The combat between Muslims and Christians is more than just cultural differences. Such hostilities were brought about and heightened by such belief that terror campaigns are carried out by the advocates of Islam. Haar, Gerrie et al. stated, In most cases, people have been concentrating on religious fundamentalism and, after the events of 9/11 , on religious terrorism: terror carried out in the name of God. The transnational character of these phenomena, typical of the present era, affects all parts of the globe, in the Western and non-Western world alike (3). Countless media coverage has deepened the conflict, although it was revealed that issues are somehow being overstated. com has published, The terrorist threat posed by radicalized Muslim- Americans have been exaggerated, according to a study released Wednesday by researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of the Connection of Religion and Terrorism or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Mason, Barry et. al wrote, Violent religious clashes broke out in the city of Kaduna in northern Nigeria on February 21 and have continued throughout the week. Kaduna is the second largest city in the north. The clashes followed a march by tens of thousands of Christians to protest the proposal to introduce Muslim sharia law as the criminal code throughout Kaduna state.

1984 War Is Peace - 1004 Words

The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, Winston undergoes a metamorphosis of character, which changes his life forever. At first Winston is just like everyone else, a dull drone of the party. Then he changes his ideals and becomes true to himself with obvious rebellion towards party principles and standards. Finally, Winston is brainwashed and is turned against himself and his feelings and is made to love the party. This is a story of perception, and how different it can be from one person to the next. Winston is a miserable member of a society he hates, and is controlled and watched in every area of his life. He has no desire to go on living that way, but he†¦show more content†¦And yet, in the sense in which he intended the word, he had not betrayed her. He had not stopped loving her; his feelings towards her had remained the same. (225). He truly gives up all fight that he has left when he says: Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me! (236). Winston s utter defeat resonates deep in his soul, and the unthinkable has happened, he stopped loving Julia, true betrayal (137). Totally broken, brainwashed and reprogrammed, Winston is returned to society as another harmless devotee of Big Brother. In the chilling final pages of the book, Winston, tears of fear and joy streaming down his face, proclaims his love of Big Brother, all thoughts, hopes or dreams of escape and fre edom permanently eradicated from his consciousness. Initially Winston has little to live for, but after he starts his rebellion from the oppressiveness of the state he feels that he should still go on, although already considering himself dead. By the end of Orwell s novel, Winston is living in a state of near total apathy, and trudging on only because he has no desire to either live or die. WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE ISShow MoreRelated1984 War Is Peace995 Words   |  4 Pages1984 essay. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. This is the slogan of the Ministry of Truth, a branch of the totalitarian government in post-war London. The figurehead of this government is Big Brother, who employs a vast army of informers called the Thought Police who watch and listen to every citizen at all times through a device called a telescreen for the least signs of criminal deviation or unorthodox thoughts. This novel, like Orwell’s earlier work Animal Farm andRead More 1984: War is Peace Essay978 Words   |  4 Pages â€Å"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.† In the novel â€Å"1984† by George Orwell, Winston undergoes a metamorphosis of character, which changes his life forever. At first Winston is just like everyone else, a dull drone of the party. Then he changes his ideals and becomes true to himself with obvious rebellion towards party principles and standards. Finally, Winston is brainwashed and is turned against himself and his feelings and is made to love the party. This is aRead MoreHunger Games And 1984 By George Orwell852 Words   |  4 PagesHunger Games vs 1984 The novel 1984 by George Orwell is based in a totalitarian society where the inner party controls the rest of Oceania. This storyline is very similar to the modern day story of The Hunger Games. Themes in 1984 such as Big Brother, the Inner Party, Telescreens, Thought Police, and Rebels are all also portrayed in The Hunger Games. Both stories follow the journey of the main character that is also the rebel in the story. There are many modern day stories that model the dystopianRead MoreAnalysis Of George Orwell s 1984 Essay1127 Words   |  5 Pagesmankind, yet it is difficult find one that is perfect even till today. George Orwell shows an example of this within 1984. 1984 was written based on what Orwell thought the government would be like in 1984. He used his personal knowledge and experience with the government to create his story. The setting of 1984 is set in a superstate where there is a totalitarian government. Within 1984 and the 21st century one major key stands out: corr uption rules both governments. Trust is part of a foundationRead MoreCritical Analysis Of 1984 By George Orwell1257 Words   |  6 Pages1984 by George Orwell sets the overall eerie tone of the book early on. â€Å"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU† (Orwell 3). In the book this was the statement was put on a poster of big brothers face. Firstly this is an example of metonymy. In the statement the term â€Å"BIG BROTHER† isn’t referring to how big brother very closely related to the thought police. The thought police is the organization that monitors the inner and outer party members. Secondly this can be looked through a postmodernist lens as theRead More1984 and Now1451 Words   |  6 Pages1984 AND NOW 1984  : Newspeak Now  : Politically Correct speech 1984  : The red sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League Now  : The red ribbon of the Anti-Aids celibacy league 1984  : Telescreens in every room. The programming runs 24 hours a day, and the proles have no way of turning their screens off. Now  : Televisions in every room. The programming runs 24 hours a day, and the proles rarely turn their screens off. 1984  : Telescreens in all public and private places, so the populace could beRead MoreComparing Orwells 1984 to Todays Government Essay1599 Words   |  7 Pages 1984 has come and gone. The cold war is over. The collapse of oppressive totalitarian regimes leads to the conclusion that these governments by their nature generate resistance and are doomed to failure. The fictional world of George Orwells novel, 1984, is best described as hopeless; a nightmarish dystopia where the omnipresent State enforces perfect conformity among members of a totalitarian Party through indoctrination, propaganda, fear, and ruthless punishment. In the aftermath of the fallRead MoreA Literary Analysis Of 1984 By George Orwell721 Words   |  3 Pagesbook â€Å"1984 by George Orwell† it was written in 1948 as a thriller. Winston Smith is the main character of this story followed by two characters â€Å"Julia and O’Brien.† The book starts off with main character Winston being very frustrated with what is called the â€Å"Party† lead by a man named â€Å"Big Brother† hints the saying â€Å"big brother is watching you† from â€Å"George Orwells worst fear† stated by express.co.uk. the book takes you for a ride through what the author believes will happen by the year 1984 he statsRead MoreGeorge Orwell s 1984 Power1426 Words   |  6 PagesIn George Orwell’s 1984 Power is gained most effectively through control, fear and violence. Compared to a government like that of America’s, 1984 creates a more threatening structure of government where the public is limited from freedom and happiness. 1984 shows a world of a society where only the upper class has power and freedom from the harsh treatment that the general population receives. 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Inter-textual Analysis, Romeo and Juliet - 2014 Words

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Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and Job Performance

Question: Discuss about the Relationship Between Public Service Motivation and Job Performance. Answer: Introduction: The mining industry is facing major challenges globally, that are restricting and reforming the mining sector and as a result the industry demands a new and innovative approach to management. Many different small scale secondary industries depend on mining sector and also it also supports a substantial amount of employment and financially viable wealth of the society. MiningCo is a mining business organization which operates in a range of isolated locations with many fly-in, fly-out staff on a rotating two-week roster basis. Now the organization is facing serious issues regarding employee commitment and performance in the organization. In this report the author, HR of MiningCo, a senior HR-Executive tries to identify the underlying problem, high attrition rate in the organization and poor performance and analyse the essential factors that are facilitating the issues faced by the organization. Also, the author being the senior HR-Executive will form a crisis management team to manage the practices that any considerable talent gap emerges at any individual site. Mining industry analysis: The MiningCo is facing a human recourse shortage and management issue to meet with the production needs. The organization is experiencing a high attrition rate with more people leaving the jobs and opting for more safe and secure career options. The mining industry is extremely complex and with new developing settings and surroundings in the industry in which cut throat competition, business interests and scenario of the practical market are forcing organizations to optimize their human resource management policies in order to maintain sustainability and profit (Mudd, 2010). The organization is facing significant challenges when it comes to managing attrition rate because of the economic crisis in Greece and the increasing impact of the presence of ISIS in the Middle East on foreign nationals is resulting in many of the senior executive employees onsite wishing to leave. As the mining industry is difficulties in attracting global talents due to hectic and risky job situations, the human resource managers are becoming more responsible for developing and employing business strategies to ensure decrease in attrition rates and increase in productivity of workers while be aware of the changing market conditions and industrial trends. According to Oracles Vice President, Mr. John F Hansen (Human Capital Management in JAPAC) stated that in mining industry an effective leader always balance the need for human capital specialization and flexibility with the steady force toward growing efficiency and improvements. Performance management and employee motivation: The concept of Performance Management is regarded as one of the significant human resource strategies for achieving the strategic purpose of the organization. The Performance Management System is a process that encompasses the performance appraisal and workforce improvement are vulnerable aspects of strategic human resource management (Boselie, P., 2010). Generally, management of an organization fails to identify the need for performance management in organizations as a result the organizations complain about the ineffective and poor performance of the staff. According to a recent survey it has been observed that only 3 out of 10 employees feels that the performance management system utilization actually helps them to improve their achievements and less than forty percent employee actually feels that their organization has an effective performance management system which generates sincere feedback or utilizes technology to modernize the process. So, it can be clearly seen that there is a serious gap in measuring the optimized performance management. The main reasons for these can be due to old fashioned performance management systems or lack of outlook of the management. To improve the employee performance, organizations should consider including effectiveness and efficiency of organization performance management systems and employee morale (Gruman and Saks, 2011). It is a matter of fact that employee performance is always reflected through organizations performance and profitability (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Often managers feel hesitant in providing honest and practical feedback and conduct a sincere dialogue with employees because they think that it will retaliate and harm the relationship with their subordinates (Bell, 2013) However, it is one of the fundamental process by which managers can initiate better performing employees. According to scholars, employees feel motivated and valued when they get honest and positive feedback from their managers or management. Positive criticism encourages employees to look positively and effectively work on their week points for improving their performances (Stahl, et al. 2012). Thus, in the current scenario , developing an efficient workplace performance metric system and honest and positive feedback system in organization is regarded as one of the job responsibility of the human resource manager. There is no universal rule or strategy for implementing performance management in an organization. As a result, it can be formulated by analysing the organizations purpose and function, which should be planned and developed by identifying and recognizing business requirements, culture of the organization and other human resource factors. Generally, a well structured and useful performance management system has well-planned method for achievements, evolution methods, with well-structured method to evaluate achievements and accomplishments with clear and defined job roles and responsibilities for the employees (Walker, wt al 2012). A well-structured performance management system has plan, recruitment, performance meter, training and development, career opportunity, succession planning, awards and evolution and reporting (Markos and Sridevi, 2010). Effective and reliable performance management systems have performance standards by which the organization clearly states the expectation of performance from the employees. It shows how employees are performing and the gap between the expected performance and actual result. This will allow the human resource manager to monitor the work force efficiency and helps in identifying the low performers in the organization and focuses on the managing and motivating employees. The organizations performance management system generally aligns with the long term organizational objective (Syverson, 2011). It engages supervision of employee labours, which is based on measureable performance results. The performance management system also consists of employee motivation which improves employee performance as it clearly states performance and makes rewards achievable (Ayub and Rafif, 2011). According to scholars, recognition at workplace is regarded as one of the most strong forms of motivation for employees. Encouraging performance appraisal in workplace allows employees to get recognized, important, and stable acknowledgment from the management which makes employees more focused and work committed (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). So, in the present scenario, introducing performance management system will encourage in clear vision in organizations objectives and job responsibilities and effective communication system in the organization among employees and management at all levels. Managing Employee Attrition Rate: The MiningCo is facing challenges regarding managing attrition rate in the organization with more senior employees want to leave the organization. The MiningCo operates in a range of isolated locations with many fly-in, fly-out staff on a rotating two-week roster basis. The fly-in, fly-out can be explained as a process when an organization relocates staffs temporarily in remote and isolated locations for completing a project for a specific period of time, families are not relocated with employees as generally the places are very distant to support basic life requirements (Vojnovic, 2014). In this method, employees often feel pressured as they live without family and social life for an extended period of time. In a recent study it was observed that employees who engage in fly-in fly-out job are more prone to many psychological disorders, such as higher tendency to suicides (Taylor, and Simmonds, 2009). In MininCo, the main factors that are pushing employees, specifically high level executive employees to leave the organization are the economic crisis in Greece and the increasing impact of the presence of ISIS in the Middle East on foreign nationals. Due to sudden drop in oil prices internationally, many mining organizations are facing a financial turmoil situation and are unable to attract employees with lucrative salaries. The employees in the mining sector generally have a very dull, risky and hectic work life where constant work pressure has resulted into depression and stress in workplace environment that results poor performance and lack of commitment towards work. People want to quite when they do not trust or lack of involvements with the organization. It has been observed that employees who are motivated they feel more involved and committed towards job responsibility. But when employees become stressed due to working conditions with declining enthusiasm and their morals deteriorate, they becomes less interested and distant towards their job roles. The author feels that to face these issues the management should convey a clear purpose and direction for the employees that what is the organizations objective and what are the expected performances from the workforce. Otherwise without lack of clear vision, employees will not have a clear idea about job role and organizations objective as a result t hey will find it hard to employ their best performance in workplace. Lack of comprehensive communication in the organization also gives rise to lack of trust and stress among work force (Taylor and Simmonds, 2009). The human resource department should emphasise on building an effective communication system in the organization so that the employees as well as the management feel heard and convey their concerns and build a strong work place relationship among employer employee. The management should have a clear communication with the high ranked executives who want to leave the organization to make them feel listened, understood and valued. An effective communication process will direct towards a strong workforce and it also provides employees the knowledge, structure and positive work environment they need to feel comfortable dealing with conflict and resolving issues effectively. The human resource department should encourage interactive communication sessions and dialogue platform s with employees to develop individual communication and interpersonal associations in the organization at all level if management (Hendry, 2012). There is a socio-political turmoil in the Middle East due to over growing influence of ISIS and their hostile attitude towards employees of foreign origins. The management should focus on this issue and examine the underlying threat and take appropriate actions to ensure employee safety at workplace. The human resource department should address this issue to the employees who feels that there is a substantial risk of life at workplace due to terror threat and convince them that organization has taken legal steps to ensure employee safety as a priority of the organization. The HR department should ensure the organization should not encourage any kind of grave vine communication that may give rise to rumours and restrain any hysteria within the organization. In these scenario, one of the basic objective of the human resource department should be bringing back the confidence and trust in the workforce by building strong relationship with them. One of the challenges faced by the MiningCo is to retain key workforce. The HR department should constantly restructure and redesign organizational culture to introduce innovative and effective workplace planning strategies overcome the struggle of talent shortage in the industry. The HR department should team up with the management to formulate business transformation strategies for encouraging employee commitment and optimization of workforce. This can be achieved by planning clear job role and responsibilities, diversity of job responsibility, better decision making authority, and safe and healthy workplace environment. Also, in this confusing and chaotic disorder, the human resource management of MiningCo can play a very important role in retain human resource talents and sustain while focusing on the fast changing market conditions. The human resource department should focus on the current demand and future landscape of the industry. The world is experiencing technological advancements, so the HR department of MiningCo should employ mechanization and atomization where intelligent machineries will replace a good amount of human capital requirements for onsite jobs (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012). It will offer the organization to setup a more technologically improved workplace which will shift the labour force from dull and risky situations to managing and administrating machinery processes from an office. This will change the basic concept of labour employment in mining industry. A crisis management team: Mining industry is regarded as one of the most hazardous job roles with oil spills, terrorism threats, corporate chaos, political pressures, accidents at workplace, etc that effects organizational performance and sustainability. Crisis is a condition where an event or action that leads to an unstable and disastrous situation that can have a direct impact on human life (Lerbinger, 2012). In context to business organizations, a crisis is a situation where a total or partial interruption in business operations can occur due to hazardous or emergency situations. It can also manipulate stakeholders perception towards the organization, mostly negatively (Booth, 2015). Mining organizations often leads to crisis situations due to its hazardous nature job with both natural as well as human made situational crisis and disaster leads to organizational instability. Thus, mining organizations needs a dedicated crisis management approach to handle crisis situations and maintain equilibrium in the workplace. In the present scenario, the human resource department can play an important role in safe guarding the employee welfare and safety and support in business sustainability. Thus, referring to the current scenario, which the MiningCo is facing, the author is suggesting planning and developing an effective crisis management team for having a right approach to manage crisis. The human resource department can manipulate the culture and potential of the organization to build effective capability and groundwork for effective crisis management and leadership in the time of crisis (Elliott, et al. 2010). The author believes that this job can be best delivered by the human resource department of the organization because it is the human resource department which has an outlook and approach to understand the human side of the organization and understand the tactical approach of human capital management. Generally, in the contemporary business organizations, management often prioritize emphasize systems, operations, infrastructure to be managed in a crisis situation and neglects human capital. But the management should understand that a business cannot sustain and survive without well-organized, job responsible and motivated workforce. Organizations with improper or lack of crisis management team and plan faces catastrophic situations when faces emergency or crisis. People get more prone to accidents resulting in permanent disabilities and fatalities which eventually affect the workforce which psychologically traumatize the workforce and eventually change of personality principles ad this will ultimately lead to loss of crucial talents and staff system in the organization. Lack of proper crisis management measure in organization can affect not only employees but also can have impact on organizations processes with increase in absenteeism and high attrition rate (Ley, 2012). Also, im proper crisis management often leads to negative publicity and bad public image of the organization. In the contemporary business scenario, one of the most important assists in an organization is human capital and businesses are emphasizing on development and improvement of human resources while safe guarding their needs and requirements. The human resource management has a tactical function and responsibility to make certain that the management are aware of the internal significance of the human capital to the possible crisis possibilities so that they can ensure the crisis management plan and strategy encompass all possible risks and apprehensions. It is important for the human resource department to become involved in the crisis management of the organization so that they can understand the risk management and business stability administration which would encompass the human capital plan of the business. Thus, the author recommends to build a well-structured crisis management department in the organization, which will coordinate with the organizational department at all levels to formulate a effective protection and enhancement system the can be achieved through effective crisis communication network at organization at all levels, human capital and talent management, planning for succession, resource planning, training and development of talents and crisis action plan by formulating safety training. This process cannot be lead by a single brain so to build an effective crisis management team; the organization should emphasize on its structure and functional areas. A crisis management expert always handles emergency situations more effectively. So, the organization can hire crisis management experts for the organizations crisis management but the department should have other members comprised of heads of other departments in the organization to act as advisors. The crisis management department have to work in coordination with other departments of the organization for developing a communication and coordination system for emergency management by promoting an d encouraging the workforce to take appropriate decisions and actions at the time of emergency and crisis (Coombs and Holladay, 2011). The team must take charge and encourage the organization to work as a single unit during crisis as its basic job is to identify the crisis and understand the factors that created the crisis situation. The team must work to improve the condition for smooth functioning of the organization. Developing alternative and unconventional plans for survival of business also regarded as core area of the crisis management team (Roux-Dufort, 2012). The team must double check the plan and consider all possible results and consequences before implementing the plan. The plans of crisis management teams are often for short term solutions to survive in the crisis situations. Rarely do they plan for long term solutions. So, there should be a proper feedback system for evaluating the implemented plan. So, that once the organization overcomes the initial stage of crisis, it should evaluate the plan and restructure organizations culture and structure for long term sustainability. The basic job of a crisis management team is to facilitate the organization to act accordingly in emergency and overcome critical situations (Crandall, et al. 2013). Lastly, reward system for the crisis management team should be based on their performance to supervise the affairs that any considerable talent gap emerges at any individual site of the MinningCo. Conclusion: In the above report, the author tied to identify the underlying problem, high attrition rate in MiningCo and poor performance and analyse the essential factors that are facilitating the issues faced by MiningCo. The report discussed the importance of performance management system in contemporary organizations success and focusing on the current issues faced in the organization. Author explores the topic how human resource can play an important role during crisis management. Lastly, the author has also recommended for a formation of a crisis management team within the organization for various sites and their core job would be managing the incidents that any significant talent gap appears at workplace. Reference: Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014.Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Ayub, N. and Rafif, S., 2011. The relationship between work motivation and job satisfaction.Pakistan Business Review,13. Bell, N., 2013. 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DeCenzo, D.A., Robbins, S.P. and Verhulst, S.L., 2010.Fundamentals of human resource management. John Wiley. Elliott, D., Swartz, E. and Herbane, B., 2010.Business Continuity Management 2e: A Crisis Management Approach. Routledge. Gruman, J.A. and Saks, A.M., 2011. Performance management and employee engagement.Human Resource Management Review,21(2), pp.123-136. Hendry, C., 2012.Human resource management. Routledge. Lerbinger, O., 2012.The crisis manager. Taylor and Francis. Ley, B., Pipek, V., Reuter, C. and Wiedenhoefer, T., 2012, May. Supporting improvisation work in inter-organizational crisis management. InProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems(pp. 1529-1538). ACM. Markos, S. and Sridevi, M.S., 2010. Employee engagement: The key to improving performance.International Journal of Business and Management,5(12), pp.89-96. Mudd, G.M., 2010. The environmental sustainability of mining in Australia: key mega-trends and looming constraints.Resources Policy,35(2), pp.98-115. Rousseau, D.M. and Barends, E.G., 2011. Becoming an evidence?based HR practitioner.Human Resource Management Journal,21(3), pp.221-235. Roux-Dufort C.,Lalonde C.(2012).Exploring the theoretical foundations of crisis management (Call for Papers, Special issue). Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 37,72-84. Stahl, G., Bjrkman, I., Farndale, E., Morris, S.S., Paauwe, J., Stiles, P., Trevor, J. and Wright, P., 2012. Six principles of effective global talent management.Sloan Management Review,53(2), pp.25-42. Syverson, C., 2011. What determines productivity?.Journal of Economic literature,49(2), pp.326-365. Taylor, J. and Simmonds, J., 2009. Family stress and coping in the fly-in fly-out workforce.The Australian Community Psychologist,21(2), pp.23-36. Vojnovic, P., 2014, December. Managing Work-Related Suicide of Fly-In/Fly-out Employees in the Australian Mining Industry. ANZAM Conference, Sydney. Walker, R.M., Damanpour, F. and Devece, C.A., 2010. Management innovation and organizational performance: The mediating effect of performance management.Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, p.muq043.