Global climate change is invetable Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Global climate change is invetable - Essay Example Some people are of the opinion that climate change has occurred because of man’s activities that have interfered with nature. Others argue that the climate changes are natural cycles that occur after certain periods, and they have nothing to do with human activities. The essay will focus on both sides of the opposing viewpoints. It will examine why there is global warming and also its causes. The essay will also focus on the views against global warming. Because global temperature changes occurred mostly during the rapid industrial period, global warming is real, and its effects are tremendous. The presence of greenhouse gases causes global warming. A certain percentage of global warming occurs naturally because of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere. Such naturally present greenhouse gases trap radiation within the atmosphere, causing a rise in temperature and changes in climatic patterns. The rise due to such natural causes is usually minimal and negligible. However, noticeable changes in global climatic patterns occur due to the heightened concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Gulledge, 2012, 6). The increase in concentration of greenhouse gases is attributed to increased industrial activities since the start of 20th century. The increase in concentration implies that more radiation will be trapped in the atmosphere. Industrial activities, which lead to increased carbon emission into the atmosphere, have risen throughout the 20th and 21st centuries causing global warming. For instance, the highest warming has occurred during the last decade with gl obal average temperature rising by 0.51o C relative to 1950s to 1980s (Huang, Wang, Luo, Zhao & Wen, 2012, 39). Model simulations of the greenhouse effect have also indicated that increased greenhouse gases cause global warming. When global average temperature variations are reproduced in model

Economics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Economics - Assignment Example At the core of the concern for methodology in economics is a concern on how economics acquire knowledge on the world and what methodologies economics use to expand the frontiers of that knowledge. Also closely related to the concern is the discipline’s notion of what constitutes science and what knowledge can be considered as scientific or what knowledge can be considered as lacking a scientific basis or foundation. According to Hausman (1989, p. 115), the literature on economic methodology is mainly concerned with confirmation or disconfirmation of theory and has usually revolved on whether a particular economics is good science. Milton Friedman had viewed that good economic theories provide correct and useful predictions while Paul Samuelson had upheld that economic theories must involve operational concepts that are equivalent to their descriptions (Hausman, 1989, p.115). For Hausman, however, these views are mistaken because many of economic theorizing have been conceptual explorations and theories do not necessarily offer empirical hypotheses. According to Hauman, the four approaches that have dominated the discussion on economic methodology are deductivism, positivism or Popperianism, predictionism, and eclecticism. Hausman (1989) associates deductivism with Johan Stuart Mill, the discussion on positivism or Popperianism with Mark Blaug, predictionism with Milton Friedman, and eclecticism with Donald McCloskey. Deductivism asserts that because so many causal factors can influence economic phenomena, experimentation is generally not possible and induction cannot be directly employed (Hausman, 1989, p. 116, 3rd paragraph). The deductivist solution is to derive inductively the psychological or technical laws and then deduce the economic implications from the laws that were discovered inductively (Hausman, 1989, p. 116, 3rd paragraph). Empirical tests are needed to check whether the empirically derived conclusions are applicable, whether the