Energy and the Environment :: Environmental Pollution Science

Energy and the Environment As I read books and magazines to prepare for this essay, I have become much more familiar with energy and the environment. I was always aware of my surroundings, but studying the issues further has allowed me to see how my life is involved with this area and how it actually impacts it. I think it was first made clear to me when I looked at the actual energy processes that take place every single moment of every day, and how very little disturbances can change environmental processes substantially. I never really understood the fact that certain environmental, and human, processes can actually convert energy into many different forms in certain situations. And also, all of the types of energy can be converted in an infinite amount of ways. An example of this is how "mechanical or electrical energy is, for instance, produced by many kinds of devices, including fuel-burning heat engines, generators, batteries, fuel cells, and magnetohydrodynamic systems" (Encyclopedia Britannica). In this example, fuel burning heat engines are used to produce mechanical energy, but in the process chemical energy is turned into thermal energy which is then converted into mechanical energy. As you can see, this is just one of countless processes that convert energy many different times. Another way I started to look at these topics was from an economists' point of view. I started to think more about how we may deplete certain resources and how certain alternatives are helping to aid with this problem. Another area is the distribution of resources and the certain decisions that must be made when deciding what and how much to use. An example of this is the fact that "schools spend more on energy than on computers and textbooks combined" (www.ase.org). If scientists could develop new methods of energy conversion, maybe schools and other areas of interest can decrease their spending on resources and ultimately energy usage. All-in-all, I think that the biggest topic of interest involved with energy and the environment is how much we actually consume (resources, energy, etc.) and how we can try to decrease this figure. To think about how much energy we actually use, and how this number has increased, consider the fact that in the past 54 years we have increased our energy usage from 29 quadrillion Btus to about 84 quadrillion Btus (Annual Energy Review). This figure is constantly increasing, which is one of the biggest environmentally-related problems that we are faced with today.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Influence on Hitler Essay

Friedrich Nietzsche had broached the idea of Ubermensch (translated as â€Å"Superman†) as one of the core features of his philosophy. This idea which set the stage for individualism by touching on concepts of self-surpassing and self-mastery is explicitly propounded in his most famous work, Thus Spake Zarathustra where the protagonist, Zarathustra said: â€Å"I teach you the superman. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass man? † â€Å"The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth! I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are thy, whether they now it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them! (Nietzsche, 1999: 3)† This, together with another concept introduced by Nietzsche, the â€Å"will to power† had triggered in Hitler a narcissistic interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy where Hitler most certainly identified himself, and served as his justification for his concept of racial superiority. Although Nietzsche may not have intended to influence Hitler towards anti-Semitism, it was in his language to which Hitler’s distortion could be attributed. His use of the concepts â€Å"whole-man† and â€Å"half-man† as well as â€Å"master morality† and â€Å"slave morality† as means towards the achievement of a new order gave Hitler a ground for his Anti-Semitic ideas. Nietzsche believed that noble morality, in contrast to slave morality, contributed towards the improvement of the race. Nietzsche describes the nobles as people who see themselves as creators of civilization, saviors of the all and protectors of everyone from everything contemptible (Nietzsche, 1999). Meanwhile, the slaves are those who see the nobles as oppressive and themselves, the oppressed, being incapable of production and giving rise to their resentment towards creativity. As Hitler sees them, through their inherently oppressed status, they induce in the nobles a feeling of guilt and resentment towards their own superhuman status, hindering their own productivity and thus, serve as a bar against the realization of their full potential. To him, the salvation of humanity dwells only in the hands of the nobility and definitely not in the slaves. In Mein Kampf, Hitler writes: â€Å"A human community appears well organized only if it facilitates the labors of these creative forces in the most helpful way and applies them in a manner beneficial to all†¦ In this it must proceed from the principle that the salvation of mankind has never lain in the masses, but in its creative minds, which must therefore really be regarded as benefactors of the human race (Hitler, 1971: 367). † Compounded by Hitler’s narcissistic interpretation, his identification with the Superman, and his anti-Semitic philosophy, it is not surprising that Hitler would identify himself with the nobles who, applying Nietzsche’s concept of â€Å"will to power† and Nietzsche’s affirmation of the existence of destroyers of the earth who must be eliminated: â€Å"Poisoners are thy, whether they now it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them! (Nietzsche, 1999: 3)† must have felt the urge to cleanse the race from such impurities as the slaves who prevent the human race from reaching the zenith of civilization and whom he most likely associated with the Jews. His determination of the nobles and slaves in the real world can be best demonstrated in Mein Kampf: â€Å"The most unbeautiful thing there can be in human life is and remains the yoke of slavery. Or do these schwabing [? ] decadents view the present lot of the German people as ‘aesthetic’? Certainly we don’t have to discuss these matters with the Jews, the most modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their whole existence is an embodied protest against the aesthetics of the lord’s image (Hitler, 1971; 154). † In Hitler’s mind, this â€Å"facilitation of the labor of creative forces† involves mass killings to an end of racial extinction. For Nietzsche, it is the Superman who would create a new morality in order to harness the will to power and destroy slave moralities. He believes that with an increase in greatness in a man, there is a contemporaneous increase in his wickedness and terribleness. This is justified because such increase in wickedness and terribleness are the only means to bring the status of humanity to a higher state; a means to surpass himself; to move away from the lesser creature that he was; as consistent with the purpose of the Superman. In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche, through his protagonist said: â€Å"Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass man? All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame (Nietzsche, 1999: 3). † If it is true that Hitler was influenced by Nietzsche’s writings, Hitler read Nietzsche’s â€Å"terribleness† to mean the need for brutality and destruction in order to refine humanity and remove all traces of imperfection to achieve a race of Superhumans. Humanity can only be cleansed of imperfection if such lesser human beings are prevented from interbreeding, propagating their genes to allow further continuance of the slave line, To Hitler, this is the only means to which a Superman, that is, referring to himself, can rule the world. In Mein Kampf, he says: â€Å"†¦when the highest type of man has previously conquered and subjected the world to an extent that makes him the sole ruler of the earth (Hitler, 1971: 288). † Extermination, then, becomes an essential element for the realization of Hitler’s utopia. He, in his own hands sought the application of Darwin’s evolution by ruthlessly eliminating his â€Å"weaker† and â€Å"lower† human beings. According to him: â€Å"Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live (Hitler, 1971: 289). † That said, for Hitler, mass killings and the use of violence can be justified if only for the purpose of saving mankind from the slaves who are the sole source of its degeneration, that is, those who lack the motivation for self-preservation and those who impose guilt on the nobles by perpetually seeking others’ help. His resolve was characterized by alienating any manifestation of slavery by exterminating them. It cannot be gainsaid that Hitler used Nietzsche’s philosophy to justify his own. What Hitler had done however, cannot in any way be imputed to Nietzsche. Reading all of Nietzsche’s works as a whole, one cannot help but doubt whether Nietzsche truly shared whatever anti-Semitic sentiments that prevailed during their time. At most, the resultant justification that Hitler was able to get hold of from Nietzsche was merely a product of his megalomaniacal search for an intelligent bearing to support his propaganda and to further cultivate his delusions of grandeur and personal hatred against specific races, accepting what phrases that apply to his vision and rejecting those that did not. Works Cited Hitler, A. (1924). Mein Kampf (James Murphy, Trans. ): NL: Fredonia Books. (Original work published 1927-1927). Nietzsche, F. (1999). Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Thomas Common, Trans. ): New York: Dover Publications. (Original Work published 1883-1885).

When Students Should Declare Their Major - 863 Words

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