Why Americans should embrace Alternative fuel vehicles Term Paper

Why Americans should embrace Alternative fuel vehicles - Term Paper Example If this trend is to continue in the future, then very shortly the phenomenon of 'peak oil' would be triggered and global competition of remaining oil will escalate the prices beyond affordability. Moreover, there is the persuasive argument from environment preservation angle. If current energy usage patterns continue for a few more decades then the ecosystems and environments across the world would be damaged beyond repair, putting at risk the long-term survival of our species. (Borowitz, 1999, p.255) The rest of this essay will elaborate on these points and present the reasons why Americans should embrace alternative fuel vehicles. Beyond concerns about peak-oil and issues of sustaining conventional oil supplies, there is the danger posed by environmental pollution. While manufacturing industries play their part in polluting air, water and soil, the chief contributors are motor vehicles. For example, 90% of the carbon monoxide, 50% of the volatile organic compounds, and 40% of the o zone in metropolitan areas come from motor vehicles. (Meotti, 1995, p.27) With car ownership per-capita in America being one of the highest among advanced economies, there is a urgent need for alternative fuels. There is also the option of attempting to reduce car sales and car usage. But since this outcome is highly unlikely, finding substitute fuels for petroleum-based ones is the more plausible option going forward. Soybean oil is another alternative fuel that holds a lot of promise. When oil prices spiked during the first Gulf War in 1991, American farmers put to use the huge surplus of soybean oil stored in tanks across the country. They said that Soybean oil can be refined into bio-diesel, which can be used by vehicles. Already, by this time, bio-diesel was being manufactured in Europe using rapeseed oil. And by following the same procedure, Soybean oil could also be converted into bio-diesel, which would prove to be a cleaner and eco-friendly energy alternative. (Schmidt, 200 7, p.87) Experts and business people have now identified bio-diesel as a key player in the alternative fuels market. It also has the advantage of being produced by both small-scale manufacturers as well as large industries. While bio-diesel cannot completely substitute for petroleum products, it has the capacity to power a wide variety of vehicles. At present 95% of passenger vehicles in America run on gasoline. Bio-diesel can significantly help reduce this percentage. (Schmidt, 2007, p.87) Promoters of bio-diesel also feel that its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. It is not only a sustainable energy option, but also an eco-friendly one. For example, â€Å"Numerous studies show that compared to petrodiesel, B20 emits at least 10% less particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and total hydrocarbons. The relevant data are summarized in a 2006 NREL report titled Effects of Biodiesel Blends on Vehicle Emissions. Unlike fossil fuels--which contain carbon from underground sources--biod iesel contains carbon from plants that were recently alive and drawing carbon from the atmosphere. For that reason, burning it doesn't add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than what was already there. What's more, biodiesel contains 11% oxygen by weight, which enhances fuel combustion, and reduces the amount of carcinogenic soot that diesel engines spew into the air.† (Schmidt, 2007, p.87) Diesel-run vehicles, on the other hand, are decisively more polluting. They release a lot of sulphur into the atmosphere, which in turn creates sulfate-based particulates, which in turn

The Organisational Culture At Enron Corporation Commerce Essay

The Organisational Culture At Enron Corporation Commerce Essay This paper analyses the Enron organisation culture and the key issues that eventually led to the Enron Corporate debacle and why it is so vital that top level management is the main proponent of this culture shaping lower level employees behaviour of moral reasoning. Moreover, as there is a need to understand how the different types of cultures may effortlessly help business to perform, this essay will identify the type of Enrons corporate culture through applying the assessment instruments developed by Cameron and Quinn (1998). In todays business environment the culture has huge impact on organizations performance. It is widely recognized by the managers, that the adoption of organisational culture as an effective control tool, gives the opportunity to affect on what people think, believe and value (Ray, 1986). It is commonly known that different organisations have typical cultures. The culture of a group can be defined as: A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems ( Schein, 1993: pp373-374). Organisations develop their own culture through history and structure that gives a sense of identity. Therefore, every culture possesses its own traditions, knowledge, art, moral issues, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by individual as a member of society (Tylor, 1970).It ascertains, through the beliefs, values and norms the way how things are done around here (Mullins, 2002: p802). Organization theory scholars distinguish that organizational cultures associate to the concept of an organization. However, Huczynsk i Buchanan (2001: p627) argue that the facade symptom of culture are its most visible and most accessible forms, which are the visible and audible behaviour patterns and objects. In the case of Enron, the analysis for the companys downfall moved well beyond financial and economic debate as the corporate culture was shown to be a main reason and contributing issue (Rapoport Dharan, 2004). The society got a shockwave when it came to that Enron was seen to be an example of corporate citizenship and ethics previous to its fall down (Sims Brinkmann, 2003) while in reality the company was cheering a culture for back-biting management possessed with exhibiting short-term profits and inflating the companys stock value. Sims and Brinkmann (2003) point out that this difference between the culture shown to the public and investors and the values being enacted within the organisation is an example of the conflict that can be found between levels of culture within an organisation as suggested by Schein (1985). Conducting the further analysis of the Enrons downfall it is vital to identify the organizational culture that the company could be identified with. Hence, in accordance to Cameron and Quinn (1998) and their developed marking criteria, there are four types of organisational cultures identified which include collaborate (clan), create (adhocracy), control (hierarchy) and compete (market) cultures. After close research and analyse of the types of organisational cultures and relating the criteria to the case study it shows that Enron applied a compete culture, which to some extent, brought the company to downfall.  Compete (market) organizations are focused on relationships- in particular, transactions-with suppliers, customers, contractors, legislators, consultants, regulators, etc. Through efficient external dealings they feel that they can best achieve suc ­cess. Compete (market) organizations are concerned about competitiveness and efficiency through accent o n partnerships and positioning (Cameron and Quinn, 1998). Enron executives spent more time distressing about reputation and getting ahead than trading with the everyday business processes needed to prolong the company.  The top managers believed Enron had to be the best at everything it did. When there existed failures and losses in their business performance, what they did was covering up their losses in order to protect their reputations instead of trying to do something to make it correct. In the case of Enron, the mutual goal of winning that is frequently anxious in compete culture organizations, did not translate past rough business deals and unethical business practices. In Enrons case, its corporate culture played an important role of its collapse. It was culture of greed and moneymaking In Enron, greed was good and money was God. There was a little regard for ethics or the law. Such attitudes infused the whole company from the top down to individual workers. Organisational culture supported unethical practises- corruption, cheating, and fake practices were widespread. Many executives and managers knew that the company was following some illegal and unethical practices, but the executives and the board of directors did not know how to make the ethical decisions and corporate ethical culture. Creative accounting and misleading profit reports were a matter of everyday procedure. Denial and reputation management enabled them carry on their unethical and often illegal activities. In addition, if the company makes huge profits in unethical way then individual who joins the organisation would also have to practice unethical things to survive in the compa ny. The management was blinded by greed and ambition, their decisions became seriously flawed. Thus company fell back and managers had to pay in the form of fines and imprisonment. Thus, disregard to organisational culture and mismanagement in huge proportions and, mainly, greed is among the key factors that brought the Enron the most innovative company to downfall. Enron was looking into the ways of getting bigger, greater and more progressive than the other companies at that time. And it seemed to be really well on the way to that target. However, the analysis of Enrons organisational structure reveals that top managers of any organisation at all times must be responsible of everything that happens in their company. Hence, the Enrons top manager (Kenneth Lay) did not have his objectives, right interest and mission in the organisation. But the success of the business depends on the executives abilities to leadership, influence on others and how the real interests and goals are foll owed by. K. Lays position as a chairman was just a title for the company and as evidence of that is the action of passing along the responsibilities to the Jeff Skilling. That could be seen as the countdown of the organisational structure breakdown which is related as the key issue to all the businesses. A wise decision-making abilities and achievement of organisational objectives truly correlates with the companys organisational structure. In Enron case, people responsible for making such wise and important decisions were obviously those from the top of the management; however they did not really possess any of the productive objectives in their minds. The final decision-making was left for the chief financial and chief operating officers whose ability, in the other hand, excluded any sense of any kind of the responsibility for the consequences could occurred. The basic interest, as it seems from the case study analysis, was the financial profit- money. Thus, decision-making was easily blinded with the quantity of the business deals made and money seen, without any of the consideration of the future problems of the organisation, such behaviour could cause. According to Reh (2002), It is the leaders job to provide the vision for the group. A good executive must have a dream and the ability to get the company to support that dream. But it is not enough to merely have the dream. The leader must also provide the framework by which the people in that organization can help achieve the dream. This is called company culture (p.1). Generally, corporate culture refers to the prevailing implicit values, attitudes and ways of doing things in a company. It often reflects the personality, philosophy and the ethnic-cultural background of the founder or the leader. Corporate culture dictates how the company is run and how people are promoted (Wong, 2005, p.185). The leadership of the Enron could not cope with providing the guidance to help the business to survive. Hence, that is the clear evidence that Jeff Skilling proclaimed the Enrons corporate culture- the culture of greed, corruption and deception. He wanted profits at all cost, in addition the hiring practices became obsessed with finding aggressive, greedy, unethical employees who could deliver on the organisations demand for short term profits. There is a direct connection between the way a business and its people conduct themselves and the leadership within it. There was no respect or responsible decision-making in the Enron. The management of the organization was totally broken down by the companys executives, who displaced their responsibilities to unprofessional staff and there was no rigorous standart of the performance for their business. The senior management failed to maintain a relationship of openness and trust with employees. Staff members who questioned the wisdom of some of Enrons decisions and practices were either ignored or silenced. Senior management cared more about self-enrichment than the needs of employees. They showed little regard for meaning and ethics beyond the bottom line (Wong, 2005, p.185).And when the top managers turned a blind eye on the legal aspects when performing financial operations, the clear message of the tolerance of the illegal practices was sent. After analysing the case study I suggest that the most important lesson is that corporate culture matters it can either bring prosperity or disaster to the organization. A company needs to promote an organisational culture with moral way of thinking as Peters Waterman (1982: p75) points out that without exception, the dominance and coherence of culture proved to be an essential quality of the excellent companies. This culture should be top level management as they are key figures, which employees will follow. If executives of a company consider the short term bottom line to be the most important factor to success then lower level employees will soon get the message and acquire the game rules. This environment is exposed to the actions such as intentionally breaking the rules, if results cannot be achieved within the legal framework. From studying the Enron case it is seen that collapse was brought on by a lack of respect, lack of concern of management and real goals. To point out that the enormous amount of losses of the company destroyed the lives of the Enrons employees and the investors who trusted and heavily invested in the business. After all taking on to account that organisational culture is able to bring an enormous difference and guide the organisation to success and prolong reasonable rewards (Hoecklin, 1995) by possessing effective management (Miroshnik, 2002), the Enrons example demonstrates that when there is unhealthy corporate culture in the company which lacks the true leadership, true interests, true goals, wise decision-making and the main issue is greed for money, then such a business is exposed to become the bankrupt.

The Role of Faith in Field of Dreams :: Faith

Faith is an important aspect in everybody. It helps us see God, and believe in him. Our faith is always tested when there is a hard theological decision to make or somebody else trying to break your bold with God. The movie Field of Dreams, is a great example of how staying true to your faith can sometimes be hard. In this movie, the main character Ray Kinsella shows his faith in what he believes he should do. In the beginning of the movie Roy hears a voice from the corn saying, â€Å"If you build it he will come.† At this point Roy has no idea who is talking to him or what about. He tells his wife Annie and his young daughter Karen. He eventually realizes that the voices are telling him to build a baseball field so â€Å"Shoeless† Joe Jackson and his teammates can play ball. Our group thought that the voices are coming from Ray’s conscience. We thought the message the voice is trying to get across is that if he builds the baseball field his father will come. We thought this because throughout the movie Ray discusses his relationship with his father and how it wasn’t the greatest. Another example of why we thought the voice was his conscience is when the voice says, â€Å"Ease his Pain.† Ray thought that he should have eased the writer Terence Mann’s p ain, but we thought the voice was saying ease the pain from the relationship with his father. The Kinsella family showed great faith throughout the movie, but Ray definitely proved his the best. By listening to the voices, he built an expensive baseball field, traveled across the country with Terence Mann to find Archibald Graham. He could have quit at any time and just forgot about the voices, but he continued to stay strong to his faith and follow his dreams. Though Ray did end up realizing why he was being told to do these things, his faith and willpower was tested throughout the movie. Faith was a major part in the movie, and ran parallel to the storyline for almost the entire duration. In many scenes faith was challenged. For example, when Ray and Annie are contemplating building the baseball field, when they have no funds and could lose their farm Ray’s faith was tested. Also when he was argues with his wife about whether to visit Terence Mann or not.

How does Bennett present different teaching styles in ‘The History Boys’?

Bennett presents three contrasting teaching styles in the History Boys through the characters of Hector, Mrs Lintott, and Irwin. All three of the characters have their own unique attitude towards the boys' impending Oxbridge examinations, putting the boys in the difficult position of having to keep a reasonable balance between teaching and learning styles whilst making every effort to maintain the good-humoured relationships they have with each of their teachers, as well as striving to achieve well in their examinations. Whilst Hector brands the boys' Oxbridge aspirations as ‘silliness', he has a dedication and love for knowledge which he imparts during his lessons, and generally, to his students. While on the subject of General Studies, he quotes ‘All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use', which encapsulates, in one phrase, how highly he values any kind of knowledge as well as how he tries to teach the boys. It shows that Hector sees knowledge as precious- he has an unconventional kind of teaching style which he sees as vital to the boys' education of life in general, and of particular importance is that the boys are aware of this. As Timms says, ‘Mr. Hector's stuff's not meant for the exam, sir. It's to make us more rounded human beings. ‘ when the boys are questioned by Irwin on Hector's teaching style. Furthermore, Hector believes in giving the boys the ability to defy the education they have been given- ‘You give them an education. I give them the wherewithal to resist it' he says, in conversation with factual Mrs. Lintott. Hector's teaching style is lively and compassionate, teaching the boys to love what they do. In contrast, Irwin, who is hired to prepare the boys for their exams, is totally centered on exam techniques. When reflecting on the essays he has just marked, he remarks that the other boys and girls who ‘have been to Rome and Venice, Florence and Perugia' will ‘know when they come to do an essay like this on the Church on the eve of the Reformation that some silly nonsense on the foreskins of Christ will come in handy. And doing so he advises the boys to make their essays controversial so they stand out, regardless of what is true or what is considered correct or disciplined- in fact, Irwin approaches History in a rebellious and oppositional way to spark questioning. Iriwn's bold stance on education is summed up when he says that ‘truth is no more at issue in an examination that thirst at a wine-tasting or fashion at a strip tease'- yet again reinforcing the idea that if the boys want to get in to Oxford and Cambridge, they need to make their essays contentious and different rather than ‘Dull. Read also History Quizzes Dull. Abysmally Dull. ‘ His idea that ‘silly nonsense' will catch the examiner's eye comes into conflict with Hector's teaching style and the ‘token' of Hector's trust when Irwin finds out that the boys have acquired countless ‘gobbets' from Hector's lessons that he believes would be useful for the exams- ‘Don't tell me that's useless knowledge', he says, pointing out that any piece of knowledge or quote or ‘gobbet' could help them get through their exams. Hector's compassionate teaching is at complete odds with Irwin's edgy style, and even though he disagrees wholeheartedly with the way Irwin approaches learning- ‘call them what you like, but do not call them ‘gobbets'- he is willing to help Irwin do his job- ‘However, if you think it will help, I will speak to them. ‘ Mrs Lintott, the boys' history teacher, has a very factual and straightforward approach to teaching which sees the boys through their A levels- ‘Their A levels are very good. And that is thanks to you, Dorothy. She is more concerned with facts than anything else, and her belief is that ‘Plainly stated and properly organised facts need no presentation, surely. ‘ But the headmaster of the school is looking for something different, rather like Irwin- ‘Think charm. Think polish. Think Renaissance Man. ‘ Mrs Lintott is frustrated by the need for ‘presentation' and the fact that the dons fall for the tactics employed by people like Irwin, however, and compares it to ‘A sprig of parsley, you mean? Or an umbrella in the cocktail? outlining her dry, sarcastic, cynical humour, and showing her disrespect for jazzing up facts to be acknowledged and noticed, as Irwin does. As Rudge puts it, when speaking to Mrs Lintott about Irwin, ‘You've force-fed us the facts; now we're in the process of running around acquiring flavour. ‘ In conclusion, Bennett presents three different teaching styles in the play by showing the audience not just the teachers' lessons but by giving the audience an idea of what the teachers' personalities and outlooks on life are, showing that teaching and learning involve so much more than exam res ults.

International Journal of Water Resources Development Essay

This paper investigates the use of inland waterways on three continents-Asia, Europe, and North America with an in-depth focus on the transportation of agricultural, industrial and energy products. It is found that there are great variations on the use of inland waterways in their importance from one country to another. This variation in use of inland waterways depends on economic, technical, social and political considerations. Certain considerations like cost-effectiveness or technical feasibility are universal. Additionally, this discrepancy can be explained to a certain extent by geographical conditions, but lack of realization of the potential benefits to the national economies also plays an important role. Some countries – especially the oil-importing developing countries – are now making determined efforts to expand and modernize their waterways transportation systems, but generally there is a lack of national master plans for transportation, including inland waterways, so their development is still taking place on a piecemeal basis. There are many major considerations for using inland waterways, and some of these issues are interrelated. Five major considerations are: (i) economic efficiency; (ii) employment potential; (iii) energy use; (iv) environmental factors; and (v) socioeconomic requirements. As might be expected, the recent rates of growth of inland water transport in different parts of the world have not been uniform. The growth rates have not been similar even within a specific region. For example, in Asia, cargo handled by inland waterways increased by 12% in China in 1982, and by 9. 1% in Burma during 1982-83. In contrast, cargo handled in Bangladesh declined by 4% during 1982-83. Asia. Inland waterways are an important means of transportation and communication for a significant percentage of people in Asia, especially those living in river basins and deltaic areas. Countries like Bangladesh and Thailand have always relied on transportation through their rivers which cover almost the entire length of the countries from north to south. Europe. No uniform pattern of inland water transportation (IWT) emerges in the various countries of Europe. If the West European countries are considered, in general the total tonnage of goods carried has declined over the past decade. The reduction can to some extent be attributed to the decline in economic activities. North America. For Canada – water transport has historically played a dominant role in the Canadian economy because of the nation’s size, geography and presence of a large number of water bodies. Among the major constraints for IWT in Canada are the shortness of the season due to the freezing of waterways, the relative inflexibility of capacity in some areas and vulnerability to major variations in water levels in different river sections at different times during the year. For the USA there are three different systems can be identified geographically: Atlantic Coast and Pacific Coast waterways and the Mississippi river-Gulf Intercoastal system. There is no inland connection between these three systems. An analysis of the situation with respect to inland waterways transportation clearly indicates the great variations in their importance and use from one country to another. While geographical conditions can explain this anomaly to a certain extent, lack of realization of the potential impact of IWT on national economies continues to be an important factor. The expansion of IWT in developing countries has more potential than in developed countries, where this mode of transportation is more mature. Without a national transportation policy, development of IWT can proceed only on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis.