Category Archives: writing

Essay: Animal Ethics

December 24, 2009

Animal Ethics By Tiffany Tong Peter Singer is right in arguing that sentient animals should be treated ethically, although I disagree with where he draws the lines between sentient animals and those that may not be. I mostly agree with his explanation of why sentience equals to rights, why rights require ethical treatment from humans, and what kind of treatment is warranted. Singer’s argument is that the basis for having rights, or the criterion for having an interest, is whether […]

Essay: The Chinese Mercantilists

December 24, 2009

The Chinese Mercantilists Tiffany Tong November 15th, 2007 China has been growing in GDP at rates that the world has never seen before. It took China less than 10 years to double its GDP, while it took Britain 58 years, the USA 47 years, and Japan 34 years (Hou & Hou, 2002). Countries that started market reforms at the same time as China have all seen less growth (Remmer, 1998). There are many speculated reasons for this apparent disparity: in […]

assignment: structural adjustment policies

December 24, 2009

Structural adjustment policies Proponents of these schemes say that short-term drawbacks (i.e. reduction in health for the more economically disadvantaged section of the community) are necessary prices to pay for a long-term economic health of the country. Opponents say that forgiving the crippling debt load and applying some limitations on military spending might be better approaches. Using the sources of information offered in this module, discuss the arguments for and against external involvement by the IMF and World Bank in […]

essay: looking at media

December 24, 2009

Critically assess and evaluate a media piece The media is our portal to the world. Before the internet become popular, the media was, in fact, the only portal to the world. All news reports and opinion pieces could only be distributed by the media. Back then, using Gillmor’s metaphor of information as an ocean (Gillmor 2004), big media companies were truly the only ports where one could access the oceans. With prevalence of the internet, the recipients of information have […]

Essay: Conservation and Moderate Scarcity

December 24, 2009

Conservation and Moderate Scarcity Tiffany Tong October 15th, 2007 The concept of conservation promotes protection of natural resources to balance consumption and preservation so that future generations will have sufficient resources to utilize[1]. Conservation, however, can only deal with resources that are “moderately scarce” relative to human wants, and cannot be applied to resources that are extremely abundant or scarce relative to human wants[2]. In both extreme cases, conservation fails to be implemented because it is a relative concept that […]

Essay: mongolian grasslands

December 24, 2009

Mongolian Grassland Degradation as an Environmental Issue Tiffany Tong October 5th, 2007 An environmental issue is defined as “a clash of interests in which someone causes or will cause a harm or perceived harm on someone else’s interest by way of the natural environment1.” The principle theme of the Mongolian grassland degradation problem has all the main components of an environmental issue: conflicting lifestyles and harm caused to all the inhabitants of the grasslands. The clash of interests occurs between […]

Essay: conservation a normative concept

December 24, 2009

Why is “conservation” a normative concept? Tiffany Tong September 28th, 2007 Conservation is a normative concept because the principles of conservation are based on value judgements that cannot be rationalized or proven true, except by the norms of a society. First of all, conservation is the ideology that promotes protection of natural resources to strike a balance between consumption and preservation so that enough resources will be available for future generations to use and enjoy1. In addition, a normative concept […]

Essay: beauty and the dove campaign

December 24, 2009

New Saviour or New Suppressor? Tiffany Tong November 15th, 2006 Only 2% of [surveyed] women describe themselves as ‘beautiful’; almost one half of them think their weight is ‘too high’. Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Website (“Dove”) The above findings are from a Dove initiated survey of 3,200 women aged 18 to 64 from ten countries including the United States, Canada, and Japan (“Dove”). In response, Dove launched a new advertising campaign in which the city bloomed overnight to reveal […]

Essay: Nature as Teacher

December 24, 2009

Nature as Teacher: Ecosystem Characteristics Applied to Urban Settings Tiffany Tong November 15th, 2006 Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents; it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.” Ancient Indian Proverb Introduction The earth’s condition has been deteriorating since the industrial revolution (Hails). Global warming, pollution, peak oil, ozone layer depletion and many others have become household terms. […]

Essay: Speciesism

December 24, 2009

Tiffany Tong October 16, 2006 What is the common ideology between mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, peace activist Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and many others? Your answer may be that they are all vegetarians, but in fact, they all believed speciesism is immoral. Accordingly, one might ask: what is speciesism?

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