Worldwide Hunger and School Feeding Programs

Hunger is something that we all know as humans, but some may know it more than others. According to The World Food Programme wfp.org, hunger is caused by a number of things: nature, war, poverty trap, agricultural infrastructure, over-exploitation of the environment and that most of the worlds hungry people live in developing countries. This is probably a big reason why there is hunger in the world because these less fortunate countries and people are the ones who mainly have to deal with it. They don’t have the political power in order to truly fight this major world social problem.
I found some pretty staggering numbers on worldwide hunger on a website called Bread for the World, “there are 1.02 billion people across the world that are hungry and every day; almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds”. That’s like1/6 of the world’s population. I can’t believe that the numbers are so high. We don’t hear about hunger too much on the news so it’s amazing to see how much of an issue it really is. You would think that something that is killing one child every five seconds would be covered a little more by the media and or be a pressing issue in our politics.
Moving onto the main article, I found an article in the American Chronicle. In the article it explained the suggestions made in an essay written by Josette Sheeran, the director of the UN World Food Programme to end world hunger. Josette believes “without an immediate and aggressive response, not only will future growth and productivity be jeopardized, but so will broader economic development goals and the future security of all nations”. She seems to really emphasize immediate action before it’s too late. She goes on to talk about powerful measures that can be taken such as increasing school feeding. School feeding is something that has provided children in desperately poor households with the security that they need to survive. The article then goes on to say that school feeding programs have been cut recently around the Globe because lack of funding for WFP and other organizations. The article gives a great but tragic example of how over 100,000 children in Yemen have not received school feeding since last June. It’s sad to see because this is probably the only thing that was keeping a lot of the children alive in Yemen. Pretty soon these children could become just another statistic if funding is provided. I had never heard of school feeding like this before reading this article, but it seems like it’s a great idea. It’s too bad that the WFP can’t find enough funding to feed all of these children. It must be really hard on the people within these organizations to have to pick and choose who gets fed and who doesn’t. This program seems to be one small step into fighting worldwide hunger, but personally I think it’s going to take many of these programs to truly conquer worldwide hunger.


Works Cited

“Hunger Facts: International.” Bread.org. 24 Feb. 2009. 18 Apr. 2010
.
Lambers, William. “Sheeran discusses how to end global hunger and the power of school feeding.” American Chronicle. 18 Apr. 2010 .
“What is Hunger?” Wfp.org. 18 Apr. 2010 .

Air Pollution

Air pollution according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency is:
Any substance in the air that can cause harm to humans or the environment. Pollutants may be natural or man-made and may take the form of solid particles, liquid droplets or gases. The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments lists 188 toxic air pollutants that EPA is required to control. These pollutants are divided into various groups, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and halogen compounds. Also included are more commonly known pollutants such as lead, mercury and asbestos.
I think it should be noted that air pollutants are not necessarily man made. Whenever we think of air pollution we immediately think of the effects we as humans have had on the environment, but it’s nice to see it’s not always in our control.

I found a website called greenstudent.com. It talked about not only air pollution, but also water and land pollution as well. Since I am focusing on air pollution here are three facts that really jumped out to me. Number one: “the average adult consumes 3,000 gallons of polluted air every day.” Number two: “vehicle exhaust contributes to 60% of carbon monoxide emissions in the U.S. and up to 95% in large cities.” And finally number three: “every year 335,000 Americans die of lung cancer, which is a direct result of air pollution.” These are some pretty disturbing numbers. I had no idea that we even consumed that much air in one day. The second one defiantly rang true as an American because we have such a driving culture; we drive everywhere. We need to eventually figure something out and changed our vehicles over to something that won’t pollute the earth because were going to hit a breaking point eventually. Lastly, it’s unbelievable that over a half a million people die of lung cancer because of air pollution. At first I thought it was saying just of lung cancer in general, but then soon quickly realized that this number is just from air pollution and not of other factors like smoking.

Moving onto the main article, I found an extremely interesting article about air pollution at schools being linked to asthma in children. It explains that a study done at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California has found links to traffic pollution and asthma in kids. The study found that “Children in schools located in high-traffic environments had a 45 percent increased risk of developing asthma” (Air Pollution Exposure…). That’s a very large percentage, maybe California should look into this a little more. The article explains that 2,497 kindergarten and first grade children who were asthma free were examined for this study. The researchers took into account the amount of traffic, the distance of the children to major roadways from their schools and at home, and weather conditions. At the end of the research researchers found 120 new cases of asthma in the children, which was due to effects of traffic related pollution of both school and home. The article notes near the bottom that although children are at home more often than at school, but physical education or other related activities at school may increase the pollutants that the children were getting into their lungs. (Air Pollution Exposure…) This is some pretty scary stuff; air pollution is obviously a problem here. I wonder if it’s just California or there are other parts of the nation that are in the same boat here. I think air pollution is probably one of the biggest things we face here in America as I explained above. There are just so many cars. Households at times have 2 or more cars. We severely rely on our cars here in America, unlike other nations who are heavily invested in public transportation. I hope sometime soon we can figure out how a solution to our air pollution problem. I always thought hydrogen vehicles were the way to go, but I don’t know if we will ever see those. We better figure out a solution sooner rather than later though because we will probably have bigger problems than asthma eventually.

“Air Pollutants.” EPA.Gov. 7 Sept. 2010
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“Air pollution exposure at schools linked to development of asthma in kids.”
OneIndia.in. 7 Sept. 2010 .

“Encyclopedia: Pollution.” GreenstudentU.com. 7 Sept. 2010
.

The Iraq War Today

I found an article from Aljezeera.net. It was called: Making the Iraq War Disappear. It was quite interesting. The article began by telling us that we have now been in Iraq for seven years. It focused on the U.S. failure not only to finish the war but it also stated that U.S. failed from the start by going to war on false pretenses. This article also was hard on the American Media. The media played a big role in this war whether they like it or not. In the beginning the media seemed to focus on nothing but this war and now its hardly talked about or covered at all. Along with the media the publics attention is gone as well. Which furthers the idea that this war is lost.

One thing that caught my attention in the article was about the division of the Muslim people by the U.S. military. The author Schechter explains: “Our media seems to have forgotten it was the US strategy to divide the Sunnis and the Shia, building walls and fostering divisions between neighbors even when we joined in the celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall” I knew before hand that there were two different groups in the Muslim culture and that they didn’t necessarily get along, but I had no idea that our government was separating them. The comment about the Berlin wall was defiantly a powerful example that the author used to mock the government and the medias failure to get all the facts to the American people. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I don’t watch the news enough or that the media really didn’t cover this. Regardless though this is a little depressing to hear. The Berlin wall was a sign of oppression. Is that what our government has come to?

Speaking of lack of media coverage, the author explains here the lack of protest coverage: ‘the media barely covers what protest remains - much of it largely fired up by former soldiers confessing to crimes they say they committed. When "our troops" were dying, they were honored; now that many have turned on the war, they are ignored.” He’s right. I don’t remember the last time I seen any sort of coverage of a war protest. Are these protests not worthy news? Personally I think they are. They are better than some of the other stuff you see on the news, but apparently the media doesn’t think it’s that important. I typed in Iraq War protests on Google news and I found a few articles, but most were articles from other countries newspapers. Only one popped up from the U.S. and it was a college paper called the Daily Wildcat from Arizona. The article was titled: Don’t mention the War. It’s sad to see that this war is sort of long forgotten. Going to war is a big decision to be made by a country. A bigger decision to be made is calling it quits. It seems that this country has kind of quit on this war or at the very least forgotten about it as these two articles suggest.

Lastly, I just want to talk a little bit about the lives we have lost. According to an article in the Associated Press: “as of Tuesday, March 23, 2010, at least 4,386 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003.” It also mentions that 3,480 resulted because of hostile action. Meaning, almost 1,000 American men and woman have lost their lives because of friendly fire, and or other accidents. When you look at the overall picture 4,386 isn’t a large number of people, but its also 4,386 people who should still be living their lives. It’s gets even more depressing if the government finally sees fit to finally pull out of Iraq and we find out that their probably is still conflict occurring there. I personally am completely against the war. I don’t see us accomplishing anything there. The one thing I think we are accomplishing and fostering is a hatred for America. This war is bourdon on this country and its people, but I guess what’s done is done.
Works Cited

Harper, Ben. “Don’t Mention the War.” Arizona Daily Wildcat. 25 Mar. 2010. 25 Mar.
2010 .

Schechter, Danny. “Making the Iraq War Disappear.” Aljezeera.net. 25 Mar. 2010 .

“US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,386.” The Associated Press. 25 Mar. 2010 .

HIV-AIDS

According to the Sydney Morning Herald Queensland HIV-AIDS cases have soared. New data has showed that 178 people were diagnosed with HIV-AIDS in the state last year, which is 12 more than in 2008. The rate of occurrences has gone from 3.9% to 4.1% per 100,000 people. According to Queensland’s Chief health officer Jeannette Young, the number of cases in 2009 is the highest in the state since HIV-AIDS became a notifiable disease in 1984. The story goes on to say that 88 percent of the cases in 2008 were of males between the ages of 25-24. Dr. Young believes that it’s extremely important to engage in safe sex in order to prevent more and more cases. She also says that the Queensland infection rate is very similar to that of the infection rate worldwide and Queensland health authorities continue to try to fight the disease and invest in prevention and education programs. Also a new Queensland HIV prevention Action Plan is in the working and will be finalized soon. The World Health Organization presented some staggering numbers of HIV-Aids. It estimates that in 2008, there were 33.4 million people living with HIV-AIDS globally and two million deaths have occurred from HIV-AIDS.
HIV-AIDS is a significant problem we all face today as a global society. HIV stands for Human Immuno Deficiency Virus. Basically what this means is that it is a virus that causes the human immune system to not work properly. The thing that makes HIV so scary is the fact that it is a virus. Once a human has a virus they have it for life. Viruses are not curable only treatable. HIV if it is not treated well enough can then turn into AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. HIV attacks your immune system until it can no longer fight off disease, germs, and other viruses. Some people don’t understand the difference between HIV and AIDS. The two work together. HIV comes first and AID’s follows without proper treatment. According to avert.org: a person is diagnosed with AIDS when they have developed an AIDS related condition or symptom, called an opportunistic infection, or an AIDS related cancer. The infections are called ‘opportunistic’ because they take advantage of the opportunity offered by a weakened immune system. So AIDS is basically like another disease or virus that starts to kill the body because the person’s immune system was severely weakened by the HIV virus. So as I mentioned above, the two work hand and hand. It was first detected in the 1980’s and has spread rapidly all around the globe. The article stated that over two million people have died worldwide from AIDS. This is a staggering amount of people. That’s like a whole countries population being wiped out.
Moving onto my next point. When ever most people think about HIV-AIDS they probably think of either A. Africa or B. the gay population. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention: “At the end of 2006, an estimated 1.1 million persons in the United States were living with diagnosed or undiagnosed HIV/AIDS. In 2007, 42,655 new cases of HIV/AIDS in adults, adolescents, and children were diagnosed in the 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting.” Cleary, HIV-AIDS is not just an African problem. Over one million people in the U.S. were living with HIV-AIDS. What about all the people that have died from it in the U.S. as well? It’s also important for us all to realize that HIV-AIDS is not just a quote on quote “gay problem.” HIV-AIDS dose not pick and choose whom it wants to effect. You would think in this day and age most people would have the knowledge to think before they speak, but many are quick to jump to conclusions. It doesn’t matter if your gay, straight, black, white, male, female, Christian, or Jewish, HIV-AIDS could affect you. I believe that these two factors are preventing us from becoming more effective in the treatment and prevention of HIV-AIDS because if everyone’s thinking is its not my problem how are we ever going to overcome it as a global society?
HIV-AIDS is a significant problem and has been one since the 1980’s. Could this problem have been prevented? Probably not. Doctors are still learning each and everyday about this deadly disease. Hopefully someday we will be able to find a cure for it and be able to help those who do have it in order for them to live a full life. The article I found about HIV-AIDS in Queensland is quite disturbing. AIDS doesn’t get as much publicity as it used to by the media, but it’s scary when you see that cases are growing in areas. It seems like Queensland had some good people working over there to try to reduce the numbers and prevent more occurrences. Hopefully the number of occurrences will drop next year.

Works Cited
Avert. 2010. 16 Mar. 2010 .
“Fact Sheets: HIV/AIDS.” Center for Disease Control and Prevention. USA.gov. 16
Mar. 2010 .
“Qld HIV-AIDS Cases Soar.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 2010. 16 Mar. 2010
20100316-qbbq.html>.

Global Social Problems

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