We Need a Ban on CFCs
Life on this planet Earth is the product of a delicate balancing act provided by nature. Mankind's very existence is totally dependent on this fragile ecosystem's ability to maintain itself. A valuable player in the balance of the environment, the ozone layer, is facing a very serious threat by man. Chloroflourocarbons (CFCs), are chemical agents commonly found in refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and in the manufacturing of Styrofoam and industrial solvents. With the rate of more than a half-million tons of CFCs being spewed into the atmosphere yearly, the rate of ozone depletion is rising at an alarming rate. If a global effort is not made to end the unnecessary use of CFCs, the inhabitants of this planet face an extremely difficult and frightening future.
CFCs were invented in Dayton, Ohio, in 1928. They were the product of an intensive search by engineers with the G. M. Research Corporation to find a safe, non-toxic, non-flammable refrigerant. Frigidaire patented the formula for CFCs in 1928 and the "new wonder gas" was named Freon. Seth Cagin and Phillip Dray, co-authors of Between Earth and Sky, inform us in their story of CFCs that "Freon soon topped the list of wonders, a 'miracle' refrigerant . . . [with the] combination of safety, cleanliness, and efficiency . . . " (66). Not only was the apparently "safe" gas being used in refrigeration, but with the innovation of air-conditioning by Willis Carrier prior to World War I, Freon would one day be used to cool our homes, automobiles, and businesses.
Other applications for CFCs soon followed. Out of the need to eliminate malaria-carrying mosquitoes during the first World War, Freon 12 was found to be ...
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...llergies and asthma
* The number of respondants to each choice was:
o A. 8
o B. 2
o C. 3
o D. 7
Works Cited
Brick, Phil. "Determined Opposition: The Wise Use Movement Challenges Environmentalism." Environment October 1995: 17.
Cagin, Seth and Philip Dray. Between Earth and Sky: How CFC's Changed Our World and Endangered The Ozone Layer. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.
Gore, Al. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. New York: Plume, 1993.
Icair Network. "Atmospheric Ozone." Ozone Information. World Wide Web: http://icair.iac.org.nz/ozone/ozone.html(9k)
Roan, Sharon. Ozone Crisis: The Fifteen Year Evolution of a Sudden Global Emergency. New York: Wiley, 1989.
U. S. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1995 (115th edition). Washington, D. C., 1995.
The University of Maryland has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1856 as the Maryland Agricultural College. Built between 1804 and 1812, The Rossborough Inn is the oldest building on campus today (Ghost Tour, 2). With its history, it is no surprise that the Inn has been a hotspot for ghost activity. Knowing that there have been numerous reports of ghosts at Rossborough, I visited the Inn to ask current employees at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, located in Rossborough Inn, if they themselves had experienced anything bizarre or if they had known others who had. I entered the small office where three women were talking and with their permission asked about their experiences with ghosts at Rossborough. Upon asking my question, all three smiled, although shaking their head, they indicated they had not. However, they all had heard of the stories, and one of the women replied and told me to speak with the University Archivist. She told me that she has spoken with the archivist, and upon learning the stories, she said that she “got freaked out and really wanted to go home.”
Many urban legends get passed down to others from information people hear, read, and experience on their own. Stories get manipulated and exaggerated over time and reasons for the story’s existence can vary. The true story of Glenn Dale Hospital appears to be rather clear according to credible sources – but this does not stop people from creating their own myths and legends and believing what others tell them is true.
First off, a general understanding of how the common ghost story got started needs to be in place. It is speculated that the tale of Anne Boleyn was the first recordation of ghostly happenings. Boleyn was the mother of Queen Elizabeth I and the second in a whole series of wives by King Henry VIII. She was executed after being tried and found guilty of a whole slew of charges. There are tales that Boleyn haunts the grounds in which she lived, and was ultimately executed some four-hundred years ago. It is speculated that when a person dies with “unfinished business” they haunt the place where they lived or spent their last hours, as with the story of Ms. Boleyn. Tales of ghostly happenings have circulated the world since transcontinental communication became prevalent. If given a second thought these stories can be disproved simply by following any of the preceding methods.
There’s this really small highway town in New Mexico called Cimarron, and it’s small now but in the late 19th century it was a bustling crossroads for all sorts of people – gold speculators, ranchers, oilmen, and especially those vagrant characters, like Billy the Kid, seeking refuge from whatever lawman was on his tail. In Cimarron is this hotel, the Santa Fe Hotel, and they say that this place is the most haunted hotel still in operation, in the west. The lights flicker on and off, and people, visitors just say they encounter really weird things – like if you go in this one room, you might see a woman out of the corner of your eye, sitting on the windowsill and looking out for someone. And when you turn to face her, she disappears, but all of a sudden you smell a subtle waft of strawberry-scented perfume. Weird – yet you still not sure if this is true? Sounds sketchy, I know. Oh – I should say this hotel is haunted because 23 people have been shot to death in the hotel, either from a bar-fight or card-game or something. Well I went to stay at the hotel for a night, before I headed on to a nearby Boy Scout camp. I went with my troop, and we all got our own rooms. Guess what room I got – the strawbe...
St. Albans Sanatorium is a destination known by serious paranormal investigators as a place where they can seek answers to the mysteries of what lies beyond death. Some of these investigators were able to find resolutions for themselves to a number of these age old riddles through their experiences at the sanatorium. The frightening and true stories found within the pages of this book are about these inquisitive investigators’ encounters with The Ghosts of St. Albans Sanatorium.
Human activities have led to an exponential increase in the use of fossil fuel. The benefits of using fossil fuels are short lived in comparison to its long-term negative effects. In the last couple of decades, the major consumption of fossil fuel played a significant role in the rise of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Roughly two trillion metric tons of CO2 have been emitted in the atmosphere and over a quarter of these got mixed with the ocean water resulting in ocean acidification (Buffie and Carr, 2010).
There’s a haunted house in Dover, Delaware called the Governor’s Mansion, where all of the Governors of Delaware have lived. If you go to the house yourself, you might see or experience a couple different ghosts. One evening, a guest to the house passed an old man dressed in old-fashioned clothes while going down the stairs for dinner. Once at the table the guest asked the owners who the person was. The curious owners asked for a description of the man. The description that the visitor sent chills down the spines of the owners, as it was an exact description of the owner’s father who had been dead for many years, and nobody else was in the house. The father had also been known for getting drunk a lot, so to this day he can still be seen drinking any liquor left out in the open. The mansion is also known for being a part of the Underground Railroad, so lots of slaves were always coming and going through the house at night. One night the house got busted and one of the runaway slaves ran and hid in a big tree in the yard. The slave was up there for a while and was already tired from his journey to the house.
6 American Community Survey Demographic and Housing Estimates: 2008. U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau. http:// factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&- qr_name=ACS_2008_1YR_G00_DP5&-ds_name=ACS_2008_1YR_G00_&-_ lang=en&-redoLog=false&-format=
So this past year I heard a ghost story from my mom’s coworker and friend. Her daughter recently purchased an old row house in Philadelphia. She lives there with her husband and they have a daughter, who was about two years old. They started to notice REALLY [eyes get large] weird things happening around the house, it was really eerie and started to make them nervous. Their daughter has a playroom in the attic, and she used to say, actually, she still says that there is somebody up there. She describes him as an African American male--well she says it’s a “Black man”--and she says he sits there and watches her play. When she told her parents...
"USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. US Census Bureau, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. .
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
It seemed from my story-collection that nearly everyone knows of some urban legend, but I found one story to be especially interesting because it is a relatively famous legend that has roots here in Maryland. The story of “The Goatman” has a number of variations, as with most urban legends. My roommate told me that he first heard the story from his parents when he was about 12 years old. He suspected that it was probably a joking attempt to scare him from playing outside so late at night because the sound of the basketball dribbling in the driveway would keep his parents awake. According to his parents, the Goatman was located in the suburbs of Montgomery County (his home), which was probably a detail that his parents modified to make the story scarier. He told a version that took place in Prince Georges County because he had more recently heard this version from someone whom he was unable to remember.
In 1970, Crutzen first showed that nitrogen oxides produced by decaying nitrous oxide from soil-borne microbes react catalytically with ozone hastening its depletion. His findings started research on "global biogeochemical cycles" as well as the effects of supersonic transport aircraft that release nitrogen oxide into the stratosphere.2 In 1974, Molina and Rowland found that human-made chlorofluorocarbons used for making foam, cleaning fluids, refrigerants, and repellents transform into ozone-depleting agents.3 Chlorofluorocarbons stay in the atmosphere for several decades due to their long tropospheric lifetimes. These compounds are carried into the stratosphere where they undergo hundreds of catalytic cycles with ozone.4 They are broken down into chlorine atoms by ultraviolet radiation.5 Chlorine acts as the catalyst for breaking down atomic oxygen and molecular ozone into two molecules of molecular oxygen.
Global warming or climate change is defined as, “a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants.” Those against the idea of global warming will argued that this gradual increase in overall temperature is not solely attributed to the greenhouse effect but instead a natural warming cycle. Although this may be true, human activities do not elude blame for the drastic increase in global temperatures in the last century. In the earth's atmosphere has accumulated immense amounts toxic gases produced by motor vehicles (11,000 lbs of CO2 per vehicle) and the burning of fossil fuels (21.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year), these toxic emissions are also to blame for acid rain which damages crops around the world. Ultraviolet rays omitted by the sun and deflected off of earth is unable exit the atmosphere due to this blanket of pollution. This phenomenon know as the greenhouse effect is responsible for climate chan...
Ghost stories are a truly timeless form of literature, the ghost, like death, has no end. Stories of the supernatural date back to early ancient manuscripts involving mythology, legend, and religion. The past few centuries have seen the supernatural flourish in Gothic romanticism through tales of fantastic creatures, demonic forces, and parallel dimensions (Scarborough). Interest in the other-worldly has provoked many stories involving the interaction between the living and the returning dead. The well-engineered ghost stories of M.R. James seem to arouse these eerie skin tingling feelings. Techniques aimed at involving the readers awareness James's narrative and folkloric superstitions in “the mezzotint” engage the reader's imagination and psyche. The realistic settings, supernatural elements, and sensational fiction that is doused in mystery, builds anticipation. James's clear an intelligent knowledge of human nerves elicits fear, excitement, and curiosity through imagery, the uncanny, and subtle suggestions that transform into personal supernatural experiences. The oratory nature of James's stories bring the characters and the drama to life and constructs fear in the reader with disembodied texuality; “fearing that these words on the page might spring to life” (Mulbey-Roberts 236).