Chapter 22

Section 1

1. Cash crop production in middle and southern africa creates problems such as small-scale farmers not being able to meet their needs because the good land is taken up by plantations, famers not being able to use the left over land of plantations because of erosion and desertification, and food production falling low below average.

2. Transportation and communications in this region are changing because of plans like Nigeria building links to all parts of its railway system, the buildings of the Trans-African and Trans-Sahara Highway, and satellites are making telephones and televisions more usable

Creative Writing: Africans have taken on enormous amounts of debt because they have engaged on several large projects that cannot give back as much as they cost. For instance, their farming gave them some money for their cash crops, but because of their mining techniques, they leave the soil dry and unproductive, and in debt because of the purchase of the machinery and the fact that they cannot farm their again. Poorly thought out activities like this and building massive highways throughout Africa have left the people in this region deeply in debt and without a way to relieve themsleves of it.

Section 2

1. Three reasons why food shortages occur in parts of southern Africa and the Sahara are because of desertification due to poor farming practices, conflict between regions, and natural changes in weather, such as flash floods and drought

2. Three ways Southern Africa are helping perserve the environment are by protecting the remaining tropical forests, Ivory being banned world wide, and people renewing forests.

Creative Writing: The threats of man, war and famine are quite related to the threats to the environment, desertification and poaching. If there was no famine in Africa, the demand for the meat of African elephants would be lessened greatly, and there would be almost no demand for the killing of these creatures, because of the ban on world-wide trade of ivory. Also, if famine were eliminated, there would be little need for harsh farming of the land, possibly eliminating desertification as well. With no war, there would be no need for weapons, which would mean less demand for metals that are mined from the ground, and this would mean little to no toll on the environment.

Alternative Fuel Summation

1. I feel that solar power is the alternative fuel that is most ready for mass production because it is renewable, it produces a good amount of energy, and has little effect on the environment, besides the fact that if we were to make it our main fuel source, we would have to cut down forests and put it in spaces that we may not want to, but this is a problem that follows most alternative fuels.

2. I think that electricity coming from nuclear power would be the best substitute for gasoline because it has the highest energy output compared to all of the alternative fuels, making the energy that consumers receive cleaner, safer, and cheaper.

3. The fuel I think must work out the most problems before mass produced is hydroelectric power. This alternative fuel is not yet widely produced and does not produce much energy compared to gasoline or other alternative fuel sources. And this is one of the main problems: it does not produce enough energy. If it is to be mass produced, it would be more likely to succeed if the fuel cells could obtain more energy from the fuel given, otherwise, most people would simply stay with their regular cars.

4. Even though wind power does not produce much energy, I think that it would have the least amount of problems in mass production. This is because the wind turbines could be placed almost anywhere on the world, even in oceans and other large bodies of water, so forest and other ecosystems would not have to be destroyed in order to create a large amount of these turbines.

5. Despite the high amounts of energy produced by this product, I believe that nuclear power would have the most trouble with mass production. This is because it would take a large amount of money to buy all of the safety equipment used to handle the radioactive materials and their waste products. It would take money to make sure that everyone is acting appropriately around these materials and to hollow out mountains and make areas inside of them to store the nuclear waste. And the more power plants we have, the more likely it is for an accident to happen, resulting in nuclear meltdowns, explosions, etc.

Short Essay: From this project, I have seen the advantages and disadvantages to several different kinds of clean alternative fuels that I did not know of before. These included their effectiveness, their impact on the environment, their impact on the economy, and information like this. The future looks brighter for some fuels than others, but the future of some simply depend on how much the fuel can change for better or for worse. For instance, hydroelectric power may not seem very useful or practical for those on a budget, because it does not produce a large quantity of energy for how much fuel it has. Nuclear power is the most realistic alternative fuel because it can produce the largest amount of energy compared to the amount of fuel that it has, making it the most viable. However, wind power seems to be the least plausible of the alternative fuels presented because it can produce a satisfactory amount of energy at some point, but because the patterns of wind change constantly, the amount of energy will be unpredictable, and the overall cost of a wind farm is very high. The most practical fuel for automobile industries to take up over oil would be nuclear power because, despite the possible toll it may take on the environment, it produces the most energy by far. Some fuels will be more accessible than others. For instance, hydroelectric stations are very rare, making them very inaccessible and thus unwanted and impractical compared to other fuel sources. In the future, I would most likely see myself harnessing solar power by putting them on my roof in order to produce some of my own power to save money, but unless the electricity from other sources are mixed in with the electricity I already receive, I doubt that I would use any alternative fuel sources.