Category: Context

Water Shortage Solution- L.A.

In L.A. they suffer from a lot of draught so a solution they came up with is to drop 96 million ‘shade balls’ into their reservoirs so that the water is kept cool an doesn’t evaporate away.

Here are some pictures:

National Geographic News. 2018. Why Did L.A. Drop 96 Million ‘Shade Balls’ Into Its Water?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150812-shade-balls-los-angeles-California-drought-water-environment/. [Accessed 17 April 2018].

Cape Town Water Shortage

‘The South African city plans to shut off the taps to 4 million people. But it’s just one of many cities around the world facing a future with too little water.’ (Welch, 2018)

Population increase and a record long drought, probably also not helped out by climate change, is sparking one of the world’s most dramatic urban water crises. By summer this year (2018), four million people in the city of Cape Town, Africa may have to stand in line to collect their ration of water. All taps will be shut off in the city to prevent the waste and use of water. They are having to do this because reservoirs have gotten extremely low.

200 emergency water stations are being set up outside food stores, each station will have to serve almost 20,000 residents. For months citizens have been asked to reduce their use of water but that means asking people to work harder and actually use their brains, this request has pretty much been useless.

‘The fundamental problem is the kind of lifestyle we’re living. There’s almost a sense of entitlement that we have a right to consume as much as we want. The attitude and reaction of most posts on social media is indignation. It’s ‘we pay our taxes’ and therefore we should be as comfortable as possible.’ (David Olivier, Global Change Institute at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, 2018).

Bibliography:

  1. National Geographic News. 2018. Why Cape Town Is Running Out of Water, and the Cities That Are Next. [ONLINE] Available at: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/. [Accessed 08 April 2018].
  2. David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN. 2018. ‘Day Zero’: A disaster deferred, but for how long? – CNN. [ONLINE] Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/09/africa/cape-town-day-zero-crisis-intl/index.html. [Accessed 08 April 2018].

A World Without Water

Almost 2 million people die from a lack of safe drinking water every year. By 2030, half the world’s population could be living in areas of high water stress, meaning there will be a limited source of water in those areas. This is crazy as that is 12 years from now!

Earth contains over a billion trillion litres of water, unfortunately very little of this water is safe to drink. Over 97% of water on Earth is salt water (the seas). The fresh water that remains is difficult for us to access as over two thirds is locked away in ice caps and glaciers and the majority of the rest is trapped in soil or underground.

If water becomes limited some plants won’t be able to grow this means that food sources for all beings will become limited. This can mean famine would become a very big problem as livestock such as cows and sheep rely on grasses and other food sources to survive. If they can’t eat then they become extinct. Water is a necessary source that every living organism needs to survive without it mass extinction would occur as the food chain will break down.

Desalination – turning sea water into fresh water seems like the perfect solution but all is not as it seems. The process is very difficult to conduct and therefore expensive to do meaning only rich countries would be able to afford to do this. Also there are roughly 7 billion people in the world this means that a lot of seawater would need to be drained this would mean that we would likely end up ruining the eco system in the sea.

Bibliography:

  1. The Guardian. 2018. The six natural resources most drained by our 7 billion people | Environment | The Guardian. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/oct/31/six-natural-resources-population. [Accessed 08 April 2018].
  2. 2018. Exactly what happens if we run out of water? | HowStuffWorks. [ONLINE] Available at: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/run-out-of-water.htm [Accessed 08 April 2018].
  3. YouTube. 2018. What Would Happen If The Earth Ran Out Of Water? – YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeMtih75W1U. [Accessed 08 April 2018]
  4. BBC Guides. 2018. BBC iWonder – How can our blue planet be running out of fresh water?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3qdd2p. [Accessed 17 April 2018].

Drug Side Effects

A side effect is an undesirable secondary effect which happens along side the desired effect of a drug or medication. Side effects may be different for each person depending on the person’s illness, age, weight, gender, ethnicity and general health. Side effects can take place when decreasing/increasing dosages, or ending a regime. Side effects can occur with legal and legal drugs.

All drugs have side effects they just change depending on the person.

Primary Side Effects:

  • An allergic reaction causing a rash or itching can occur.
  • Drowsiness
  • Dry mouth
  • Internal bleeding (severe cases)
  • Hallucinations
  • Psychosis
  • Sight changes
  • Dizziness
  • Lack of control over the body

Secondary Effects:

  • Death
  • Not being able to walk properly
  • slurred speech
  • Lesions on the body
  • Self harm
  • Harm to others

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are the people who allow drugs to be open for human consumption this means all drugs must go through extensive testing. Starting off testing on animals and then moving on to human trials afterwards. If a drug passes all the tests then it is then allowed to be sold in stores or prescribed. Obviously illegal drugs don’t go through this kind of testing which is why they are so dangerous as they can be mixed with other substances such a rat poison.

Context:

I have researched this topic to get a better understanding of the side effects drugs can cause as I will be trying to illustrate the side effects in my film. I do not want to glamorise the effects too much but as this drug is fantasy I will take some of the side effects and change them to look more futuristic just to fit in with the time of my film.

Bibliography:

  1. DrugAbuse.com. 2018. Short and Long Term Drug Abuse Effects . [ONLINE] Available at: https://drugabuse.com/library/drug-abuse-effects/. [Accessed 08 April 2018].
  2. Substance Abuse & Addiction Symptoms, Side Effects, Signs & Withdrawl | Lakeview Behavioral Health Hospital. 2018. Substance Abuse & Addiction Symptoms, Side Effects, Signs & Withdrawl | Lakeview Behavioral Health Hospital. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.lakeviewbehavioralhealth.com/addiction/effects-signs-symptoms. [Accessed 08 April 2018].
  3. Drugs.com. 2018. Drug Side Effects | Drugs.com. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/. [Accessed 17 April 2018].
  4. WebMD. 2018. Common Drug Side Effects: Types of Side Effects and FDA Regulations. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/drug-side-effects-explained#1. [Accessed 17 April 2018].