Cultural Collisions in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness...

Shiloh Gilbert April 8, 2010 There is an abundance of literature in which characters become caught between colliding cultures. Often, these characters experience a period of growth from their exposure to a culture that’s dissimilar to their own. Such is the case with Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s infamous protagonist from ‘Heart of Darkness’. Marlow sets off to Africa on an ivory conquest and promptly found himself sailing into the heart of the Congo River. Along the way he is faced with disgruntled natives, cannibals, and the ominous and foreboding landscape. Marlow’s response to these tribulations is an introspective one, in which he calls into question his identity. This transcending of his former self renders the work as a whole a†¦show more content†¦At the novels completion, Marlow has altered every belief he had formerly held. From a caterpillar at the commencement, cocooning while in the depths and darkness’ of Africa, and flying away from his pre vious convictions and assertions, Marlow evolves throughout the novel. Marlow’s evolution renders ‘Heart of Darkness’ a remarkable work of literature, but it is not simply the budding of the narrator’s mind that makes the novel sensational. Marlow’s perception of the voyage is what truly renders the work exceptional. European expansion, as written by European writers, was generally cast in a positive light. When Conrad depicts the desolation of the journey and reveals the sanities and lives robbed through the conquest, he clearly does not conform to the writers of his time. This exposure of European expansion in such a sinister a fashion was innovative for writers of the late 17th century. This revolutionary perception is what truly allows ‘Heart of Darkness’ to be considered a novel rich in moral and detail. As cultures collide and the world becomes more diverse, we find ourselves faced with unexpected diversions. We must organize our minds to a steadfast state in which we devote ourselves to ourselves, such as Marlow has done. We must collect ourselves throughout our personal tribulations and cultivate new selves fromShow MoreRelatedThe Nature of Evil in Humanity in the Book, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad582 Words   |  3 PagesIn Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the cultural collisions illustrates the struggles Marlow experiences as he questions the nature of evil in humanity. Marlow compares his experience in Africa as the Romans did â€Å"nineteen hundred years ago,† they both were shocked when they got there. When Romans came long ago they did not expect to see anyone, and when Marlow came he expected something different. He thought that the natives were happy to have civilization and wanted to integrate into

Kansas City Hyatt Collapse An Investigation Into The Design

Kansas City Hyatt Collapse An investigation into the design flaw of two floating balconies above the atrium of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, is discussed in this report. The following investigation includes a closer look at disputes in design between the engineering consultants and the fabrication company, as well as an examination of load capacity. In the design, three walkways were intertwined between the second, third, and fourth floors above the hotel’s atrium (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., Woodward, K., 1982). The second floor’s walkway was suspended from the fourth, which was suspended from the roof. The third floor’s walkway was hanging from the roof of the atrium, independent to the other two. When a collapse occurred on July 17, 1981, the fourth floor, which was suspended from the roof, collapsed and landed on top of the second floor. As a result, both floors crashed into the atrium at ground-level (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., Woo dward, K., 1982). The main causes of the collapse are questionable engineering ethics, negligence, and disputing agencies. These two factors resulted in a poor foundation with lack of consideration of large stress on the structure (Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse, 2006). New Orleans Levee Break On August 29, 2005, disaster struck New Orleans, Louisiana in the form of Hurricane Katrina. Since the city is 10 feet below sea level, it is susceptible to large amounts of flooding (Bunch, 2005).Show MoreRelatedThe Collapse Of The United States1231 Words   |  5 PagesOn July, 1981 at 7:05pm, Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City USA, the local station, hosted a dance competition in the atrium lobby. The atrium and walkways were filled with up to 2000 peoples. As many people standing and dancing on the suspended walkways, a loud crack was heard and the walkaways collapse. This caused 114 peoples fatalities killed and left more than 200 injured. Furthermore, the collapse led to a millions of dollars in costs and majority of peoples were affected. The Texas universityRead MoreThe Hyatt Regency Disaster Kansas City Missouri1228 Words   |  5 Pages The Hyatt Regency Disaster Kansas City Missouri July 17th, 1981 A brief summary of the underlying mechanical and ethical of this failure as a part of Mechanical Analysis and Design. Written By: Austin Bruce Hasan Polat MCET-450.02 Professor William Leonard The Hyatt Regency Hotel, the newest hotel built in Kansas City Missouri featuring an open atrium design at its entrance with floating walkways suspended on the second, third, and fourth floors. Only one year after itsRead MoreDesign And Design Of The Hotel1096 Words   |  5 Pagesyear of 1976, a corporation known as Crown Center Redevelopment started a project to design and construct a Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. The firm in charge of the structural design of the hotel was a corporation from Texas called Gillum-Colaco, Incorporated or G.C.E. International Inc. Throughout the following year, a team of architects and engineers worked together to formulate an appropriate design for the hotel. The hotel specifications were set and the project to build the hotelRead MoreDesign Of The Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway1312 Words   |  6 Pagesis to describe and analysis the fault occurred in the design of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway which resulted in the collapse of the walkways occurred on July 17,1981. The falling of these walkways killed 114 and 200 people are injured badly.it was one of the major collapse occurred in U.S history. INTRODUCTION: In 1976, the Crown Center Redevelopment cooperation commenced a project to design and build a Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri and on April 4, 1978, Crown Center into a standardRead MoreDesigning A Contractor Management System For A Site Expansion1690 Words   |  7 PagesDesign Deficiencies The following report answers questions on design deficiencies. It will describe three design disasters and examine the causes of the disaster and the impact they had on future designs. It will then discuss a â€Å"design and layout† case study and the setting up of a contractor management system for a site expansion. Tacoma Bridge Collapse Brief Description of the Disaster The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (aka â€Å"Galloping Gertie†) was opened to traffic on July 1, 1940 and was built to linkRead MoreThe Role Of An Engineer Essay2124 Words   |  9 Pagesengineers using machines producing parts, drawing and sketching designs, or even doing some mathematical calculations. A more general answer to what engineers actually do would be that they solve social problems through the use of machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. They are all absolutely correct. But in reality, both the job and the role of an engineer are more complicated. They do not only have to work with machines and designs. Engineers are often involved in communications and negotiationsRead MoreThe Importance of Philosophy to Engineering8110 Words   |  33 Pagesmethodologically excludes aesthetics - and, by extension, ethics - from his analysis of design, in order to keep his discussion bounded and manageable, he also grants that ethics often has a serious role to play in engineering design13. Questions of safety, risk, and environmental protection are only the more obvious manifestations of variables that call for ethical judgment in assessing their proper influence on design decisions. Philosophy (especially ethics) is an internal practical need of engineeringRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pages—San Diego State University Timothy A. Judge —University of Notre Dame i3iEi35Bj! Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo Editorial Director: Sally Yagan Director of Editorial Services: Ashley Santora Acquisitions Editor: Brian Mickelson Editorial Project Manager: Sarah Holle Editorial Assistant: Ashlee BradburyRead MoreStrategic Human Resource Management View.Pdf Uploaded Successfully133347 Words   |  534 Pageshowever, the support program that accompanied the policy did not appear to produce differences in quitting Page 61 STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Section One behavior.101 Nonetheless, another empirical study that employed an experimental design, with experimental and control groups drawn from two companies, found increased quitting behavior to be associated with training, financial incentives, and competition.102 There are several other examples of company actions in this area. 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Advertising on Tv free essay sample

We also find that the more viewers dislike ads, the ore likely it is that welfare is increasing in the number of advertising financed TV channels. A publicly owned TV channel can partly correct market distortions, in some cases by having a larger amount of advertising than private TV channels. It may even have advertising in cases where advertising is wasteful per SE. JELL classification: ALL, MOM Keywords: Television industry; Advertising Correspondence should be sent to Tore Nielsen, Department of Economics, University of Oslo, P. O. Box 1 095 Blinder, NO-0317 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: tore. [emailprotected] Ii. O. We are grateful to Steve William, three anonymous referees, and seminar participants in Antwerp, Helsinki, and Milan for helpful comments. We would like to thank the Research Council of Norway (the KIM program) for its financial support through SIN Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration. Kind would like to thank Chiefs in Munich for excellent working conditions while revising this work. We will write a custom essay sample on Advertising on Tv or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The TV industry is important both in terms of the time people spend watching TV and the amount of advertising it transmits. 1 However, advertising- financed channels are potentially a mixed blessing.On the one hand, TV immemorial may be the most efficient way for firms to advertise their products and can generate a surplus both for individual firms and for society as a whole. On the other hand, viewers may dislike being interrupted by commercials. 2 We thus have an ambiguity that raises the questions of whether there is over- or underproduction of advertising on TV and of whether there is a need for some kind of public intervention in the sector. Would it for instance be advantageous to restrict entry of commercial TV channels if consumers dislike ads?In this paper, we set out to provide answers to these questions with the help of a simple model in which TV stations sell advertising space to advertisers. The basis for the advertisers willingness to pay for such advertising space is the attention of the viewers that the stations attract. And in order to attract viewers, the stations offer TV programs. Thus, the TV industry is an example of a two-sided market: TV stations offer programs to viewers and advertising space to advertisers, with externalities in both directions. We find that there is too little advertising on TV when the channels programs are close substitutes, and that the scope for such interspersion of advertising becomes higher if the number of TV channels is enlarged. We further show that the more viewers dislike ads, the more likely is that welfare is increasing in the number of advertising financed TV channels. Well-known discussions of the welfare effects of advertising, such as Dixie and Norman (1978) and Becker and Murphy (1 993), do not take into account the role of media firms as transmitters of advertising. An early attempt to do so is in Spence and Owen (1977). However, in their discussion of advertising-financed TV versus pay TV, the presence of advertising is assumed to have no effect on vi ewers. William and Owen (1985) extend the Spence-Owen model to take into account that commercials are a nuisance to TV viewers. Our analysis differs from the work of Spence-Owen and William- Owen in that we model strategic interactions beeten TV stations in an oligopoly, whereas they assume monopolistic competition without any strategic interaction.Moreover, in the Spence-William-Owen models the price of commercials 2 is exogenously determined, whereas we let it be endogenously determined. This is important for understanding strategic interaction in media markets. For example, we show that tougher competition caused by greater substitutability between TV channels leads to higher prices per minute Of advertising, while tougher competition caused by an increase in the number of TV channels leads to lower such prices. In other respects, however, our approach is similar to that of Spence and Owen (1977) and William and Owen (1985).In particular, we follow them in modeling the demand for TV pro grams by way of a quadratic utility function of a representative viewer. In recent analyses of the media market, such as Gal-or and Dukes (2003), Zwieback, Lasses, and Cognacs (2004), Petit and Valletta (2005), and Anderson and Zwieback (2006), viewers are located along a Whittling (1929) line, varying according to their preferences for Waveform content, and TV channels choose positions on that line. 5 Thereby product differentiation is endogenously determined.But this comes at a cost: First, these analyses are limited to discussions of duopoly and have small chances of being generalize to an oligopoly. Secondly, a Whittling analysis fixes the total size of the market (I. E. , the total amount of TV viewing). Thirdly, each viewer is assumed to watch one channel only. We choose a different angle and fix the degree of product differentiation, in line with the earlier work of Spence and Owen (1977) and William and Owen (1985). A major benefit is that we can discuss oligopoly and do not have to limit ourselves to duopoly.This is particularly interesting since most democratic countries have reduced or eliminated regulatory entry barriers for TV channels over the last decades. A major insight from our analysis is that a larger number of advertising- financed TV channels is more likely to have positive welfare effects, the higher s the consumers disability from advertising. The intuition for this somewhat paradoxical result is that higher competition through a larger number of TV channels forces each TV channel to sell less ad time when the viewers dislike commercials.The positive welfare effects of less ad time are greater the more the consumers dislike advertising, other things equal. Our approach allows for a framework in which the total time people spend watching TV is endogenous, depending on the extent of competition. As in most other markets, our model features the appealing property that stronger intention leads to higher output, that is, to people spending more time watching TV. Finally, our formulation allows a viewer to allocate his time between different channels. This increases the competition in the market for advertising space, as 3 each n. Channel can offer advertisers a little of each viewers attention. 6 In many European countries there are mixed oligopolies in the TV industry with both publicly and privately owned TV channels. 7 Introducing a welfare- maximizing publicly owned TV channel into our model, we show that, for sufficiently differentiated TV channels, the public TV channel sells less advertising space than the private channels. Thereby the provisions Of advertising in a system with only privately owned TV channels is mitigated. Conversely, the public TV channel brings more advertising than the private ones if TV programs are sufficiently close substitutes.In fact, we find that a welfare-maximizing public TV channel brings advertising even in some cases where advertising is per SE wasteful (I. E. , where the disability of viewers exceeds the surplus that the advertising generates for the advertisers). This article is organized as follows. The formal model is presented in the next section. In the three subsequent sections, we discuss and compare equilibrium outcomes and social optimum. Thereafter, we analyze the implications of introducing a welfare-maximizing TV channel owned by the government. In the final section we offer some concluding remarks.The model We consider a model with m 2 TV stations and a continuum Of identical viewers with measure one. The time that each viewer spends watching n. programs on channel I = 1 , ,m is denoted by Vi. We follow Motto (2004) and assume that consumers preferences are given by the Subintervals utility unction, originally introduced by Suburb and Levitate (1 980): m m 02 0 1 C We may interpret Vi both as the time that each viewer spends watching channel I and as the number of viewers of channel I, since we have normalized the population size to 1.The parameter s e (0,1) is a measure of product differentiation: The higher is s, the closer substitutes are the TV channels from the viewers point of view. The Suburb-Levitate formulation ensures that the parameter s only captures product differentiation and has no effect on market size. 8 The TV channels are financed by advertising, and an be watched free of charge. However, the viewers have a disability of being interrupted by commercials.To capture this, we assume that the viewers subjective cost of watching channel I is Chi = waive, where Ai is the ad 4 time on TV channel I and O is a parameter that measures the vie wers disability from advertising. A viewers consumer surplus is thus given by CSS -? U-heavily. Ii=mm In a sense, advertising is an indirect price: It has the same function in the market for TV programs as prices have in other markets. By setting docs DVD = 0 , we find the audiences demand for viewing TV channel I: (2) Vi where A -? CIA-SOCIO mi=l Ai is the average level of advertising on the m channels.The time viewers spend watching channel I is thus strictly decreasing in the level of ad inventory on that channel, and more so the higher their disability of being interrupted by commercials (captured by y), and increasing in the levels of ad inventory on the competing channels: The more commercials there are on the rival channels, the more attractive is channel for the viewers. Channel I charges the price Ri per advertising slot, and we set operating profit of channel I equal to in Ri m . Throughout the article we abstract from both variable and fixed costs for the TV channels. This is not to say that such costs ar e unimportant (see, e. G. Motto Polo, 1997, for a discussion). However, this allows us to highlight some basic competitive forces and strategic effects without having to worry about free entry conditions. Let Kaki denote advertiser KS advertising level on channel I. The advertisers gross gain from advertising at channel is naturally increasing in its advertising level and in the number of viewers exposed to its advertising. We make it simple by assuming that the gross gain equals Kiev. This implies that the net gain for advertiser k from advertising on equals C m Accommodation Ri C, e n, 0 Chi=l advertiser k. The advertisers aggregate profit equals n A k TTT k . Where n is the number of advertisers. With a slight abuse of terminology, we label ask the profit of 5 Most of the analyses in the literature consider the advertisers to be price takers and derive demand for advertising by way of a zero-profit condition on the marginal advertisers profit. 9 We find it useful to do this differently, and more in line with models of successive oligopoly, such as Slinger (1988), here producers and retailers set quantities sequentially. We consider the following two-stage game: Stage 1 : TV channels set levels of advertising space. Stage 2: The advertisers choose how much advertising space to buy.One noteworthy feature of our set-up is that the TV channels are quantity setters in advertising. If program choice is inflexible in the short run with a given amount of time been each program such an assumption is plausible. However, there might be arguments indicating that TV channels are more flexible concerning the amount of advertising. 10 If so, price setting on advertising is a more natural choice. It can be shown that our main results still hold if we assume price setting rather than quantity setting among TV channels-II Unless stated otherwise, we assume that the TV channels act non-cooperatively.Equilibrium outcomes We solve the game by backward induction. At stage 2, the advertisers simultaneously determine how much to advertise on each of the m channels, taking prices of advertising space as given. Solving k Dais = 0 simultaneously for the n advertisers and then using Ai = k Kaki we find that n demand for advertising at channel I equals Ai=l n [1 -?m (1 -?s) Ri -? ms y n +1 I = 1 where R = m IM 1 Ri is the average advertising price on the m channels. As expected, we thus have dad a downward-sloping demand curve for advertising ( drib The TV channels set their ad inventory non-cooperatively at stage 1 . (For the case where TV channels collude on advertising levels, see below. ) Solving we find that the equilibrium ad time at each TV channel equals AiM -? Inn(l (7) -?s),I=l, , m, , m, subject to (6), -s)yen+l d in dad where the superscript M denotes market equilibrium. 12 From this equation we see that the ad time is decreasing in the viewer disability of advertising (y), which is quite natural. Moreover, Adam DNA > 0 : An increase in the number of advertisers increases the demand for advertising, and it becomes optimal for the TV channels to offer more advertising space. Inserting (7) into (2), we find equilibrium TV viewing on each channel: ViM = Multiplying this expression by m, we see that total viewing time ( movie M ) depends on the number and substitutability of TV channels. In other words, total output varies with the competitive pressure between the firms. This realistic feature of our model is in contrast to the widely used 7 Whittling framework, where the size of the market by definition is constant.We note from (8) that TV viewers equilibrium consumption is unaffected by y: The TV channels thus completely internalize the consumers disability of advertising through the levels of advertising. From (7) we find that Adam Ads 0 , which means that the equilibrium ad time is smaller the less differentiated the TV channels. To understand this result, note that a TV chan nel attracts viewers by limiting the quantity of advertising space. The better substitutes the viewers perceive the TV channels to be, the more sensitive they are to differences in ad time.A high s thus gives each TV Handel an incentive to set a relatively low ad inventory in order to capture viewers from the other channel. Corresponding to smaller ad inventories when s increases, TV viewers consumption increases: DVD M Ads Finally, we get the typical effects of an increase in the number of competitors: Each firms output is reduced ( d ( movie M ) DMS Adam DMS O , and DMS > O Again, these are results that cannot be obtained in the Whittling framework, where movie M is fixed.Summarizing our main results so far, we have: Proposition 1: (a) The larger he number of TV channels (I) the less time do viewers spend on each individual TV channel, but (ii) the more time do they spend on TV viewing in total. (b) The equilibrium ad time on each channel is smaller (I) the less differentiated the TV chance Nell programs; (ii) the higher the viewers disability of advertising; and (iii) the higher the numbers of TV channels.At the same time as competition forces the TV channels to reduce their ad inventories, it R allows them to charge a higher slotting price RiM and a higher contact price per viewer, r IM V IM : I M RiM = -s) ] Ads 8 rim trim>O. N+1)(m-s)+m(1 (n +1 )(m-?s) -s ) Ads (10) By insertions into the expressions for profit in (3) and (4), we can now find the equilibrium profit levels of TV stations and advertisers: M in = (11) (12) M RL Differentiation of (1 1) and (12) shows that profits are decreasing in both y and s. This is natural, since the level of ad inventories is smaller the larger the consumers disability of advertising and the closer substitutes are the TV channels programs. However, equation (11) might leave the impression that the TV channels will make positive profit for any finite value of y and for any s O) . The same kind of reasoning might lead one to expect that the slotting price also Ads increases in the number of TV channels. This is not true. From equation (9) we find, on the contrary, that trim DMS O . It thus becomes more expensive Ads for the advertisers to reach each viewer the larger the number of channels. We therefore get the somewhat surprising result that the profit level of the advertisers is decreasing in the number of 9 TV channels: M d art DMS We summarize our results concerning profits: Proposition 2: Equilibrium profits both for TV channels and for advertisers are higher (I) the more differentiated the TV channels programs, (ii) the lower the viewers disability f advertising, and (iii) the lower the number of TV channels.Less advertising time on each channel is an advantage for consumers. Additionally, consumers gain subsequent to an increase in m because the diversity of TV channels increases. We thus unambiguously have docs DMS We end this section with an extension to the case where there is collusion among the TV channels about levels of ad inventories. When s = O, the TV channels programs are independent, and collusion has no effect at all. At the other extreme, w e know that the TV channels compete away (almost) all advertising and have close to zero profits when s approaches 1 . This is a prisoners dilemma situation, where the firms would have been jointly better off with more ad time on all channels. This suggests that collusion between the TV channels leads to more advertising than in the non-cooperative equilibrium for all s E (O, 1), and more so the less differentiated the TV programs. 14 We derive the first-order conditions for a collusive outcome from the TV channels joint profit-minimization problem, and find that the equilibrium ad time on channel I now equals IAC = 1 n, I = (13)

Vicious Cycle The Flipside of Brazils Agricultural Expansionist Policies

Introduction Being the fifth largest country in the world both in terms of geographical size and population, Brazil epitomizes the ongoing global tension pitying biodiversity preservation against agricultural sustainability and economic development.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Vicious Cycle: The Flipside of Brazil’s Agricultural Expansionist Policies specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Available statistics demonstrate that Brazil is a critical emerging economic power with a GDP of US$604.0 billion and a GDP per capita of US$3,326.21 in 2004, and that the country’s environment is one of the richest in the world not only because its fauna and flora is found nowhere else on earth, but also due to the fact that its ecosystems contain in excess of 15 percent of the plant and animal species known to science (European Commission, 2007). Holding up to 12 percent of the available freshwater world wide, the country is undoubtedly one of leading producers of food and biofuels in Latin America and globally (Ferreira et al., 2012). But while Brazil continues to play an increasingly important role in the global challenge to supply food to a growing and more affluent human population through agricultural expansion activities, hence driving rapid economic development, available literature demonstrates that such events have also had significant adverse impacts on biodiversity and the conservation of ecosystem services in the country (Ferreira et al., 2012). This paper borrows from Ascher and Healy’s (1990) concept of vicious cycle to demonstrate how Brazil may be sucked into the vicious cycle, entailing economic production, the environment, income distribution and resources, if policies are not put in place to address adverse impacts caused by agricultural expansion. Understanding the Vicious Cycle the Brazilian Problem In their influential reading, Ascher and Healy (1990) e mploy the vicious cycle metaphor, which essentially is a circular constellation of forces tending to act and react upon one another in such a manner as to keep a poor country in a state of poverty, to demonstrate the complex interrelationships among four critical facets of sociophysical production namely economic production, distribution of income, natural resources, and the environment. In the four key attributes, economic production is described as the level, source, and composition of the goods and services generated by the economy at any point in time, while income distribution is perceived as including functional distribution, size distribution among recipients of diverse income levels, distribution of in-kind income such as government services or gratification from environmental quality, as well as regional income distribution.Advertising Looking for critical writing on environmental studies? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn Mor e Likewise, natural resources have been described as a broad assortment of substantial natural endowments such as land, water, timber and minerals, while environment refers to the natural systems that provide the background or surroundings for human activity (Ascher Healy, 1990). Unlike other less advanced and developing countries, Brazil is on the verge of achieving long-term economic development that is partially fuelled by effective exploitation of natural resources (Ferreira et al., 2012), which not only include â€Å"the dense tropical rainforests of the Amazon, but also the important biomes of the Savannah-like Cerrado, the arid scrublands of the Caatinga, the Atlantic Forest, the grasslands of the Pampa and the wetlands of the Pantanal† (European Commission, 2007 p. 11). Reports released by The Economist (2010) and Food Agriculture Organization (2012), cited in Ferreira et al. (2007), show that the phenomenal expansion of Brazilian agriculture has been at the core o f its most recent economic expansion, corresponding to 28% of the country total exports. However, as demonstrated by these authors, â€Å"there are rising concerns about the threats that these changes represent to Brazil’s globally significant biological wealth, including widespread deforestation and clearance of native vegetation, and rapid increases in the use of fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural chemical supplies† (p. 535-536). This observation, in my viewpoint, has the capacity to ignite a complex vicious cycle which will ultimately cut across two or more attributes of sociophysical production Exposing the Adverse Relationships Ascher Healy (1990) have taken considerable effort to demonstrate the interrelationships between the various facets, such as the vicious cycle between economic development and environment and vicious cycle between economic development and income distribution. In the Brazilian context, for example, it is evident that attempts by government and other stakeholders to enhance the country’s economic development through agricultural expansion have continued to generate a multiplicity of environmental externalities, such as reduction of biological diversity, soil erosion in rural farming areas, watershed damage, depletion of natural resources, soil and habitat degradation due to continued use of harmful pesticides, rise of slum areas, as well as health-related conditions brought about by overcrowding and increasing lead emissions from automobiles (Carneiro Danton 2011; Ferreira et al., 2012).Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Vicious Cycle: The Flipside of Brazil’s Agricultural Expansionist Policies specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In the same vein, it emerges that the urge to achieve sustained economic development has catapulted policymakers into availing vast tracts of previously virgin land for cultivation aimed at increasing agricultural yield. Although a sizeable proportion of farmers are employing modern practices to increase acreage and agricultural output, many are still using poisonous pesticides and farming practices that contribute substantially to soil erosion and degradation. Consequently, it can be suggested that a vicious cycle between economic development and environmental degradation has already set in. But more importantly, environmental policymakers in Brazil should realize that another vicious cycle between economic development and income distribution will set in the near future as long as farmers in North-East regions of the country continue to use harmful farming practices to expand their agricultural production and benefit from international food markets. When agriculture will no longer be sustainable due to ongoing poor farming practices, these farmers will lose their economic backbone, and hence, the income inequalities will increase. Conversely, it can be argued that th ese farmers will not only lack the capacity to take care of their social and health needs but will also continue to haphazardly exploit available natural resources for economic gain, resulting in a vicious cycle that will have major adverse impacts on biodiversity and the conservation of ecosystem services in the country. Way Forward The way forward for environmental policymakers in Brazil, therefore, is to put in place strong institutional policies for managing resources and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the agricultural sector. The government, in conjunction with relevant stakeholders, must act with immediacy to break the vicious cycle between economic development and environmental degradation by coming up with educational and awareness programs targeting farmers who use inferior farming methods to enhance their agricultural output.Advertising Looking for critical writing on environmental studies? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Additionally, it is imperative for the government to develop clear management objectives and sufficient implementation capacity of the existing policies to ensure that the beneficial urge to achieve economic development through agricultural expansion does not shift into unwarranted destruction of the country’s strikingly rich biodiversity and ecosystem. These interventions, in my view, will arrest the vicious cycle before it gains momentum towards a hazardous level. References Ascher. W., Healy, R.G. (1990). Natural resource policymaking in developing countries: Environment, economic growth, and income distribution. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. Carneiro, M.J., Danton, T. (2011). Agriculture and biodiversity in the Brazilian social sciences: A possible state-of-the-art scenario. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences, 24(3), 225-246. European Commission. (2007). Country strategy paper 2007-2013. Web. Ferreira, J., Pardini, R., Metzger, J.P., Fo nseca, C.R., Pompeu, P.S., Sparovek, G., Louzada, J. (2012). Towards environmentally sustainable agriculture in Brazil: Challenges and opportunities for applied ecological research. Journal of Applied Ecology, 49(3), 535-541. This critical writing on Vicious Cycle: The Flipside of Brazil’s Agricultural Expansionist Policies was written and submitted by user Cheyanne Q. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.