- Vertebrates: These are higher organisms in the kingdom Animalia that have a distinct spinal cord, i.e., a vertebra (notochord). Vertebrates include bony fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
- Invertebrates: Invertebrates are organisms of the kingdom Animalia that do not have a vertebral column. Invertebrate organisms include insects, arthropods, molluscs, worms, annelids and protozoans.
- Biodiversity: Biodiversity is the variation of different life forms present in any specified region, area, niche, biome and even planet. The variation includes genetic variations, specie variations and ecosystem variations.
- Nexus: A nexus is a gap junction that acts as intracellular connections between two cells. Nexus is observed in the intracellular junctions of higher organisms.
- Coral bleaching: Coral is created as an endosymbiotic relationship between the Protozoan and photosynthesizing organisms present inside them. However, when there are stress conditions, like pollution and increased temperatures, the photosynthesizing organisms are expelled out by the Protozoan, that causes discoloration of corals. This phenomenon is termed as coral bleaching.
- Bushmeat: The meat obtained from terrestrial wild animals, especially endangered species, is called as bushmeat. It is obtained from unsustainable hunting of wildlife and possesses a threat to endangered species in Africa and Asia.
- Green revolution: The research, development and technology transfer of different forms that led to an increase in the agricultural output is considered as the “Green revolution”. Norman Borlaug is considered the Father of the Green Revolution and this revolution includes the growth of high-yielding crops, supply of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers & pesticides and the modernization of irrigation and farming.
Answers
1.) There are many things that can be done to reduce pollution, which includes learning as much as can about the pollution, reduce and reuse as much as possible, create as less waste as possible. These changes can be made daily, for example, wasting as less electricity as possible, switching off equipments whenever not being used, raising air-conditioner temperatures just by few degrees, planting trees, etc.
2.) The world is quickly shrinking from the advent of World Wide Web (www) and this had led to the formation of the ‘global village’ concept. This coming together of many cultures has reduced the cultural diversity. The children of today are more westernised as compared to the earlier generation. The presence of new age technology, the young generation believes in nuclear families as opposed to the family concept present in most part of the eastern world. Similarly, cultures are diluted by the presence of strong western cultures and advertising and media.
3.) In nature, the climate change occurs gradually over the period of thousands of years. However, due to anthropogenic activities like combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation, the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have increased in the atmosphere; which has led to an increase in global temperatures by half a degree in past 100 years. Therefore, human activities have indeed hastened the process of global warming, which has in turn will threaten the survival of human species and all the biodiversity on our planet.
The Global Warming Debate - James Hansen
1.) Proclivity is a tendency to do something regularly without thinking over it. Antagonistic is to exhibit opposition or even hostility towards something. Extreme is the highest or the farthest degrees of difference of something. Scepticism is the doubting of the authenticity of the beliefs. In his report, James Hansen discusses that media and politicians have proclivities to focus antagonistic extremes about global warming and it does not help as it increases the scepticism in public.
2.) Scepticism plays an important role in scientific research. The antagonistic extremes of global warming portrayed by the media and politicians have increased the numbers of sceptics in science. However, as the sceptics question the science with their objections, scientists devise and develop new methods that are used in answering these queries. Therefore, the science itself develops by the presence of scientific sceptics. The development of science owing to the scepticism has also occurred in the case of global warming.
3.) Junk science is a scientific study that might not be considered authentic or even may be fraudulent. Junk science is used by media, political people and businesses to prove something that might not necessarily be true. On the contrary, junk science is also used to disapprove the presence of any phenomenon as observed in the global warming issue. Junk science is often marked by the presence of biases by the scientists. They also exclude the samples that do not prove of their results. Therefore, Jansen Hansen discusses that, in the global warming issue, the scientist used the concept of ‘reanalysis’ to disapprove of global warming, which was essentially a junk science.
4.) Rigorous objectivity is the process by which the policies made only on the support of evidence based research. No attention is paid to junk science and, only pure evidence is used to judge any scenario. James Hansen in his article discuss that scientists need be vocal about their opinion, however, their comments should be driven only by rigorous objectivity. He talked about rigorous objectivity in response to the comment - “a useless appendage to an irrelevant treaty”, by Pat Michaels against the Kyoto Protocol.
