How Can Social Change Be Brought About, Especially in a Totalitarian Essay

How Can Social Change Be Brought About, Especially in a Totalitarian Society Like the One Nafisi Describes - Essay Example In order to break the silence or discover possibilities to exercise their free will, individuals must strive to resist to such pressures on individual level. If only people realize what a deadly solution silence is, they would never choose to resort to it. It is a manifestation of the weakness and inability of individuals to stand for their basic human rights. In order to fight the system, Nafisi had to create a little world of her own with a like-minded group of students in order to evade the restrictions of the totalitarian regime they were living in. The classic literary works they studied together opened new vistas for their inner struggles to break the silence and to stand for their rights and this is how they survived in such suffocating circumstances with little efforts. â€Å"†¦ like Lolita, we tried to escape and to create our own little pocket of freedom.† (Nafisi, 435) They developed a strong bond during their struggle to keep their spirits alive and to carve o ut a little space for themselves and also learnt how to handle unfavorable circumstances. This is what Gladwell says about the Power of Context: â€Å"†¦ the Power of Context says that what really matters is little things.†(242) If people wait for radical social changes to take place, they must start by taking the first little steps themselves. Nafisi and Gladwell argue that environment plays an important role in shaping human behaviors. People tend to think and act differently under different circumstances and they even develop different perspectives of life in different situations. It was for this reason that reading Lolita in Tehran became an altogether different experience. â€Å"This then is the story of Lolita in Tehran, how Lolita gave a different color to Tehran and how Tehran helped redefine Nabakov’s novel, turning it into this Lolita, our Lolita.†( Nafisi, 420) Gladwell also emphasizes upon the strong impact of environment on human actions. Our b ehaviors undoubtedly reflect our familial and educational backgrounds, mentalities, and genetics- but most importantly they are shaped and governed by the environments we live in. We pick up cues from the environment and act or react accordingly. â€Å"The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is not coming from a certain kind of person but from the feature of the environment.† (Gladwell, 238) In totalitarian regimes, it is incumbent upon individuals seeking social change to voice their concerns. The environmental factors might be discouraging and disheartening, but it is within human powers how they behave in particular situations. It is important to have will power, voice and the determination to express yourself through sensible and methodological actions. Social change can be brought about on the grassroots-level of totalitarian societies by instilling a general awareness about free will and the right to exercise it through words and actions. Rampant and radical movements can be easily undermined by such political systems by force; however, awareness about basic human rights seeps in the deepest layer of societies over the years. Such changes evolve slowly out of the dire need of the citizens to express their free will. In a totalitarian society like the one Nafisi describes, individuals are forced to redefine their behaviors particularly in public. People are forced to practice such customs in which they do not believe in; and they are expected to act and behave like the tools of a totalitarian system. If given an opportunity to

Chemical engineering course work in clean process technolgy Coursework

Chemical engineering course work in clean process technolgy - Coursework Example Nuclear energy provides a carbon free alternative to fossil fuel, but after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, the acceptance of nuclear plants has become very difficult. Most new generating plants will continue to be based on fossil fuels. A study by BP plc., titled â€Å"Energy Outlook 2035†, quoted by Mark Webster, shows that over the next 20 years CO2 emissions from the non-OECD region will grow as shown in Figure 1 (Webster). The chart shows that CO2 emissions from the OECD countries would level off at the levels prevailing in 2013 but the emissions from the non-OECD countries would rise rapidly. The red line marked IEA 450 is the target of 450 ppmv (parts per million volume) of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that the International Energy Agency considers as the absolute upper limit to prevent a temperature rise exceeding 20C. This is considered the upper limit of temperature rise to prevent disastrous climate change (Webster). The vast majority of these new power plants will be coal fired since coal is the most abundant fossil fuel. A coal plant has an operating life of about 50 years and the need is for a technology that can be retrofitted to existing fossil fuel power plants to capture CO2 emissions from the flue gases before they are emitted into the atmosphere. Post-combustion chemical absorption technology is the most promising of the carbon capture technologies presently available. Carbon dioxide emissions also occur from many other industrial processes other than power generation. These include steel mills, cement plants and oil refineries. Post-combustion chemical absorption technology can be readily applied to these industries as well. The schematic diagram of the post-combustion chemical absorption process is as shown in Figure 2 from a presentation by Dr. Stanley Santos of the International Energy Agency. The flue gases