Author Archives: Mohammed Farhanuddin

Draft Reflection

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My research question became more to the point. It is a question that established a ground for an argument and my research material made more sense in favor of my argument. It shifted with better understanding of how to come up with a research question when confused. The most useful source I’ve found is the internet and many reliable articles and publishings that provide details. I just have to review my work and take in any advice to see if my sources match the requirements for the assignment.

NYC AirPollution

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What much damage is the pollution in NYC causing? That is my research question because there are far too many sources of air pollution and the city seems to be funding that more than funding against. There are multiple sources that make mention of how there are hundreds of thousands of pounds of air pollution in NYC. One of the main sources are from plants in Astoria, Queens. According to a post in qns.com, the Charles Poletti Power Project located in Astoria alone caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of air pollution. Although these pollutions originate from particular locations, it does not remain there. The pollution spreads and hundreds of thousands of people are affected by its harms. This source includes information from influential people in the community and it can help strengthen the claims made. I can use this to provide reference to these people.

Trump’s Pollution

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President Trump cuts down the Environmental Protective Agency budget and the pollution of NYC is increasing. A source I found was on nytimes.com where an article about the dirtiness of the City is presented. It speaks of how the air is so dirty that you could have felt it at a point. Now there’s fear of that time of NYC to come back with all the budget constraints. This article is a non scholarly source as it was written in a news article. So far, the research for my essay is going well, as there are multiple sources and perspectives to the problem of air pollution in NYC.

Causes of Asthma

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I came across an article on nature.com that explains the causes of asthma from pollution in our air. The article provides the specific molecules and elements that are found in the polluted air that is bad for our lungs and body in general. Before this article I just thought pollution=bad for lungs. After reading the article, I saw how there are so many factors that can cause problems for us. I learned how it’s safer to stay home in NYC for our lungs but that just makes things worse for us in terms of being physically active. The article can be found in this link: https://www.nature.com/articles/jes201374 . It is cited from the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. This would be a primary source because it is written in scientific terms of what and how the air around us in NYC is harmful for our body.

Free Write for Research Idea

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Our environment is a very crucial factor to our wellbeing and productivity. As mentioned by Majora Carter, there are people that are out there living in a very polluted neighborhood where staying at home is safer than going outside for a healthy, fresh walk. This in turn increases obesity and that itself can be another health issue. I want to write about the issues we face with dirty and polluted air. There is so many factories and plants near us. In a busy city like New York, especially, the overcrowding of people and buildings and factories make it hard to find a place with clean air. the EPA rating of NYC is bad as there are factories visible from bridges and highways producing countless amounts of pollution both affecting humans and animals around us. Personally speaking, being a resident of Queens, I see plants around Astoria where day and night there is pollution. Going outside for clean air is possible, but mainly for a less crowded area. And we all know that finding a uncrowded area in NYC is not very common.

When I was younger, I had asthma. Neither was it serious, nor was it long-lasting, but it was present. I had to be on my pump for some time and I wasn’t the only one that had this problem. Now, asthma isn’t just from polluted air, but pollution is a major factor in one having asthma. We often see people stay at home during the winter and outside at the park and open fields during the summer time, but the numbers are decreasing in outdoor activities over the years. There are people that are afraid of the polluted air, and especially a place like Flushing has a lot of people wearing masks to stay safe from the pollution and unclean air. if the pollution problem isn’t dealt with, then the health and safety of the future generations do not look too good. There are people from all over the city that are unaware and take less precautions for their safety, but it shouldn’t be the job of ordinary citizens to have to wear a mask to go outside and enjoy a nice breeze. The environmental protection agencies and our lawmakers should do their best to lower the amount of pollution in our air or at least work towards lessening the numbers of factories and plants that are exposed to our local air.

All in all, the issue of polluted air is one of the top issues that are affecting our society and members within. This issue should be dealt with in order to create a safe environment for our people. Individual effort is definitely required as in lowering the number of public smoking areas. The other other pollution that I am seeing is to perhaps come up with a less polluting technology for our plants and factories so that we can still continue to harvest energy as well as keep the safety of our people as our first priority.

Majora Carter’s TED Talk

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Carter had to look at all the background histories and ongoing injustice to people from all social groups. She spoke about health, wealth, hygiene and many other social factors being effected by environmental injustice. She did research on the sites where there are more injustice. She researched on statistics related to poverty, shelter, access to clean air and resources. She targets South Bronx especially as grew up there and faced all sorts of injustice and hardships with many of them related to environmental injustice.

essay 2 draft reflection

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  • What are you proud of in this draft? What’s working well?
  • More broadly, what do you think your strengths as a writer are? Why?
  • What are the most important issues to address in revising Essay 2? Why?
  • What are your goals for revising? (Share your 2 “radical revision” steps you’ll take, too.)

In this draft I’m proud of writing about a topic that really interests me. The picture I referred to was very upsetting to see but a good write. The relatability of the picture is working well. My strengths as a writer is that I enjoy writing from within and in this class I can write from within. In my revision the most important issues to address are more details of how the picture relates to the writing. My goals for revising is to use more details from the photograph. Two of my radical revisions are to examine the photograph in more details and to use more details from the writing.

Paragraph Revision for Essay 2

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Original:

Most of the “deniers” of climate change are privileged white males from the West. According to Daggett, “In other words, fossil fuels matter to new authoritarian movements in the West because of profits and consumer lifestyles, but also because privileged subjectivities are oil-soaked and coal-dusted. It is no coincidence that white, conservative American men – regardless of  class – appear to be among the most vociferous climate deniers, as well as leading fossil fuel proponents in the West,” (28). This is because it is these white men that profit the most out of fossil fuel and oil consumed by the people. It is through living blindly to make more wealth and cash flow in the economy that these people have turned their backs to the dying animals and starving people around the world that only receive harm from the financial growth of these greedy people.

Revised:

Most of the people that deny climate change are privileged white males from the West. According to Daggett, “In other words, fossil fuels matter to new authoritarian movements in the West because of profits and consumer lifestyles, but also because privileged subjectivities are oil-soaked and coal-dusted. It is no coincidence that white, conservative American men – regardless of  class – appear to be among the most vociferous climate deniers, as well as leading fossil fuel proponents in the West,” (28). This shows that white men run and profit the most from the oil and fossil fuel industries. It is the drive to make more wealth and cash flow in the economy that made these people turn their backs to the dying animals and starving people around the world that only receive harm from the financial growth of these greedy people.

Reflect:

I changed the sentences I wrote to be more straightforward by removing unnecessary words and phrases. Now the paragraph sounds more straight to the point. This wasn’t challenging because when I wrote this paragraph I just added information but when I revised it, I was able to catch some writing errors.

Show and Tell

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This is a short film about climate change. I chose this video because it shows us a possibility of what can happen if we don’t take a step against climate change. It shows us how one of our basic essentials to life (water) can be costly and harder to acquire if we don’t take action. This connects to our class topic of climate change and the dangers that follow. If we don’t stop climate change, our daily essentials can become a privilege.

Questions:

  1. How can we save ourselves from one day having to fight for essentials?
  2. Is this short film an accurate idea of a possible outcome due to climate change?
  3. In this video, year 2055 was the year when water becomes hard to find. Is such an outcome going to take less or greater time to come across if we don’t take action now?

Empty Shopping Cart Tells a Tale

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Draft

There is a shopping cart in the middle of an empty parking lot. It’s very foggy as well which makes it difficult to see beyond 50 feet of the shopping cart. The cart seems to be empty inside so perhaps someone left it there instead of putting it with the other carts. The parking lot lights are on so it might be night time. The parking lot is big as there are many street lights glowing in the distance. There are however no signs of people or cars nearby. It’s a small cart left in one of the solid lines dividing the parking space for two cars. One of the light poles towards the left of the cart seems to not be lit. There seems to be a few trees in the distance.

 

Revision

This is a shopping cart found in an abandoned Tanger outlet parking lot found near a petrochemical factory. There are no people or cars to be found nearby perhaps because of the pollution from the factories, that might also be the reason behind the fog in the parking lot. The visibility is reduced to roughly 50 feet. The street lights are kept on perhaps because it’s nighttime or because of the fog. The lot itself is clean and free of most marks due to the absence of shoppers. Some of the light bulbs aren’t lit. Maybe there isn’t much maintenance done. The employees might also be limited as there is no one to put the cart back with the rest.

 

Reflection

This activity challenged my ability to think about the story behind a picture that I initially wouldn’t have taken time out to examine. It is a good practice in my opinion because it proves that pictures speak a thousand words. I revised what I wrote because the title gave me the setting of the picture which explains why it is abandoned and when and where it was taken. I was able to understand that it was by a factory which explains why it’s so foggy or smoky in the parking lot. I enjoyed the activity because everyone has a different version of the story behind this picture.