Pesticide Use and Environmental Change in Rachel Carson's The Research Paper

Pesticide Use and Environmental Change in Rachel Carson's The Obligation to Endure - Research Paper Example Specifically, in The Obligation to Endure, Rachel Carson cites some destructive human activities that cause environmental change. For one, Carson emphasized that the use of pesticide to increase agricultural productivity inflicts more harm to nature than benefits. In the article, Carson’s arguments on environmental change and pesticide use are interesting, considering that these delve on the distinct relationship between human beings and their environment. Accordingly, this paper attempts to fulfill threefold goals in relation to Carson’s article. First is the identification of the existing environmental changes today; second is the analysis of the role of human beings concerning those environmental changes; third is the discussion of the long-term and short term effects of pesticide use, and lastly, the identification of possible solutions that may help recover the vitality of the environment. To attain those objectives, this research also makes use of existing scholar ly articles concerning the topic to support its arguments; books and web articles are used to attain further background about Rachel Carson and her environmental advocacies. Article Overview Rachel Carson, one of America’s most prominent marine biologists, may be considered the most influential woman in the field of environmental studies and ecological policy. Doell mentions that her contribution to the field of science and politics, although indirectly, is attributable to her write-ups in Silent Spring, particularly about the â€Å"aggressive backlash from the agricultural chemical industry† (113). Silent Spring is a collection of essays about industrialization, human activity, and its influence on the changing features of the environment, particularly on the â€Å"war on weeds† (Paull 37). Specifically, in The Obligation to Endure, Carson highlights that pesticide use is the most environmentally damaging of all human activities; she also discusses the existing environmental policies on pesticide use. Aside from this, Carson also discusses the temporary and permanent impact of pesticide use on both humanity and the environment. In reading the article, one can say that Carson’s argument on genetic flexibility and adaptability is the most interesting topics in the article. With those two topics, Carson was able to explain the long-term and short term effects of pesticide use on the physiological features of humans, insects, and other organisms. In the article, Carson explains how the synthetic, toxic chemicals contained in pesticides alter the natural genetic makeup of human beings and insects, which also drives further changes in the environment. Although Carson posits, in the last paragraphs of the article, that she does not intend to discourage the use of pesticides, she also contends that human beings should be more watchful when using products that are based on synthetic chemicals. She emphasized the necessity of knowing the imp act of chemical-based products while putting the responsibility of educating the public on biologically damaging products on the hands of government officials and the private sector. Consequently, the article may be considered a parable of human existence and a warning to the people,

Evidence-based practice in Cognitive-behavioural Therapy for Essay

Evidence-based practice in Cognitive-behavioural Therapy for Schizophrenia - Essay Example Thus far, there is no legitimate group assigned to give definition to formal EBP for mental disorder. Therefore, a broader understanding of EBP necessitates up to date and unbroken knowledge of clinical evidence associated with the treatment of mental illnesses. This essay discusses evidence-based practice for cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in schizophrenia. This is an important issue to discuss in the field of EBP because there are still a lot of unsettled problems that need a certain extent of care in the implementation of CBT methods. Empirical support for CBT has been fairly substantial to justify application for the treatment of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, the empirical support concerning CBT has critical weaknesses. There are still problems in understanding CBT’s specificity and the stability of any positive outcome beyond the duration of the treatment itself (Gaudiano 2006, 3). The explanation for the conflicting results is not identified and thus is uncertain. Such unsettled issues suggest the importance of further controlled, randomised studies placing emphasis on the stability and specificity of any supposed positive effects of CBT. Empirical Support for EBP in Schizophrenia A primary motivator for studies on psychological treatments for individuals with schizophrenia is the reality that a large number of people still develop signs of psychosis—possibly 40 percent—in spite of intervention with antipsychotics (Roth & Fonagy 2005, 281). CBT administered to clients individually has been examined for community-based samples of individuals with mental illness, for severe current-onset mental disorder, and for relapse avoidance. More currently, research has also started to consider administering CBT to individuals who are highly susceptible to mental illness (Whitfield & Davidson 2007, 47). Even though there are proofs that CBT can have numerous positive outcomes, these proofs are not definite. A major questi on is which benefits should be considered vital. The study of Rector and Beck (2001) focusing on CBT for delusions discovered positive outcomes for CBT combined with less detailed psychosocial treatments. Likewise, several individual investigations have discovered evident benefits of controlled CBT-based models such as with regard to relapse rates. But on the contrary, other studies that have focused on rates of relapse, such as the study of Pilling and associates (2002), have discovered that CBT does not improve them. CBT for schizophrenia is intended to be a supplementary therapy to pharmacotherapy; hence, controlled, randomised studies before usually used supplement research paradigms, evaluating usual treatment against usual treatment in addition to CBT. After a number of trials discovered definite gains for CBT outside usual treatment, accurately designed trials started to surface evaluation CBT against nonspecific treatments (Gaudiano 2006, 2). As expected, findings evaluating CBT against another treatment were less notable. A number of metal-analyses have been made public in the past summing up the results of treatment demonstrated in investigations of CBT for mental illness. Tarrier and Wykes (2004), derived from a current review of 19 clinical studies, discovered an â€Å"effect-size difference between CBT and comparison conditions of .37 at post-treatment on