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Author: watzmana (page 1 of 1)

Cop26

After researching COP26 and the events that have preceded these past several days, one thing that I found notably interesting is how Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of oil producer OPEC, said that the conference was “definitely a wake-up call.” I think it’s interesting how even though the effects of climate change and global warming have been on the rise for a long time now, there are still those who don’t even consider the great dangers that will come with these crises. Barkindo being an important figure will definitely have a positive affect or at least draw some more attention to these issues after he stated that something needs to be done. If something isn’t done in the next few years, and if the global temperature increases past 1.5 degrees Celsius, the Earth will be almost unrecognizable in ways we can’t yet comprehend, as things like natural disasters, coastal flooding, and the dying/endangerment of many species will occur much more frequently. Barkindo continued to address the Paris agreement and it’s significance to help maintain our current global conditions, and I think that if some change is made in the future (must be immediate and on a large scale), then we can not only successfully approach the issue of climate change, but also make the issue well-known to all and hopefully even stop it in it’s tracks.

Nuclear Energy

I think that nuclear energy is something we still have yet to fully understand. The power that it holds and the level of danger involved is something that easily threatens the livelihoods of any and all people. Nuclear energy is currently in use around many areas of the world, but controlling this source of power is an incredibly large responsibility as any small form of slip-up could cause massive repercussions. In the past, the wrong use (or with harmful intent) of nuclear energy has caused absolute devastation to thousands, and the radiation that emits from nuclear power alone causes enough problems by itself. I think there are things we do not fully comprehend about the power and effects of nuclear energy, and therefore it should not be commonly used or even be forbidden altogether. The amount of destruction it can cause in a heartbeat is enormous and it wouldn’t be wise to use nuclear energy at all if there are other sources/options available.

Media Bias – Forbes

For my media bias analysis, I decided to choose Forbes. During my selection process, I wanted to choose a source that would be both well-known/familiar to me and also something I had cited in the past. I’ve used Forbes multiple times but always questioned its reliability/credibility as well as its political bias. In my research, I discovered that Forbes has a reliability rating of 43.74 (strong and in the green zone) and tends to have pretty balanced media bias overall with a rating of -3.04 (leaning slightly left). I would say that this data does not really surprise me as any time I’ve used an article from Forbes in the past, I’ve never noticed any obvious political bias, and seeing as the audience size of the source is approximately 57 million, it’s clear that this is a very credible/reliable source to cite. I think that in the future I’ll definitely feel secure/reliable about using Forbes, and I’m glad that the research I did was able to show positive results.