Saturday, January 10, 2009
Chapter 16 Section 1
1. Agriculture, industry, transportation, and communications in Russia have changed since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
The Russian industry has changed to 90% of the price controls removed, and ecouraged mass privation or the change to private ownership, by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Russia's most important industry is petroleum extraction and processing. Agriculture has changed by President Yeltsin restructuring the state-run farms, so they would tion better in a market economy, but he and his government still had controll of the prices and producion in this sector. Transportation has changed for both transporting people and goods. The transportation of goods is now effectively through pipelines, railroads, or waterways. Most people in Russia do not own cars, but the country still has a common transportation system consisting of buses, trains, and subways. Later on after the Soviet Union fell, the single Aeroflot passenger airline split, but led to the closure of most airports because of the cost of fuel and ticket prices. Lastly, Russian communications, in the Post-Soviet Union Era, have changed from the states owning and controlling all mass communication systems to a great boom in telecomunications, different views in the printed/ broadcasted news and the use of cellular devices has gone up.
2. Russia’s relationship to the global community is through the former Soviet Union's seat in the United Nations Security Council, and joining the European organizations that support security and cooperation. Through the global community Russia gained their necessary adequate financial resources, which keep them stable and allow them to progress in the global community. Russia is a less fortunate country in the financial area, but has recieved loans from world organizations and other countries have provided funds towards their industry.
Creative Writing:
The transition of the Russia's economy into a market economy was damaged by the controversy in both Russia and the West. The transition from a declining economy to a thriving market economy included: restructuring the agriculture, privatizing industry, opening markets to foreign investors, and managing natural resource more efficiently.
Chapter 16, Section 2
1. Russia manages its natural resource of the forests by using their land more efficiently, protecting forests, planting new trees, and increasing private investment. The environmental groups of Russia have managed to demand that mining companies must meet their standards, to protect the salmon spawning and the protected wild life areas.
2. The environmental challenges in Russia’s future consist of the shrinking fish populations, the affect of the pipelines (that are used to transport oil and gas) towards the wildlife and environment, and lastly the global warming trend that could release over concentrated methane. The shrinking fish population is cause by supertrawlers discarding or wasting millions of fish because they only want certain kinds. Russian pipelines can cause irreversible damage to Lake Baikal, if an oil spill were to occur. Global warming is causing the areas originally covered with perma frost to turn into shallow lakes, and the thawing of the world's largest peat bog.
Creative Writing:
Pollution has affected the lives of Russia’s people by the environmental effects of industrialization. Russia has set off nuclear explosions which leave nuclear wastes, some of which can remain radioactive in the atmosphere for thousands of years, making it extremely dangerous for people and environment.This exposed people to deadly levels of radioactive material, causing them to die of radiation poisoning, diseases, and even cancer because they were not told quick enough to allow them to escape or evacuate. Most of their radioactive materials were kept in storage facilities, but the rest were dumped straight into the following seas: Barents, Bering and Baltic. The dumping into those three seas contaminated the waters, lowered the quality, and were posed as health risks. Since radioactivity was released into the air, the water, it even contaminated the soil.The soil was contaminated with pesticides, toxic wastes, radioactive material and the breaking of petroleum pipelines all which polluted or ruined the lands. Air pollution has been rising in Russian countries because of industrialization wastes consisting of: vehicle emissions, burning of coal; release of soot, sulfur and carbon dioxide, which can lead to acid rain and more severe effects of pollution.
