De Kadt states that fundamentalist religions aim not to overcome the tensions between different aspects of race identities and not to restore it to an unambiguous oneness. The belief systems have powerful influenced the public and politics of nations worldwide. People of different faiths not only fight over their basic beliefs and land but they end in war. In the world today fundamentalist religions have all sorts of violence; it is like a wild fire when terrorism is the issue. If different religious fundamentalist groups don't have their mind's open, there would be disputed between people and countries on account of their faith. From historical teaching, religions have started wars, ended them, impacted, and persuaded people. Needless to say, beliefs are very influential on the world current days. World terrorism is very violent because there are different groups trying to express their own point of views. Many terrorist groups have been associated with religious ideologies. These show how religion can be a key instrument in World Terrorism from a variety of religions there is a variety of terrorism.

As we all know, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 executed by Osama bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda had a great impact on this country. Our president at this time was George W. Bush, our current president. He led the United States into a new direction in order to take back and maintain our national security in the twenty-first century. This new course opened with two military attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, taking over the governments in both nations. The point of these invasions were to track down all known Al Qaeda participants, and to rid of Saddam Hussein who was accused of concealing weapons of mass destruction and plotting with terrorists. However, both of these accusations against Hussein were not proven to be correct. Therefore, George Bush ordered to have a country massacred, killing thousands of innocent people, in order to help "save" them from their dictator who "could" be of harm to them. All of these actions that have been taken by the United States government in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 make up the War on Terror. The Bush Doctrine is the policy that the U.S. has created to guide our military actions in the War on Terror and to achieve twenty-first-century national security. The Bush Doctrine II is the U.S. policy for homeland security.

Our world as we know it has been orbiting around the sun for over four billion years and has seen many changes. Mountains have formed from the shift of tectonic plates and America's fiftieth state appeared from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Homo sapiens have only existed on Earth for around two hundred thousand years, a relatively young species in terms of four billion years of life. Yet, in this small amount of time we have been the most destructive force our planet has ever seen. I believe global warming in part is an adverse effect of the development of human civilization. Before us the world went through its cycle of changes, but now it seems the balance of the Earth is in our hands.

With the confronting crisis of running out of landfill space, the disposal of solid waste in America will be a major environmental problem.

A. Littering, a source of individual pollution, can be cut back or eliminated if new ways can be found to control it on a community level.

I believe that the greatest social problem we face currently is to be found not in the people of our society, not even in the people who seem to be the "puppet masters" of our society.  Rather, the problem is in the structure of the system, a system that has called itself many names but has failed to evolve into anything that is greater than it is.  It is a system based on servitude not service, competition not cooperation.  It resides in; democratic nations, communist nations, and socialist, presidents, dictators, kings and queens, it is the culture of power.

The past couple of weeks the focus in class has been on social problems in relation to the environment, specifically global warming.  I believe that there is no distinguishing from an environmental problem and a social one.  The way societies are structured has a direct result on the environment of that society and the ecological and environmental systems of a region will have dramatic impact on the structure and issues of a given society. 

For one day - Thursday January 31 - try an alternate transportation method if you regularly drive.



Events

Monday 1/28

Film Series:

The 11th Hour 9am-10:50am library room 112 and 1pm-2:50pm ST 107.

Peak oil: 11:30-1pm Environmental Center CC

The 11th Hour: 1-2:50pm ADD Q&A until 3:30

The 11th Hour: 3:30-5pm Environmental Center CC


Tuesday 1/29/2008

All events are open to the community unless otherwise noted.

Reduce/Reuse/Recycle Fair, 11am-2 pm upper CC mall

Tri-Met Trip planner, 11am-1pm Upper CC Mall

Wednesday 1/30/2008


All events are open to the community unless otherwise noted.

Michael Armstrong, City of Portland, Office of Sustainable Development will be speaking on Climate Protection: Challenges and Solutions for Portland 1pm-2pm then Q&A until 2:30, ST107 contact jfarnum@pcc.edu for details



Thursday 1/31/2008



All events are open to the community unless otherwise noted.

John Breshears, architect, will be speaking on Sustainable design, 9am-10am Cedar room, contact amcnerth@pcc.edu for details


Nathan Jones, Beyond Transfrom Transportation: PCC & the Youth Climate Movement, Former PCC student and environmental activist. Beyond Transform Transportation: PCC & the Youth Climate Movement: 10am-11am upper CC mall. He will focus on last year's PCC transportation success, the current National Campus Climate Challenge, and the future, Green Jobs.

Peter Murchie, EPA scientist, member of the Governor's Advisory Group for Western Climate Initiative, and biodiesel expert, will be speaking about Climate adaptations and policy. 11am-12 noon, ST 309 contact Stacey Fiddler for details.

Hungry Mob (band), 12 noon, lower CC mall

Jean Baumann, volunteer with Al Gore's Climate Project; will be speaking about Global Warming: The Science and Solutions, 1-2:50pm Cedar Room in CC, contact mmeyer@pcc.edu for details

Solutions in Transportation and Energy Fair, Upper CC mall

The Sylvania campus is honored to have Andrew "One'staa" Morrison (Haida and Apache Nations) on campus this week. He is a muralist and will be doing lectures and demonstrations on campus. He has been invited to campus in conjunction with the PCC Annual Winter Powwow which is taking place this Saturday (1/19/08 noon-10:30pm in the HT Gym).

Andrew Morrison will be doing presentations:
Weds. 1/16 11-noon CT 230; Nooe-1:30 CC Upper Mall; 2-3 ST107
Thursday 1/17 10am-4pm Performing Arts Center Lobby
Saturday 1/19 10am-noon CC Upper Mall

I encourage everyone to stop by for a while to see Mr. Morrison's work and hear what he has to say.

I will make 5 points extra credit available for students who spend some time with Mr. Morrison and viewing his work, and then write a brief (one-two paragraph) response to one culturally significant thing you learned from him or his art.