Natural resources (economically referred to as land or raw materials) occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity existent in various ecosystems. Natural resources are derived from the environment. This is currently restricted to the environment of Earth yet the theoretical possibility remains of extracting them from outside the planet, such as the asteroid belt. Many of them are essential for our survival while others are used for satisfying our wants. Natural resources may be further classified in different ways.
Classification
On the basis of origin, resources may be divided into:
Biotic - Biotic resources are obtained from the biosphere, such as forests and their products, animals, birds and their products, fish and other marine organisms. Mineral fuels such as coal and petroleum are also included in this category because they are formed from decayed organic matter.
Abiotic - Abiotic resources include non-living things. Examples include land, water, air and ores such as gold, iron, copper, silver etc.
Considering their stage of development, natural resources may be referred to in the following ways:
Potential Resources - Potential resources are those that exist in a region and may be used in the future. For example, petroleum may exist in many parts of India, having sedimentary rocks but until the time it is actually drilled out and put into use, it remains a potential resource.
Actual Resources are those that have been surveyed, their quantity and quality determined and are being used in present times. The development of an actual resource, such as wood processing depends upon the technology available and the cost involved. That part of the actual resource that can be developed profitably with available technology is called a reserve.
On the basis of status of development, they can be classified into potential resources,developed resources,stock and reserves.
With respect to renewability, natural resources can be categorized as follows:
Renewable resources are ones that can be replenished or reproduced easily. Some of them, like sunlight, air, wind, etc., are continuously available and their quantity is not affected by human consumption. Many renewable resources can be depleted by human use, but may also be replenished, thus maintaining a flow. Some of these, like agricultural crops, take a short time for renewal; others, like water, take a comparatively longer time, while still others, like forests, take even longer.
Non-renewable resources are formed over very long geological periods. Minerals and fossil fuels are included in this category. Since their rate of formation is extremely slow, they cannot be replenished once they get depleted. Of these, the metallic minerals can be re-used by recycling them.[2] But coal and petroleum cannot be recycled.[3]
On the basis of availability, natural resources can be categorised as follows:
Inexhaustible natural resources- Those resources which are present in unlimited quantity in nature and are not likely to be exhausted easily by human activity are inexhaustible natural resources (sunlight, air etc.)
Exhaustible natural resources- The amount of these resources are limited. They can be exhausted by human activity in the long run (coal, petroleum, natural gas, etc.)
Some examples of natural resources include the following:
Air, wind and atmosphere
Animals
Coal, fossil fuels, rock and mineral resources
Forestry
Range and pasture
Soils
Water, oceans, lakes, groundwater and rivers [4]
Solar power
Examples
The natural resource of wind powers these 5MW wind turbines on this wind farm 28 km off the coast of Belgium.
Some examples of natural resources include the following:
* Air, wind and atmosphere
* Animals
* Coal, fossil fuels, rock and mineral resources
* Forestry
* Range and pasture
* Soils
* Water, oceans, lakes, groundwater and rivers [4]
* Solar power
Management
Natural resource management
Natural resource management is a discipline in the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations. Natural resource management is interrelated with the concept of sustainable development, a principle that forms a basis for land management and environmental governance throughout the world.
In contrast to the policy emphases of urban planning and the broader concept of environmental management, Natural resource management specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of resources and ecology and the life-supporting capacity of those resources.
Depletion
In recent years, the depletion of natural resources and attempts to move to sustainable development has been a major focus of development agencies. This is a particular concern in rainforest regions, which hold most of the Earth's natural biodiversity - irreplaceable genetic natural capital. Conservation of natural resources is the major focus of natural capitalism, environmentalism, the ecology movement, and green politics. Some view this depletion as a major source of social unrest and conflicts in developing nations.
Mining, petroleum extraction, fishing, hunting, and forestry are generally considered natural-resource industries. Agriculture is considered a man-made resource. Theodore Roosevelt, a well-known conservationist and former United States president, was opposed to unregulated natural resource extraction. The term is defined by the United States Geological Survey as "The Nation's natural resources include its minerals, energy, land, water, and biota."
[edit] Protection
See also: Environmental protection
The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all others.
Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on sciences, economics, and the practice of natural resource management. The term conservation biology was introduced as the title of a conference held University of California at San Diego in La Jolla, California in 1978 organized by biologists Bruce Wilcox and Michael Soulé.
Habitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore, habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range
Dr.B.Mohammad Rafee M.A.M.Phil.,Ph.D. Researcher, Pedagogue Ph:+918951163373,9159615573 Email:basharafee@gmail.com Web:www.mohammad-rafee.blogspot.com
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Introduction to Environmental Studies
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Introduction to Environmental Studies
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Monday, February 14, 2011
Introuduction to Environmental Studies
To II B.B.M........
Environment:-
The environment is derived from the French word 'environ' which means encircle or all around (i.e) surrounding conditions.
Definitions:- Environment means the surroundings in which man & other living organisms operate &includes physical factors such as air, water, Land etc. & living organisms like plants, animals & other organisms & their inter relationships.
According to Mac Graw Hill encyclopedia of Environmental science has defined environment as " the sum total of all conditions & influences that affect the developments & life or organisms.
Basic components of Environment:
1.Lithosphere
2.Hydrosphere
3.Atmosphere
4.Biosphere
Lithosphere is the land comprising rocks & soils. the earth is made up of a series of concentric rock zones or concentric layers viz. I. Crust II. The Mantle III.The core
The top most layer of earth is called the Crust of the earth or Lithosphere.
The crust of the earth has two parts
* The upper part made up of light materials mostly silicon & Aluminum - that forms continents.
* The lower part- It is layer of denser material form ocean floor & lying under the continent& made up of silicon and Magnesium
Below the crust of the earth lies the Mantle & it is composed of denser rocks, it extends up to 100 k.ms.
Below the mantle lies the core of the earth.
The lithosphere is about 10 k.m thick under the ocean bed and it is over 40 k.m thick under the continents & it is important for fossil fuel, minerals & soil chemicals. Responsible for rich Biota (Flora&Fauna) on the land...
Environment:-
The environment is derived from the French word 'environ' which means encircle or all around (i.e) surrounding conditions.
Definitions:- Environment means the surroundings in which man & other living organisms operate &includes physical factors such as air, water, Land etc. & living organisms like plants, animals & other organisms & their inter relationships.
According to Mac Graw Hill encyclopedia of Environmental science has defined environment as " the sum total of all conditions & influences that affect the developments & life or organisms.
Basic components of Environment:
1.Lithosphere
2.Hydrosphere
3.Atmosphere
4.Biosphere
Lithosphere is the land comprising rocks & soils. the earth is made up of a series of concentric rock zones or concentric layers viz. I. Crust II. The Mantle III.The core
The top most layer of earth is called the Crust of the earth or Lithosphere.
The crust of the earth has two parts
* The upper part made up of light materials mostly silicon & Aluminum - that forms continents.
* The lower part- It is layer of denser material form ocean floor & lying under the continent& made up of silicon and Magnesium
Below the crust of the earth lies the Mantle & it is composed of denser rocks, it extends up to 100 k.ms.
Below the mantle lies the core of the earth.
The lithosphere is about 10 k.m thick under the ocean bed and it is over 40 k.m thick under the continents & it is important for fossil fuel, minerals & soil chemicals. Responsible for rich Biota (Flora&Fauna) on the land...
Natural environment - IV BCA, II BBM & II B.Com
Natural environment
The natural environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished by components:
* Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries.
* Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from human activity.
The natural environment is contrasted with the built environment, which comprises the areas and components that are strongly influenced by humans. A geographical area is regarded as a natural environment (with an indefinite article), if the human impact on it is kept under a certain limited level
Composition:-
Earth science generally recognizes 4 spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere[2] as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life. Some scientists include, as part of the spheres of the Earth, the cryosphere (corresponding to ice) as a distinct portion of the hydrosphere, as well as the pedosphere (corresponding to soil) as an active and intermixed sphere. Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth.[3] There are four major disciplines in earth sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics and geodesy. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology and mathematics to build a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the principal areas or spheres of the Earth system.
Geological activity:-
The Earth's crust, or lithosphere, is the outermost solid surface of the planet and is chemically and mechanically different from underlying mantle. It has been generated largely by igneous processes in which magma (molten rock) cools and solidifies to form solid rock. Beneath the lithosphere lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The mantle though solid is in a state of rheic convection. This convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics.[4][5][6] Volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material or of rising mantle at mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes.
Water on Earth:-
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 362 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt. Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water often referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a global ocean as a continuous body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography. The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria: these divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be termed by several other names, including stream, creek and brook. In the United States a river is generally classified as a watercourse more than 60 feet (18 metres) wide. The water in a river is usually in a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Flood plains may be very wide in relation to the size of the river channel. Rivers are a part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through surface runoff, groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of water stored in glaciers and snowpacks.A stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology. Types of streams include creeks, tributaries, which do not reach an ocean and connect with another stream or river, brooks, which are typically small streams and sometimes sourced from a spring or seep and tidal inlets.A lake (from Latin lacus) is a terrain feature, a body of water that is localized to the bottom of basin. A body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, is not part of a ocean, is larger and deeper than a pond, and is fed by a river.
Natural lakes on Earth are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing or recent glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world, there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.
Ponds
Pond
A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens designed for aesthetic ornamentation, fish ponds designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy. Ponds and lakes are distinguished from streams via current speed. While currents in streams are easily observed, ponds and lakes possess thermally driven micro-currents and moderate wind driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.Atmosphere, climate and weather
Atmospheric gases scatter blue light more than other wavelengths, creating a blue halo when seen from space.
A view of Earth's troposphere from an airplane.
Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of electricity accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms.
The atmosphere of the Earth serves as a key factor in sustaining the planetary ecosystem. The thin layer of gases that envelops the Earth is held in place by the planet's gravity. Dry air consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon and other inert gases, such as carbon dioxide. The remaining gases are often referred to as trace gases, among which are the greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Filtered air includes trace amounts of many other chemical compounds. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor and suspensions of water droplets and ice crystals seen as clouds. Many natural substances may be present in tiny amounts in an unfiltered air sample, including dust, pollen and spores, sea spray, volcanic ash, and meteoroids. Various industrial pollutants also may be present, such as chlorine (elementary or in compounds), fluorine compounds, elemental mercury, and sulphur compounds such as sulphur dioxide [SO2].
The ozone layer of the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in depleting the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation that reaches the surface. As DNA is readily damaged by UV light, this serves to protect life at the surface. The atmosphere also retains heat during the night, thereby reducing the daily temperature extremes.
[edit] Atmospheric layers
Main article: Earth's atmosphere
[edit] Principal layers
Earth's atmosphere can be divided into five main layers. These layers are mainly determined by whether temperature increases or decreases with altitude. From highest to lowest, these layers are:
* Exosphere: The outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere extends from the exobase upward, mainly composed of hydrogen and helium.
* Thermosphere: The top of the thermosphere is the bottom of the exosphere, called the exobase. Its height varies with solar activity and ranges from about 350–800 km (220–500 mi; 1,100,000–2,600,000 ft). The International Space Station orbits in this layer, between 320 and 380 km (200 and 240 mi).
* Mesosphere: The mesosphere extends from the stratopause to 80–85 km (50–53 mi; 260,000–280,000 ft). It is the layer where most meteors burn up upon entering the atmosphere.
* Stratosphere: The stratosphere extends from the tropopause to about 51 km (32 mi; 170,000 ft). The stratopause, which is the boundary between the stratosphere and mesosphere, typically is at 50 to 55 km (31 to 34 mi; 160,000 to 180,000 ft).
* Troposphere: The troposphere begins at the surface and extends to between 7 km (23,000 ft) at the poles and 17 km (56,000 ft) at the equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is mostly heated by transfer of energy from the surface, so on average the lowest part of the troposphere is warmest and temperature decreases with altitude. The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere.
Other layers
Within the five principal layers determined by temperature are several layers determined by other properties.
* The ozone layer is contained within the stratosphere. It is mainly located in the lower portion of the stratosphere from about 15–35 km (9.3–22 mi; 49,000–110,000 ft), though the thickness varies seasonally and geographically. About 90% of the ozone in our atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere.
* The ionosphere, the part of the atmosphere that is ionized by solar radiation, stretches from 50 to 1,000 km (31 to 620 mi; 160,000 to 3,300,000 ft) and typically overlaps both the exosphere and the thermosphere. It forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere.
* The homosphere and heterosphere: The homosphere includes the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. The upper part of the heterosphere is composed almost completely of hydrogen, the lightest element.
* The planetary boundary layer is the part of the troposphere that is nearest the Earth's surface and is directly affected by it, mainly through turbulent diffusion.
Effects of global warming
Global warming
The Retreat of glaciers since 1850 of Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps (situation in 1979, 1991 and 2002), due to global warming.
The potential dangers of global warming are being increasingly studied by a wide global consortium of scientists. These scientists are increasingly concerned about the potential long-term effects of global warming on our natural environment and on the planet. Of particular concern is how climate change and global warming caused by anthropogenic, or human-made releases of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, can act interactively, and have adverse effects upon the planet, its natural environment and humans' existence. Efforts have been increasingly focused on the mitigation of greenhouse gases that are causing climatic changes, on developing adaptative strategies to global warming, to assist humans, animal and plant species, ecosystems, regions and nations in adjusting to the effects of global warming. Some examples of recent collaboration to address climate change and global warming include:
Another view of the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps and because of global warming it has been decreasing
* The United Nations Framework Convention Treaty and convention on Climate Change, to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
* The Kyoto Protocol, which is the protocol to the international Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, again with the objective of reducing greenhouse gases in an effort to prevent anthropogenic climate change.
* The Western Climate Initiative, to identify, evaluate, and implement collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region, focusing on a market-based cap-and-trade system.
A significantly profound challenge is to identify the natural environmental dynamics in contrast to environmental changes not within natural variances. A common solution is to adapt a static view neglecting natural variances to exist. Methodologically, this view could be defended when looking at processes which change slowly and short time series, while the problem arrives when fast processes turns essential in the object of the study.
[edit] Climate
Map of world dividing climate zones, largely influenced by latitude. The zones, going from the equator upward (and downward) are Tropical, Dry, Moderate, Continental and Polar. There are subzones within these zones.
Worldwide climate classifications map
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time.[citation needed] Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks.[citation needed]
The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, altitude, ice or snow cover, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents.[citation needed] Climates can be classified according to the average and typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme is the one originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system,[19] in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration in addition to temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying animal species diversity and potential impacts of climate changes.[citation needed] The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses defining the climate for certain areas.[citation needed]
[edit] Weather
Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere.
Weather
Weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmospheric area at a given time. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used without qualification, "weather" is understood to be the weather of Earth.
Weather occurs due to density (temperature and moisture) differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extra tropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow. Because the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On the Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (100 °F to −40 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in the Earth's orbit have affected the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth and influence long-term climate
Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes due to differences in compressional heating. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, and small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout human history, and there is evidence that human activity such as agriculture and industry has inadvertently modified weather patterns.
Life
There are many plant species on the planet.
An example of the many animal species on the Earth.
Main articles: Life, Biology, and Biosphere
Evidence suggests that life on Earth has existed for about 3.7 billion years.[24] All known life forms share fundamental molecular mechanisms, and based on these observations, theories on the origin of life attempt to find a mechanism explaining the formation of a primordial single cell organism from which all life originates. There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules via pre-cellular life to protocells and metabolism.
Although there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life is characterized by organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction. Life may also be said to be simply the characteristic state of organisms. In biology, the science of living organisms, "life" is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity and the continual change preceding death.
A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information. Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means.
Ecosystems
Ecosystem
Rainforests often have a great deal of biodiversity with many plant and animal species. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park.
An ecosystem(also called as environment) is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.
Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a highly interrelated set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. Eugene Odum, one of the founders of the science of ecology, stated: "Any unit that includes all of the organisms (ie: the "community") in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e.: exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) within the system is an ecosystem."
Old-growth forest and a creek on Larch Mountain[disambiguation needed], in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The human ecosystem concept is then grounded in the deconstruction of the human/nature dichotomy, and the emergent premise that all species are ecologically integrated with each other, as well as with the abiotic constituents of their biotope.
A greater number or variety of species or biological diversity of an ecosystem may contribute to greater resilience of an ecosystem, because there are more species present at a location to respond to change and thus "absorb" or reduce its effects. This reduces the effect before the ecosystem's structure is fundamentally changed to a different state. This is not universally the case and there is no proven relationship between the species diversity of an ecosystem and its ability to provide goods and services on a sustainable level. Humid tropical forests produce very few goods and direct services and are extremely vulnerable to change, while many temperate forests readily grow back to their previous state of development within a lifetime after felling or a forest fire.[citation needed] Some grasslands have been sustainably exploited for thousands of years (Mongolia, European peat and moorland communities).[citation needed]
The term ecosystem can also pertain to human-made environments, such as human ecosystems and human-influenced ecosystems, and can describe any situation where there is relationship between living organisms and their environment. Fewer areas on the surface of the earth today exist free from human contact, although some genuine wilderness areas continue to exist without any forms of human intervention.
Biomes
Biomes are terminologically similar to the concept of ecosystems, and are climatically and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to as ecosystems. Biomes are defined on the basis of factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate. Unlike ecozones, biomes are not defined by genetic, taxonomic, or historical similarities. Biomes are often identified with particular patterns of ecological succession and climax vegetation.
[edit] Biogeochemical cycles
Chloroplasts conduct photosynthesis and are found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms. These are Chloroplasts visible in the cells of Plagiomnium affine — Many-fruited Thyme-moss.
Biogeochemical cycles
Global biogeochemical cycles are critical to life, most notably those of water, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.
* The nitrogen cycle is the transformation of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing compounds in nature. It is a cycle which includes gaseous components.
* The water cycle, is the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and ice at various places in the water cycle. Although the balance of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, individual water molecules can come and go.
* The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.
* The oxygen cycle is the movement of oxygen within and between its three main reservoirs: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere. The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for the modern Earth's atmospheric composition and life.
* The phosphorus cycle is the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. The atmosphere does not play a significant role in the movements of phosphorus, because phosphorus and phosphorus compounds are usually solids at the typical ranges of temperature and pressure found on Earth.
The natural environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished by components:
* Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries.
* Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from human activity.
The natural environment is contrasted with the built environment, which comprises the areas and components that are strongly influenced by humans. A geographical area is regarded as a natural environment (with an indefinite article), if the human impact on it is kept under a certain limited level
Composition:-
Earth science generally recognizes 4 spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere[2] as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life. Some scientists include, as part of the spheres of the Earth, the cryosphere (corresponding to ice) as a distinct portion of the hydrosphere, as well as the pedosphere (corresponding to soil) as an active and intermixed sphere. Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth.[3] There are four major disciplines in earth sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics and geodesy. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology and mathematics to build a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the principal areas or spheres of the Earth system.
Geological activity:-
The Earth's crust, or lithosphere, is the outermost solid surface of the planet and is chemically and mechanically different from underlying mantle. It has been generated largely by igneous processes in which magma (molten rock) cools and solidifies to form solid rock. Beneath the lithosphere lies the mantle which is heated by the decay of radioactive elements. The mantle though solid is in a state of rheic convection. This convection process causes the lithospheric plates to move, albeit slowly. The resulting process is known as plate tectonics.[4][5][6] Volcanoes result primarily from the melting of subducted crust material or of rising mantle at mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes.
Water on Earth:-
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 362 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt. Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water often referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a global ocean as a continuous body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography. The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria: these divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be termed by several other names, including stream, creek and brook. In the United States a river is generally classified as a watercourse more than 60 feet (18 metres) wide. The water in a river is usually in a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by flood-waters over-topping the channel. Flood plains may be very wide in relation to the size of the river channel. Rivers are a part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through surface runoff, groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of water stored in glaciers and snowpacks.A stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology. Types of streams include creeks, tributaries, which do not reach an ocean and connect with another stream or river, brooks, which are typically small streams and sometimes sourced from a spring or seep and tidal inlets.A lake (from Latin lacus) is a terrain feature, a body of water that is localized to the bottom of basin. A body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, is not part of a ocean, is larger and deeper than a pond, and is fed by a river.
Natural lakes on Earth are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing or recent glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world, there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.
Ponds
Pond
A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens designed for aesthetic ornamentation, fish ponds designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy. Ponds and lakes are distinguished from streams via current speed. While currents in streams are easily observed, ponds and lakes possess thermally driven micro-currents and moderate wind driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.Atmosphere, climate and weather
Atmospheric gases scatter blue light more than other wavelengths, creating a blue halo when seen from space.
A view of Earth's troposphere from an airplane.
Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of electricity accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms.
The atmosphere of the Earth serves as a key factor in sustaining the planetary ecosystem. The thin layer of gases that envelops the Earth is held in place by the planet's gravity. Dry air consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon and other inert gases, such as carbon dioxide. The remaining gases are often referred to as trace gases, among which are the greenhouse gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Filtered air includes trace amounts of many other chemical compounds. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor and suspensions of water droplets and ice crystals seen as clouds. Many natural substances may be present in tiny amounts in an unfiltered air sample, including dust, pollen and spores, sea spray, volcanic ash, and meteoroids. Various industrial pollutants also may be present, such as chlorine (elementary or in compounds), fluorine compounds, elemental mercury, and sulphur compounds such as sulphur dioxide [SO2].
The ozone layer of the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in depleting the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation that reaches the surface. As DNA is readily damaged by UV light, this serves to protect life at the surface. The atmosphere also retains heat during the night, thereby reducing the daily temperature extremes.
[edit] Atmospheric layers
Main article: Earth's atmosphere
[edit] Principal layers
Earth's atmosphere can be divided into five main layers. These layers are mainly determined by whether temperature increases or decreases with altitude. From highest to lowest, these layers are:
* Exosphere: The outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere extends from the exobase upward, mainly composed of hydrogen and helium.
* Thermosphere: The top of the thermosphere is the bottom of the exosphere, called the exobase. Its height varies with solar activity and ranges from about 350–800 km (220–500 mi; 1,100,000–2,600,000 ft). The International Space Station orbits in this layer, between 320 and 380 km (200 and 240 mi).
* Mesosphere: The mesosphere extends from the stratopause to 80–85 km (50–53 mi; 260,000–280,000 ft). It is the layer where most meteors burn up upon entering the atmosphere.
* Stratosphere: The stratosphere extends from the tropopause to about 51 km (32 mi; 170,000 ft). The stratopause, which is the boundary between the stratosphere and mesosphere, typically is at 50 to 55 km (31 to 34 mi; 160,000 to 180,000 ft).
* Troposphere: The troposphere begins at the surface and extends to between 7 km (23,000 ft) at the poles and 17 km (56,000 ft) at the equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is mostly heated by transfer of energy from the surface, so on average the lowest part of the troposphere is warmest and temperature decreases with altitude. The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere.
Other layers
Within the five principal layers determined by temperature are several layers determined by other properties.
* The ozone layer is contained within the stratosphere. It is mainly located in the lower portion of the stratosphere from about 15–35 km (9.3–22 mi; 49,000–110,000 ft), though the thickness varies seasonally and geographically. About 90% of the ozone in our atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere.
* The ionosphere, the part of the atmosphere that is ionized by solar radiation, stretches from 50 to 1,000 km (31 to 620 mi; 160,000 to 3,300,000 ft) and typically overlaps both the exosphere and the thermosphere. It forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere.
* The homosphere and heterosphere: The homosphere includes the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. The upper part of the heterosphere is composed almost completely of hydrogen, the lightest element.
* The planetary boundary layer is the part of the troposphere that is nearest the Earth's surface and is directly affected by it, mainly through turbulent diffusion.
Effects of global warming
Global warming
The Retreat of glaciers since 1850 of Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps (situation in 1979, 1991 and 2002), due to global warming.
The potential dangers of global warming are being increasingly studied by a wide global consortium of scientists. These scientists are increasingly concerned about the potential long-term effects of global warming on our natural environment and on the planet. Of particular concern is how climate change and global warming caused by anthropogenic, or human-made releases of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, can act interactively, and have adverse effects upon the planet, its natural environment and humans' existence. Efforts have been increasingly focused on the mitigation of greenhouse gases that are causing climatic changes, on developing adaptative strategies to global warming, to assist humans, animal and plant species, ecosystems, regions and nations in adjusting to the effects of global warming. Some examples of recent collaboration to address climate change and global warming include:
Another view of the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps and because of global warming it has been decreasing
* The United Nations Framework Convention Treaty and convention on Climate Change, to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
* The Kyoto Protocol, which is the protocol to the international Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty, again with the objective of reducing greenhouse gases in an effort to prevent anthropogenic climate change.
* The Western Climate Initiative, to identify, evaluate, and implement collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region, focusing on a market-based cap-and-trade system.
A significantly profound challenge is to identify the natural environmental dynamics in contrast to environmental changes not within natural variances. A common solution is to adapt a static view neglecting natural variances to exist. Methodologically, this view could be defended when looking at processes which change slowly and short time series, while the problem arrives when fast processes turns essential in the object of the study.
[edit] Climate
Map of world dividing climate zones, largely influenced by latitude. The zones, going from the equator upward (and downward) are Tropical, Dry, Moderate, Continental and Polar. There are subzones within these zones.
Worldwide climate classifications map
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time.[citation needed] Climate can be contrasted to weather, which is the present condition of these same elements over periods up to two weeks.[citation needed]
The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, altitude, ice or snow cover, as well as nearby water bodies and their currents.[citation needed] Climates can be classified according to the average and typical ranges of different variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most commonly used classification scheme is the one originally developed by Wladimir Köppen. The Thornthwaite system,[19] in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration in addition to temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying animal species diversity and potential impacts of climate changes.[citation needed] The Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses defining the climate for certain areas.[citation needed]
[edit] Weather
Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere.
Weather
Weather is a set of all the phenomena occurring in a given atmospheric area at a given time. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used without qualification, "weather" is understood to be the weather of Earth.
Weather occurs due to density (temperature and moisture) differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extra tropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow. Because the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On the Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (100 °F to −40 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in the Earth's orbit have affected the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth and influence long-term climate
Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes due to differences in compressional heating. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, and small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout human history, and there is evidence that human activity such as agriculture and industry has inadvertently modified weather patterns.
Life
There are many plant species on the planet.
An example of the many animal species on the Earth.
Main articles: Life, Biology, and Biosphere
Evidence suggests that life on Earth has existed for about 3.7 billion years.[24] All known life forms share fundamental molecular mechanisms, and based on these observations, theories on the origin of life attempt to find a mechanism explaining the formation of a primordial single cell organism from which all life originates. There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules via pre-cellular life to protocells and metabolism.
Although there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life is characterized by organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction. Life may also be said to be simply the characteristic state of organisms. In biology, the science of living organisms, "life" is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity and the continual change preceding death.
A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information. Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means.
Ecosystems
Ecosystem
Rainforests often have a great deal of biodiversity with many plant and animal species. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park.
An ecosystem(also called as environment) is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.
Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a highly interrelated set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. Eugene Odum, one of the founders of the science of ecology, stated: "Any unit that includes all of the organisms (ie: the "community") in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity, and material cycles (i.e.: exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) within the system is an ecosystem."
Old-growth forest and a creek on Larch Mountain[disambiguation needed], in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The human ecosystem concept is then grounded in the deconstruction of the human/nature dichotomy, and the emergent premise that all species are ecologically integrated with each other, as well as with the abiotic constituents of their biotope.
A greater number or variety of species or biological diversity of an ecosystem may contribute to greater resilience of an ecosystem, because there are more species present at a location to respond to change and thus "absorb" or reduce its effects. This reduces the effect before the ecosystem's structure is fundamentally changed to a different state. This is not universally the case and there is no proven relationship between the species diversity of an ecosystem and its ability to provide goods and services on a sustainable level. Humid tropical forests produce very few goods and direct services and are extremely vulnerable to change, while many temperate forests readily grow back to their previous state of development within a lifetime after felling or a forest fire.[citation needed] Some grasslands have been sustainably exploited for thousands of years (Mongolia, European peat and moorland communities).[citation needed]
The term ecosystem can also pertain to human-made environments, such as human ecosystems and human-influenced ecosystems, and can describe any situation where there is relationship between living organisms and their environment. Fewer areas on the surface of the earth today exist free from human contact, although some genuine wilderness areas continue to exist without any forms of human intervention.
Biomes
Biomes are terminologically similar to the concept of ecosystems, and are climatically and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, often referred to as ecosystems. Biomes are defined on the basis of factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate. Unlike ecozones, biomes are not defined by genetic, taxonomic, or historical similarities. Biomes are often identified with particular patterns of ecological succession and climax vegetation.
[edit] Biogeochemical cycles
Chloroplasts conduct photosynthesis and are found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms. These are Chloroplasts visible in the cells of Plagiomnium affine — Many-fruited Thyme-moss.
Biogeochemical cycles
Global biogeochemical cycles are critical to life, most notably those of water, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.
* The nitrogen cycle is the transformation of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing compounds in nature. It is a cycle which includes gaseous components.
* The water cycle, is the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and ice at various places in the water cycle. Although the balance of water on Earth remains fairly constant over time, individual water molecules can come and go.
* The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.
* The oxygen cycle is the movement of oxygen within and between its three main reservoirs: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere. The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for the modern Earth's atmospheric composition and life.
* The phosphorus cycle is the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. The atmosphere does not play a significant role in the movements of phosphorus, because phosphorus and phosphorus compounds are usually solids at the typical ranges of temperature and pressure found on Earth.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Perfect competition
In economic theory, perfect competition describes markets such that no participants are large enough to have the market power to set the price of a homogeneous product. Because the conditions for perfect competition are strict, there are few if any perfectly competitive markets. Still, buyers and sellers in some auction-type markets, say for commodities or some financial assets, may approximate the concept. Perfect competition serves as a benchmark against which to measure real-life and imperfectly competitive markets.Basic structural characteristics
Generally, a perfectly competitive market exists when every participant is a "price taker", and no participant influences the price of the product it buys or sells. Specific characteristics may include:
* Infinite buyers and sellers – Infinite consumers with the willingness and ability to buy the product at a certain price, and infinite producers with the willingness and ability to supply the product at a certain price.
* Zero entry and exit barriers – It is relatively easy for a business to enter or exit in a perfectly competitive market.
* Perfect factor mobility - In the long run factors of production are perfectly mobile allowing free long term adjustments to changing market conditions.
* Perfect information - Prices and quality of products are assumed to be known to all consumers and producers.[1]
* Zero transaction costs - Buyers and sellers incur no costs in making an exchange (perfect mobility).[1]
* Profit maximization - Firms aim to sell where marginal costs meet marginal revenue, where they generate the most profit.
* Homogeneous products – The characteristics of any given market good or service do not vary across suppliers.
* Constant returns to scale - Constant returns to scale ensure that there are sufficient firms in the industry.[2]
In the short term, perfectly-competitive markets are not productively efficient as output will not occur where marginal cost is equal to average cost, but allocatively efficient, as output will always occur where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue, and therefore where marginal cost equals average revenue. In the long term, such markets are both allocatively and productively efficient.[3]
Under perfect competition, any profit-maximizing producer faces a market price equal to its marginal cost. This implies that a factor's price equals the factor's marginal revenue product. This allows for derivation of the supply curve on which the neoclassical approach is based. (This is also the reason why "a monopoly does not have a supply curve.") The abandonment of price taking creates considerable difficulties to the demonstration of existence of a general equilibrium[4] except under other, very specific conditions such as that of monopolistic competition.In a perfectly competitive market, a firm's demand curve is perfectly elastic.
As mentioned above, the perfect competition model, if interpreted as applying also to short-period or very-short-period behaviour, is approximated only by markets of homogeneous products produced and purchased by very many sellers and buyers, usually organized markets for agricultural products or raw materials. In real-world markets, assumptions such as perfect information cannot be verified and are only approximated in organized double-auction markets where most agents wait and observe the behaviour of prices before deciding to exchange (but in the long-period interpretation perfect information is not necessary, the analysis only aims at determining the average around which market prices gravitate, and for gravitation to operate one does not need perfect information).
In the absence of externalities and public goods, perfectly competitive equilibria are Pareto-efficient, i.e. no improvement in the utility of a consumer is possible without a worsening of the utility of some other consumer. This is called the First Theorem of Welfare Economics. The basic reason is that no productive factor with a non-zero marginal product is left unutilized, and the units of each factor are so allocated as to yield the same indirect marginal utility in all uses, a basic efficiency condition (if this indirect marginal utility were higher in one use than in other ones, a Pareto improvement could be achieved by transferring a small amount of the factor to the use where it yields a higher marginal utility).
A simple proof assuming differentiable utility functions and production functions is the following. Let wj be the 'price' (the rental) of a certain factor j, let MPj1 and MPj2 be its marginal product in the production of goods 1 and 2, and let p1 and p2 be these goods' prices. In equilibrium these prices must equal the respective marginal costs MC1 and MC2; remember that marginal cost equals factor 'price' divided by factor marginal productivity (because increasing the production of good by one very small unit through an increase of the employment of factor j requires increasing the factor employment by 1/MPji and thus increasing the cost by wj/MPji, and through the condition of cost minimization that marginal products must be proportional to factor 'prices' it can be shown that the cost increase is the same if the output increase is obtained by optimally varying all factors). Optimal factor employment by a price-taking firm requires equality of factor rental and factor marginal revenue product, wj=piMPji, so we obtain p1=MC1=wj/MPj1, p2=MCj2=wj/MPj2.
Now choose any consumer purchasing both goods, and measure his utility in such units that in equilibrium his marginal utility of money (the increase in utility due to the last unit of money spent on each good), MU1/p1=MU2/p2, is 1. Then p1=MU1, p2=MU2. The indirect marginal utility of the factor is the increase in the utility of our consumer achieved by an increase in the employment of the factor by one (very small) unit; this increase in utility through allocating the small increase in factor utilization to good 1 is MPj1MU1=MPj1p1=wj, and through allocating it to good 2 it is MPj2MU2=MPj2p2=wj again. With our choice of units the marginal utility of the amount of the factor consumed directly by the optimizing consumer is again w, so the amount supplied of the factor too satisfies the condition of optimal allocation.
Monopoly violates this optimal allocation condition, because in a monopolized industry market price is above marginal cost, and this means that factors are underutilized in the monopolized industry, they have a higher indirect marginal utility than in their uses in competitive industries. Of course this theorem is considered irrelevant by economists who do not believe that general equilibrium theory correctly predicts the functioning of market economies; but it is given great importance by neoclassical economists and it is the theoretical reason given by them for combating monopolies and for antitrust legislation.
[edit] Profit
In contrast to a monopoly or oligopoly, it is impossible for a firm in perfect competition to earn economic profit in the long run, which is to say that a firm cannot make any more money than is necessary to cover its economic costs. In order not to misinterpret this zero-long-run-profits thesis, it must be remembered that the term 'profit' is also used in other ways. Neoclassical theory defines profit as what is left of revenue after all costs have been subtracted, including normal interest on capital plus the normal excess over it required to cover risk, and normal salary for managerial activity. Classical economists on the contrary defined profit as what is left after subtracting costs except interest and risk coverage; thus, if one leaves aside risk coverage for simplicity, the neoclassical zero-long-run-profit thesis would be re-expressed in classical parlance as profits coinciding with interest in the long period, i.e. the rate of profit tending to coincide with the rate of interest. Profits in the classical meaning do not tend to disappear in the long period but tend to normal profit. With this terminology, if a firm is earning abnormal profit in the short term, this will act as a trigger for other firms to enter the market. As other firms enter the market the market supply curve will shift out causing prices to fall. Existing firms will react to this lower price by adjusting their capital stock downward.[11] This adjustment will cause their marginal cost to shift to the left causing the market supply curve to shift inward.[11] However, the net effect of entry by new firms and adjustment by existing firms will be to shift the supply curve outward.[11] The market price will be driven down until all firms are earning normal profit only.[12]
It is important to note that perfect competition is a sufficient condition for allocative and productive efficiency, but it is not a necessary condition. Laboratory experiments in which participants have significant price setting power and little or no information about their counterparts consistently produce efficient results given the proper trading institutions.[13]
[edit] The shutdown point
In the short run, a firm operating at a loss [R < TC (revenue less than total cost) or P < ATC (price less than unit cost)] must decide whether to continue to operate or temporarily shutdown.[14] The shutdown rule states "in the short run a firm should continue to operate if price exceeds average variable costs."[15] Restated, the rule is that for a firm to continue producing in the short run it must earn sufficient revenue to cover its variable costs.[16] The rationale for the rule is straightforward. By shutting down a firm avoids all variable costs.[17] However, the firm must still pay fixed costs.[18] Because fixed cost must be paid regardless of whether a firm operates they should not be considered in deciding whether to produce or shutdown. Thus in determining whether to shut down a firm should compare total revenue to total variable costs (VC) rather than total costs (FC + VC). If the revenue the firm is receiving is greater than its total variable cost (R > VC) then the firm is covering all variable cost plus there is additional revenue (“contribution”), which can be applied to fixed costs. (The size of the fixed costs is irrelevant as it is a sunk cost. The same consideration is used whether fixed costs are one dollar or one million dollars.) On the other hand if VC > R then the firm is not even covering its production costs and it should immediately shut down. The rule is conventionally stated in terms of price (average revenue) and average variable costs. The rules are equivalent (If you divide both sides of inequality TR > TVC by Q gives P > AVC). If the firm decides to operate, the firm will continue to produce where marginal revenue equals marginal costs because these conditions insure not only profit maximization (loss minimization) but also maximum contribution.
Another way to state the rule is that a firm should compare the profits from operating to those realized if it shutdown and select the option that produces the greater profit.[19][20] A firm that is shutdown is generating zero revenue and incurring no variable costs. However the firm still has to pay fixed cost. So the firm’s profit equals fixed costs or (- FC).[21] An operating firm is generating revenue, incurring variable costs and paying fixed costs. The operating firm's profit is R - VC - FC . The firm should continue to operate if R - VC - FC ≥ - FC which simplified is R ≥ VC.[[22][23] The difference between revenue, R, and variable costs, VC, is the contribution to fixed costs and any contribution is better than none. Thus, if R ≥ VC then firm should operate. If R < VC the firm should shut down.
A decision to shut down means that the firm is temporarily suspending production. It does not mean that the firm is going out of business (exiting the industry).[24]] If market conditions improve, and prices increase, the firm can resume production. Shutting down is a short-run decision. A firm that has shut down is not producing. The firm still retains its capital assets; however, the firm cannot leave the industry or avoid its fixed costs in the short run. Exit is a long-term decision. A firm that has exited an industry has avoided all commitments and freed all capital for use in more profitable enterprises.[25]
However, a firm cannot continue to incur losses indefinitely. In the long run, the firm will have to earn sufficient revenue to cover all its expenses and must decide whether to continue in business or to leave the industry and pursue profits elsewhere. The long-run decision is based on the relationship of the price and long-run average costs. If P ≥ AC then the firm will not exit the industry. If P < AC, then the firm will exit the industry. These comparisons will be made after the firm has made the necessary and feasible long-term adjustments. In the long run a firm operates where marginal revenue equals long-run marginal costs.[26]
[edit] Short-run supply curve
The short run supply curve for a perfectly competitive firm is the marginal cost (MC) curve at and above the shutdown point. Portions of the marginal cost curve below the shut down point are not part of the SR supply curve because the firm is not producing in that range. Technically the SR supply curve is a discontinuous function composed of the segment of the MC curve at and above minimum of the average variable cost curve and a segment that runs with the vertical axis from the origin to but not including a point "parallel" to minimum average variable costs.
Generally, a perfectly competitive market exists when every participant is a "price taker", and no participant influences the price of the product it buys or sells. Specific characteristics may include:
* Infinite buyers and sellers – Infinite consumers with the willingness and ability to buy the product at a certain price, and infinite producers with the willingness and ability to supply the product at a certain price.
* Zero entry and exit barriers – It is relatively easy for a business to enter or exit in a perfectly competitive market.
* Perfect factor mobility - In the long run factors of production are perfectly mobile allowing free long term adjustments to changing market conditions.
* Perfect information - Prices and quality of products are assumed to be known to all consumers and producers.[1]
* Zero transaction costs - Buyers and sellers incur no costs in making an exchange (perfect mobility).[1]
* Profit maximization - Firms aim to sell where marginal costs meet marginal revenue, where they generate the most profit.
* Homogeneous products – The characteristics of any given market good or service do not vary across suppliers.
* Constant returns to scale - Constant returns to scale ensure that there are sufficient firms in the industry.[2]
In the short term, perfectly-competitive markets are not productively efficient as output will not occur where marginal cost is equal to average cost, but allocatively efficient, as output will always occur where marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue, and therefore where marginal cost equals average revenue. In the long term, such markets are both allocatively and productively efficient.[3]
Under perfect competition, any profit-maximizing producer faces a market price equal to its marginal cost. This implies that a factor's price equals the factor's marginal revenue product. This allows for derivation of the supply curve on which the neoclassical approach is based. (This is also the reason why "a monopoly does not have a supply curve.") The abandonment of price taking creates considerable difficulties to the demonstration of existence of a general equilibrium[4] except under other, very specific conditions such as that of monopolistic competition.In a perfectly competitive market, a firm's demand curve is perfectly elastic.
As mentioned above, the perfect competition model, if interpreted as applying also to short-period or very-short-period behaviour, is approximated only by markets of homogeneous products produced and purchased by very many sellers and buyers, usually organized markets for agricultural products or raw materials. In real-world markets, assumptions such as perfect information cannot be verified and are only approximated in organized double-auction markets where most agents wait and observe the behaviour of prices before deciding to exchange (but in the long-period interpretation perfect information is not necessary, the analysis only aims at determining the average around which market prices gravitate, and for gravitation to operate one does not need perfect information).
In the absence of externalities and public goods, perfectly competitive equilibria are Pareto-efficient, i.e. no improvement in the utility of a consumer is possible without a worsening of the utility of some other consumer. This is called the First Theorem of Welfare Economics. The basic reason is that no productive factor with a non-zero marginal product is left unutilized, and the units of each factor are so allocated as to yield the same indirect marginal utility in all uses, a basic efficiency condition (if this indirect marginal utility were higher in one use than in other ones, a Pareto improvement could be achieved by transferring a small amount of the factor to the use where it yields a higher marginal utility).
A simple proof assuming differentiable utility functions and production functions is the following. Let wj be the 'price' (the rental) of a certain factor j, let MPj1 and MPj2 be its marginal product in the production of goods 1 and 2, and let p1 and p2 be these goods' prices. In equilibrium these prices must equal the respective marginal costs MC1 and MC2; remember that marginal cost equals factor 'price' divided by factor marginal productivity (because increasing the production of good by one very small unit through an increase of the employment of factor j requires increasing the factor employment by 1/MPji and thus increasing the cost by wj/MPji, and through the condition of cost minimization that marginal products must be proportional to factor 'prices' it can be shown that the cost increase is the same if the output increase is obtained by optimally varying all factors). Optimal factor employment by a price-taking firm requires equality of factor rental and factor marginal revenue product, wj=piMPji, so we obtain p1=MC1=wj/MPj1, p2=MCj2=wj/MPj2.
Now choose any consumer purchasing both goods, and measure his utility in such units that in equilibrium his marginal utility of money (the increase in utility due to the last unit of money spent on each good), MU1/p1=MU2/p2, is 1. Then p1=MU1, p2=MU2. The indirect marginal utility of the factor is the increase in the utility of our consumer achieved by an increase in the employment of the factor by one (very small) unit; this increase in utility through allocating the small increase in factor utilization to good 1 is MPj1MU1=MPj1p1=wj, and through allocating it to good 2 it is MPj2MU2=MPj2p2=wj again. With our choice of units the marginal utility of the amount of the factor consumed directly by the optimizing consumer is again w, so the amount supplied of the factor too satisfies the condition of optimal allocation.
Monopoly violates this optimal allocation condition, because in a monopolized industry market price is above marginal cost, and this means that factors are underutilized in the monopolized industry, they have a higher indirect marginal utility than in their uses in competitive industries. Of course this theorem is considered irrelevant by economists who do not believe that general equilibrium theory correctly predicts the functioning of market economies; but it is given great importance by neoclassical economists and it is the theoretical reason given by them for combating monopolies and for antitrust legislation.
[edit] Profit
In contrast to a monopoly or oligopoly, it is impossible for a firm in perfect competition to earn economic profit in the long run, which is to say that a firm cannot make any more money than is necessary to cover its economic costs. In order not to misinterpret this zero-long-run-profits thesis, it must be remembered that the term 'profit' is also used in other ways. Neoclassical theory defines profit as what is left of revenue after all costs have been subtracted, including normal interest on capital plus the normal excess over it required to cover risk, and normal salary for managerial activity. Classical economists on the contrary defined profit as what is left after subtracting costs except interest and risk coverage; thus, if one leaves aside risk coverage for simplicity, the neoclassical zero-long-run-profit thesis would be re-expressed in classical parlance as profits coinciding with interest in the long period, i.e. the rate of profit tending to coincide with the rate of interest. Profits in the classical meaning do not tend to disappear in the long period but tend to normal profit. With this terminology, if a firm is earning abnormal profit in the short term, this will act as a trigger for other firms to enter the market. As other firms enter the market the market supply curve will shift out causing prices to fall. Existing firms will react to this lower price by adjusting their capital stock downward.[11] This adjustment will cause their marginal cost to shift to the left causing the market supply curve to shift inward.[11] However, the net effect of entry by new firms and adjustment by existing firms will be to shift the supply curve outward.[11] The market price will be driven down until all firms are earning normal profit only.[12]
It is important to note that perfect competition is a sufficient condition for allocative and productive efficiency, but it is not a necessary condition. Laboratory experiments in which participants have significant price setting power and little or no information about their counterparts consistently produce efficient results given the proper trading institutions.[13]
[edit] The shutdown point
In the short run, a firm operating at a loss [R < TC (revenue less than total cost) or P < ATC (price less than unit cost)] must decide whether to continue to operate or temporarily shutdown.[14] The shutdown rule states "in the short run a firm should continue to operate if price exceeds average variable costs."[15] Restated, the rule is that for a firm to continue producing in the short run it must earn sufficient revenue to cover its variable costs.[16] The rationale for the rule is straightforward. By shutting down a firm avoids all variable costs.[17] However, the firm must still pay fixed costs.[18] Because fixed cost must be paid regardless of whether a firm operates they should not be considered in deciding whether to produce or shutdown. Thus in determining whether to shut down a firm should compare total revenue to total variable costs (VC) rather than total costs (FC + VC). If the revenue the firm is receiving is greater than its total variable cost (R > VC) then the firm is covering all variable cost plus there is additional revenue (“contribution”), which can be applied to fixed costs. (The size of the fixed costs is irrelevant as it is a sunk cost. The same consideration is used whether fixed costs are one dollar or one million dollars.) On the other hand if VC > R then the firm is not even covering its production costs and it should immediately shut down. The rule is conventionally stated in terms of price (average revenue) and average variable costs. The rules are equivalent (If you divide both sides of inequality TR > TVC by Q gives P > AVC). If the firm decides to operate, the firm will continue to produce where marginal revenue equals marginal costs because these conditions insure not only profit maximization (loss minimization) but also maximum contribution.
Another way to state the rule is that a firm should compare the profits from operating to those realized if it shutdown and select the option that produces the greater profit.[19][20] A firm that is shutdown is generating zero revenue and incurring no variable costs. However the firm still has to pay fixed cost. So the firm’s profit equals fixed costs or (- FC).[21] An operating firm is generating revenue, incurring variable costs and paying fixed costs. The operating firm's profit is R - VC - FC . The firm should continue to operate if R - VC - FC ≥ - FC which simplified is R ≥ VC.[[22][23] The difference between revenue, R, and variable costs, VC, is the contribution to fixed costs and any contribution is better than none. Thus, if R ≥ VC then firm should operate. If R < VC the firm should shut down.
A decision to shut down means that the firm is temporarily suspending production. It does not mean that the firm is going out of business (exiting the industry).[24]] If market conditions improve, and prices increase, the firm can resume production. Shutting down is a short-run decision. A firm that has shut down is not producing. The firm still retains its capital assets; however, the firm cannot leave the industry or avoid its fixed costs in the short run. Exit is a long-term decision. A firm that has exited an industry has avoided all commitments and freed all capital for use in more profitable enterprises.[25]
However, a firm cannot continue to incur losses indefinitely. In the long run, the firm will have to earn sufficient revenue to cover all its expenses and must decide whether to continue in business or to leave the industry and pursue profits elsewhere. The long-run decision is based on the relationship of the price and long-run average costs. If P ≥ AC then the firm will not exit the industry. If P < AC, then the firm will exit the industry. These comparisons will be made after the firm has made the necessary and feasible long-term adjustments. In the long run a firm operates where marginal revenue equals long-run marginal costs.[26]
[edit] Short-run supply curve
The short run supply curve for a perfectly competitive firm is the marginal cost (MC) curve at and above the shutdown point. Portions of the marginal cost curve below the shut down point are not part of the SR supply curve because the firm is not producing in that range. Technically the SR supply curve is a discontinuous function composed of the segment of the MC curve at and above minimum of the average variable cost curve and a segment that runs with the vertical axis from the origin to but not including a point "parallel" to minimum average variable costs.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Market structure
In economics, market structure (also known as the number of firms producing identical products.)
* Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of firms, each having a small proportion of the market share and slightly differentiated products.
* Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms that together control the majority of the market share.
* Duopoly, a special case of an oligopoly with two firms.
* Oligopsony, a market, where many sellers can be present but meet only a few buyers.
* Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
* Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm. A firm is a natural monopoly if it is able to serve the entire market demand at a lower cost than any combination of two or more smaller, more specialized firms.
* Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.
* Perfect competition is a theoretical market structure that features unlimited contestability (or no barriers to entry), an unlimited number of producers and consumers, and a perfectly elastic demand curve.
The imperfectly competitive structure is quite identical to the realistic market conditions where some monopolistic competitors, monopolists, oligopolists, and duopolists exist and dominate the market conditions. The elements of Market Structure include the number and size distribution of firms, entry conditions, and the extent of differentiation.
These somewhat abstract concerns tend to determine some but not all details of a specific concrete market system where buyers and sellers actually meet and commit to trade. Competition is useful because it reveals actual customer demand and induces the seller (operator) to provide service quality levels and price levels that buyers (customers) want, typically subject to the seller’s financial need to cover its costs. In other words, competition can align the seller’s interests with the buyer’s interests and can cause the seller to reveal his true costs and other private information. In the absence of perfect competition, three basic approaches can be adopted to deal with problems related to the control of market power and an asymmetry between the government and the operator with respect to objectives and information: (a) subjecting the operator to competitive pressures, (b) gathering information on the operator and the market, and (c) applying incentive regulation.[1]
The main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market structures are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely.
* Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of firms, each having a small proportion of the market share and slightly differentiated products.
* Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms that together control the majority of the market share.
* Duopoly, a special case of an oligopoly with two firms.
* Oligopsony, a market, where many sellers can be present but meet only a few buyers.
* Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
* Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm. A firm is a natural monopoly if it is able to serve the entire market demand at a lower cost than any combination of two or more smaller, more specialized firms.
* Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.
* Perfect competition is a theoretical market structure that features unlimited contestability (or no barriers to entry), an unlimited number of producers and consumers, and a perfectly elastic demand curve.
The imperfectly competitive structure is quite identical to the realistic market conditions where some monopolistic competitors, monopolists, oligopolists, and duopolists exist and dominate the market conditions. The elements of Market Structure include the number and size distribution of firms, entry conditions, and the extent of differentiation.
These somewhat abstract concerns tend to determine some but not all details of a specific concrete market system where buyers and sellers actually meet and commit to trade. Competition is useful because it reveals actual customer demand and induces the seller (operator) to provide service quality levels and price levels that buyers (customers) want, typically subject to the seller’s financial need to cover its costs. In other words, competition can align the seller’s interests with the buyer’s interests and can cause the seller to reveal his true costs and other private information. In the absence of perfect competition, three basic approaches can be adopted to deal with problems related to the control of market power and an asymmetry between the government and the operator with respect to objectives and information: (a) subjecting the operator to competitive pressures, (b) gathering information on the operator and the market, and (c) applying incentive regulation.[1]
The main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market structures are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Govt pegs FY'11 GDP growth at 8.6%.
Led by a smart recovery in farm output, the government estimated economic growth for the current financial year at 8.6 per cent, as against 8 per cent a year ago.
Agriculture and allied activities are likely to grow at 5.4 per cent in 2010-11, compared to just 0.4 per cent in 2009-10, according to Advance Estimates released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) today.
The CSO's GDP growth projection is higher than the forecasts made by the Reserve Bank of India and Finance Ministry earlier.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had exuded confidence that the economy would grow by 8.5 per cent despite rising inflation. The RBI had also projected that the economy would expand by 8.5 per cent in its quarterly monetary policy review last month.
The latest GDP growth estimate of 8.6 per cent for the entire fiscal means that the pace of economic expansion slowed in the second half of FY2010-11,...given that GDP growth in the April-September, 2010, period stood at 8.9 per cent.
According to data released today, agriculture and allied activities are projected to grow by 5.4 per cent this fiscal, as against 0.4 per cent a year ago.
Growth this fiscal is likely to be driven by 8.8 per cent expansion in the manufacturing sector, the same as in the year-ago period.
According to the advance estimates, mining and quarrying is likely to grow by 6.2 per cent, compared to 6.9 per cent a year ago, while electricity, gas and water production will grow up by 5.1 per cent, as against 6.4 per cent in the previous fiscal.
"The growth rate of 8.6 per cent during 2010-11 has been due to growth rate of over 8 per cent in sectors of manufacturing, construction, trade, hotels, transport and communication, financing, insurance, real estate and business services," the government statement said.
During the...current fiscal, the trade, hotel, transport and communication sectors are projected to grow by 11 per cent, as against 9.7 per cent last fiscal, and construction by 8 per cent, compared to 7 per cent in FY'10.
Furthermore, the finance, insurance, real estate and business services sectors are likely to grow by 10.6 per cent this fiscal, as against 9.2 per cent last fiscal.
However, community social and personal services are likely to witness a slow-down in growth and register just 5.7 per cent expansion, compared to 11.8 per cent in the year-ago period.
The global financial crisis pulled down the growth of the Indian economy to 6.8 per cent in the 2008-09 fiscal from over 9 per cent in the preceding three years.
The advance GDP estimates are released before the end of a financial year to enable the government to formulate various estimates for inclusion in the Budget
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
govt on deregualtion on diesal prices
Government Against Deregulation of Diesel Prices In Near Future
Neha Sood, Sunday 30th January 2011
Though the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr.Montek Singh Ahluwalia favours deregulation of diesel prices,Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Jaipal Reddy said that the government has no plans to do so as it is not practically possible. Mr. Reddy said that despite being in agreement with Dr. Ahluwalia\'s suggestion personally, it is not possible to decontrol diesel prices as of now.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia earlier said that he supports deregulation of diesel prices at the World Economic Forum at Davos. He said that it is high time that diesel prices in India should correspond to its international price. Currently diesel in India is available at rates that are much lower than its international value due to high subsidy. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission said that as diesel costs cheaper in India rich people are going for diesel run cars while the common man is bearing the burnt of high petroleum prices.
The minister also pointed out that as India is a democracy only those decisions will be taken that are politically feasible and removing subsidies on kerosene is not practical as the poor section section of the society depends on it.
Neha Sood, Sunday 30th January 2011
Though the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Dr.Montek Singh Ahluwalia favours deregulation of diesel prices,Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Jaipal Reddy said that the government has no plans to do so as it is not practically possible. Mr. Reddy said that despite being in agreement with Dr. Ahluwalia\'s suggestion personally, it is not possible to decontrol diesel prices as of now.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia earlier said that he supports deregulation of diesel prices at the World Economic Forum at Davos. He said that it is high time that diesel prices in India should correspond to its international price. Currently diesel in India is available at rates that are much lower than its international value due to high subsidy. The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission said that as diesel costs cheaper in India rich people are going for diesel run cars while the common man is bearing the burnt of high petroleum prices.
The minister also pointed out that as India is a democracy only those decisions will be taken that are politically feasible and removing subsidies on kerosene is not practical as the poor section section of the society depends on it.
obama's comments on indian economy
Is Obama Good For Indian Economy?
Author Name: Avijit Bajpai
Obama once spoke about his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi. He also added that the portrait of this great man hangs prominently in his Senate office. But in the today, when this admirer has been elected as the American president, will he harm the nation which was as dear as a child to his role model? Experts believe that Barack Hussein Obama’s agenda of linking labour and environmental standards with trade is an upcoming issue of threat and concern for India. They also think that this economic agenda will have an adverse implication on the Indian economy. At such a situation the policy makers and the experts suggest that India should start preparing as to what strategy should it adopt to sort out this trouble.
It is expected that India would feel the heat of the situation if Obama signs the Kyoto protocol. According to this, the green house gas emission that we receive, would be reduced by 80 per cent by 2050. Also, Barack’s victory may affect the Indian Outsourcing Industry, as it is known that Obama strictly opposes the outsourcing of jobs in India. On the contrary, despite of a number of problems that India may have to face in near future, there are also certain benefits that may come our way. First of all, there is a hope that certain effective and sincere efforts would be made to build up a close strategic partnership between U.S. and India. It also expected that both US and India would work together to fight the common threats of terrorism, since both the countries have been the victims of these disastrous attacks and wish to succeed in the combat against Al-Qaeda and its operational and ideological associates.
Thus, there is a hope and confidence in the hearts of certain people that the US-India relations would strengthen in the near future. They believe that the oldest democracy, US and the largest democracy, India have to go hand in hand to share various important interests and also the fundamental democratic values.
Author Name: Avijit Bajpai
Obama once spoke about his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi. He also added that the portrait of this great man hangs prominently in his Senate office. But in the today, when this admirer has been elected as the American president, will he harm the nation which was as dear as a child to his role model? Experts believe that Barack Hussein Obama’s agenda of linking labour and environmental standards with trade is an upcoming issue of threat and concern for India. They also think that this economic agenda will have an adverse implication on the Indian economy. At such a situation the policy makers and the experts suggest that India should start preparing as to what strategy should it adopt to sort out this trouble.
It is expected that India would feel the heat of the situation if Obama signs the Kyoto protocol. According to this, the green house gas emission that we receive, would be reduced by 80 per cent by 2050. Also, Barack’s victory may affect the Indian Outsourcing Industry, as it is known that Obama strictly opposes the outsourcing of jobs in India. On the contrary, despite of a number of problems that India may have to face in near future, there are also certain benefits that may come our way. First of all, there is a hope that certain effective and sincere efforts would be made to build up a close strategic partnership between U.S. and India. It also expected that both US and India would work together to fight the common threats of terrorism, since both the countries have been the victims of these disastrous attacks and wish to succeed in the combat against Al-Qaeda and its operational and ideological associates.
Thus, there is a hope and confidence in the hearts of certain people that the US-India relations would strengthen in the near future. They believe that the oldest democracy, US and the largest democracy, India have to go hand in hand to share various important interests and also the fundamental democratic values.
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