Ethiopia essay
<BR> Jin Han
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<BR>Environmental issues in Ethiopia and Information Technology
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<BR>Ethiopia is considered a third world country in today's view and its reputation of having a plethora of natural resources has attracted many corporations from first world countries to settle there and extract its valuable assets. The avaricious corporations abusing their natural resources made Ethiopia take a huge toll. Investing in Ethiopia and collecting its resources may have augmented many corporations' revenues, but it made Ethiopia suffer tremendously. Detrimental effects of constantly acquiring natural resources led to deforestation, desertification and soil degradation. These 3 problems are all correlated and these all worsened the situation in Ethiopia.
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<BR>Deforestation refers to the elimination of forest trees for other uses. The unfortunate thing about taking down these trees is that it leads to other major problems like desertification and soil degradation. The persistent meddling from corporations only made the situation worse. Corporations might argue that deforestation is beneficial because it creates more land to farm and mine but the damages it does to the forests far outweigh the benefits. An overabundance of carbon dioxide and oxygen would be released into the atmosphere because there will be no trees to capture the gas, leading to global warming. Without trees, it is impossible to transfer water and oxygen into the soil. The water the soil absorbs during rainfalls cannot suffice the level of water to keep the soil moist enough. And even if it were possible to transfer water through rain, it would be hopeless for Ethiopia because it rarely gets any rainfalls during the year. Unable to save the forests and to satisfy the water level for soil, soil degradation takes place in the affected areas, where land has no potential to support any plants and trees. 
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<BR>Soil degradation corresponds with deforestation. After deforestation, enterprises establish agricultural farms and mining ores to harvest things like coffee, Tantalum and gold, few of their main exports. Then, enterprises strive to achieve full potential from these deforested areas. Their main reason to manipulate these lands is to raise their revenues. The desires to profit and benefit pushed the corporations to be more demanding and assertive. They started to tempt the Ethiopians with higher wages. Normal Ethiopian men earn about $1500 per year and the temptation of making more money forced them to perish their own homeland. It is troubling to know that these companies take advantage of the workers but because companies' ambition far exceeds their morals, we still see unfair jurisdiction. After the workers finish harvesting coffee beans and mining minerals, it is essential for the soil and the mines to replenish but the rapid demand from big companies push the workers to continually mine and farm.  Farming about four to five times constantly in the same area, the land and the soil lose their values and abilities.  Likewise, when workers have no more Tantalum and gold to collect, the leftover soil degrades down and turns worthless. Mining and farming several times, manipulating the land ends up leading to soil degradation. With Ethiopia being deteriorated this fast, it is almost impossible to expect a future without soil degradation in Ethiopia. Extreme cases of deforestation and soil degradation spark up the worst phenomenon, desertification.
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<BR>Desertification is the most threatening event that can occur in Ethiopia. Constant manipulation of its resources for many years already ignited desertification all over the country. Constantly plowing down forests, repeatedly growing agricultural products and mining valuable minerals ended up being the downfall of Ethiopia. It is widely accepted that desertification is initiated through overgrazing and climate change. Overgrazing refers to mainly herbivores consuming the plants excessively. Overgrazing only occurs because herbivores are not able to find food sources in deforested areas. When herbivores consume plants and drop feces in farming areas, they end up killing plants and harming the soil. The only reason these animals end up coming down to the farm area is because their home was destroyed by companies' eradication of forests. If only big enterprises did not take advantage of this country, such environmental changes would not occur. When trees fall down, one of the most important job trees do disappear. When there are not enough trees to contain the carbon dioxide and the oxygen, these ozone gases rise up to the atmosphere. This then supports the growth of global warming. Global warming is one of the reason why the earth is experiencing whimsical climate changes. Putting up more ozone gases in the atmosphere only hurt Ethiopia. Ethiopia takes a direct hit from global warming because it does not have trees and water to block high frequency radiation like UV radiation. With all these meddling, it is bound for desertification to happen in this country. When deserts form in Ethiopia, animal, plant and human population all suffer. Sooner or later we will know that the exploitation of Ethiopia will harm not only Ethiopia but also the entire world in some way. 
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<BR>African third world country, Ethiopia has been looked down upon and used up for many centuries. Getting repeatedly controlled by big corporations might have benefitted the companies in the short and long run, but Ethiopia has been deteriorating in the short and long run also.  Careful attentions are necessary in this country and. The use of various information technologies might be the cure for this corrupted, tainted poor country.
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<BR>Information Technology and One Issue
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<BR>Information technology is basically used in about every kind of industries and it is probably the biggest genre of technology in the world. Things like phones and Internet are all part of information technology. With this technology, it is sure that we can better ourselves in many ways. Attaining benefits from using information technology has been a very important part in everyone's lives in some ways.
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<BR>Information technologies include machines and devices that can store data, process data and transmit data like computers and cellphones. All the various information is widely traveling along this big intertwined web of data. With this type of technology, we are able to surf the web, call and answer phone calls and many more. Creating cell phones and computers all require minerals like tantalum and gold. Tantalum and gold that are collected from Ethiopian mine ores are used to make capacitors that can hold more voltage in the devices. These two minerals can hold voltage at a faster rate than other minerals so they are more widely used in capacitor. Mining gold and tantalum in Ethiopia mines is very popular. Because the demand for cell phones and computers are very high, it is very important for big enterprises to collect required resources as fast as they can. To do this, corporations order third world country like Ethiopia to gather tantalum and gold as fast as they can. Because it's almost impossible to harvest minerals fast and keep the environment clean, they sacrifice the environment to collect faster.
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<BR>It's selfish of consumers to get a hold of the new phone without knowing the hard work it goes toward. To get paid possibly little more, Ethiopians sacrifice their health and their environment to mine.  The crisis involving soil degradation goes hand in hand with mining ores. When all of the minerals are extracted from the ore, basically the land and the soil that made up the ore turn useless. Continuous request to pull more tantalum and gold from big companies have increased deterioration of land in Ethiopia. Because tantalum and gold is usually too frequently wanted in making capacitors, Ethiopia's soil degradation will continue. 
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<BR>It is very important for the world to notice the crisis happening in Ethiopia. To better reach out to them and care for them is our most important mission. Because Ethiopia's government is corrupted, it is not really easy to reach out to them. Even the political figures in Nigeria work with big corporation to earn more money. The things we can do with information technology to help Ethiopia would be making propagandas and letting people all over the world know that there are serious matters going around Ethiopia.  With the help of Internet commonly found in phones and computers nowadays, we can let people know the horrendous environmental changes Ethiopia is going through, not because of natural disasters but because they get forced into hurting their own environments.
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<BR>In this world, information technology is an essential. We live with it whether we love it or hate it. It is just unfortunate that people do not know the sacrifice that goes into devices like these. The resources they need to get to make these high tech devices are not easy to come by. But because required rare minerals like tantalum and gold are easily found in Ethiopia, it gets manipulated to its full extent. Information technology and this world will go hand in hand for a very long time, as long we rely on data sharing technologies. With constant upgrades found in technology, it is very necessary to help a poor country like Ethiopia. Constant exploitation from big enterprises have brought down Ethiopia to the lowest level in corrupted environment and advancement and development to better help Ethiopia is needed soon.



<BR>Here is a list of my references:
<BR>References:
<BR>1."Wild World." Wild World RSS. Iberianature, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.
<BR>2."Ethiopia." Ethiopia. World Bank, n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.
<BR>3.Tedla, Shibru. "εΘ Environmental Conditions." εΘ Environmental Conditions. Lissan, 31
           May 2009. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
<BR>4.Getahun, Gedion. "Ecology in Ethiopia." Ecology in Ethiopia. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb.
    2013.
<BR>5."Deforestation." National Geographic. Nationalgeographic, n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.