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Unit3WritingExercise.docxUnit 3 Writing Exercise
Instructions: Select one of the following five prompts. Please choose a prompt that you have not written about before. Respond to the prompt by writing a well-developed and organized essay of at least 750 words or three pages in length. Be sure you answer the question being asked. You may not use any sources other than the prompt you selected and your existing knowledge to write your essay. Try and time your writing to correspond with the timed WPE exam.
Please double space your essay, and remember to give your essay a title.
Option 1: Lawmakers in Britain recently voted to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three people. Read the following article and answer this question: What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of allowing “three parent” babies?
Britain authorizes ‘three-parent' babies
By Dario Thuburn
February 3, 2015
London (AFP) - Britain on Tuesday became the first country in the world to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three people after MPs voted for the controversial procedure.
Lawmakers at the House Commons voted by 382 to 128 in favor of allowing the creation of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) babies with DNA from three people, a move aimed at preventing serious inherited diseases being passed on from mother to child.
Under the change to the laws on IVF, as well as receiving the usual "nuclear" DNA from its mother and father, the embryo would also include a small amount of healthy so-called mDNA from a woman donor.
"Families who know what it is like to care for a child with a devastating disease are best placed to decide whether mitochondrial donation is the right option for them," said Jeremy Farrar, director of health charity Wellcome Trust. "We welcome this vote to give them that choice."
The bill is expected to be rubber-stamped by the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, later this month, paving way for the procedure to begin next year.
The change could apply to up to 2,500 women of reproductive age in Britain with hereditary mitochondrial diseases but opponents say it opens the way to the possibility of "designer babies" in future.
Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) is passed through the mother and mitochondrial diseases cause symptoms ranging from poor vision to diabetes and muscle wasting. Mitochondria are structures in cells which generate the energy that allows the human body to function.
Health officials estimate around 125 babies are born with the mutations in Britain every year.
The law will allow Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to authorize the procedure and a pioneering research center in Newcastle is expected to be the first where it would take place.
Genetic disease charities celebrated the historic vote. "We have finally reached a milestone in giving women an invaluable choice, the choice to become a mother without fear of passing on a lifetime under the shadow of mitochondrial disease to their child," said Robert Meadowcroft, Chief Executive of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign.
John Tooke, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said he was "delighted" by the vote. "These treatments could reduce the number of children born with rare mitochondrial diseases, and help dozens of families to lead happy and healthy lives. Today's vote is the culmination of many years of scientific and public debate."
But many Britons are still against the proposed change despite years of consultation by health authorities with the public and the scientific community.
A poll by the ComRes market research agency in the run-up to the vote showed only 20 percent of respondents in favor of the change and 41 percent against, while 39 percent said they had no view either way or did not know. Opponents include scientists and religious leaders.
David King, director of the watchdog group Human Genetics Alert, said: "If we want to avoid the nightmare designer baby future we must draw the line here."
Josephine Quintavalle from the pro-life organization Comment on Reproductive Ethics said there should be more focus on finding cures "which do not rely on destructive manipulation of early human life."
The Roman Catholic Church is firmly opposed to the move, pointing out that it would involve the destruction of human embryos as part of the process.
The Church of England has also said that ethical concerns "have not been sufficiently explored."
There is also concern on purely scientific grounds.
Justin St John from the Centre for Genetic Diseases at Monash University in Australia said the new IVF techniques required "further validation." "It is essential to analyze offspring to determine that no abnormalities appear at least during early life," he said in a statement last week.
Option 2. Thomas Pyle is president of the American Energy Alliance. The AEA was founded in May 2008. The AEA states on its website that it is “a not-for-profit organization that engages in grassroots public policy advocacy and debate concerning energy and environmental policies. AEA has no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party. AEA is an issue organization that supports affordable, abundant and reliable energy for America’s consumers and businesses.”
Read Pyle’s recent article and answer the following question: Do the advantages of utilizing fossil fuels outweigh the advantages of “going fossil-free”?
Activists want Detroiters to abandon modern life
The Detroit News
By Thomas Pyle
February 12, 2015
Imagine a group of activists that spends its time opposing companies that produce soap, surgical steel, and sterile plastics used in hospitals — because it is the “moral” thing to do. It sounds crazy, but it’s already happening.
The same groups pushing to eliminate these life-saving technologies and many other everyday products will soon descend on Detroit. The leaders of this movement are holding a two-day event to convince Detroiters to “divest” any stocks or bonds from the companies that help make these essential items.
In reality, these activists want Detroiters to “divest” from modern life.
Of course, divestment activists don’t say they want to divest from modern life. Instead, they urge people to divest their holdings in fossil fuel companies. The problem is that fossil fuel companies make many of the life-saving products that will be divested along with fuel.
Everyone knows that when they flip on a light switch or fuel up their cars, they are using energy. But you may not realize that many of the products we use every day also come from energy — particularly natural gas, oil and coal.
Take natural gas. Besides generating 27 percent of America’s electricity, natural gas is used to make fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, plastics and fabrics, just to name a few. If you’re wearing a shirt made from nylon or polyester, you’re wearing a product that came from natural gas.
The same applies to oil and coal. Besides supplying 95 percent of our nation’s transportation fuel, oil is used to make asphalt, aluminum, shampoo, cosmetics and much more. Every step of your morning — from putting on deodorant to driving to work — involves products derived from oil.
Coal, meanwhile, supplies the largest share of U.S. electricity, at almost 40 percent. But it doesn’t end there. Coal is also used to make steel, concrete, aspirins, soaps, carbon fiber and more. Imagine life without roads, bridges and sidewalks. That is life without coal.
Divesting from natural gas, oil and coal is akin to divesting from modern civilization. But that’s exactly what the so-called fossil fuel divestment movement wants Detroiters to do.
On their website, divestment activists call on the world to “go fossil free.” But as we’ve seen, life without natural gas, oil and coal isn’t much of a life at all.
You don’t have to look far to see what life is like for those who lack access to the energy and products produced using fossil fuels. For the 1.3 billion people around the world who don’t have electricity, natural gas- and coal-fired power plants could mean the difference between life and death.
Where people use more fossil fuels, poverty recedes. This occurred in the United States during the Industrial Revolution — and it is occurring in developing countries today.
In China, rising natural gas, oil and coal consumption has led to higher life expectancy, lower mortality rates for young children and improved sanitation facilities. The same is true in India and Brazil, where quality of life is improving dramatically as both countries use more abundant, reliable and affordable energy.
Those last words are key. Energy isn’t useful on a large scale unless there is a lot of it, it can be depended on when it’s needed, and it isn’t too expensive for people to use. And right now, fossil fuels are the only energy sources that fit the bill.
In other words, the world can’t divest from fossil fuels without resigning millions of people around the world to darkness and poverty.
The divestment activists who are coming to Detroit don’t just want to take away Detroiters’ energy, but also the soap, steel and plastics which make modern life possible. Detroiters should tell these activists to take a hike.
Option 3: Political observers have been predicting a swift and humiliating end to Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Republican nomination for President for months, but Trump still dominates the Republican candidate field. Read the following an article that argues that not only has Trump’s rise ended, but his downfall underway. Then write an essay that answers the following questions: Is Trump merely a “big-ratings stunt candidate” or is he a serious contender for the GOP nomination (or something else entirely), and why?
The Beginning of the End for Trump: His Sarah Palin Moment
Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
09/27/2015
There comes a moment in the political life of every big-personality, more-sizzle-than-steak candidate when they step across the line of legitimacy, or illegitimacy (depending on your perspective), even for media addicted to the high ratings these candidate-entertainers provide. That moment for Sarah Palin was her Katie Couric interview in 2008 -- the hockey-mom-has-no-clothes revealing from which she, and the McCain campaign, never recovered. In Donald Trump's candidacy -- which The Huffington Post is appropriately covering in our Entertainment section -- the equivalent moment might have just happened.
It was not the moment in the second Republican debate when Carly Fiorina carved him up like an Easter ham with her withering "I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said" zinger. That drew blood (as did the dramatic 12 seconds she remained silent after her response), but it wasn't fatal. No, historians looking back will peg the beginning of the end of the Trump show to his New Hampshire moment last week. Taking questions at a town hall event in Rochester, Trump listened as an audience member asserted that President Obama is a Muslim, "not even an American." Trump looked the man square in the eye, and declared: "No ... He's a decent family man [and] a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."
Just kidding. That was actually what John McCain -- the one Trump said is "not a war hero" -- said to a woman at a campaign rally in 2008 who claimed that President Obama was an Arab. What Trump really said was, well, pretty much nothing: "We are going to be looking at a lot of different things and, you know, a lot of people are saying that."
There are few things as absolute in damning a candidate as a refusal to acknowledge simple reality -- especially a candidate who says he'll be tough with our enemies but refuses to even stand up to his own supporters. Refusing to acknowledge that Obama was born in this country is the equivalent of refusing to say that the earth is round. Even Trump's own supporters are embarrassed. Mark Cuban on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday had to scramble for cover by categorically stating that the candidate he's supporting for president "is not gonna win. He's got no chance... none."
So when will the media be embarrassed enough to refuse to continue to give Trump the large megaphone they are giving him? Not because he's the front-runner -- come on, let's stop pretending that's the reason -- but because of the ratings he fuels as the entertainer he undoubtedly is.
As Sarah Palin demonstrated, even the ratings-crazed media are capable of falling out of love with a big-ratings stunt candidate. With Trump, you can already see it happening. The cracks are beginning to show. And when the media fall out of love they fall out of love very quickly.
Trump's perceived strength is that he's a straight talker, willing to say what everyone else is thinking but no one dares to say. But what his New Hampshire moment reveals is the opposite of straight talk. He could have answered yes or no to Stephanopoulos in the same way he could have corrected the questioner. He could have even just distanced himself from the racist, hateful, untruthful message -- anything to show that he did not implicitly agree with the notion that President Obama is a secret, foreign-born Muslim and that all Muslims are, as the questioner said, "a problem" to be gotten rid of. Instead, he chose to say nothing.
Trump's Sarah Palin moment reveals that he's living in another reality. His failure to set the record straight at one of his own campaign events isn't a matter of opinion; it's a matter of sanity and leadership. And anytime the media refuse to call out and hold a candidate accountable for such fundamental and incontrovertible untruths, that's irresponsible. Trump certainly provides plenty to work with: According to Politifact, he has made exactly zero "true" statements. So the New Hampshire moment will also, we hope, mark the moment the media have begun, at last, to do their job. So far Trump has been allowed to play by his own rules -- using the same standards for a presidential campaign as he brought to his career as an entertainer and reality show star -- and the media have given him a pass. He's been treated as an exception -- even allowed to phone in to the morning shows (even the Sunday ones) whenever he wants to air his ridiculous views -- which has only fueled the media mania surrounding his run.
But the mania is starting to fade. Cracks are appearing in Trump's latest Trump-branded edifice -- because this one never actually had a foundation. The only surprise is that the unraveling of Trump, the candidate who can't stop talking, came not from something he said, but something he didn't say.
Option 4: Several Michigan communities, including Muskegon and Washtenaw counties, are considering restrictions on the use of plastic shopping bags. These communities cite the short term costs of cleaning the bags out of wastewater and recycling facilities and long term environmental issues.
In March 2016, the Michigan State Senate introduced a bill (SB 0853-2016) that would prevent local communities from imposing laws to regulate plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, and some other types of disposable containers within their own community. If it is passed, the bill will prevent a medley of similar-themed ordinances sprinkled across Michigan; however, there is no proposal in the Senate bill, or in any other current bill, to introduce a common policy for the state.
Read the short article below that outlines the main concern of Washtenaw County. Write an essay that answers the following question: Should the State of Michigan create a law regarding the use of plastic bags?
Washtenaw County may be joining the movement to ban plastic shopping bags
Lisa Allmendinger
Chelsea Update
August 16th, 2015
Nationwide, more and more cities and counties are banning the use of plastic shopping bags.
One main reason is the problems they create for recycling efforts. At the Michigan Recycling Coalition Conference held in May, all 57 recycling facilities in the state agreed that plastic bags are the biggest challenge to efficient recycling. For this reason, Washtenaw County will be examining such a ban in the coming weeks.
Single-stream recycling has greatly increased public participation everywhere it has been introduced. However, the mechanical sorting equipment is highly vulnerable.
Think of it as “plastic bag bacteria,” the constant “infection” of plastic bags in the equipment. Most people recognize that constantly eating sugary treats defeats the purpose of tooth-brushing or oral hygiene. Similarly, constantly exposing recycle-sorting machinery to plastic bags defeats the purpose of efficient recycling hygiene.
In the case of the Western Washtenaw Recycling Authority (WWRA), the “tooth-brushing” takes 1 to 2 man-hours per day to cut the bags out of the sorting equipment, adding $1,900 in costs to the WWRA budget in the last 6 months.
Additionally, the “cavity filling” replacement cost (both equipment and labor) during that time has been about $12,000. For a year, that comes out to almost $30,000 of tax-payer money, spent on an entirely preventable problem.
Despite many efforts, nobody has yet developed a sorter that can effectively sort the bags from the recycling stream. In fact, the problem is international. A significant number of countries have banned the bags altogether because of environmental and trash issues.
Though paper bags do require more energy to produce and transport, they are great for recycling purposes due to the long fibers they are made of. And, they prevent the “plastic bag bacteria” that is so harmful to recycling efforts everywhere.
