POLS170 Group 3

In the United States, especially following 9/11, there has been widespread awareness and identification of threats of malicious nature against the nation. When thinking about such threats and protecting the nation, the debate as to whether all of these things can be labelled as terrorism has arisen. To be frank, questioning whether an American citizen attacking a place in the US should be considered terrorism or not is a valid question of the meaning of the word and concept itself. For me, terrorism can come from within a country, and has elements of premeditation, motive, and organization. This last statement definitely comes to head with a lot of opposition, and many have contrary ideas of the characteristics of terrorism. However,it is important to consider the notion that terrorism is a label that is often utilized on to chastise the malicious party politically when the receiving party sees fit. From this, it is important to consider a polarizing event of this nature such as the Ja...

  Madison Kjeldgaard  There has been ongoing debate about whether or not there should be certain human rights that should be maintained world wide. There are many factors that go into what is classified as a human right and what it means to be “free”. Culture plays a large role in this definition. This then begs the question how do you create universal rights if it doesn’t align with the values of all. Each country and leader hold certain cultural values that they chose to implement into their regime. This includes rules regarding marriage, freedom of speech and expression as well as religion. It's important to establish universal rights like not to be persecuted based on gender, religion, and sexual orientation but not every country agrees with that. As of right now it's up to each individual country to decide what is “freedom”. A lot of people use a western lens to evaluate what freedom means. For some laws currently implemented by others seem unfair, it is justified by thei...

  Covid as a tragedy of the commons     The tragedy of the commons is a phenomenon where freely available but limited resources are not used efficiently and are threatened by overuse, which also threatens the users themselves. As Susan Jane Buck Cox describes, one can observe that model in medieval England and many contemporary aspects and challenges. Examples can be seen in the overfishing of the seas, deforestation of forests, and the discharge of wastewater into streams and rivers. These activities share selfish behavior and a lack of thinking about the public good. I argue that you can see a similar phenomenon today in the Covid era with people refusing to get vaccinated.      Vaccine refusers, for whatever reasons, often argue that they are allowed to make their own decisions about their bodies. With this statement, however, they do not note that they endanger other people with their refusal. People that are vaccinated can still be at risk of getting i...

  COP 26 has made progress on the problem of deforestation. Deforestation is a Tragedy of the Commons, a situation where shared environmental resources are overused and exploited, and eventually depleted, posing risks to everyone involved. In order to address this issue, over 100 nations pledged to end deforestation.  At the COP 26 in November, over 100 countries pledged to end deforestation by 2030. These nations cover over 85% of the world’s forests, meaning there is a real opportunity for the goal to be achieved. Over the decades, the world has seen deforestation occur on a massive scale. According to The World Counts, in the last 40 years, over 1 billion hectares of forest were destroyed, which is about the size of Europe. Since 2016, deforestation has only worsened, as an average of 28 million hectares have been cut down each year. The loss of trees has devastating impacts on both local and global climates. According to the Guardian in 2018, “Deforestation destroys wildli...

  Suzanne Hannigan Professor Mark Shirk International Politics November 29 2021 The underrepresentation in global health is overwhelming in all demographics. Specifically it is incredibly surprising how women are underrepresented in global health considering they make up half of the world’s population. Global health is, in my opinion, something that should have full representation especially considering the fact that health effects people of different nationalities, gender, etc. differently. This underrepresentation of  women in global health closely relates to how women are not accurately represented in the health based decision in their own country. How can we expect women to be accurately represented globally, when women are not represented domestically? Specifically in the United States, women are not accurately represented when making decisions about reproductive and abortion laws and regulations. This underrepresentation allows for people who these laws do not affect t...