The Price of Progress: How Much Are We Willing to Pay?

5. How are the wealth and productivity of a nation usually measured, and what other factors must be considered when evaluating the well-being of a nation’s people?

The author, John Bodley, supports the main argument through providing historical examples for each of the components of the argument. For example, after stating that economic progress can impact tribal peoples physically through increased disease infection, Bodley provides information about the Pukapuka and the Maori, as well as malnutrition status in Africa. These historical examples add merit to Bodley’s argument and strengthen the claims. Similarly, when exploring the detrimental effects that progress can have on the environment, Bodley uses research in Amazonia and information about the Shipibo Indians to support his argument. Through using historical examples to illustrate his claims, Bodley is able to build a more convincing argument.

Air pollution such as black smoke caused health issues such as respiratory disease. Extreme example of air pollution like Pittsburgh had “people’s hands and faces were constantly grimy, clean collars quickly acquired a thin layer of soot”. Besides black smoke, animal waste was another essential result for air pollution. According to statistics, “the 15,000 horses in Rochester, New York, left enough waste in a year to cover an acre of land with a layer of 175 feet high”. These horrify numbers happened due to the blindly industrialization during the Gilded Age, and people allowed all of those waste and destruction to develop for their own benefits. Household sewage and industrial pollutants polluted the water people used for showering and drinking. While we were destroying the environment, the nature was taking its greatest revenge to all human

Chelsea Vowel's book "The Myth of Progress" (2016), explains that Canada has a long way to go to overcome the harmful and prevalent stereotypes about Indigenous people. The author supports this argument by discussing how the portrayal of Indigenous peoples in Canadian media has hardly changed over the last 200 years. Based on the language and subject matter, it's clear that the intended audience of this piece is Canadians both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

A copious amount of health problems can occur directly and indirectly due to pollution that could chronically impact a person, further

Industrialization, good thing? Jeffrey Liu Hist 152 31200  “Industrialization refers to a process that transformed agrarian and handicraft-centered economies into economies distinguished by industry and machine manufacture. ”(Traditions & Encounters) Due to industrialization, cities had supported urbanization and migration, and job opportunities were increasing.

About 22 percent of the Indian American population live on reservations. Studies have likened the living conditions on these reservations to those of third world nations (qtd. in “Living Conditions”). This means that Indian Americans living on tribal lands are faced with social, economic, and political problems at a rate that is unusually high for the level of growth and development of their country. There exists a prevalent corruption, a lack of control and accountability in tribal governments. And the Indian American culture is gradually being destroyed even though some people argue that the native culture is and will be preserved on reservations. As long as Indian Americans keep living on reservations, these problems would persist, which

Although thought to be “not a big problem” and “under control” by most people, pollution is making its way in being a serious and an unforgiving threat to society. Pollution a topic everyone hears and knows exists. What they don’t know is how serious of a problem it is already becoming. Many health issues are being reported now that are linked to air pollution and even the most severe weather places have encountered are linked to air pollution also. By society, not fully being aware of the true threat that pollution is making, it will only become a growing threat that they will be encountering.

Industrialization and urbanization created a social shift that caused a new working class to emerge which brought on new health problems, behaviors, and interactions. Many new occupations that were brought about came with health hazards that affected the workers and the poor. Working conditions were very unsafe and with different occupations came different ailments. For instance, chimney sweeps often got scrotal

Perhaps the lengthy, storied, and rich pasts of these people may cause them to cling to their traditions even though we understand that their way of life is no longer viable, as indicated by the extinction of tribes like the Ona (Nolan and Lenski 2014: 118). Unfortunately, the continued maintenance of hunter-gatherer ways may actually be explained as maladaptive for the survival of these societies – in essence, a form of intrasocietal selection maintained by elders for the benefit of preserving dying traditions at the expense of group survival. Many countries in various regions of the world are still significantly behind the curve in comparison to developed nations even without considering hunter-gatherer populations. Although the exact causes of this phenomenon remain up for debate, the promotion of problematic cultural aspects may worsen the already dramatic results of geographic isolation in affected areas; for instance, rigid socioeconomic castes inhibited India’s development of technology (Diamond 2005: 119). Debates about relativism remain controversial, but it appears rather clear that all cultural elements are not equally conducive to survival or dominance – although preservation is a noble end, certain practices may need to be gradually phased out to ensure the survival/equality of all, and

Economic development can be defined generally as involving an improvement in economic welfare, measured using a variety of indices, such as the Human Development Index (HDI). A developing country is described as a nation with a lower standard of living, underdeveloped industrial base, and a low HDI relative to other countries. There are several factors which may have the effect of limiting economic development in such countries. Factors such as these include: primary product dependency, the savings gap and political instability.

There are various other important aspects associated with the economy in general and community in particular that determine wellbeing of the economic agents and these aspects are totally ignored by the concept of GDP. GDP is unable to take into account the strengths of marriages, the intelligence of the public, and the integrity of the public institutions. These moral aspects of the community play significant role in its economic development too. Wisdom, courage, learning, compassion, and devotion all such factors make our lives worthwhile and therefore it is not a wise option to ignore these factors while talking about the economic

Economic growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition of economic development. There is no single definition that encompasses all the aspects of economic development. The most comprehensive definition perhaps of economic development is the one given by Todaro: ‘Development is not purely an economic phenomenon but rather a multi – dimensional process involving reorganization and re orientation of the entire economic and social system. Development is a process of improving the quality of all human lives with three equally important aspects. These are: 1.

The questions are raised as what and how the wealth is distributed or allocated among societies. Countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life such as social justice, access to education and health care, job opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, freedom of speech, life expectancy, birth-death control, identity, culture, conservation, equal opportunities, environmental change. Development is important as it covers a wide range process involving cultural, economic, environmental, political, social and technological change of a country. Regarding goals and means of development, recent United Nations documents emphasize on human development measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education as well as people‘s average income which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In other words, human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well -being from their health status to their economic and political freedom. The Human Development Report 1996 of UNDP focuses on development as the end and economic growth a

Pollution is the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. It is a major problem in America and as well as the world. Pollution not only damages the environment, but damages us also. It has cause many problems ranging from lung cancer to the greenhouse effect. It is all among us but we continue to live in our own filth. What is the reason behind this flawed logic? In this paper I will examine the problems and solutions for this issue.