An Inconvenient Truth

In the last four years, environmental awareness has increased tremendously. From the invention of hybrid cars, to reducing the use of plastic, the United State’s attempt to, so to speak, “save our planet” has been stretched all across the globe. But why has it taken so many decades for the world to suddenly take action?

Global Warming and the acknowledgement of Earth’s climate and physical changes, such as massively destructive hurricanes leading to economical consequences, has been known to man for since the 1950’s. Roger Revelle, an American oceanographer, was one of the very first men to take action and preach about the Greenhouse Effect. In 1957, he and a man named Hans Suess wrote an article that was published in Tellus, a European oceanography journal. Later in 1982, Revelle published another article that went public in the popular magazine Scientific American. Although this article was read by thousands through this widely read magazine, there were no major reactions by the public declaring for environmental change. If hundreds of thousands of people had known about the problems that were occurring right before their eyes due to an over abundance of carbon dioxide in the air, then why is there now an abrupt worry among the not only the nation, but the world?

Al Gore who was Vice President of the United States under Bill Clinton for eight years, 1993 to 2001, knew about Global Warming and had studied about then in school as well. While attending school at Boston’s Harvard University at age seventeen, Al Gore met Roger Revelle, further engaging himself in ecology. Al Gore then continued to climb himself to the top and ran for Congress in 1976. With 96% of the votes running unopposed, he was set in the House of Representatives. Although he passed scientific and technical laws, and also convinced Congress to spend 1.6 billion dollars to rid of toxic waste within give years, he still was not able to gain as many votes towards solving major environmental issues. However, in 1985 Gore managed to get 60% of the Tennessee votes towards him becoming a member of the Senate, more than any candidate has received in the state’s history. With his popular position as Senate, he created movies and lectured to large groups of people but unfortunately he wasn't listened to as much as he should have in order for change to occur among environmental issues. Gore continued on this steady path until he ran for President in the year 2000.

In 2000, Al Gore began his campaign for President while being the Vice President. Although Gore lost to his opponent George W. Bush, he continued on with his environmental studies to create his global warming movie An Inconvenient Truth. This movie was released to the United States in 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival, finally creating the awareness needed in order to create an influential movement throughout the world. This film not only won an Oscar in 2007, but also opened up the eyes to a billion people around the world. Since the release of the movie, five countries have included An Inconvenient Truth in its secondary school curriculum, the United State’s House of Representatives and Senate created a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and over four million people have heard the Climate Project Presentation of Global Warming.



Before An Inconvenient Truth was released to the public, there was not a strong or thorough explanation to those not educated on the science behind Global Warming. Because of Al Gore’s popularity at the time due to his presidential campaign and decades involved with politics, he was able to shock the world with his power and confidence. Although it is upsetting that the world has waited this long to educate the world about its destructive crisis, hundreds of benefits have resulted because of the inconvenient truth.

The "Wonder Girls"

"The worst thing is they took away from me the opportunity to ever know if I could have won the gold medals without the steroids. That's the greatest betrayal of all." ~Rica Reinisch; retired East German Olympic swimmer


All Humans were born with a competitive drive to be the best for as long as our existence. The thought of a product that had the ability to make oneself the best, would naturally create an eruption; and this is what happened exactly. Anabolic steroids, first introduced in the 1930’s, were designed to mentally and physically develop that athlete’s fantasy. Anabolic steroids first began in weight lifting in the 1950’s, but throughout just a couple decades, the use of them increased between other sports as well. And later were anabolic steroids not just used for men, but were eventually taken by women too.

In 1976, the Summer Olympics were taken place in Montreal, Canada. Private labs in East Germany have been producing steroids along with other muscle-strengthening pills. The Germans, being a strong and successful country, were determined to beat the United States, let alone the world, in the Olympics that year. In order to accomplish this goal, the East Germans had to do something different from anyone else that would allow the athletes to push and strengthen their bodies more than what was known to man at that time. The answer was steroids. Without permission by the adolescents’ parents and the adolescents themselves, the intense East German coaches fed the women swimmers up to 30 pills of steroids every day during their multiple daily practices. Their goal was to end up with swimmers who were better and stronger than any other swimmer on the planet by the time they were fully grown, the only problem being that by the time they were fully grown they would have had several temporary, and permanent, affects from taking the steroids (deepened voice, irregular menstrual cycles, facial hair, cancer, heart disease, liver damage, and others). The coaches knew of the “benefits” of the drug, but little did they know about the incredibly negative side of taking them.

By the time the 1976 Summer Olympics came, the German coaches already planned to stop taking the anabolic steroids two weeks prior to the drug testing required for entering the competition. Fortunately to the Germans, none of the women swimmers were tested positive for the drug testing because of their extreme precautions. It was clear to all the athletes across the world that something was being done to the German swimmers because of the massive size of their muscles and deepened voice making the swimmers seem like men.The East German women swimmers won eleven out of the thirteen medals, while altogether taking home forty-six medals; six more than the United States.

At the time, anabolic steroids may have seemed like the ultimate answer, but years later most of the East German women swimmers have either died from multiple cancers and liver problems, or still live today with wretched side effects. During an interview with former U.S. Olympic swimmer Wendy Boglioli, she was encountered with Heidi Krieger, now Andreas Krieger, who had a complete sex change because of how much she was mistaken as a man and even felt more comfortable as a man as a result from the damage of the steroids. But what’s most shocking is even though most of the swimmers suffered the side effects, one woman stated that she was tempted to take the drugs at the time if it made her faster. This explains exactly why the statistics of teenagers alone using anabolic steroids has increased drastically since the introduction of the drug. Although anabolic steroids are far more negative than positive from an average person, to desperate athletes willing to do anything for success in their sport it seems like “the final solution.” Since steroids have been introduced to the world of athletics, the bar of expectation has been raised even further putting a greater amount of pressure on the athletes. Competition may have a strong contribution to human society, but is it worth risking your life?

Germany's Chase for Oil

“He who owns the oil will own the world, for he will rule the sea by means of the heavy oils, the air by means of the ultra-refined fuels, and the land means of gasoline and the illuminating oils.”
~Henri Berenger 1921


It is said that money makes the world go ‘round. Generally speaking this is true, but since 1908 when a mass of oil was discovered in Persia, now known as Iran, oil has been one of the most controversial and sought-after resources in the world. Although Germany first began to use tanks, planes, and machine guns in World War I, this was extremely tedious war, centering on trench warfare, with a minimal need for oil. Once Germany began World War II, the demand for oil sky-rocketed due to the oil-based machinery used in Germany’s quick and efficient military tactic called Blitzkrieg . The insatiable need for oil rapidly became a much greater obstacle to the success of the Third Reich’s ongoing war campaign, overshadowing Hitler’s initial goal of exterminating the Jews (Anti-Semitism). Within three years of the start of the war, Germany nearly ran out of oil. Because of this unceasing issue, it eventually resulted in Germany’s defeat.

Hitler’s plans to conquer Europe started by going east to Poland and north from there. After two full years of conquering nearly every country in Europe, the supply of oil for Germany was decreasing rapidly. Even though Blitzkrieg (also referred to as “lightening war”) was an incredibly fast and effective tactic, it required massive amounts of oil. In cases such as Germany’s battles against small, weak countries, Blitzkrieg was more efficient because of the shorter time period required to conquer each country. This approach worked perfectly as planned until the Battle of Britain. Since the battles between Germany and each previous country had been kept to a minimal two to three month time frame, the nearly year-long Battle of Britain wiped out most of Germany’s oil supply. Although the continuous use of Blitzkrieg was effective once Germany won the battle, Hitler realized that he needed to find more dependable and abundant sources of oil.

After the Battle of Britain, Hitler’s focus went immediately to conquering Iran, which contained vast, amounts of oil. At the outbreak of World War II, both Great Britain and the Soviet Union laid claim to the Middle East, including the vast stores of Iranian oil. Hitler then created a plan to conquer Iran by successfully executing critical battles in four theaters: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and Northern Africa. The first of the four battles began at the Battle of Leningrad on September 8, 1941 . Only a month later, troops were then sent to Moscow, and for three full months Germany fought through bitter winter weather until it became too much for the German soldiers to handle. While Hitler’s troops were rapidly dying off due to starvation and extreme weather, the Soviets became even stronger. On January 7, 1942 Germany surrendered, ending the Leningrad campaign. By the end of these two battles, Germany’s resources were nearly exhausted. By winter of 1942, Germany hoped that they would have a chance to defeat the Soviets at Stalingrad. The Commander of Germany’s sixth army, General Paulus, was ordered by Hitler to establish control over the oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. But after nearly four months, the Soviets defeated the Germans.

For over two years, Hitler and the German army attempted to secure oil in the Middle East, losing hundreds of thousands of men in the process. In a war which Germany originally directed their focus to seizing the world, in the end resulted in only trying to obtain the resources in order for them to succeed. Hitler needed to conquer several countries primarily to provide Germany with an ongoing supply of oil, detracting from the initial goal of world domination. Because of the fact Germany's focus after two years became primarily on oil, Hitler's success came to an extreme halt. Because of this continuous fight for oil, the triple defeat over the Germans by the USSR was not only understandable, but readily anticipated. In the end, a great part of the war effort had been dedicated to key battles against the Soviet Union and the search for oil, eventually putting global conquest out of Hitler’s reach.

Sigmund Freud's Effect on Today

In the past century, the study of psychology, the science of human behavior, has sky rocketed, becoming one of the most prominent subjects of today. Starting in the late 19th century through the 20th century, Sigmund Freud introduced a completely altered a new revolutionary way of interpreting thinking and the mind process.
Growing up in Vienna, Austria, Sigmund Freud had an extremely promising life from the start. Being the favored child by his parents, he had control over all his siblings from the books they read, to what instruments they played. He was immediately talented in every field he studied in school, and made extraordinarily mature observations, which an adult would make, as a child. Since the beginning of his life, he had an unusual way of portraying people;even his own personality and behaviors. Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis and therapy, shocked millions of people around the world with his analyses and theories, changing the way people communicate, interact, and view one another. But if Freud’s development of psychoanalysis is so widespread, then why does it seem that people have more conflict internally and in relationships with others?
Society today, especially in America, wants the best, fastest, and most efficient way of reaching accomplishments. Freud once said, “ Let the biologists go as far as they can, and let us go as far as we can; one day the two will meet.” Essentially he is saying that he knew science and medication would be more relied on. When psychiatry was introduced, Freud was certainly right. Although Freud was proved his psychological methods of healing neurosis and other mental illnesses, the fact that medication was involved, and that it was prescribed by doctors made it much more appealing to people. Medication and drugs are advertised everywhere today, and are the treatment of choice among a majority of populations around the world. Because of how time consuming psychoanalytic therapy is, and that medication is so “quick and easy,” it is preferred mainly in the American lifestyle. But what people should realize is that both work equally as well, but the most efficient, long term result would be using both the medication and the psychotherapy. For the reasons of laziness and lack of time and money, people are seeming to feel not as uplifted as they could be. Despite the fact that all of this is true, Freud did the benediction to human society and was able to identify illnesses, whereas prior they were only seen as mentally insane.
Freud’s vast majority of patients were women because they had the highest rate of psychological problems. During this time period, they were seen of having distinct roles of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children and nothing else. On the other hand, the husband was definitely the superior of the house while the wife submitted. But once Freud permitted the patients to relax and use the method “free association,” there seemed to be many hidden emotions, which Freud called “the unconscious”, that defense mechanisms repressed. Freud helped women recognize and express their psychological pain of witnessing men succeed, and not them. He was not prejudice towards women, in fact he was greatly in favor of them, and studied their reactions to free associations with great attention. Even though Freud’s ideas were stunning to the public, what infuriated doctors and other scientists in this era was his focus on sexuality. One of the most shocking, yet common reactions from Freud’s women patients was a return of romantic affection. His reasoning for these bizarre responses was that the affection of their parents was being projected onto him. Because women’s unconscious feelings were exposed, this gave them a voice, and a sense of power-at least over themselves. Eventually this lead to women having a say in the government, sports, and even work, and not as distinctive gender roles. Due to the fact that today women are just as equal as men, although some basic gender roles still exist, they stand up for themselves and try to have a balanced relationship which has lead to an increase in relationship challenges. Communication and equality were the two main things that were neglected a century ago, and now those are generally the two most critical factors in a relationship. Although Sigmund Freud's advances have influenced how people view, judge, and treat human psychological conditions, his methods and ideas have been found to have both negative and positive effects on modern society.