edited by
THIRD EDITION
THIRD EDITION
Department of Philosophy
Princewill Alozie
Department of
Philosophy
Copyright © 2006 Princewill Alozie
All right reserved. No portion of this book may be
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THIRD
EDITION
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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
Technology, Science and Environment examines
diverse aspects of the title. The book is designed for tertiary institutions
studying Science and Technology as well as for institutions interested in
environmental education. The philosophical, social and economic issues raised
in the book would probably be of great use to policy makers and nation
builders.
The
thrust these days is on the preservation of a clean, healthy environment.
Technological innovation can be a blessing or a curse. It all depends on the
awareness of humanity on these issues and conscious efforts directed towards
making technology a blessing. This book addresses such issues as well as the
mode of acquiring new technology.
Science
and Technology is central to human existence and development, such that any
community that ignores these twin disciplines is advancing towards oblivion.
International relations, management of our environment, issues of economic
development; matters affecting war and peace are all over-shadowed and guided
by science and technology. People of the so-called
v
vi
powerful
nations to equip them in such a way that their superior power on the Planet
Earth is overcome. Nobody will give you such power. You decide how and when to
acquire such power.
Consider
for a moment, some burning issues in bio-technology. New organisms are now
being created through research and in laboratories. Some new maladies are
unleashed on mankind. Chemical and Biological warfare are being unleashed on
unsuspecting victims; and some countries and their leaders do not seem to worry
about these developments. Unfortunately, such countries, usually having an
impoverished population, spend useful resources acquiring obsolete military
weapons.
The
method of warfare adopted by the
This
totally revised edition will enable us to appreciate the world in which we live
in. The
materials
may enable us take some decisions at whatever level we find ourselves on the
issue of science and technology. Students at various levels, policy-makers, and
governments would have in this edition, a number of issues that may enable them
come up with better solutions to developmental and environmental issues. If the
materials in this book make readers to think and work towards developing
science and technology for the common good, then we have succeeded.
Princewill Alozie
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viii
Issues in Technology: Man and Technology,
Who Controls the Other?....................................................1
Technology
and the Future of Civilization in
The Human Cosmic Environment.....................................28
The Human Biospheric Environment................................55
Ozone and the Ozone Layer...............................................72
Man and Energy Resources:
The Lithospheric and Synthetic Sources............................85
Solar Energy......................................................................106
Environmental Crisis: An Overview.................................112
Environment, Development and Sustainability.................124
Telecommunications in Some Domestic Appliances........134
Radioactivity, Toxicology and the Environment...............146
Environmental Noise Pollution.........................................165
Environmental Management Problems and Public Policy Response: A Global And Local Perspective......................180
Public Health And Technology: Selected Events and Applications of Technology in Public Health...................210
Science, Technology, Society: A Framework for
Scientific and Technological Literacy...............................233
Planning,
for Science & Technology in a Typical
List of Contributors............................................................269
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY: MAN AND TECHNOLOGY,
WHO CONTROLS THE OTHER?
By
Rev. Prof. E. M. Uka
“The suffering and alienation experienced so
widely in Modern Society do not arise primarily because the struggle for
existence has become more painful or because it is more difficult to satisfy our
needs. They result rather because we no longer know the limits of legitimate
needs or perceive the direction of our efforts.
The problem is one of meaning, of knowing the purpose of existence and the legitimate standards for judging our actions. The maladjustment from which we suffer does not exist because the objective causes of suffering have increased in number or in intensity. It bears witness not to greater economic poverty but due to an alarming poverty of morality (Durkheim in his book Suicide, pp. 386-387).
INTRODUCTION
This chapter will present a critical appraisal of the dialectical question on Man and Technology: who controls the other?
For this purpose, we shall examine the context and content of the various positions held by writers on the subject such as: Fuller, Skinner, Ellul, Toffler, Ferkiss, Callahan, Kuhns, Barbour and the like.1 We shall extrapolate the dominant trends in the dialogue and in bold strokes review;
(i) The stance of those who think that man is the master of technology and should feel free to develop and apply it in dealing with his problems: social, economic, political and environmental;
(ii) The position of those who think we are encased within technological milieu and therefore have become domesticated by technology.
(iii) Between these polar positions, we shall examine compromised proposals which include the views of those who advocate that the two factors in the drama be held in creative and dynamic tension.
THE CONTEXT OF THE GREAT DEBATE
Noah’s
But
as technology developed and gathered momentum, it came to be no longer an
effort by man to construct an ark but an attempt to build the
Another story told by Goethe could further illustrate the context of our present discourse. Goethe once told the popular story of the Sorcerer’s apprentice. He said; one day, a magician who was about to leave on a trip asked his youthful helper to fill the household vessels with water. The lazy lad tried to get some help for his arduous task. So he recited an incantation and a broom came to life. Pleased with his success, the boy ordered the broom to fetch the water. The broom did exactly as the apprentice commanded. So the boy relaxed and watched the broom do the job. As soon as the vessels were filled, the boy said to the broom “STOP! STOP! STOP!” your services are no longer required. But the broom went on performing the task. The boy had forgotten the second part of the magic formula to stop it. The apprentice was afraid that the house would be flooded. So he picked up an axe and quickly chopped the broom into two. To his consternation, he then saw two helpers fetching water. He began to panic as he helplessly watched the house begin to flood. Luckily, the Master returned and recited the proper words and immediately the broom ceased its activity2.
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Issues in Technology: Man and Technology, Who Controls the Other?
The above stories, allegorically applied to our discourse, serve to show that technology is good and helpful to man. But as it developed, matured and acquired its own autonomy, momentum and logic, it became a problem. The issue then is , how do we restore it to its proper place and proper roles? Does it serve us or does it master us?, does it help to develop us or to destroy us?
…
ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
The increasing use of technology has set a lot in motion within the ecosystem that has finite land, sea, and air. It has created the tremendous problem of pollution of air, water and the degradation of the land surface. Due to the increasing consumption of non-renewable resources (minerals, fossil-fuel) technology has
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brought about energy crisis.4
IMPACT ON THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY
There is an increasing sense of rootlessness, alienation, anomie for the individuals on whom, according to Mesthene, technology has inflicted an unmitigated curse, robbed them of their jobs, their privacy, their participation in democratic governance and even their dignity as human beings.5
For the society which technology has created, technology is seen as having an autonomous and uncontrollable status, destructive of religious values and a fostering of materialistic values. It has brought about a technocratic society and a bureaucratic state in which the individual is increasingly submerged, marginalized, manipulated, dehumanized, and de-personalized. Modern technology has also led to the creation of subcultures and counter-cultures within the industrial society. Such subcultures as culture of poverty; is a culture in which poverty is a way of life. According to Oscar Lewis in his brilliant study of this subculture, he observed that it is the slum conditions that breed this dreadful subculture. He traced the cause of this to the genesis of industrial technology6
There is also the phenomenon of counter-culture. This term is used to describe the youth culture whose members reject the key-norms and values of the prevailing culture. They question the social, economic and moral basis of conventional technological society.7
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The concept of progress as understood and applied in international relations has more or less been defined in terms of the level of technological development and the Gross National Product. The Gross National Product is the sum total of all goods and services produced within a country. These criteria, however, do not tell us how economic benefits are distributed. The public are both beneficiaries and victims of the affluence brought about by technology. The economic indicators tend to ignore the victims of progress and the Gross National Product does not indicate the social, political or psychological conditions of the society.
In an extended sense, the concept of Gross National Product has been deliberately applied and manipulated to create tension in international relations since it is used to fractionize the peoples of
the world into first, second, third, and fourth worlds. What is most disturbing about technology, however, is the manner in which those who possess it, the Western industrial nations, have applied it to systematically eliminate certain tribal peoples, in order to acquire their mineral and natural resources.8
“The Club of Rome” Report, for example, has succinctly summarized the predicament of mankind caused by technology as: creation of poverty in the midst of plenty, degradation and pollution of environment, loss of faith in institutions, uncontrolled urban spread, insecurity of employment, alienation of youth, rejection of traditional values and the disruption of economic and monetary systems.9
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEMS
Buckmister Fuller in his thought provoking book Earth Incorporate skillfully argues that it is only through technology alone that creative individuals can with free-will arrange for the continuing preservation of mankind. He affirms the views of Leonard da Vinci that the economic emancipation of man is potential in the principles of technology.10 Fuller contends that man’s mastery of the energy in the universe will be seen as progressive.11 He sees the progressive mastery and translation of the principles of nuclear dynamics into economic terms. This will be realized by man economically as the expression of his (intellectual ability, potential or actual).12 In another massive book by Fuller titled: UTOPIA OR OBLIVION? He argues with a scientific bent, that since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, energy therefore, which is wealth is irreducible.13 Taking a stand with Einsten’s formular E=MC2, Fuller stresses that the physical universe which is energy cannot be destroyed. It is operative in associative patterns as matter. The associative energy as matter is organized in leverage system to do work. The disociative energy patterns as radiation, are transmitted into force energy.14 Every time man uses the second constituent of wealth his know-how, his intellectual resources automatically increases. So whereas energy cannot decrease it, know-how can only increase. It is therefore scientifically clear that wealth which contains energy and intellect can only increase. Wealth can increase only with use, and wealth increases as fast as it is used. “The faster the more!” Fuller concludes thus: “ These are the facts of science.
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These are facts of life. The proper accounting of wealth is scientifically feasible”15 .
Anyone who reads Fuller will not doubt his position on the question of technology. He sees it and underscores it as being under man’s control. Moreover, he contends powerfully that man can apply more technology in order to cope with man’s increasing needs. Sigmund Freud, in his classic work Civilization and Its Discontents also argues in favour of technology which serves to make life easier and creates a sense of happiness in humans. According to Freud, life has improved greatly throughout human history with the advancements in science and technology. (pp. 42 44).
Dr. P. F. Skinner, a Professor of
Psychology at
Another support for man as master of technology and a believer in his ability to apply technology to the solution of ecological problems comes from a report by a high- powered committee of the World Council of Churches. The report titled: “An Ethic of Natural Resources Use”. The Committee agreed that man can push back all physical restraints such as finite land-sea-air. Finite supply of non-renewable resources; finite annual production of renewable resources (such as wood, crop, animal); an ecosystem which can absorp only a finite amount of degradable pollution per year and an ecosystem which can absorb a finite amount of heat per year; all these physical constraints can conceivably be pushed back by technological innovations. They argue, for example, that the extraction of aluminium from clay would completely alter in time scale the depletion of that metal. The committee recommended, however, that “we have entered the transitional period during which decisions must be taken and implemented concerning a major re-direction of our technology, particularly those related to resources consumption.”
Alvin Toffler in his provocative and intriguing widely read book Future Shock, now in its fifteenth printing, remarked in his
chapter on “Taming Technology”, that those who pirate anti-technological nonsense in the name of some vague “human values” need to be reminded that to turn the technological clock back will condemn billions to permanent misery at precisely the moment in history when their liberation is becoming possible. “We need more not less technology”, he aggressively declared.17 See what gladness advances in information technology e.g. the mobile phone has brought to mankind especially to people in the third world.
The preceeding review indicates the
stand of those who think that man is in control of technology and can continue
to apply it to deal with human problems, be they social, biological, economic
or environmental. …
CONCLUSION
Having
taken note of the position of the technological pessimists and optimists,
apocalyptics and eschatologists, the messianists and millenarians, all agree on
one thing about mankind and its future on this space-ship-earth, that is, that
mankind is on the precipice of an existential revolution which, according to
Ferkiss, could be the last stage in the progress of mankind towards its own
extinction. The
For the Nigerian situation, as Dr. Onu46 has said, every effort should be made to develop technology from within and not depend on imported technologies and imported know-how alone.
We should endeavour to start with little things that matter to the ordinary people, that will improve the production capacity of the rural folk, and the urban craftsman. This will enable us reconstruct, reactivate and further develop whatever is still extant of the traditional-mythic knowledge and expertise and build on them, as Schumacher would argue. By doing this, we will be building our modern technology both on the essentials of our traditional- “mythic” philosophy and on the imported technological philosophy, not on only one of them. This will help us combine both old and new technologies that would lead towards a technological base that would integrate man, both as imago-dei and imago-technique.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Ian, Barbour, Western Man and Environmental Ethics: Addison Wesley, 1973;
Daniel, Callahan, The Tyranny of survival: Macmillian 1973;
Gabour, Dennis, Innovations, Scientific: Technological Social. OUP 1969; Onu, Ogbonnaya, Technology and National Development Plan, 1990; Jacques, Ellul. The Technological Society: Knoff, 1964.
Victor, Ferkiss, Technological Man, Braziller 1969.
Buckmister, Fuller Utopia or Oblivion, Overlook Press 69 Earth Inc Doubleday Anchor Book, 1973.
Williams, Kuhns, Environmental Man, Haper & Row, 1969.
E. F. Shumacher, Small is Beautiful. Blood and Buggs, 1973.
H. Teich, Technology and Man’s Future: St. Martens Press, New-York, 1981.
William, Wordsworth Science and the Modern World; Freud, S., Civilization and its Discontents, New-York: w.w. Norton & Company, 1961.
2. Norman
Faramelli, Technetics; p. 23 24.
3. Encyclopedia
Britanica (Vol. 18) p. 55.
4. Anticipation, W C C Journal: (Dec. 1972) p.9.
5. Emmanuel, Mesthene: Technology and Change, pp. 17- 20
6. J. Spoadley & D. McCurdy, Conformity and Conflict p. 303 313.
7. Encyclopedia of Sociology; Counter Culture: p. 60
8. J. Bodley, Victims of Progress, 45ff
9. D. Meadoms (ed) The Limits of Growth, p. 9 - 10
10. Buckmister, Fuller, Earth Incorporated,. p. 16
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid. p. 18
13. Buckmister, Fuller, Utopian or Oblivian? P. 228
14. Ibid. p. 229
15. Ibid.
16. J. Burke (Ed.) The New Technology, p. 282
17.
15
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18. Jacques, Ellul, The Technological Society p. 141
19. Ibid. p. 388 - 38
20. Ibid. p. 405 - 407
21. Charles, Walker (Edt), Modern Technological Civilization. p. 447ff
22. Cameron, Hall, Technology and People, p. 30 33.
23. John, Dunlop (edt), Automation and Technology, p. 7 26.
24. William, Kuhns, Environmental Man, p. 22 - 24
25. Daniel, Calahn, The Tyranny of Survival, p. 58 - 59
26. Ibid. p. 60
27. Ibid. p. 61
28. Ibid. p. 63
29. Ian Barbour; Western Man and Environmental Ethics, p. 12
30. Ibid. p. 12
31. Ibid. p. 13
32. H. Skolimowski, Mian Currents, No. 17, 40,
33. Ibid. p. 153
34. Ibid. p. 154
35. E. T. Shumacher, Small is Beautiful; Bl0oad and Briggs; 73.
36. Ikoku, Emma, U. Self Reliance and
TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION
IN
By
PROF. ESKOR TOYO
It is often said that we are in an age of science and technology. Indeed we are passing through the third great striving of science and technology since the middle of the eighteenth century. It is significant that each of these resolutions has been a Euro-American revolution although, by the influence of Euro-American civilization over the world, they have also been epochs in the march of humanity as a whole.
Unfortunately many who hail our epoch of sophisticated science and technology seldom look at the seamy side. Ours is also an epoch of great doubt, looming danger and science-backed corruption.
In
the midst of all this stands
The
dangers into which we are moving are universal but the trench in which
Source of Danger:
The
danger to humanity and
From time immemorial, man has never been an individual tout court. Outside the family, the community, the collectivity or society, man is nothing. Language is collective, thought is, even food is a social
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category, and culture is of society.
Against pretentious transcendentalism and the perfidy of blustering authoritarianism, the revolt of the European human intellect in what is variously called the enlightenment, the liberal revolt, the renaissance or the rationalist revolution was right. The human personality had to be liberated from all sorts of alien and suffocating encrustations. The intellect had to be let free to search, to argue, to experiment, to dare. This whole revolt was most exhilarating and this emancipation has carried man very far in only three centuries far in his mastery of nature and far is his bare knowledge of himself.
Yet let us be honest. Unfortunately, this new freedom was infected by a virus. It also unchained the ravenous dog of self interest and greed. There is a deep difference between interest in one’s human personality or the dignity and integrity of this personality and selfishness or self-centeredness. The term ’self-interest’ used by men like Adam Smith in the liberal revolt have the two meanings. The confusion corrupted the emancipation.
From this confusion, it was a short cut to the licensing of greed and egotism in the name of the emancipation of the individual. The neighbour, the community, the other man, the collective, my brother or the society faded like a star in esteem. These categories became simply an environment for a selfish individual, like nature, they were an ambience reserved for the egoist’s exploitation. It was a tragic confusion. Man seems destined to make great progress only through tragedy. This was neither the first such tragedy nor the last; yet tragedy it was, and profound.
The enlightenment soon became an instrument of the capitalist’s self-emancipation and acquisitive mode of living. Science, that instrument of noble enlightenment of members of the polis by the Greeks, became, what pseudo-scientific knowledge and magic was to the ancient pre-Socratic world: a means of bolstering the naked power of man over man, of material conquests, of undignified ambitions. The nuclear bomb, computer and electronic militarism and bacteriological weaponry carry this tragic nuptial tie to the height of the absurdity native to it. But, how do we retrace our steps?
I leave that question for now.
Karl Marx, that penetrating liberation philosopher and scientist, saw things at the utmost depth when he observed that the social intention or humane social rationale of science and technology is to enhance man’s rational power over nature in order to set himself free from nature’s curbs. However, capitalism appropriates science and technology for a social illegitimate purpose, namely, to subjugate humanity to the bare accumulation of individual things that minister to philistinism and greed. Capitalism turns science and technology against emancipation and human dignity.
Money becomes more respected than men. Workers, that is human beings, become servants of money and capital. The capitalist himself becomes a beast ensnared in his own greed. As Gadaffi said in the Green Book: In the capitalist production situation, the worker is merely a beast of burden, the bare equivalent of a machine, to be dispensed with like any scrap as soon as competitive profit can no longer be squeezed from him. He is not a human being, not a colleague, not a friend, neighbour or brother; he is a worker, a means for other people’s egoic self satisfaction. This so-called civilization which consumes men to inflate masses of money also feeds on science in order to make a burnt offering of the men to the god of money. Any philosophy which justifies capitalism has ceased to be a champion of man’s humanity and dignity and become the ranting of a vampire.
So
far, for the general setting bequeathed by
The Present in
This continent has come from a past which was partly a respecter of the humanity of man, partly a shrine of mysteries, partly the home of autocracy and partly the factory of a barbarism as sanguine, filthy and degrading as any that history has seen. Certainly, we have left behind little from the penchant for autocracy. We do not now really need mysteries to conceal autocracy. However, we have been forgetting our humanism since capitalist colonialism started sharing our history. Barbarism in our midst is being transmogrified into a coin with a patina of modernism through the use of the capitalist
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mode of traffic.
Yet
we have not imbibed more than the symbols of the liberal emancipation of
To
add to the confusion, is our intellectual and material distances from where
modern civilization is. We see our assignment merely as that of catching up. In
the heat of the race, we all are in hopelessness, we are in a hurry merely to
copy. Consequently, we miss out the depth of what is civilized and humane in
the liberal revolt and grab what is merely tinsel from a liberal apparatus now
over laid by a great deal of monopolism, plain egoism and unconstrained
consecration to material achievement. The worth of a person in
Is
that the way
Let us be candid. People in the communist or socialist movement in the world may be guilty of many forms of stupidity, but it is this movement and it alone that seeks to correct the miscarriage of the purpose of science and enlightenment that began with the liberal revolt. They are the people dedicated to precisely effecting this correction and suffering persecution for their dedication. They are the people who have put on the agenda of the day, the union or rationality and humanism, of the human brain and the human heart.
Most communists are atheists, but what is the point in kneeling before a god or gods that are insensitive to human suffering and reward year after year, precisely those who perpetrate this human misery for material self aggrandizement? Was it sensible for the African to be asked to spit on his own gods only to lick the boots of other gods who condone ’civilised’ barbarism and whose priests are even propagandists for this barbarism?
In any case, is the African moving in the right direction if, copying
Man is not merely an animal endowed with a rational, calculating, or thinking mind, and with tools to use, as the Euro-American scholar, have in essence made him through two centuries of their teaching. Man is an animal also with a love of freedom or authority over his own life, independence, dignity and self-respect, a sense of justice, a desire to be loved, an inherent admiration for truth and beauty. No one can fully explain the events in human history, which includes many revolts, by carrying in his head the calculator image of man that the Euro-American enlightenment settled on eventually. To turn man into a selfish, calculating self-centered machine, to whom the environment (with other beings as part of it) is merely something to be exploited, is to debase the meaning of man.
Contemporary technology is powerfully productive. Without such an advanced means for overcoming poverty, man will live a more or less hand to mouth life everlastingly. Modern technology and the advance of it are, therefore, welcome. Yet there are many anxieties.
Contemporary technology is producing the most spectacular product of the Euro-American civilization which we have been looking at. It is a stupendous achievement of power over our material limitations. Without such a powerful means of productivity, men in general will be condemned to a more or less hand-to-mount existence everlastingly. Therefore, this technology and even some further development of it, is welcome. However, there are worries and these worries have been increased by the glaring fact that, the nineteenth century liberal expectation that capitalist affluence would trickle down and levels off civilization even up through the competitive world market has not happened. On the contrary, the world is seen to be so constituted that a few countries concentrate in their hands all the advantages for further development while all the other countries are very disadvantaged hangers on the few advantaged ones. The hangers on are chronically indebted to the few really independent economies in the Western World. The hope of ultimately overcoming the underdevelopment handicap which was
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entertained in the 1960s was dashed as from the 1970s.
What are the dangers?
The
first is capitalism itself. Man is missing in it because the focus of capitalist
life is the acquisition of material things. Man is downgraded. This poses a
problem. What is defensible in a civilization in which most human beings are
only down-graded instruments for making money for a few? No amount of
acquisition of nuclear bombs can answer this question. Such an acquisition is
an instrument for the imposition of an inhuman thesis on the human race. If the
first efforts to build a human alternative were not perfect and enter a crisis,
their crisis does not answer the question of the basic inhumanity of a
capitalist civilization. The more chronic
An associated problem is that under capitalism, the worker is not the master of production and, therefore, not the master of technology. He is in essence a slave in production. He cannot hire others but can only be hired and dispensed with by others. The more technology develops in an under-developed country, the more this modern type of slavery or “unfreedom” spreads.
A
second question concerns insecurity. The adoption of a new technology under capitalism is associated with
large-scale unemployment in the forms of direct technological, cyclical and
structural unemployment. Technological unemployment displaces workers when a
labour saving method is used. Cyclical
unemployment is caused by a depression, but the depression usually triggers off
the adoption of new technology. Structural unemployment occurs when, although
there are vacancies, workers are not qualified to fill them and this can happen
when the requisite technological level is beyond workers’ general training, as
is the case in the armaments industry in the
All
this is the heritage
This
point about insecurity can be pursued further. The electronic principle implies
ultimately reducing operating workers to a very small number. This implies that
the rate of investment and growth must be more and more rapid if the country is
not to have large unemployment all the time as in much of
The next grave issue to worry about is that science and technology are becoming so expert that we are being ruled by an aristocracy of technocrats. In that case, democracy loses its meaning more and more. A partial cure for this is the rapid spread of scientific education. This means that a country that cares for democracy must increasingly subsidise scientific and technological education among its citizens if it is not to become a crowd of robots manipulated by technocratic remote control. However, under capitalism, subsidy to education is pronounced inefficient. A country is said to be efficient only if everyone pays the full cost, at least, for whatever he gets. If what he gets is a socially or humanly necessary good which he cannot afford, then he has to go without it. Sounds logical but not a humane or social logic.
The next development that is of serious concern is that under capitalism, technology is actually a secret belonging to some firm. Firms keep these secrets from one another, from foreign countries and from society in general. The patent system, while logical in capitalism, obstructs the knowledge and application of technology by human society in general. This is a handicap to development and the more under-developed the science, technology and purchasing power of a country, the greater this handicap. This means that those who heed the transfer of technological knowledge most are the most deprived.
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Currently technological secrets have become a prominent means of military and economic power and dominance. The North-South and East West conflicts and the competition between the U.S.A and other centres of capitalist power show this very clearly.
As
socialists say, scientific and technological knowledge are actually products of
social interaction. It cannot be attributed to the brain of any person, firm,
country or generation. It should be freely available. That way, progress can be
most rapid and unselfish. However, this again is contrary to capitalist logic.
Between South and North or between
Then there is the universal danger to the environment. The ozone layer is threatened. Water in rivers and streams is poisoned. City air is polluted. Forests disappear from both excessive logging and acid rain. Deforestation causes catastrophic erosion in many areas. Easily accessible raw materials vanish. Species of plants and animals disappear. Cities are over populated. We could go on.
In the midst of all this, can we go on with the outlook and technology born of a predatory mentality which thinks of the environment only as something to be exploited rather than a treasure to be preserved? Can we afford a growth pattern which ruins the environment for all persons and all generations present and unborn only to create an excessive and actually useless accumulation of wealth for a few? Can we afford a rate or pattern of growth which provides more than essential comfort for some of the present generation only to deprive future generations of the means of growth? …
Catching Up
All
the above concerns pose a very serious question: should
First
of all, the catch up is being frustrated and is extremely costly. In a bid to catch up,
Secondly, there arises a more fundamental question. In the concept of ’catch up,’ which consists of technological and sectoral advances only but ignores the social system adequate. Given what we have said about capitalism, is a capitalist catch-up desirable, even assuming it is possible? Can we afford the actually barbaric pattern of development which develops machines, skyscrapers, etc. for a few people but marginalizes those who build these monuments to material affluence.?
In short, is a pattern of development which is thing focused rather than man focused desirable? Is it sensible to copy it from others whose civilization had obviously gone astray by shutting out or distorting the human angle?
Thirdly, taking mankind as a whole, should humanity or any section thereof be aiming at the highest level of luxury? Look at the craze to rise immediately into dizzy luxury when we could, with less speed and less sabotage of the future, live in dignity, reasonable comfort and real civilization. Certainly the more we crave for ourselves, the more we will seek to deny others. When there is enough for everyone’s comfort, greed for luxury by anyone will set up an artificial lack and discomfort for some. Is this course sensible?
For instance, why do we need a civilization in which people will want to have jet planes when they could travel quite comfortably and without tedium in less sophisticated planes? Why do we need to conglomerate in massive, costly houses in giant, over-crowded, traffic clogged, dirty and polluted cities even where the countryside is empty of people and we could have well separated smaller towns? Why do we find necessary the technology required to manage to squeeze out some life from these monstrous cities when we have or could develop the technology for living comfortably in smaller towns? Why do we need to build a useless mansion and a superluxurious car for a semi illiterate when we could use the money to give a few young people noble intellectual knowledge, or the kind of civilized culture that comes from travelling?
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Conclusion
I
would like to conclude very briefly. It may be that I shall spoil your dinner
by saying what I now want to say. If so, accept my apologies. The more I survey
the present and the future before
THE HUMAN COSMIC ENVIRONMENT
By
INYANG
ABIA, M. E.
INTRODUCTION
The rapid increase in scientific thinking and practice, products and processes and in technological growth and development have jointly sharpened the focus of attention on man and the environment. This is essentially so because without the environment there can neither be human beings nor development of any sort. An understanding of the human cosmic environment can therefore equip us better to more effectively relate among ourselves, and with different aspects of the environment. It can enhance our interaction with the various environmental components too. This can lead to a more sustainable approach to the use of the environment.
Understanding the human cosmic environment involves indepth study of the structure and functions of the universal environment. This chapter cannot cover all that. Consequently focus will be on man in relation to the solar system.
The Universe
This refers to all of space and its contents. It is believed to be between ten and twenty billion years old. The space of the universe is dotted with galaxies. It is believed to be expanding because the galaxies are observed to be continuously moving apart from each other at a rate which increases with their distance apart. Cosmology, the study of the universe, is the main source of information in this direction.
The Galaxies
These are congregations of billions of stars held together by the force of gravity. At least three types of galaxies can be identified.
Spiral Galaxies: These are flat shaped galaxies with bulging centres made up of old stars surrounded by a disc of young stars arranged in about three spiral arms. The Milky Way otherwise called
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Technology,
Science and Environment
“The Galaxy” is one good example of this. It is within the Milky Way that the solar system is found. Many types of spiral galaxies exist. Those which interest us are called the Barred galaxies. They are made up of spiral arms and a straight bar of stars across their centre. At the ends of the bar there are spiral arms which contain gas and dust necessary for the continuous formation of new stars. That means as old stars wane and fade away, new ones are “born” within the spiral arms of the galaxy.
Elliptical Galaxies: These have been observed to contain billions and trillions of old stars and very little gas. They are also usually quite massive in size compared with the other galaxies.
Irregular Galaxies: These cannot be classified because they have irregular shapes and sizes and are completely different from each other.
The Milky Way/The Galaxy
This can be observed at clear nights as a faint band of light that crosses the sky. It is made up of about one hundred billion stars mostly located at the spiral arms. The term Milky Way is also used to refer to our Galaxy. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 1,000,000 light years. Our sun is in one of its spiral arms, about twenty five thousand light years from the nucleus of the Milky Way. The solar system is therefore one tiny member of the Milky Way (the galaxy) which in turn is only one of the billions of galaxies that make up the universe….
8.2 SOME
FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT THE EARTH
1. Age: About 4.6 billion years
2. Shape: Geoid or oblate spheroid
3. Angle of inclination of orbit: 23.5o
4. Position: 3rd from the sun
5. Mean distance from sun: About 150 million km (93 million miles)
6. Distance from sun in Dec. 22/June 21: 151,120,000km (94.450,000 miles)
7. Distance from sun in Sept.22/March21:146, 128,000km (91,330,000 miles)
8. Relative size: 5th largest
9. Land Mass: 30% (150 million km2/57,500,000sq mls.).
10. Greatest
height:
11. Water Mass: 70% (361 million km2/139.4 million sq mls.)
Figure 8.2
Relative Sizes of the Planets of the solar system
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Technology,
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The Human Cosmic Environment
12. Greatest depth: Mariana Trench (Challenger Deep) 11,034m/36,201 ft)
13. Total surface Area: 511 million km2 (179.9 million sq. miles)
14. Equatorial Diameter: 12,756km (7,927 miles)
15. Mean Radius: 6,336km (3, 956 miles)
16. Inner Core: About 2,600km/1,600 miles in diameter of solid iron and nickel
17. Outer Core: About 2,250km/1,400 miles in diameter of molten iron and nickel
18. Circumference: 40,070km (24,900 miles)
19. Mantle: About 2,900km/1,800 miles thick, of silicate and olivine.
20. Crust: (a) Oceanic crust about 10km/6.2 miles thick, aged about 200 million years
(b) Continental crust varied and complex, aged over 3 billion years
21. Polar Diameter: 12,637km (7,898 miles)
22. Atmospheric Thickness: About 200km (125ml)
23. Atmospheric Contents: Nitrogen (78.09%), Oxygen (20.95%), Argon (0.93%) Carbon dioxide (0.023%); others are neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xenon, ozone, radon (below 0.0001%)
24. Average speed around the sun (revolution): 30km (18.5 miles) per second.
25. Average speed on its axis (rotation): 23hours 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds.
26. Atmospheric zones: (a) Troposhere (8 16km thick), (b) Mesosphere (40 80km thick), (d) Ionosphere (over 100km thick).
27. Stratospheric ozone layer: About 50km thick but has been punctured in recent times.
28. Lapse rate: 6.4oC/km (3.5oF/1,000 ft)
29. Geothermal gradient: 3oC/100m (1oF/50ft)
30. Year: Complete orbit (sidereal period): 365 days 5 hours 48 mins. 46secs.
31. Satellite: One moon
32. Beginning of life: About 4 billion years ago
Prior to
Galileo’s discovery of astronomical telescope in the 17th century,
the earth was thought to be the centre of the universe. By the early 20th
century the concept was modified. The solar system was then thought to be the
centre of the universe. After the Second World War and following new
developments in radio telescope and optics technology, this geocentric concept
was revised. The great revelation is that the solar system in which the earth
is a member is in one remote part of our spiral galaxy (the Milky Way) which is
just one of the millions of other galaxies that dot the vast boundless and
expanding universe. …
THE HUMAN BIOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT
By
INYANG
ABIA, M. E
INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with environmental properties that give support to life. The biosphere is the offspring of the other spheres which interact cooperatively to support life. It is believed that life would not exist if any of water, air or minerals was lacking. Yet these life supports neither exist nor function in isolation of the cosmic environment. Forces from the space, beyond the solar system, and forces within it cooperate or conspire to influence life and human activities, most often beyond human comprehension; in spite of all the existing scientific and technological knowledge which we think we have. Such influences may, however, be minimal compared to the effect of human actions, reactions and inactions on the biosphere. Nature has her peculiar way of reacting to human challenges. Consequently, a good understanding of the interrelationships among the various spheres of life and in relation to the cosmic environment can better equip humans in their march towards sustainable development. That is what the chapter focuses on.
The Human Environment
That which surrounds is the environment. Every system except the largest has an environment. It is from the environment that life inputs are derived and into it life outputs are sent. Therefore the environment determines, to a great extent, the nature, life style, human culture and activities among other things. But human actions, reactions and inactions also have a wide variety of impact on the environment.
Humans live within the environment, so also do plants and animals. This is because human environment is life-supporting. It is the life sphere (biosphere or ecosphere) see figure 9.1.
The biosphere comes into existence as a result of the interaction effect of three other spheres which represent the three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. These three spheres are: the lithosphere (solid rock), the hydrosphere (water sphere) and the atmosphere (gas sphere). These are all dependent on the solar energy and radiation balance. The balance is possible because energy absorbed by earth is equal to the planetary energy output into the outer space. Moreover the planetary winds and water transport energy from regions of surplus to those of scarcity. Nature therefore always seeks to balance the inherent inequality or disequilibrium.
A
good knowledge of the interaction and the working process of the other three
sphere is absolutely necessary for proper understanding of the behaviour of the
biosphere. This in turn can facilitate better and more
friendly interaction with the biosphere among humans. …
REFERENCES
Beckett, B. S. & Usua, E. J. (1979). Biology for West African Certificate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deevey, E. S. (1970). Mineral Cycles. Scientific America 223.
Hutchinson, C. (1989). The Hutchinson Concise Encyclopedia. London Guid Publishing.
Inyang-Abia, M. E. & Usang, E. (1992). Environmental Education for Teachers. Zaria: Nirvana Publishing Co. Ltd.
Strahler,
A. H. & Strahler, A. N. (1977) Geography
and Man’s Environment.
OZONE AND THE OZONE LAYER
By
UCHE, S. C.
The earth’s atmosphere consists of four major gases. These are nitrogen (78.08%), oxygen (20.94%), argon (0.93%) and carbon dioxide (0.03%). Nitrogen finds considerable application in the production of fertilizers, oxygen is used for respiration of plants and animals, while carbon dioxide is an important component of plant nutrition and animal respiration. There are also a number of rare gases such as neon, krypton. Argon, forinstance, is one of the decay products of potassium and uranium. Oxygen is known to exist in two highly allotropic forms. One of these is the molecular oxygen (O2) while the other is Ozone (O3). The term allotrophy depicts the existence of two or more crystalline or molecular structural forms of the same element. Thus allotropes are modifications of the same element that are capable of existing in more than one form under the same physical state. Thus, while ordinary oxygen has two atoms in each gaseous molecule (O2), Ozone (O3) has three atoms. However, many other elements are also known to exhibit allotropic characteristics including sulphur.
Characteristics of Ozone
Ozone is an unstable and highly reactive gas that is produced in nature at high altitudes by photodissociation effect of solar ultraviolet radiation as well as by technological processes and equipment. At room temperature, it may be converted to molecular oxygen through an exothermic reaction process.
2O3 3O2 + 68, 800 cals.
It also exists in the atmosphere, but perhaps to a greater extent in the countryside or rural areas than in cities and towns, and on mountain tops to a greater degree than is available in deep valleys. Its molecular formula is O3 while its molecular weight is 48. Its density is 2.144g/-1 while its gaseous form boils at 110oC. Gaseous Ozone is bluish in colour but both liquid and solid ozone are opaque blue black in colour.
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Generally, Ozone has a characteristic pungent smell that is associated with sparks produced by electrical apparatus. Often it is irritating to the mucous membrane and toxic to both humans and animals. Oxonized air is sometimes similar to that of chlorine. In this latter case, it may exercise a stimulating effect on the salivary glands. It is also, perhaps, due to the presence of Ozone that one experiences the sweetish odour that characterize the vicinity of generators and ultraviolet lights. It may be dangerous to handle primarily due to its tendency for explosive decomposition especially when sparked or otherwise stimulated sufficiently and if the ozone concentration is high enough.
It is not quite safe to breathe air that contains more than 0.1ppm of Ozone for a long period of time. It is also a powerful oxidizing and bleaching agent, and it has been demonstrated to be capable of sterilizing water more rapidly (600-3000 times faster) than chlorine. Water treated with phenolics and other compounds may have both the bad taste and colour eliminated through treating with ozone. Generally, its chemical properties or characteristics are similar to those of Oxygen (O2), although the former is more intense.
The presence of Ozone may be detected using a strip of filter paper that has been moistened with potassium iodide solution and starch. The ozone generally will react with the potassium iodide to liberate iodine that ultimately reacts with starch in order to produce the characteristic blue black colour.
Laboratory Preparation of Ozone
While ozone is naturally occurring, commercial quantities may be made by passing gaseous oxygen of air through a silent high voltage alternating current (electric) discharge. From this action, the oxygen atoms that are initially formed later attach themselves to molecules of oxygen to form Ozone.
O2 2O
O + O2 O3
This reaction is endothermic. The excess energy derived from the production of Ozone is employed to stabilize the Ozone molecule.
However, the old but familiar method of ozone preparation requires electrolyzing between cooled platinum electrodes in dilute sulphuric acid by a current of 80 amperes per square centimeter at 7.8 volts. This strategy yields about 7.2 grams of ozone per kilowatt hour. Walter Herman Nernot has also similarly shown that the free atoms of oxygen form ozone only when their concentrations are 10 to 20 times greater than in ordinary oxygen.
Ozone and its Natural Occurrence
Ozone is known to occur in desperate quantities in that part of the earth’s atmosphere that is known as stratosphere. In this region of the atmosphere, it is produced by a natural process through the photo-dissociative action of solar ultraviolet radiation below 2450 A on the oxygen molecules that are present in the stratosphere. It is concentrated mainly between 15 to 35 km from the earth’s surface. The measured concentrations of ozone can be as high as 11 ppm in the stratosphere, while at the ground level, it has been shown to be as small as 1- 3 pphm (parts per hundred million) but the latter depends on the weather conditions and the height above sea level.
In the stratosphere, Ozone is formed as a result of irradiation by ultraviolet rays from the sun that serves the function of breaking oxygen molecules into atoms and the later combination of these into molecules to form ozone thus:
O2 O + O
O2 + O + m O3 + m
Where m depicts the energy and momentum balance provided by the collision with a third atom or molecule. The above reactions that lead to the formation of ozone occurs between 30 and 60km from the earth’s surface where collisions between O and O2 are possible. However, given the unstable nature of O3, it may itself be destroyed by either the collisions with monatomic oxygen to recreate oxygen thus:
O3+ O 2O2
or by the action of radiation on it:
O3 + O O2 + O
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Ozone and the Ozone Layer
In
essence, the formation and destruction of ozone into molecular and atomic
oxygen is a natural grand design that serves to maintain an appropriate
equilibrium of ozone above 40km from the earth’s surface. However, it must be
noted that ozone concentration at near the earth’s surface is between 0.02 to
0.03 ppm in the countryside but it is generally less in cities. But under
conditions of fog, especially when such is mixed and polluted with smoke, ozone
may be formed by the action of sunlight on oxygen of the air in the presence of
impurities. Under such conditions, ozone concentration may reach 0.5 ppm or
more, though such increases may be of a transient nature. At distance above
20km from the earth’s surface, ozone is normally formed by the photo-chemical action
on atmospheric oxygen, and at a distance of 30km, the concentration of ozone is
over 1,000 times that of the normal concentration at the earth’s surface. Thus
when ozone absorbs the solar ultraviolet radiation, the result is that enough
is available for the purpose of raising the temperature of the stratosphere
much higher than the upper troposphere and the formation of a stable layer that
resists vertical mixing of air. …
REFERENCES
Akeredolu, F. (1989). Atmospheric Environmental Problems in Nigeria: An overview. Atmospheric Environment, 783- 792.
Dobbs, F. W., Forslev, A., & Gilbert, R. L. (1992). The Physical Sciences. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Elegbede, K., Odubona, S., & Egeonu, D. (1988). As We Grow in Industrialization, How safe are we? Sunday Times, Feb. 14, 9 & 18.
Frey, P. R. (1965). College Chemistry (3rd ed.), New York: Prentice Hall.
Hackle, J. (1988). Society and Nature. Richmond: The Richmond Publishing Co.
Manahan, S. E. (1975). Environmental Chemistry (2nd ed.) New York. Willard Grant Press.
Obaseki,
S. O., & Ohonba, E. A. (1988). Environmental Impact of Steel Production. In P.O. Dada & F.O. Odemerho (eds.), Environmental Issues and Management in Nigerian Development.
MAN AND ENERGY RESOURCES: THE LITHOSPHERIC
AND SYNTHETIC SOURCES
By
INYANG
ABIA, M. E.
The power by which material body or radiation uses to do any form of work is called energy. This implies that everything that works needs energy. All around us are many things including plants and animals that do one form of work or the other. They all need energy which exists or manifests in different forms. For example, from fire can be derived heat and small amount of light energy. Enormous quantity of light and heat energy comes in the form of solar illumination. Plants use the light energy to manufacture their food which is stored up as chemical energy; when burnt, the chemical energy turns into heat energy. When herbivorous animals eat the plants they also inherit the energy from the plants. So also do carnivores derive energy by eating other animals. That means energy can be transferred. It can also be converted from one form to another but cannot be destroyed. Dead plants and animals have their energy returned to the earth. But every time energy changes form some heat of low level form is lost into the atmosphere or the central pool. Energy can be converted from one form to another but the total quantity remains the same in accordance with the conservation law.
Energy derived from position is potential energy (P.E.). The stretched spring, for example, has elastic potential energy. Water in the overhead tank has potential gravitational energy. Fossilized plants which come in the form of petroleum, lignite, anthracite and graphite among others and oxygen necessary for combustion have chemical potential energy due to relative positions of the atoms in them. Waves that strike the coastal rocks, running water that erode the soil and wind that bend the trees have mechanical energy. Different forms of energy therefore exist around us.
The original, major and most enduring source of energy is the sun. but the earth also has an enormous store-house of energy: fossil fuel (coal, petroleum, natural gas), mineral energy (uranium), and heat or
geothermal energy, among others, which are either directly or remotely related to the sun: the ultimate source of all energy forms.
Classification of Sources of Energy:
Energy sources can be either renewable (income) or non-renewable (capital), according to their characteristics. Table 11.1 summarizes energy sources into cosmic, atmospheric, biospheric (biome), lithospheric, hydrospheric and synthetic. These are sub-grouped with relevant examples.
Non-Renewal (Capital Energy):
The energy sources that are exhaustible and unreplenishable are usually referred to as the capital sources of energy. Apart from the fact that they can be easily used up, such energy sources also require large capital supply in the form of money, equipment, human and materials resources. They are also very easily depleted while their production, transportation, distribution and utilization processes can be very hostile and destructive to the environment if carelessly handled.
All lithospheric (except the geothermal source) and synthetic sources of energy (except alcohol fuel sources) are largely non-renewable.
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Man and Energy Resources: The Lithospheric and Synthetic Sources
They are briefly discussed below:
Fossil Fuels:
These are organic substances that occur naturally in three major forms: solid, liquid and gas. They originate from decayed remains of biome (plants and animals) that have undergone series of metamorphic processes over millions of years. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbon compounds. These mineralized remains occur as sediments and in sedimentary rock. Sometimes they are exposed through seepage or erosion to the surface of the earth. Their discovery, wide application and use, organized distribution and associated technological innovations have serious global environmental consequences as well as socio-political, health and economic implications of universal dimensions. …
REFERENCES
Growder, M. & Abdullahi, G. (1979). Nigeria: An Introduction to its History. Hong Kong: Longman Group Ltd.
Eleme Petrochemicals Company Limited (A subsidiary of NNPC) (1990) The Eleme Petrochemicals Complex Polyolefins. Aba: Crystal Functions Ltd.
IUCN UNEP WWF (1980). World Conservation Strategy: Living Resources Conservation for Sustainable Development. Switzerland: IUCN.
Morgan, R. P. (1977). Perspectives on Appropriate Technologies.
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Science and Environment
Man and Energy Resources: The Lithospheric and Synthetic Sources
Technology Transfer and World Development: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Chicago, Illinois: The American Chemical Society.
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) (Undated) Investment Opportunities in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Industries in Nigeria: An NNPC point of View. Nigeria: Peter E. A. Achalla.
Office of Technology Assessment (1981), Changing Concepts of Appropriate Technology. An Assessment of Technology for Local Development. Washington D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp 17 26.
Oguntoyinbo, J. S., Areola, O. O. &
Eilani M. (Eds) (1978). A
Geography of Nigerian Development. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books (Nig.)
Ltd
Strahler, A. H. & Strahler, A. N. (1977). Geography and Man’s Environment. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Toufexis, A. (1990). Environmental legacy of a disaster. Time International 135 (15), 30 32.
Worldwide
Fund for Nature (WWF) (Undated). Wallchart: 2.83 Resources: Energy.
SOLAR ENERGY
By
PROF. A. I. MENKITI
INTRODUCTION
The sun is the ultimate origin of most of the energy presently available on earth. When the sky is clear and the Sun is high above the sky, the energy it radiates reaches the earth at the rate of about 1000 watts per square kilometer. This is very substantial and the source is a reliable one. A given place will receive about the amount of solar energy every year so long as the sunshine is regular. One problem is, however, that the sun does not always shine; it does not shine in unfavourable weather.
The total solar energy intercepted by the earth (from the Sun) is estimated to be 2.8 x 1010 megawatts, but so far we are using only a very small fraction of it.
In this discussion on solar energy, we shall briefly look at the interior of the Sun, its emission, the parameters that effect this transmission and how the energy of the Sun is converted to various uses.
The Sun
The Sun, our closest star, provides the energy to maintain life on earth and produce the necessary gravitational attraction to keep our planet (earth) in a nearly circular orbit. It has a mass of 1.99 x 1030kg, about 3.3 x105 times the mass of the earth, and a radius of 6.96 x 108 metres, about 109 times the radius of the earth. The distance of the Sun from the Earth is about 1.52 x 1011 metres in July and about 1.47 x 1011 metres in January. The unit of measurement actually is the AU, the astronomical unit, where 1 AU equals about 1.5 x 1011 metres.
The interior of the Sun is not accessible for direct experimentation, however observations based on theoretical considerations show the interior temperature of the Sun to be about 15 x 106 kelvins while its chemical composition is largely hydrogen plus a little among of helium. Energy is generated in the interior through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. This energy finds its way to the surface of the Sun, and is eventually emitted into space primarily in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Figure 12.1 shows a
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simplified model of the sun indicating the photosphere and chromosphere areas with differing temperatures.
and not mass is transferred. Convection, on the other hand, involves the transportation of mass through matter. It thus occurs in fluids, not solids. Heat transfer by radiation is rather unique; it does not require any matter for the heat transfer from warmer to colder regions. It is the product of electromagnetic waves.
The energy of the Sun reaching the earth is largely heat, so all the three modes of energy transfer come into play in the exploitation of this heat energy for use.
Exploitation of Solar Energy
Solar
Energy can be exploited directly. In each case the quantity received will
depend greatly on the optics of the collecting materials. The optical
properties of the materials generally depend on the wavelength of the radiation
involved. For example, most solar glazings that are nearly transparent to solar
energy are virtually opaque to thermal radiation, while some absorber coatings
which are excellent absorbers of solar radiation are actually poor emitters of
thermal radiation. The main idea is that a material should be able to absorb
radiation and give out heat energy. …
REFERENCES
Houghton, J. T. (1977): “The Physics of the atmosphere”. London: Cambridge University Press.
Wieder, S. (1982): “An Introduction to Solar Energy for Scientists and Engineers.” New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Ezeilo,
C. C. O. (1985) “Ten years of solar energy research in Nigeria.” Sc. Assn. of
ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS: AN OVERVIEW
BY
ANIJAH
OBI, FRANCA
INTRODUCTION
It is a general belief in many parts of the world today, that environmental problems have reached a ’crisis’ level and have consequently constituted a dangerous threat to human survival and sustainable development. The word ’crisis’ refers to a situation that has assumed enormous magnitude to the extent of becoming critically disturbing, devastating and enervating. Whether environmental problems, global or local, could be described as such is debatable. However, there is evidence to show that uncontrolled human activity is putting significant stress on the earth’s life- support system thereby creating serious environmental problems. The world is very much concerned about this predicament because of its obvious implications for human existence. According to Bisong (1995), the need to protect the environment from damaging changes and irreversible degradation is becoming one of the most important developmental challenges of the 90’s and more likely so for future decades.
This chapter gives an overview of environmental problems and their implications for the human race as well as possible agenda for change. The main aim is to raise public awareness in order to provoke and induce positive environmental action.
Environmental Concerns
The term ’environment’ comprises land, air, water and all the physical structures surrounding us. It refers to the totality of space, time and socio-cultural settings inherent therein (Ebin, 1995). Man is dependent on the abundant resources of the earth for his survival. However, in his efforts to meet his socio-economic needs and his quest for industrialization and development, science and technology, man has altered the natural environment thereby causing considerable damage to the Biosphere. The biosphere is the life-support system and is made up of the lithosphere (land); hydrosphere (water), and atmosphere (air) while development is
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seen as the increasing capacity to obtain from our environment the resources we require to meet our needs.
The environment is quite encompassing and includes both land and the minerals in the rocks, the living organisms and life processes, water and aquatic life, the remote ocean depths and the polar ice caps, the atmosphere and climate, the cosmic or outer space as well as the solar and other energy resources. It includes the socio-cultural environment which refers to all the physical infrastructures built by man and the social and institutional systems which have been developed. It also includes the historical, cultural, economic, political, moral and aesthetic aspects of human life.
Indeed environmental concerns have gone beyond their narrow referent as sanitation, pollution and erosion to include global warming, ozone layer depletion, biodiversity loss, deforestation, desertification, endangerment and extinction of wild life, over population, hazardous waste disposal, drought, acid rain, nuclear testing etc. It is not possible within the confines of this chapter to discuss exhaustively all the issues in environmental crisis, but subsequent chapters will be examining in greater detail, specific crucial problems of more import to the global and our local government.
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of forest and other forms of vegetative cover from a site without its replacement (NEST, 1991:161). Although the extent of deforestation is difficult to estimate, it is reported that only 13% of the world’s tropical rain forest and 10% of Nigeria’s rainforest are intact. Figures 13: ae show the systematic destruction of the rainforest in Nigeria from 1500- 1991.
It is estimated that millions of tonnes of the rainforest resources are destroyed yearly due to: logging or timber exploitation, demand for fuel wood, agricultural expansion, bush burning, over-grazing by animals, infrastructural development, unsustainable farming practices etc.
The socio-economic implications of deforestation for the human race are quite disturbing. Apart from the acute shortage of fuel wood, we have: - shortage of industrial timber, - loss of biodiversity and genetic resources, - destruction of wildlife habitats, - decline of water shed functions, - uncontrolled flooding and higher rates of
siltation, - impoverishment of local communities who rely on forest resources for their livelihood, - global warming and green house effects.
Solutions to deforestation will depend on the conservation of existing forests through: sustainable agricultural practices, controlled and limited logging, tree planting and re afforestation, reduction in fuelwood consumption, control of grazing practices, conservation education, creation of national parks and buffer zones, legislation, adoption of agro-forestry practices.
Some of the most disturbing phenomena relating to the continued disappearance of the world’s forest are their contributions to global warming or green house effect; and the endangerment and extinction of species. Over population as a major cause of deforestation is a fundamental issue. …
Conclusion:
From the foregoing, it is obvious that in one way or the other we are all involved in environmental issues. It we are not part of the solution, we are apart of the problem. As individuals, we are economically, socially, culturally, politically and emotionally affected by the impact of human activity on the environment; and as participators and contributors to the factors that cause changes to the environment, we all have a vested interest and responsibility to be well informed about the environment. It is not enough to be aware if these problems, what is important is that we should take necessary actions to protect the environment. We should not regard these global environmental concerns as a voice in the wilderness because environmental problems transcend national boundaries. Water pollution in Nigeria can cause harm several millions of kilometers away. We should therefore think globally and act locally. We need to examine our lifestyles and consumption patterns, our beliefs, perceptions and attitudes towards the environment. We need to start planting trees, control population, reduce our family sizes, maintain a healthy environment by keeping our surroundings clean and free from pollution and discourage bush burning etc. The implications of these global environmental problems on the human race are grave, for they spell doom for the people of this planet if these problems are not checked. The consequences include death for mankind, poverty, disease, malnutrition, hunger, urbanization with it’s resultant consequences such as crime, delinquency, slum, pollution, etc. We should all begin to show interest in environmental issues and management as they concern all of us as well our future generations.
REFERENCES
Areola, O. (1990). The Good Earth. Inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan.
Bisong, F. E. (1994). Global environmental changes. Unpublished manuscript for the Environment Education Book series.
Bisong, F. E. (1995). Environmental Crisis and Agenda for change A paper presented at the Akwa Ibom State Seminar for LGA Executives.
Bojo, J. P. (1991). Economics and land degradation. Aimbo Vol. 20 No.2 of 2 April 1991.
Buchanan, R. O. (1974). An Illustrated Dictionary of Geography, Singapore: McGrow-Hill Far Eastern Publishers Ltd.
Ebin, C. O. (1994). Nigeria’s Threatened Environment. A paper delivered at the Environmental Education Teachers Orientation Workshop, University of Calabar, Calabar, 27 28th January, 1993.
Ebin, C. O. (1995). Promoting Environmental Awareness in Nigeria: An Evaluation of Grassroots Response. A paper presented at NEST 7th Annual Workshop Calabar 4 7 June 1995.
Gwandu, A. A. (1991). The Menance of Desertification in Sokoto State, In K. O. Ologe (Ed.) Sustainable Development in Nigeria’s Dry Belt. Problems and Prospects. Ibadan: NEST. Publication.
NEST, (1991). Nigeria’sTthreatened Environment. Ibadan: Publication.
Oji, G. (1994). Global Environmental Concerns. Unpublished paper presented at Environmental Awareness Seminar in Uyo, September, 1994.
Ukpong. S. (1994). Global Environmental Concerns. Unpublished paper presented at an Environmental Awareness and Education Seminar for Educational Administrators in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State 28th Feb. 1994.
ENVIRONMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
By
Francis E. Bisong* and
Elizabeth Andrew-Essien*
Introduction
Human interest on the environment has for long depended on the various benefits that could be derived to foster growth and development. The continuing exploitation and processing of natural resources are done both for sustenance and economic interest. Man’s harnessing of natural resources is proficiently resulting in their conversion to products upon which the pace of industrialization may be assessed. It would appear that mankind’s interest is absorbed in quickening the pace of industrialization, while the concern for the state of the environment is often ignored. In succinct terms, rapid industrialization pace, in addition to the increased world population growth trends have over the years contributed in significant proportions to threaten the environmental integrity of the various life support functions that determine the sustenance of mankind. An understanding of the relations between environment and development is particularly necessary if future generations are to benefit from both. This section examines the attributes that are vital in enhancing the development of environmental resources for both the present and future generations. It begins by defining the basic concepts of environment, development and sustainability and progresses by showing that the goals of environmental conservation and the pursuits of human development are not divergent of incompatible. A clear emphasis is made of their mutually interdependent and complementary nature through the framework of sustainability in conservation and development programs.
A Francis E. Bisong Ph.D is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning, University of Calabar.
A Elizabeth Andrew-Essien (Doctoral Researcher) is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional
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Planning in Cross River State University of Technology.
1.2 The
Environment as a Complex System
The term environment is used to describe that which is external to human beings. In making reference to that which is external, mention can be made of the non-living natural environmental component such as air, soil, water-bodies and the living components such as plants and animals. The human created socio-cultural or built-up environment such as roads, factories, buildings and farms may also be a vital component of the environment. In specific terms, the environment consists of four major components namely, the atmosphere (Oxygen, Carbon dioxide, nitrogen etc), hydrosphere (oceans, seas, lakes and rivers), the lithosphere (rocks, and soils) and the biosphere (the realm of life). Each of the mentioned environmental components is relevant and active in the regulation of processes that enables life and its sustenance to continue. The environment as a complex system consists of inseparable and interrelated components, which are constituted by physical, chemical, and biological elements functioning to bring about the exchange of materials between the living and the non-living features. The complexity of the environment is captured in the Ecosystem concept. Tansley put the ecosystem as a term forward in 1935. The word Ecosystem is made up of ’eco’ meaning environment while ’system’ refers to the set of interacting interdependent living (biotic/organic) and non-living (abiotic/ inorganic) components. Odum (1959) thus, defines ecosystem as ’any area of nature that includes living organisms and non-living substances interacting to produce an exchange of materials between the living and its non-living parts. The interactions and interrelations that exist within the environment enable a ’give and take’ process to prevail within the ecosystem.
The ecosystem concept and its functioning are necessary in understanding the environmental exchanges that are witnessed in the world today. As a system, all the environmental components are susceptible to impacts that can result from unregulated human activities due to the network relations of the environment. Humans have constituted the highest proportion of natural resource users on the earth’s surface. Resources are here regarded as naturally
occurring substances that are useful and can be applied to create wealth for the improvement and development of mankind (Enger and Smith 2004). The continued existence of human beings is largely dependant on the utilization of environmental resources, For example, felled trees constitute excellent materials for construction and energy production, and natural gases are used in industrial processes for production. Resource processes play important roles in the attainment of a high standard of living, which are propelled by industrialization. Frey (1960) applied the term resource process to capture the trends involved in the total flow of a material from its state in nature, through its period of contact with man, to its disposal in various regions, with the aim of satisfying the demand and supply of developmental needs.
1.3 The
Concept of Development
The World Development Report (1992) regards development as the improvement of man and his living conditions. The underlying drive for development is anchored on the need to achieve remarkable progress in the standards of living, healthcare, education and infrastructures improvement. This invariably provided the forum for which intensive human activities were embarked upon without due regard for the preservation of the ecological integrity of the natural environment. The emergence of science and the onset of the Industrial Revolution opened the limitless strive for development particularly as the products of the revolution were of immense value in enhancing the standard of living of humans and therefore boost the development of numerous economic sectors. The consequence of this has being accelerated productivity, and urbanization, which in turn has spearheaded the establishment of, specialized industries to further ensure economic development. Sustainable Development is a new approach that advocates for the wise and rational use of both natural and man-made resources in order to prevent unnecessary wastages while at the same time, ensuring that their availability can be guaranteed for the future.
2.0 Development
and Environment Debates
The accelerated rates of natural resources exploitation for human development have resulted in series of arguments. These arguments result from the multi-faceted use to which the environment has been
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subjected. For example, sufficient use has been made of trees, plants, and wildlife species not only for consumption, but also habitats and other agricultural activities to mention but a few. In a like manner, the same environment is applicable to both small and large-scale projects that seek to enhance cultural development and economic security (Bisong 2001).
This brings to the fore; pertinent issues of concern such as the determination of the relevance of both resource use and development inter-play in the existence of mankind. In other words, while considering the need for human development, it is of utmost necessity to bring into proper perspective the environmental consequences that can result thereof. For example, it would be justifiable to seek the need to preserve the ecological integrity of the environment; however, is it justifiable to undermine development such that economic progress is jeopardized? The same logical reasoning can be applied in a vice versa situation. Doing and Allard (2004), present illustrations of the environmental crises that result owing to the presence or absence of development project. In Scenario One (Fig.1), the establishment of economic development is propelled by a drive to create wealth for personal enrichment. The resulting consequence often is the exploitation of the natural resources of the environment that invariably results in a decline of productive capital and environment crisis. This can be attributed to the role of development in resource utilization as materials and energy sources and the threats imposed on environmental sustainability in the form of environmental degradation and resources depletion.
Scenario Two (Fig. 1.1) illustrates how the absence of development within a region can also lead to environment stress especially in a region where there is a high level of misunderstanding of the various uses of the environment. The attempt to survive in poverty-stricken regions ultimately results in the destruction of the environmental capital base. With no developmental project, environmental pressure mounted is worse. …
TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN SOME DOMESTIC
APPLIANCES
By
Prof. A. I. Menkiti
Introduction
Human beings communicate with one another in a variety of ways. Speaking is one way, writing another; winking, smoke-signalling (by mostly American Indians), drum and gong-beating (mostly by Africans) and hand-signalling are others. The most effective and (perhaps) the most unambiguous method is by speaking. This method employs the use of sound vowels and consonants to make utterances intelligible.
At close distance, speaking is effective. However, as distance between a speaker and a listener becomes great, hearing what is said becomes difficult. Making sense of what is said becomes even more difficult; intelligibility falls. At this point, spoken words need reinforcing to be still effectively heard, they require amplification. Amplification is most effectively provided by electronic devices, hence communication by speech over a long distance is invariably tied up with electronic devices and techniques.
The word ’tele’ is the Greek word for distance. Communication on the other hand involves passing information or transferring signals from one point to another. The word ’telecommunications’ thus means exchanging information over a distance using some electrical, (electronic and acoustical) devices. These devices can actually be radio, telephone, telegraph, computer or data link, while the information itself can be plain spoken words, or coded words, or even letters. Telecommunication is also a system; it is that system which employs radio, telephone, television, telegraphy, radar (radio detection and ranging), data transmission and reception and satellite communication.
Historically, telecommunication was confined to three main areas. These were telephony, telegraphy and radio. Telephony is communication over a distance using spoken words. Telegraphy is communication over a distance using coded words or letters. Radio, otherwise called ’wireless’, is communication without (visible)
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physical connections.
The first international organization in the sphere of telecommunications was the International Telegraph Union of 1865 located in Paris. Trading ships owned by merchants employed telegraphy in the form of light-flashing and flag-waving codes to communicate with one another in the high seas. Because of that, the more important aspect of telecommunications was thought to be telegraphy. This organization drew up the first international set of regulations which included the adoption of SOS (save Our Souls) as distress signal in 1903 during an international conference held in Berlin in 1903.
In 1908, a radio-telegraph union emerged. The world was by then becoming aware that telecommunication was not limited to ship and merchandize. The union carved out three subordinate bodies namely:
International Telephone Consultative Committee (CCIF) in 1924,
International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT) in 1925,
International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) 1927.
In 1932, at Madrid in Spain, a single body was created to replace the above three bodies. This single body was the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In 1947, this body became a specialized agency of the United Nations Organization with its headquarters in Geneva.
Nowadays, the ITU is involved in allocating frequencies to countries to operate with as well as in the control of satellite communications through its various redesignated organs.
The organs are:
International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB)
International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) and
international Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT).
The IFRB allocates frequencies to countries to use in operating their radios, televisions and similar projects. They thus ensure that interferences are very much avoided between countries, especially the ones close to each other. The CCIR allocates radio channels in satellites, for example, to countries who wish to make use of them. Nigeria is making use of three channels in the satellite orbiting the Atlantic Ocean, other countries also make use of other channels. The CCITT standardizes the procedures and instruments used in
telephony and in telegraphy. That way uniformity is ensured in the telecommunications world.
These organs of the ITU thus control global telecommunications. They do this effectively through the various ministries of communications in the different countries that recognize the United Nations. In Nigeria, this control was vested in the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) but is now under National (Nigerian) Communication Commission.
The ultimate aim in telecommunicating is to get information from transmitting ends to receiving ends in good condition and in as short a time as possible. To achieve these, a number of related measures are usually taken. In this chapter, we will briefly look at telecommunications as operated in the domestic appliances such as telephone, the television and the radio receiver (called radio set). …
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we have briefly looked into the operations of the telephone near and far, the television, satellite, radio receiver and the global mobile system of communication (GSM). All are linked by the fact that they employ modulation system to travel far and be used by every body.
For them to work nicely and continuously, they need to be taken care of and maintained.
PROF. A. I. MENKITI
RADIOACTIVITY, TOXICOLOGY AND THE
ENVIRONMENT
By
UCHE, S. C.
Introduction
Today, radiation, both artificial and natural, as well as toxic wastes constitute a significant environmental problem for man. The two problems have international dimensions and have occasionally become sources of misunderstanding among two or more countries.
The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to examine the issue of radiation and toxic wastes in their various ramifications, identify the environmental problems associated with them and highlight some strategies that may be applied to deal with the problems.
Radioactivity
Radioactivity is a phenomenon that results from the instability of the nucleus in some atoms. The phenomenon involves the emission of smaller particles from the nucleus of such atoms. At the time of its discovery by Becquerel in 1896 and the earlier discovery of X-rays by Roentgen in the same year, the emission was entirely a natural process. The emissions and the associated rays were subsequently studied and shown to consist of three distinct types: alpha - particles, beta - particles and (gramma) rays. However, a later bombardment of atomic nuclei using X-rays to form other nuclei by Rutherford in 1919 and the discovery by the Joliots that such artificially created nuclei generally disintegrated spontaneously marked the birth of induced or artificial radioactivity. In essence, most chemical elements can be artificially made radioactive and radioactivity has found immense application in science and technology.
Radioactivity and its Beneficial
Application:
There are about 150 or more minerals that are radioactive. To be radioactive means to be capable of emitting some smaller particles from the nucleus of the atoms of an element. The so-called radioactive minerals are essentially those that contain uranium or thorium as their important chemical component. The major uranium
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minerals are oxide uraninite, the silicate coffinite, the phosphate autunite and torpernite, the complex oxides brannerite and davidite, etc. The major thorinin minerals are chiefly those of the silicates, thorite and thorogumonite and the oxide of thorianite. For those that contain uranium or thorium in small amounts as vicarious constituents, they include the rare earth phosphate mineral monazite, the niobate tantalates, and minerals that contain zirconium, cerium, or calcium. These various minerals are known to exhibit different types and levels of radioactivity.
Radioactivity as a phenomenon has found application in a number of important situations. These include the use of radioactive isotopes as tracers for the study of physical and chemical substances and as modifiers for effecting changes in the characteristics of substances. Thus, radioisotopes are capable of emitting electrons that are similar to those produced by high energy particle accelerators. Such can be used to produce radiation changes in materials and as tracers in biological and physical systems of important situations. These include the use of radioactive isotopes as tracers for the study of physical and chemical substances and as modifiers for effecting changes in the characteristics of substances. Thus, radioisotopes are capable of emitting electrons that are similar to those produced by high energy particle accelerators. Such can be used to produce radiation changes in materials and as tracers in biological and physical systems.
A good dose of radiation is capable of affecting significant biological changes in an organism. While much of such a dose may be detrimental to a given organism, some would yet exercise some beneficial effects to the organism. Radiation is often used to induce mutation in living organisms in order to produce new varieties of organisms such as penicillin, yeast, vegetables, etc. and for the control of populations of insects through the introduction of radioactively sterilized groups into the population. In medicine, the radio-isotope of iodine may be administered in large quantities for the purpose of effecting appropriate functioning of the overacting thyroid gland for the treatment of certain types of carcinoma. Also Gold-198 when injected in colloidal form directly into tumour tissue may result in remarkable tumour therapy. Similarly, an intravenous injection of phosphorus 32 has been successfully used for the treatment of leukemia and other blood related diseases. These cases
require a thorough understanding of the structure and growth of tumour tissues and the use of isotopes that are highly specific in the destruction of certain cells or tissues while avoiding other surrounding tissues.
In industry, radioisotopes find considerable application in industrial research and development, as well as process control and monitoring. One of such application is the measurement of thickness of paper, metal and other materials in a continuous production process. It has also been used in industry for the testing of metal castings, especially those that must withstand extremes of temperature and pressure. At the same time, the possible use of radioactivity for modifying the properties of industrial goods appears quite good, though a few of these have reached the production stage. In analytical chemistry, radioactive isotopes have been effectively used for determining rates of reaction and reaction kinetics, as well as for activation analysis in which the aim is to determine very small quantities of certain elements.
Radioactivity and the Environment:
Humans and animals are exposed to a considerable degree of radioactive materials and radioactivity. The exposure may result from natural sources, medical and biological applications, testing of nuclear weapons in the open atmosphere and the use of radioactive materials in industry and in power generation. A large amount of radioactive materials or minerals including uranium are currently being used as a source of energy. Indeed, 30% of all domestic electrical power generations in developed or industrialized countries is derived from radioactive minerals. When minerals are in use, the result often is varying degrees of contamination of the environment depending on the efficiency of the recycling process of the waste materials (Hammond, 1982).
By far, natural radioactivity constitutes the largest source of human exposure to radiation. This source may be terrestrial or extraterrestrial in origin. Of the 340 nuclides that exist in nature, about 70 are radioactive and found to essentially exist among the heavy elements. Of these 70, only three are responsible for most of the terrestrial irradiation: Thorium 232, Uranium 238 and Potassium 40. Potassium 40 has a half life of 1.3 x 109 years. It occurs to the extent of about 0.01% in natural potassium which itself
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is an important element in the human body. Uranium 238 incorporates a noble gas, Radionradionuclides of lead and polonium. The latter attach themselves electrically to dust particles that are generally present in the atmosphere. A large amount of this Radon 222 is taken into the body in the course of respiration and is ultimately deposited in the lungs. Large leaved plants especially those that contain Lead 210 and Polonium -210 like tobacco are also known to have considerable quantities of Radon-222. During smoking, the Polonium is volatized and thus a large amount of this radioactive substance is deposited in the lungs. It has indeed been suggested that this phenomenon plays a key role in the initiation of cancer from cigarette smoking.
Direct exposure to radiation of the does range of 400-600r can produce cancer in man and animals. Cancer results when a somatic cell of the body loses its normal control and subsequently ceases to obey the regulatory mechanisms of the body. Thus, such cells divide repeatedly without regard to the well-being of the organisms as a whole and ultimately forms a single large mass or series of masses. Pioneer radiologist, Marie Curie, and uranium miners in Austria and Colorado all died of cancer of the blood known as leukemia due primarily to their lack of knowledge that the newly discovered substances were dangerous and therefore took no precautions to safeguard themselves. The survivors of the atomic bomb attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the largest group of human beings exposed to whole- body radiation. The incidence of leukemia, lung cancer, breast cancer and thyroid cancer were a significant feature among them and the incidence of these diseases were established to be related to the individuals’ distances from the point of explosion of the bombs, and thus the dose of radiation received. The highest incidence occurred among those close to the point. In essence, there is a clear evidence supporting the fact that the incidence of the disease was due to radiation and the severity dependent on the dosage of radiation received.
Available evidence suggests that following exposure to radiation, there may be observed symptoms of loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and fatigue within the first two days among the victims. This is followed by a disappearance of the above symptoms in patients during which everything appears normal for a period of two to three weeks. For the next three to four weeks, there maybe
diarrhaea, haemorrhage, fever, loss of hair, purpura and severe lethargy. Subsequently, the patient surviving the above stages may show evidence of recovery but there is generally a poor survival rate to the stage of recovery. However, it must be noted that the effects of radiation are generally long range in nature. The effects do not generally occur instantaneously. Thus leukemia requires a mean latent period of 8-10 years. Bone and thyroid cancer needs 15- 30 years, while lung cancer requires a period of 10- 20 years. Also, it is difficult to distinguish between radiation-induced cancer and spontaneously occurring cancer. This has very important legal implications especially when courts seek evidence from prosecutors to prove that their cancer has been specifically caused by one form of environmental exposure or the other.
It has also been established that radiation can damage the reproductive cells of the body by causing alterations of the hereditary materials of the cells. Such alterations are known as mutations and generally lead to the production of recessive genes. A considerable number of diseases generally manifest themselves when both parents have the same recessive genes. It must, however, be noted that not all gene mutations are harmful since man attained his present advanced stage in evolution via a series of mutations over the millennia. But the fact remains that since radiation can increase mutation rate in human population, it may similarly increase the number of genetically abnormal people in the present and future generations. For pregnant women, exposure to even a small dose of radiation, perhaps through a needed x-ray examination of the pelvis, may be dangerous. According to experts, radiation increases the chances of anomalous births and this chances go up with increase in the amounts of radiation. The suggestion generally is that an exposure to more than 10r during the first six weeks of pregnancy may necessitate an abortion because of the strong probability of producing an abnormal baby. However, women with severely limited chances of conception may take a chance in such circumstances. Modest amounts of radiation have also been identified to be associated with such foetal defects as cleft palate, stunting of limbs, abnormally developed brain, etc. Sometimes, immediate death from extreme exposure to radiation may occur due to a direct effect of such large doses on the brain. Such deaths have not been adequately studied owning primarily to the high safety
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records of the nuclear industry in
Toxicology
Toxicology, on the other hand, is the study of the toxicity of substances or wastes that results essentially from commercial, industrial and domestic activities. The production and release of these substances into the environment may accumulate to levels where they may cause harm or discomfort to man, animal or any other legitimate user of the environment in which the substance is discharged or deposited. In general terms, a waste is toxic if it is harmful, deadly or poisonous.
Within the first decade that followed the industrial revolution, the volume of wastes produced was relatively small and the concept of “dilute and disperse” was appropriate in terms of disposal. It was in consistence with this concept that most factories were located near rivers since the water served as a good medium for processing and cooling, and for easy disposal of the resulting wastes. But the phenomenal industrialization and urbanization as well as rising human population have rendered obsolete the concept of dilute and disperse and posed new challenges on how best to dispose industrial wastes.
Sources of Toxic Wastes in Nigeria:
There are two major sources of wastes. There are domestic and industrial. The domestic forms are characteristic of large populated cities that lack good sewage treatment plants and good system for the disposal of household refuse. Such domestic wastes may contribute to the organic load of the inshore waters through rivers and estuaries and through direct outlets to the sea. The industrial wastes are essentially those that are derived from leather industries, wood processing and paper producing factories, as well as those from soap, detergent, paint, food and beverage production. These activities, domestic and industrial, result in considerable introduction of excess organic and inorganic matter into coastal waters. Such introductions are generally transported by prevailing currents but later settle out as a result of various chemical, physical and biological processes. The circulation patterns of these waste materials may change over time, but primarily, the bottom sediments are a long term record of the input, dispersal and settling processes.
The industrial establishments in Nigeria generally prefer cheap, inadequate and often ecologically irresponsible methods of industrial waste disposal. The general tendency among them is to throw these hazardous wastes anywhere without concern about the associated ecological implications. As has been established by Martins (1978), there are about six factories in Iganmu and Apapa that dispose of their solid wastes by throwing them about carelessly in their premises. Similarly, in Akwa Ibom State, the Peacock Paint Industry in Etinan discharges its wastes into an artificial valley a few meters away from the factory building.
Also, heavy metals especially those of zinc, mercury, copper, cadmium and lead may be introduced into various aquatic environment from domestic, industrial and mining activities while life forms including polychaete worms, crustaceans, bivalves and others accumulate the heavy metals in varying degrees (Everaarts & Swennen, 1987). The sources and pathway of lead may be contaminated run-off, atmospheric fallout, and direct disposal of industrial and domestic wastes. In large cities like Lagos, Ibadan, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Kano and Kaduna with large volumes of traffic, approximately one ton of lead per day is released to the atmosphere through car exhaust. A large portion of this amount of lead ultimately reaches the various sources of water through precipitation and run-off. This amount of lead, as well as the leaded gasoline exhaust from boats, can serve to contaminate certain water sources as can be shown in the very high concentration of lead found in stations located near areas of heavy industrialization and heavy water transportation. Mercury may also be found in dissolved or particulate form. Localities with high concentration of mercury in their sources of water are essentially those located in highly industrialized areas. The sources and pathway of mercury include direct disposal of industrial wastes from factories having chlor-alkali and mono-sodium glutamate producing plants. …
The International Dimension of Toxic Waste
Disposal:
The Industrial Revolution started in Europe and later found a fertile land in North America. Expectedly, most manufacturing and processing industries are located in these parts of the world. On a yearly basis, these industries produce immense quantities of industrial wastes that are either toxic or radioactive, or perhaps both. Due primarily to the high level of enlightenment among their citizenry, the existence of laws detailing the management procedures of wastes that could constitute immense human hazards, and of course the combined vigilance of law enforcement agents and the citizens themselves, some of the industrial captains have resorted to cheap but dangerous and callous methods of disposing of these wastes. The newly discovered strategy involves transporting these dangerous substances in drums to Third World Countries where they are dumped along their coastal waters or creeks, or sold to agents who are paid immensely for their kind acceptance of these lethal “gifts”. Thus, within the past one or two decades, European and North American countries have, under the pressure of environmental activists, its resorted to dumping their garbage and toxic wastes in the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and South America.
There are a number of known examples of this most dubious and lethal trade in Nigeria and elsewhere within and outside Africa. In August 1987, a Swedish registered ship named Baruluck carrying 1,800 tonnes of industrial wastes left the Italian Port of Mase and later deposited its cargo at the Koko Port of the Niger Delta in Edo State. In September of the same year, another ship, ’Danix’, carrying a Danish flag transported 3,000 tonnes of toxic wastes to the same Koko in Edo State. Then in May, the following year, 1988, a West German registered ship, the ’Line’ carrying 900 tonnes of highly toxic chemical wastes left Pisa in Italy as a result of public outcry for its clearance. It later sailed to the Romanian Port of Sulina where it was refused entry because of its dangerous cargo, but subsequently docked at Koko where it also discharged its consignment of highly lethal ’goods’. An Italian businessman, Gianfranco Raffaelli was the primary agent of this illegal trade. He had acquired a plot of land in Edo State to be used for dumping of these loads of toxic and of toxic
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mosquito coil in various parts of Nigeria. The toxic brands of this coil radio active wastes. Also in 1989 the nation was alerted about the sale Cock, Lion and Tiger were manufactured in Southern China and are known to contain high levels of a toxic chemicals known as DDT. The use of DDT has been banned in the industrialized world but unsuspecting Nigerians apparently patronize its products to safeguard themselves from mosquito bites. Within the past four years, there have also been press reports within Nigeria of imported toxic beef and toxic canned fish.
In August, 1992, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) also received reports of an increasing number of European companies transporting their toxic and radioactive wastes to Somalia where they discharge their deadly merchandise in that country’s territorial waters. Details of the illegal business indicated that one of the Somalis warlords had signed a toxic waste contract with a company called Archer Partners for the construction of a dump site with a capacity of 10 million tones and the construction of an incinerator that would store and burn up 500,000 tonnes of toxic/radioactive wastes annually. The financial income derived from the contract was to be used for the purchase of arms needed to prosecute the nation’s civil war. It is ironic that the so-called patriots in Somalia could so heartlessly expose their people to the dangers of radioactive and toxic extermination. Other Third World countries known to have received shipments of toxic or radioactive wastes include Haiti, Guinea, Zaire, Madagascar, Mauritius as well as some Latin American and Caribbean States.
The dumping of toxic and radioactive wastes in the Third World countries especially of Africa, is as painful as it is invidious. It was most embarrassing to Nigeria, a country that had in recent years campaigned against dumping of toxic and radioactive waste on African soil, to have also fallen victim to the same practice. Professor Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Noble laureate aptly described the incidents of toxic-waste dumping in Africa as “poisoning of a continent” and an extension of the negligent mercenary ruled colonies of the pre-independence era in Africa. He went further to lament on the possible numerous other cases of dumping that have gone undetected by these agents of “undisguished racism” that are apparently protected by the “presumed ignorance, lethargy and cupidity” of Africans. He also
called on civilized nations of the world to help their wayward brothers while similarly noting that:
It is a fiendish joke, much too expensive to accommodate at our expense. The conscience of the world cannot accept the designation of any part of itself as a guineapig, any more than it tolerates the use of the living beings as test materials in germicidal experiments.
On its part, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) has since the toxic waste dumping in Nigeria’s Koko Port in 1988 adopted a resolution condemning the dumping of nuclear and hazardous industrial wastes in any part of the continent as “a crime against Africa and African people”. But given that the OAU lacks any forceful mechanism to practically enforce its resolution, it has merely resorted to speaking with one voice against the perpetrators of such crimes in Africa. Thus it has denounced the toxic waste trade in Somalia and warned that those who engage in the trade in future, would be permanently ostracized for their heinous enterprise. Member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency have also in their 1988 General Conference adopted a resolution by consensus, condemning all toxic and radioactive waste dumping. Similarly, the United Nations General Assembly at its 43rd session, had the member states adopt a Nigerian-sponsored resolution that prohibited the dumping of radioactive wastes for hostile and commercial purposes, especially in the Third World countries. This was followed in 1989 by the Basel Convention that also prohibited the international transport of all forms of hazardous wastes. The measures are all part of the international effort to safeguard the world environment in general and to protect the economically weak from the industrialized countries of the world. However, there are some toxic and radioactive waste syndicates that engage in intimidating environmentally-conscious activists and nationals, as well as, international study groups on environment from making disclosures regarding their illegal activities in different parts of the world. Yielding to such pressures would constitute an international conspiracy in which the rich syndicates are protected against the impoverished people of the Third World.
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Conclusion:
All societies produce waste. But the present rate of urbanization and industrialization has produced varying dimensions of affluence. It has meant a shift from small scale production of arts and crafts of traditional institutions to large scale or mass production of foods and services using tremendous amounts of inanimate energy. Apart from the unusually large space needed to sustain such industrial activities, the end product has always been waste, the associated pollution that inhabitants must endure, and the ever compounding problem of waste management. In our great fascination with the great technological wonders of the whiteman and in our bid to transplant the industrial technologies of the West as well as of North America, we as a people have blindly ignored the more subtle cumulative dangers that are part of the destructive technologies that we unknowingly perceive as the hallmark of human salvation and happiness. In the end, we especially in the Third World, remain the most significant victims of urbanization and industrialization.
The problem of radiation as well as radioactive and toxic wastes is a problem of international dimension. No nation is safely guarded from the lethal rays of a nuclear reactor nor immuned from the effects of accidental leakage or discharge of toxic or radioactive wastes from its sealed containers. The United Nations Environmental Programme must come to the aid of all by setting up standards or criteria for establishing industries that potentially produce toxic and radioactive wastes and defining strategies for the effective management or disposal of all generated wastes. The ultimate aim of such criteria would be to make the world a safer place while the ultimate technology should aim at developing a system that would accept unlimited amounts of waste and safely containing it forever outside human spheres of life.
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Moriber, G. (1978). Environmental Science. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Oni, O. O. O. (1978). Water quality surveillance and treatment. National Water Bulletin, 2, 15.
Udosen, E. D. Udoessien, E., Ibok, U., J. (1990). Evaluation of Some Metals in the Industrial Wastes from a Paint Industry and Their Environmental Pollution Implications. Nigerian Journal of Technological Research, 2, 71 77.
Young, G. J., & Bevins, R. D. (1981). Heavy Metal Concentration in Holston River Basin (Tennessee). Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 10 541 560.
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ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE POLLUTION
By
PROF. A. I. MENKITI
Introduction
Sound is something that we, human beings, must have around us. For us, there is nothing like complete silence. However, the same sound that we need can suddenly change into ’unwanted’ sound, disagreeable sound, unpleasant sound, noise. What changes sound into noise? How are sound and noise related? What is noise anyway?
Before we discuss the answers to these questions, let us examine sound itself, since it is sound that gives rise to noise.
The Theory of Sound
Mechanical disturbances in a material medium result in variations in the pressure of the atmosphere; these variations produce sound waves. The implication is that the resulting vibrations of any material will result in sound provided that there is a material medium to carry the vibrations. Sound does not therefore get propagated in a vacuum.
Sound waves can be classified into two major groups which depend on the condition of the material medium in which sound propagates. When the medium is strained (by pressure) beyond its elastic limit, the sound wave is called a Shock Wave, but when the medium is still within its elastic limit the sound wave is the Ordinary one we encounter.
When a medium is set into vibration, variations in pressure gradually move away from the place of origin and transfer energy from molecule to molecule (of the medium ) without the particles themselves moving. To understand this phenomenon of energy being transferred without the particles of the medium moving, let us imagine that we are at the back row of seats in a football stadium, in the popular side. The seats are usually sloping stairs. We give a little push to the person in front of us and quickly return to our normal position. The person pushed loses some balance, and in trying to regain it, pushes the person in front of him. The process goes on until the person at the edge of the playing field is pushed down. Thus, we at the very back row succeeded in pushing the person in the very
front row without going there to touch him. This ’push and return to normal’ of the molecules of the medium is called Simple Harmonic Vibration of Motion, motion about a mean position. The distance travelled by the wave (front) in one complete period of the vibration or oscillation is called a Wavelength ( ). It depends on the speed, v, of the movement as well as how often or the frequency, f, the vibration is undertaken in one period. This dependence is given by the equation
= v/f (1)
The speed or velocity (speed with direction) with which sound is propagated in any medium depends on the density, p, and the elasticity of the medium. In a gas, such as air, this elasticity depends on the pressure, p, as well as the ratio of the principal specific heats (at constant pressure or constant volume) of the gas . So the velocity is given by the equation.
(2)
It can be shown that the ratio
(3)
Where R is the gas constant and T is the absolute temperature. Hence
(4)
So, the velocity or speed of sound in gas depends on the square root of the temperature of the medium; thus, sound waves travel in different media at different velocities. For example, in air at room temperature, the velocity of sound is 344 metres per second (m/s), 5050 m/s in mild steel, 1200 m/s in lead, 1450m/s in water and 1231 m/s in alcohol.
Sound as Wave Type:
It was pointed out earlier that sound results from the vibrations of a medium. It has also been indicated that apart from the velocity with which the sound wave propagates, the particles of the medium
v =
p
p
v =
p
p
p
p
= RT,
v =
RT
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execute their own simple harmonic vibrations. The togetherness or non-togetherness of these two motions classifies sound as one or the other of wave types.
Where the vibrations occur in a direction at right angles to the direction of the sound wave motion, the wave is said to be transverse. Light and Radio waves belong to this class of waves. Where, however, the vibrations take place along the same direction as the wave motion, the wave is said to be longitudinal. Sound belongs to this class of waves. …
Conclusion
Noise pollution has been defined, and the basic “ingredients” that turn sound into noise, highlighted. The effects of noise on both physical structures and the human being have been explained. It is now obvious that this pollution is one of those ailments that we inflict on ourselves in the name of technological progress.
The abatement is two-pronged. The awareness of the unwanted effects need to be vigorously pursued. If most people joined forces to reduce noise wherever and whenever possible, we would be the better for it. After all said and done the ultimate weapon lies in enactment of a law regulating the emission of noise. When that is done, we can then say rightly that our technological advancement is now having a human face.
REFERENCES
P. H. Parkins & H. R. Humphreys Acoustics Noise and Buildings: Faber & Faber, Lond. 1969.
L. Beranek (Ed) Noise and Vibration Control (McGraw Hill, 1971).
Patrick A. O’Donnell & Charles W. Lavaroni Noise Pollution: Lond. (Addison Wesley, 1971).
K. D. Kryter The Effects of Noise on Man: (McGraw Hill, 1971).
Sound Insulation in your Homes: (British Gypsum; 1972).
Noise in the next ten years: Br. Noise Advisory Council (H. M. Stationery Office, 1974).
Donald F. Anthrop Noise Pollution: (Lexington Books, Ontario,
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1973).
C. S. Kerse The Law Relating to Noise: (Oyez Publishing Co., Lond., 1975).
Control of Pollution Act 1974, Chapter 40 part 3 (H.M. Stationery Office, Lond., 1976).
J. R. Hassall & K. Zaveri Acoustics Noise Measurements: (Bruel & Kjaer) Publ., Denmark, 1979).
A. I. Menkiti Noise in small electric generators: In Nig. Journal of Science, Vol, 24, 1990.
A. I. Menkiti Useful vibrations: In Nig. Journal of Physics, Vol. 2, (1989).
Types of motor vehicles and noise bother correlation (Tropical Journ. Of Applied Sc. Vol. 2, 1992).
A.
I. Menkiti & A. R. Edet The Effects of Infrasound
on Task Performance in
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND
PUBLIC POLICY RESPONSE: A GLOBAL AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVE
By
DR. FRANCIS E. BISONG
INTRODUCTION
We are ever confronted with the reality of the earth as a changing planet. This occurs at varying scales affecting entire components of the earth’s ecosystems such as oceans, atmosphere, vegetation and landmass, including the terrestrial and aquatic biomes, such as forests, savannas, drylands, surface streams, rivers and the wetlands. Pristine ecosystems with rich and highly diverse life forms are therefore being distressed and changing to more impoverished, simplified and lower forms which at best can be considered as shadows of the real.
Environmental changes has global and local dimensions. Those problems of worldwide scale which cannot be contained within national territories, and where the actions of one country may affect others and vice versa (Bisong, 1996) are regarded as problems of global dimensions. These problems include the destruction of the tropical rainforest, loss of biodiversity, destruction of the protective ozone layer, global warming, pollution of oceans, international rivers and regional seas, illegal dumping of toxic wastes, nuclear etc. The more localized problems but nevertheless not less pernicious than their global counterparts with respect to their effects on the ecosystems and livelihood sustenance, are those whose occurrences are usually confined within single national territories, regions or political units. They include deforestation, soil erosion, drought and desertification, air and water pollution, solid and hazardous water pollution, solid and hazardous waste disposal and many more (Bisong, 1996).
The above problems portend grave consequences for the earth’s population and are set at undermining the sustainability of continued human progress at optimum, social, economic and aesthetic levels.
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Combating the above requires policy articulation and formulation at global and local levels. This should take the form of setting up appropriate environmental priorities suitable for mitigating environmental problems at the specified levels of consideration. National priorities in environmental management will differ from those of international concerns, just as environmental priorities for developing countries are expected to differ from those of the industrialized countries.
This chapter is set at examining environmental management priorities and strategies for resolving environmental problems at national (local) and international levels. This it will do by reviewing the relevant policy instruments, framework and strategies that exist at global levels for resolving pressing environmental problems.
2. Dealing
with Global Environment Concerns
The effects of certain environmental problems cross national boundaries. To deal with them, it is more expedient to rely on common principles or agenda and rules of partnership among sovereign or independent states backed up by persuasion and negotiations; rather than rely on a common legal framework, regulatory controls, economic incentives and where necessary the coercive powers of central governments as it is done in individual countries.
We will in this section review a few international legislations and conventions and also review certain strategies in protecting the global environment. This will, however, fairly come on the heels of the nature of global environmental problems.
2.1 Category
of Environmental Issues Requiring International Solutions
Three broad classes of environmental issues require international solutions. The first are regional problems which arise when neighbouring countries share a common resource. This occasionally results in the situation where a country’s action in the use of the resource may affect others. In this category falls most of the common problems of trans-boundary air pollution including rain and the management of international rivers or regional seas.
The second are those considered as the “global commons” in the environmental literature. They represent resources shared in common globally such as the atmosphere and the deep oceans. Actions by any one country impacting such “global commons” do have effects although in rather small ways on all other countries. In this category are included the build up of “greenhouse gases” causing global warming and the thinning of ozone layer caused by the emission of chlorofluoro carbons (CFC). The third category are resources that belong to one country but have values for the international community which are not traded. They include the tropical rainforest, tropical forest biodiversity, special ecological habitats, and individual species (World Development Report 1992).
In view of the nature of global environmental issue reviewed above, International agreements clearly stand out as the best way to resolve environmental problems that transcend national borders.
2.2 Managing
Transboundary Environmental Problems and the Global Commons
2.2.1 Transboundary
Air Pollution Management
Air borne chemicals, pollutants and their reaction products are by the action of wind and cloud carried and deposited in areas beyond the usual sources of emission (Cowling, 1991). The transportation of air pollutants at short or long distance affects large geographical regions (Karrasch, 1983) and results in the pollution of vegetation, soils, surface waters, and engineering or cultural materials in areas beyond the national boundaries of the source of the pollutants.
Sulphur constituents such as SO2 and sulphates, nitrous oxide and photochemical oxidants are common pollutants. Their combined influences particularly sulphur and nitrous oxides make the impact of air pollution to consist of the acidification of soils, lakes and rivers with a number of adverse ecological consequences already discussed.
Transcending air contaminants contribute to the deterioration of air quality which is a constant phenomenon in highly populated and
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And Local Perspective
industrialized areas, and areas adjacent to large industrialized cities of national borders. The German-Dutch border, German Belgian border and the border of German Democratic Republic to Czechoslovakia are examples in central Europe where transboundary air pollution problems prevail (Karrasch, 1983). About half of the sulphur in eastern Canada’s rain originates in the United States (Eckholm, 1981). Although the exchange of pollutants between Canada and the United States is two-way, Canada receives two to four times the sulphur and eleven times the nitrous oxides it sends to the United States. Sweden and Norway are chief losers in Europe in the exchange of pollutants. More than three quarters of the acid that plague their territories come from other countries.
Acid rain and transboundary air pollution are evidently of growing concern to Europe and North America. But wherever these problems occur, the foregoing analysis indicate that the problems cannot be resolved or mitigated by countries acting independently of each other through individual national control programs only. The unpleasant development of transboundary air pollution can only be stopped or controlled by coordinated activities at local, national and International levels. …
REFERENCES
Aina, K. & Salau, A. T. (eds) 1992 The Challenge of Sustainable Development in Nigeria, Ibadan, NEST.
Brakel, M. V. (1992) “Overview of Sustainable Consumption and Environmental Space” Consumers and the Environment Proceedings of the IOCU forum on Sustainable Consumption Rio de Janeiro. Penang IOCU Regional office for Asia and the Pacific.
Braide, V. (2000) “Addressing Environmental Issues in a Democratic Environment” in Uya, O. E. (ed) Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy in Nigeria Calabar, CATS Publishers.
Bisong, F. E. (1994) Environmental Crisis and Agenda for change in West Africa Journal of Research and Development in Education, Vol.3 No.1, 1996.
Bisong, F. E. (1994) Deforestation and the Erosion of Biodiversity in the Cross River Rainforest in Global Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences, Vol.5 No 1, 1999.
Cariolle, D. (1992) Trends in the Ozone Layer in the Courier: Environment and Development No 133, May June 1992 pp 155 59
Cowling, E. B. (1991) “Acid Rain and other Airbone Pollutants: Their Human Causes and Consequences” in Davis, K. and Bernstam, M. S. (ed) Resources, Environment and Population. Present Knowledge, Future Options. New York, Oxford University Press 217- 218.
ECA (1991) Environment Newsletter. A Journal of ECA Environment Programme. Vol.2 No 1. pp.12.
Eckholm, E. P. (1981) Down to Earth Environment and Human Needs New York, W. W. Norton and Company.
The Economist, (1992) The Economist News Paper Ltd., May 30th June 5th.
Karrasch, H. (1983) “Transboundary Air pollution in Europe” in Adams, J. S. (eds) American German International Seminar. Geography and Regional Policy: Resource Management by Complex Political Systems in Selstverlag des Geographischen Institutes der Universitat Heidelberg pp 321
Margan, R. P. C. (1991) Soil Erosion and Conservation New York, Longman
Nest (1991) Nigeria’s Threatened Environment A National Profile. Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team. Ibadan, NEST.
Salau, A. T. (1993) Environmental Crisis and Development in Nigeria, Inaugural Lecture Series No. 13 University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
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Sandbrook, R. (1992) “A Perspective of Northern Life Styles and Consumption Patterns” Consumers and the Environment Porceedings of the IOCU Forum on Sustainable Consumption. Riode janerio penang IOCU Regional Office for Asia the Pacific.
Smil, V. (1990) “Planetary Warming: Realities and Responses” Population and Development Review Vol. 15 Number 1.
Spore (1992) Coming Together to Save the Earth, June 1, Vol. 139 No. 22 USA
World Bank (1990) Report No 9002 UNI Towards the Development of An Environmental Action Plan for Nigeria. West Africa Dept, The World Bank
Strong, M. F. (1993) Achieving Sustainable Global Development Facing the Challenge South Centre, Geneva:
The Report of the South Commission (1993) The Challenge to the South. The South Commission
World Development Report (1992) Development and the Environment. The World Bank, Oxford University Press.
World Resources (1992) A Guide to the Global Environment Toward Sustainable Development New York, Oxford University Press.
WWF (1991) Forest and Climate Change WWF Special Report Number 6.
PUBLIC HEALTH AND TECHNOLOGY:
SELECTED EVENTS AND APPLICATIONS OF
TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC HEALTH
By
Professor Igbo N. Egwu
Department of Public Health
Faculty of Laboratory & Allied Health
Sciences
College of Medical Sciences
University of Calabar
Calabar8
INTRODUCTION1.
1 Overview: The subject of public health is as vast as that of technology. This chapter seeks to examine the role or application of technology in solving public health problems. Rather than explore the complexities of public health and technology, this essay will pursue, with selected examples, the linkage between theory, laboratory and field applications of technology.
The key words pertaining to the topic of this essay will be defined mainly in the context of the definitions of public health and technology.
Public health has been defined as the combination of science, practical skills, and beliefs that are directed to the maintenance and improvement of the health of all the people. Public health activities change with changing technology, but the goal remains the same: -- to reduce the amount of disease, premature death, and disease produced discomfort and disability in the population (Sheps, 1989). Technology is more than just machines. It is a pervasive complex system whose cultural, social, political, and intellectual elements are manifested in virtually every aspect of our lives (Teich, 1981:1).
1.2 Scope
of the Essay
Considering the vastness of public health, and the pervasiveness of technology, we shall confine our discussion to examples in which the subjects of public health and technology meet at an interface where they interact to a practical purpose. For
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example, a seemingly simple procedure of salt-sugar-solution (SSS) has been aptly interpreted as one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century, because it is a health intervention that saves the lives of children and adults in danger of dehydration due to diarrhoea. How this simple health technology, otherwise known as oral rehydration therapy (ORT) works to control dehydration is discussed below. It is illustrative because it is a good example of appropriate technology in health care delivery.
Another example of technology in public health is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Immunisation Programme. Immunisation is the practical field application of the technology in which molecular biology starts from theory through the laboratory bench to vaccine. The discovery and use of microscopes (including the electron microscope) made easier the growth and understanding of the nature of pathologic processes associated with disease -- a necessary prerequisite for rational preventive measures.
1.3 Public
Health
The classic definition of Public Health was offered in 1920 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow, who was the central figure in the development of Public Health at Yale University (USA). Winslow was a strong advocate of a broader viewpoint of public health. His definition became the best known and most widely accepted because of its relationship to other fields. He defined Public Health as:
... the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promotion of health and efficiency through organised community effort for:
- the sanitation of the environment,
- the control of communicable infections,
- the education of the individual in personal hygiene,
- the organisation of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease,
- the development of the social machinery to ensure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health, and
- organising these benefits in such a fashion as to realise his birthright of health and longevity (Winslow, 1920:183; Yale University Bulletin, 30; Hanlon and Pickett, 1984:4; Egwu, 1996:3).
Twenty-eight years later, in 1948, the World Health Organisation (WHO) defined Health as: “... a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). This definition of health has been faulted on two grounds: first, the concept of “complete ... well-being” is seen as utopian. For example, how often does anyone truly feel a complete state of well-being? (Ewles and Simnet, 1985:5). It has been further argued philosophically that, life and living are anything but static; and that health means having the ability to adapt continually to constantly changing demands, expectations and stimuli (Ewles and Simnet, 1985:5).
1.4 Scope
of Public Health
Until relatively of recent, public health, as was the case prior to the 19th century, concerned itself with general sanitation, control of nuisances and infectious disease. Today, public health includes all the aspects of Winslow’s 1920 definition. In historical perspectives, the evolution of public health may be classified into three philosophical views - classical, modern and contemporary (Egwu,1996:11). These views are represented in Fig.1. The classical view covers the period from Hippocrates through the 19th century. It was concerned almost exclusively with nuisances, hazards and communicable diseases. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the horizons were extended and influenced by the radical thinking of the era, championed by social reformers such as Edwin Chadwick in Boston, USA. Public health progressively evolved into community health or “community medicine” -- a terminology coined by Rudolph Virchow, the pathologist-sanitarian (Banta 1979:1-13). The discoveries of great bacteriologists, Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the observations of epidemiologists, John Snow and William Farr, also played significant and early role in defining public health. The extension of the horizon of public health into modern public health or community medicine/community health covers disciplines such as health services, health behaviour and promotion, environmental health, etc. (Egwu, 1996:13). Community health/community medicine was further amplified by the Alma-Ata Declaration (WHO, 1978) to form contemporary view of public health. This new public health broadly engenders:
- Education for health;
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- Promotion of food supply and proper nutrition;
- Adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation;
· Maternal and child health care (family health), including family planning;
· Immunisation against infectious diseases;
· Prevention and control of endemic diseases;
· Treatment of common diseases and injuries; and
· Provision of essential drugs.
Thus, the term ’public health’ may be used to represent the individual views described above, or it may generically stand for all of them. Therefore, public health is practically and functionally categorised into seven areas (Hanlon and Pickett, 1984):
I Public
health activities that must be conducted on a community basis
· Supervision of food, water, milk and medications
· Insect, rodent and vector control
· Environmental pollution control, including atmospheric
and aquatic pollution control, prevention of radiation
hazards and noise abatement.
II Public
health activities designed for prevention of illness, disability or premature
death:
· Communicable diseases including parasitic infections;
· Dietary deficiencies or excesses;
· Behavioural birders, including alcoholism, narcotic addition;
· Mental illness, including mental retardation;
· Neoplastic diseases;
· Cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases;
· Metabolic diseases;
· Home, vehicular and industrial accidents;
· Occupational diseases;
· Dental disorders; and
· Risks of maternity, growth and development.
III. Public health activities related to comprehensive health care (PHC):
· Promotion of development, availability and quality of health, personnel facilities and services;
· Operation of programmes for early detection of disease.
IV. Public health activities concerned with collection, preservation, analysis and use of vital records.
V. Public health education and motivation in personal and community health.
VI. Comprehensive public health planning and evaluation.
VII. Public health research - scientific, technical and administrative aspects.
In most of these functional categories of public health, there is extensive involvement or application of technology. Detailed discussion of this is beyond the scope of this essay.
1.5 Technology
Technology has been defined as systematic knowledge and action, usually industrial processes but applicable to any activity. It is related to science and engineering and deals with the tools and techniques for carrying out plans. The relationship of technology to science deals with human understanding of the real world around us (McGraw-Hill: Science and Technology). However, this definition of technology appears to be rather restrictive. A more practical definition is that technology is the science of application of knowledge to a practical purpose, which has to do with applied science, and may be seen as scientific method of achieving a practical purpose. It is this latter definition that also defines the context in which the import of many examples of technology in public health lies, it will also guide the illustrative examples of technology in public health which we shall consider.
From this perspective then, the National Health Policy of Nigeria (FMOH, 1988:43) borrows the philosophy, content, application or direction of its policy. The national policy on health technology stipulates, inter alia that: “the most appropriate
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technologies
shall be selected for use at all levels of the health care system. Particular
care shall be taken to identify the most cost-effective technologies and to
maintain them at the highest level of efficiency (FMOH, 1988:43; 1996:52). One
example of appropriate technology in health, which has found almost universal
acceptability in
4.3 Philosophical
Implications of Genetic Screening and Counselling for Public Health
Genetic screening offers diagnostic or predictive information which can assist us to prevent some anions that would produce infants with some forms of inherited disorders. More active interventions would require applications of genetics that our present understanding does not permit (Last, 1987:9). From a philosophical standpoint, some scholars consider genetic counselling under determinism (Petersen, 1998:59). According to Alozie (2001:164), “determinism is the notion that phenomena, events or things have cause and could be predicted”.
Petersen (1998:59) critically examined the new kind of public health in which the health of the populations is defined by freedom from risk of genetic diseases. He discusses some of the implications of the increasing use of the technologies of genetic counselling in the fulfilment of public health objectives.
The preponderant views among geneticists are believed to uphold the pre-programmed destinies. It is further held or implied that “DNA defines who we are and who we can be” (Petersen, 1998:60). The implication of such a position is that genetic influences are immutable, and that biology is minimally affected by social or physical environment, or by culture.
The premise on which genetic rests is that science will eventually reveal all there is to be known about the human body, behaviour and biology. Thinkers like Hubbard and Wald argue that, to uphold such a viewpoint amounts to reductionism (Hubbard and Wald, 1993). It should be realised that genetic information is complex and difficult to interpret and that experts may differ on the significance of test results. Petersen concludes that:
Genetic diagnosis and genetic counselling are rapidly becoming taken-for-granted features of public health practice, and new genetic therapies are on the horizon. It is important that the implications of the new genetics be thoroughly appraised and become a focus for future work in critical public health.
5 CONCLUSION
The goal of public health is to reduce the amount of disease, premature death and disease-produced discomfort and disability in the population (Sheps, 1989). Technology is a pervasive complex
system which affects every sphere of human endeavour or existence. It manifests in cultural, social, political and intellectual aspect of our lives (Teich, 1981:1). Professor Winslow’s definition of public health captures its essence as a preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative multi-disciplinary endeavour.
Virtually all areas of public health activity whether community-based, prevention of illness, comprehensive health care (CHC), research, and technical, are amenable to application of technology. However, for the present purpose, selection of examples was guided by appropriateness and direct impact of a given tool or discovery on public health. For example, advances in the discovery of microorganisms, understanding of the nature of viruses, depended on the discovery of microscopes. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), extended the horizon of the light microscope beyond limits never imagined.
Genetic screening and genetic counselling concern public health. They assume that DNA defines who we are and who we can be (Petersen, 1998:60). It therefore assumes that biology constitutes a discoverable reality beyond our immediate perceptions, and thus shapes both our health and our behaviours. However, Peters (1997); Alozie (2001); Petersen (1998) and others are deeply concerned about the implication of determinism to public health. A preemptive appraisal of the implications of the impact of technology on public health regardless of its diagnostic and predictive values, is urgently needed.
With special respect to selected applications to public health, technology may be more than just machines. Sometimes, technology involves apparently simple ways of solving health problems; for example, the discovery of salt-sugar solution, which has proven to be invaluable in the control of dehydration due to diarrhoea. In other instances, public health has benefited from sophisticated technology. For example, an appreciable amount of technology is involved in the development of vaccines. There is also a web of discoveries and inventions, which provide significant break-throughs before vaccines can be developed and administered to protect us against certain infectious diseases. Indeed, these related activities were often separated by wide spans of time (Table 1). For example, the microbial agent of rabies was discovered around the
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middle of 1800s by Pasteur, while the vaccine was produced in 1881. The typhoid organism was discovered in 1880 by Gaffky and vaccines against the disease was developed in 1896. This technology still has limited application. Between 1884 and 1889, tetanus organism, one of the “killer” diseases of children and pregnant women, was discovered. But anti-tetanus serum (ATS) was produced in 1890, while the toxoids, which produces lasting protection against the disease, was developed in 1933 over 40 years later!
Landsteiner discovered polio virus in 1908, the first vaccine was developed 46 years later by Jonas Salk; while the vaccine now commonly in use against poliomyelitis was developed in 1961 by Sabbin. Similarly, the vaccine against measles was discovered by Enders in 1954, and was licensed for use in 1963.
The discovery of the light microscope facilitated the study of bacterial agents of disease; while the discovery and study of viral agents were enhanced and accelerated by the invention of the electron microscope, ultrafiltration, tissue and organ culture techniques.
Such unavoidable technological lag periods and the cumulative biomedical knowledge have resulted in recent advances in biotechnology and have spilled over to genetic diagnosis and counselling of public health significance. In spite of their usefulness, issues bordering on determinism and ethics have been raised by a number of scholars including Porter, 1980; Petersen, 1998; Alozie, 2001. The implications of their concerns to technology in public health have also been adequately highlighted.
On balance, the proven advantages of technology in public health convincingly outweigh the philosophical skepticism advanced against them. As in other spheres of the application of technology to human affairs, caution is clearly advocated. Nevertheless, the selected examples of technology in public health cited in this essay eloquently uphold a healthy relationship between technology and public health.
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Nelson, C. M., Sutanto, A. and Suradan, I. G. P. (1999), Use of Solo Shot autodestruct syringes compared with disposable syringes in a national immunization campaign in Indonesia, Bulletin of the World Health Org., 77(1):29.
Petersen, A. (1998), The new genetics and the politics of public health, Critical Public Health, 8(1):59-71.
Porter, I. H. (1980), “Genetic Aspects of preventive medicine” in Last, J. (1980), Maxcy-Rosenau Public Health and Preventive Medicine, New York: Appleton-Century-Croft, pp.1409-1419.
Sheps, C. G. Higher education for public health: a report of Milbank Memorial Fund Commission, New York: Prodist 1976. Cited in Lats, J. (1989), Public Health and Human Ecology, East Noralk, CT: Appleton & Lange, p.6.
Scott, J. (1993), “Molecular genetics of common diseases” In British Med. Journal, Basic molecular and cell biology, London: The BMJ Publ. Grp., p.71.
Teich, A. H. (ed.), Technology and Man’s Future, New York: St. Martin’s Press, p.1.
WHO (1978), Primary health care: report of the International Conference on primary Health Care Alma-Ata, Geneva: WHO, pp.1-79.
WHO Scientific Group (1983), Viral vaccines and antiviral drugs (Technical Report Series 693), Geneva: WHO.
WHO (1988-1989), Programme for control of diarrhoeal diseases - severe programme report, Geneva: WHO, p.1.
Winslow, C. E. (1920), The untilled field of public health, Mod. Med., 2:183.
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, SOCIETY: A FRAMEWORK
FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY
Umoren, Grace (Mrs). Ph.D
Scientific Literacy
Scientific literacy has been defined by numerous observers of the educational establishments as including reference to science for citizenship and concern for the knowledge of science with some attention to the process of science (Daugs, 1970, Agin, 1974); ability to read and comprehend popular scientific literature and even scientific journals (NSTA, 1971, Ogunniyi, 1987), as a science culture (Ajeyalemi, 1983); scientific enlightenment (Hurd, 1970), science related attitude (Akindehin, 1985), the habit of scientific thinking (Null, 1933), the spirit of science (Educational Policies Commission, 1966).
Early definition of scientific literacy were more introspective. NSTA (1964) defined a scientifically literate person as one who:
Knows something of the role of science in society and appreciates the cultural condition under which science survives and knows the conceptual inventions and investigative procedures. A scientifically literate person understands the interrelationship of science and society, ethics which controls a scientist, the nature of science which includes basic concepts and the interrelationships of science and humanities.
In the NSTA position statement the scientifically literate person:
(a) Uses science concepts, processes, skills, and values in making everyday decisions as he interacts with other people and with his environment.
(b) Understands that the generation of scientific knowledge depends upon the inquiry process and upon conceptual theories.
(c) Distinguishes between scientific evidence, and personal opinion.
(d) Identifies the relationship between facts and theory.
(e) Recognizes the limitation as well as the usefulness
of science and technology in advancing human welfare.
(f) Understands the interrelationship between science, technology, and other facts of society, including social and economic development.
(g) Recognizes the human origin of science and understands that scientific knowledge is tentative, subject to change as evidence accumulates.
(h) Has sufficient knowledge and experience so that he can appreciate the scientific work being carried out by others.
(i) Has a richer and more exciting view of the world as a result of his science education.
(j) Has adopted values similar to those that he can use and enjoy science for its intellectual stimulation, its excitement of inquiry.
(k) Continues to acquire and increase his scientific knowledge through out life.
In Nigeria, the works of Bajah (1975) and Ogunniyi (1982) underscores the need to develop the scientific literacy of the students in order to produced a well informed all-round development, well balanced individual through adequate science education programme. It is for this reason that, Ogunniyi (1986) declared that any nation that refuse to give scientific literacy to her youth is doomed to obsolescence. He perceives the all-embracing influence of science in nearly all facets of human endeavour and thus concludes that no nation can be considered great without science and technology.
Technological Literacy
Technological literacy is the acquisition of a wide knowledge of technology both from school and environment with the necessary attitudes (ethics), skills (processes) and relevant physical abilities necessary to apply the knowledge and skills gained in a safe, appropriate, efficient and effective manner. It is technological literacy that grooms individuals to be able to perform tasks using tools, machines, materials and processes of technology, and to be able to function effectively in the world which is filled with a collection of hardwares, softwares and other technological
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products.
Technological literacy is defined by certain characteristics. Dyrenfurth (1987) categorized the characteristics of a technologically literate person into three domains: the cognitive, the affective and the psychomotor.
Thus in the cognitive domain the characteristics of a technologically literate person are:
(a) Awareness of key processes and their governing principles (What is it and how does it work?).
(b) Understanding of essential relationship among key areas of technology.
(c) Ability to conceptualize/know unfamiliar technological processes or machine operation.
(d) A sense of personal limits (when to call in an expert).
(e) Familiarity with technological effects on individual and society.
(f) Ability to evaluate a technological process or product in terms of personal benefit as a consumer.
(g) Insight as to the relationship between careers and the technological future.
(h) Ability to project alternative future based on technological capacities and application.
(i) Knowledge of technological information, accessing methods and sources.
In the Affective domains, the characteristics include:
(a) Comfort with basic technological hardware (willingness to use tools, machines and materials).
(b) Imagination to apply existing technology to new problems or situations.
(c) Ability to evaluate a technological process or product in terms of personal benefits as a consumer.
(d) Ability to choose among technological alternatives in daily life.
In the psychomotor sphere, the characteristics include:
(a) Ability to use technological artifacts (tools, machines, materials and processes) to commensurate with one’s stage of development.
(b) Ability to use technological artifacts (tools, machines,
materials and processes) to commensurate with one’s role in life.
The significance of technological literacy is graphically enunciated by Dyrenfurth (1984) in these excerpts:
Technology is the essence of the economy of what we call “developed” countries. Absence of technology leads to our euphemism of developing countries. Not only does technology play a pivotal role in our economic world, it also determines the extent to which we can defend ourselves and in a large part, the level of our quality of life. It is a significant focus of the recreational activity of millions and the cornerstone of a healthy future. Because of its acknowledged importance, technology carries with it considerable responsibility and even threat. Misuse of technology are well known to forecasted doom precipitated by mankind’s use/abuse of technology. Therefore, it would seem that the hope, for a future in which people are in control of their environment lies in universal technological literacy or the ability to do and to use technology not science and most especially on technology itself. In order to accomplish human resource development, a large proportion, if not all of our societies need to be relatively competent with technology. Technological literacy is the foundation for such competence. Additionally, technological literacy is the basis for flexibility in the future. It assists people to control and assess technology, to adapt to the dynamism of society and to contribute to the advancement of its capabilities. Technological literacy enhances entrepreneurial capacity, assists individuals in making more informed and rational occupational choice, helps to bring about better citizenship, increases consumer and personal effectiveness and make possible better defence.
Both scientific and technological literacy are twin components necessary for the production of a very “attentive” and well informed citizen capable of making rational decisions concerning science and technological related social problems. Just as scientific literacy has been found to be necessary for the growth of individuals and nations, technological literacy as an adjunct scientific literacy is seen as the embellishment capable of producing an all-round development of the citizenry.
Goals of Science Technology-Society
Literacy
The conceptual framework for scientific and technological
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literacy defines the aims of science and technology in society according to knowledge (product), skills (process), values (ethics).
An overall assessment of the conceptual framework suggests a programme that is built towards personal and social goals
representatives
(leaders) to utilize their mental resources (common sense) in resolving
issues. The purpose of all public
education is to encourage informed and rational citizen participation in the
democratic process. The citizenry cannot
be fully integrated into the democratic process if they lack the essential
knowledge of civic concerns. Most
legislative bills are connected in one way or the other to science and
technology. Students need to be
educated on the type of issues they will be required to resolve as future
citizens in the adult society. They also
need to be aware of the benefits to society of their participation in the
democratic process. Suggested issues in
this area include problems such as renewable and non-renewable resources,
energy options (long/short terms), population control, and environmental
quality of homes, schools, local government areas, states, nation and world. …
REFERENCES
Agin, M. L. (1974). Education for Scientific Literacy. A conceptual frame of reference and some application. Science Education, 58(3), 403-413.
Aikenhead, G. S. (1980). Science in Social Issues: Implication for teaching. A discussion Paper. Ottawa, Science Council of Canada.
Aikenhead, G. S. (1987). Science-Technology-Society. In K. Riquarts (ed.). Science and Technology Education and the quality of Life (volume 23). Kiel: Institute for Science Education (IPN).
Ajeyalemi, D. (1983). The nature of Scientific knowledge and its understanding by participants at a science leaders’ leaders’ workshop: An exploratory study. Education and Development, 3(2), 253-263.
Akindehin, O. (1985). The effect of Scientific literacy on science teaching among some pre-service Science Teaching. An unpolished Ph.D Thesis, University of Ibandan.
Bajah, S. T. (1975). Preparation of the Secondary School Teachers of the Physical Science for the African Environment. West African Journal of Education, xix, 85.
Broody, H. S. (1969). Science and human value. The Science Teacher, 36, 23-28.
Bybee, R. W. (1985). The Restoration of confidence in Science and Technology Education. School Science and Mathematics, 85, 95-108.
Daugs, D. R. (1970). Scientific literacy re-examined. The Science Teacher.
De’Sautels, J. (1982). What sort of Science education for what sort of society. In Quebec Science Education: Which Direction.
51-60. Proceeding of symposium sponsored by the Science Council of Canada Ottawa: Science Council of Canada.
Dyrenfurth, M. J. (1984). Literacy for a technological World. Information Series No. 266, The National Center for Research in Vocational Education, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.
Dyrenfurth, M. J. (1987). Technological literacy. A model for society’s most urgent imperative. A paper presented at the International PATT 2 (Pupils Attitude Technology Conference) Nottingham, U.K.
Educational Policies Commission (1966). Education and the spirit of Science. Washington, D.C. National Education Association.
Hurd, P. Deh. (1985). Scientific Enlightenment for an age of Science. The Science Teacher, 37, 13-15.
Hurd, P. Deh. (1985). Update on Science Educational Research: The Reform Movement. California Science Teacher Journal, 16-19.
Kessen, N. (1964). Statement of purpose and Objectives of Science Education in Schools Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2,3-6.
National Science Teachers Association (1964). Theory into action. Washington D.C. NSTA.
National Science Teachers Association Committee on Curriculum Studies (1971). K-12 School Science, Education for the 70s, the Science Teacher, 38(8), 46-51.
Null, V. H. (1933). The Habit of Scientific thinking. Teachers College Record, 35, 1-9.
Ogunneye, J. A. (1989). The effect of Scientific literacy programme on Scientific literacy, Information Processing and Scientific decision making of prospective Science Teachers.
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Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
Ogunniyi, M. B. (1982). An analysis of prospective Science Teachers Understanding of the Nature of Science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 19(1), 25-32.
Ogunniyi,
M. B. (1986). Teaching Science in
Africa. Salam Media (Nig.) Ltd. Ibadan.
Ogunniyi, M. B. (1987). Conception of Tradition Cosmological Ideas among Literate and Non-literate Nigerians. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 124(2), 107-118.
Watson,
J. (1980). “Science for Survival’ In:
McFadden C. P., (ed.) World Trends in
Science Education. Halifax, Canada, Atlantic Institute of Education.
PLANNING, FOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
IN A TYPICAL NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY
By
Dr.
Mrs. Julia D. Omang
Introduction
The activity that is concerned with the development of short or long-range guides that will optimally use the best available resources to achieve specific objectives is a good description of planning. It is the preparation of a set of decisions, decisions that are future oriented and concerned with proper and most effective use of limited resources for achieving objectives. Planning involves drawing experience from the past to assist with the setting up of goals that are immediate and intermediate in order to provide a baseline for the forecast of what is to be done in the future.
Technological revolution is transforming every sector of society in the entire globe. Nigeria cannot remain aloof of all these developments. The transformation is in sectors that go from manufacturing to construction and from agriculture to the service sector. Greater efficiency is being brought about, so also is precision, variety, as well as speed.
In the early 1980s, the National Universities Commission, a body responsible for monitoring of universities’ academic and physical development, established Academic Planning Units in the Nigerian University System. Academic Planning in itself is a continuous and collective process of taking informed decisions affecting the future of academic development in the university.
To keep pace with the rest of the world, science and technology must of need form an important aspect of the academic course content of any university of the developing world. And as education is regarded as the most effective agent of change, a typical Nigerian university must design programmes that will create an enabling environment for a science-and-technology driven orientation.
This chapter therefore seeks an examination of a typical Nigerian university, as all Nigerian universities must plan for a movement in the direction of science and technology. To achieve this, the paper will be broken down into parts that will examine the
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underlisted areas:
(a) Planning and its essence
(b) Planning in the university system
(c) Science and technology and the relevance to development
(d) Problems of planning for science and technology in a Nigerian university.
(e) Planning for science and technology development.
(F) Some recommendations from the discourse:
Why Planning?
There is a saying that when you take action without planning, then you have planned to fail. Reasons for planning may be summarized to include the following:
(a) The optimal utilization of resources that are scarce, for goals attainment.
(b) Obtaining maximum cooperation and contribution of stakeholders for the overall attainment of objectives, objectives that are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and timed, in the spirit of SMART.
(c) In planning, future changes must be anticipated and provision made in the planning process for foreseeable problems. Take the example of a typical Nigerian university like the University of Calabar. The master plan of the university which covered a ten year development period from 1975-1985 made a projection of an estimated population of ten thousand students; having started in the 1973/74 session with 157 students. By 1985, the population had reached a whopping 15,000 students and 27,000 in 2005 not counting the 23,000 population of part-time students sharing the facilities with the regular students, facilities which have not grown correspondingly with the almost out of hand population growth.
(d) Planning makes possible a sense of direction, answering questions about ’where do we want to go, where are we moving from, and at what pace do we want to move and at what time do we expect to reach our goal?; are some indicators for planning.
(e) Planning helps to reduce conflicts, helps the operators to avoid random and rash decisions and reduces, if not completely eliminates, duplication of efforts.
(f) Because of uncertainty of availability of resources, that uncertainty calls for planning to avoid even a greater uncertainty between allocation and the outcome of the use of such scarce resources.
(g) As in all project execution, there is usually a long list of alternatives, Planning becomes necessary to arrive at a decision that is rational. Should the university introduce five new academic programmes in the year 2005 or is it more sensible to consolidate existing ones introducing one new one each year for the next five years, could become a relevant question in a planning driven system.
(h) To measure input and output in the business of education, for example, quantifying the same is usually difficult, planning therefore helps to minimize wastage.
(i) Planning is a feature of the knowledge society, it stands to reason to say that the university is such a society.
Planning in the Nigerian University System
As already mentioned above, Academic Planning Units were introduced in the University System in the early 1980s. When the National Universities Commission established this unit in Nigerian universities, the move was made in response to the need to coordinate and streamline the academic policies and activities in Nigerian Universities. Before this time, there had been a sudden and sometimes uncoordinated growth and development in the university system. Units and programmes were being proliferated. The need for planning also arose from the dire necessity to address the problem of data collection and the need for an orderly development in the country’s university system.
According to the Implementation Committee on the Nigerian National Policy on Education (Blueprint, 1979),
’Educational
Planning is a continuous process of analyzing
facts, and from empirical base, of providing information to decision
makers on how well the education
system is accomplishing its goals in particular, and how the
cost effectiveness of education
programmes and specific projects can
be improved.
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Planning in the university system which will be referred to in this work as academic planning, is the process of preparing a set of decisions about the academic development of the institution in such a way that the goals and purposes of the university can be sufficiently realized in future with the resources that are available for such development. Some schools of thought have described it as a continuous and collective exercise of foresight in the integrated process of taking informed decisions affecting the future academic development of the university.
Planning, it is true, is not altogether new in the Nigerian university system. Universities like the University of Ibadan established in 1948 and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Lagos, University of Ife and Ahmadu Bello University, that had come on stream by 1965 could not have emerged without some form of planning. Academic planning, however, has only been given greater focus in view of the contribution that it can make to the orderly development of a university, hence the insistence of the National Universities Commission that even second generation universities which had been established without approved Academic Briefs and Strategic Plans have to produce both documents for future development and expansion.
The need for orderly academic and physical development in the Nigerian university system has become even more urgent with the dwindling resources available for university education against the mounting number of young school leavers seeking places in the 52 universities in the country, both government and privately-owned. There is an overdependence on government finances for education. With competing demands for other goods and services and decline in the national income (nose dive of the naira not helping matters either), government can no longer fund her institutions adequately. There is need therefore for careful planning; for prudent use of scarce resources among other benefits that can be derived from planning.
Planning in Nigerian universities is urgent and inevitable if the needs of the country are to be adequately tackled in line with our twenty first century world. President Obasanjo could not have sounded more anxious for such a realization when, in an address at the three-day first ever Nigerian Universities Research and
Development Fair (NURESDEF) organized by the National Universities Commission he stated;
’The
modern Nigerian University must have the capacity
to capture and recapture the essence of that
glorious world where knowledge and research
rule’.
He had gone on, on that occasion, to stress that the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is aware that investment in university education, strategic as it is for achievement of National self-reliance, will not be complete unless it is complemented fully with the production of quality research output for national development. A science-and-technology driven university system must necessarily be so oriented.
This observation coming from the government gives credence to the dire need for strategic planning in the Nigerian university system. Further clarion calls at the NURESDEF were for the organized private sector to have a stronger link with the universities. The present trend of universities over-dependence on government for funding would be thereby reversed. Investors should forge partnership with the Nigerian universities so that the latter can be encouraged to carry out quality research in order to be properly positioned to compete favourably with their counterparts anywhere in the world in the quest for technological development.
Universities in Nigeria, the call continued, must build the desired confidence and capacity to attract partnership with private investors.
There is no better way of answering these calls but that adequate planning must be the watch-word of the Nigerian university system.
What method is to be adopted?
There are three distinguishable phases in the university planning process, viz, strategic planning, (mentioned earlier as a current condition for approval for opening of new universities in Nigeria), operational and management planning, performance monitoring and budget planning.
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Problems with Planning
While considering planning for science and technology in a typical Nigerian university it is pertinent to note the general problems associated with planning especially as it pertains to the Nigerian situation.
i. Free communication flow is virtually absent. How to make the very urgently needed contact in the planning process is virtually non existent. Telephones hardly work (no prejudice to the only recently introduced GSM which is still battling with connectivity problems) while internet services are still very limited and expensive to provide.
ii. The desirability for change not withstanding, the Nigerian society, not unlike many societies in the world, is very resistant to change. We are used to having it done this way, people would generally protest.
iii. In planning, there is usually a long list of alternatives and decision on choices is an instrument of conflict.
iv. Even within an institution, in the University of Calabar, say, conflicts with regard to priorities among diverse aims and objectives arise. A typical example is the case, in 2003, where the Governing Council Chairman insisted on the establishment of a Faculty of Engineering against university management’s position that it was more urgent to consolidate existing programs than to establish new ones, considering the lean funds available to the university.
While admitting that problems do exist and will continue to be so in planning, some school of thought would in the circumstances advise that the university;
(a) set out objectives of the plan in clear and simple terms.
(b) collect information and statistical data that are relevant to the objectives of he plan
(c) develop alternatives that are both reasonable and practicable while allowing a good measure of flexibility
(d) take a democratic approach, allowing input from all the stakeholders, and in the case of the university that should include parents and students.
(e) timing of the plan is very crucial to implementation being right and adequate. …
The How’s and the Wherefores of Science and
Technology
in Nigerian Universities
The expression that no nation can rise above the level of her education at system has been over flogged in discussing education in Nigeria. It is therefore not for want of knowledge of the reasons why the system continues in the doldrums of falling standards that the country continues to be characterized with. The saying that investment in knowledge always pays the best interest is a saying credited to the great American, Benjamin Franklin. As if to re-echo Franklin’s sentiments so many years after, Dr. Okonjo-Iwala, the Minister of Finance here in Nigeria is reported to have exclaimed that no nation in today’s world has been able to accumulate material wealth and improve the quality of life of its citizens without ensuring that for the country to become an industrialized and advanced nation, the citizens must be given at least twelve years of schooling while investing the better part of its resources in education. Gladly she is in the area of control of finance. Does that translate to cheering news to operators of the Nigerian university system?
It is the opinion of Okonjo-Iwalla, the Nigerian Minister of Finance, that it is these many years of schooling and training that make for the production of a skilled workforce. It is her expressed view that without a skilled workforce, it is difficult to create conditions which lead a country to accumulate more, efficiently allocate what resources have been so accumulated, and encourage the growth of productivity.
The True Picture
The development of technology in Nigerian universities leaves much to be desired. In a recent exercise initiated by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on the Carrying Capacity of Nigerian Universities, it was found that the availability of computers for students’ use is not very far from a zero percent in many of the Universities. Where such facilities are available, the ratio of one computer to students is so lopsided in favour of zero that it can be said to be as good as having none.
(NUC 2005 Carrying Capacity Survey in Nigerian Universities)
There are Science Departments in Nigerian universities where programmes in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Computer Science, are run without properly equipped laboratories. In cases where some equipment are available, what is there to say of a computer laboratory of seventy computers for a class of a conservative number of two hundred students.
Some Efforts
The National Universities Commission, in November 2004, organised the first ever Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF). At the opening ceremony of the fair, the President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo instructed that the modern university should be in a position to capture and recapture the essence of a world where research rules. The Nigerian university teacher would have jumped for joy if the President had added on that occasion that the Federal Government would do what Okonjo-Iwala said is indeed best practised, i.e., invest heavily in education.
NURESDEF was the opportunity for Nigerian university administrators who are under constant stress from under funding to hear the President call on them to complement government’s efforts, efforts which I believe need improvement, by undertaking and producing quality research in space science, power and energy, biotechnology, oil and gas, agriculture and food production. The president told a gathering of over 5,000 visitors who viewed the 592 projects presented by 43 participating universities that the challenges he was presenting on that occasion fall within the framework of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy NEEDS and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as enshrined in the New Partnership for Africa’s
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Development (NEPAD).
The Direct Teaching and Laboratory cost grants recently introduced to the university funding regime is a step in the right direction. The NURESDEF as an annual event is a challenge to Nigerian universities. Those of the universities which were not among the 43 participating universities in the 2004 event have one full year to plan their own participation in the next event. The ranking in the fair turned out with:
(a) University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (UNAAB) 1st Prize = N1,000,000.00, plus a plaque.
(b) Obafemi Awolowo Univesity (OAU), Ile Ife 2nd Prize = N750,000.00, plus a plaque.
(c) Federal University of Technology (FUTO) Owerri 3RD Prize = N500,000.00, plus a plaque.
State Universities
(a) Olabisi Onabonjo University, Ago Iwoye 1st
(b) Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso 2nd
(c) Cross River State University of Science and Technology (CRUSTECH) 3rd
Private Universities
(a) Bawen University Iwo 1st
(b) Benson Idohosa University, Benin City 2nd
(C) Madonna University, Okija 3rd
It is only to be expected that the accolades received by the nine wining universities will be an incentive not only for them to retain if not improve upon their positions, it would also encourage other universities to be listed in future.
The Introduction of NEADS
The take off of the Nigerian Experts and Academics in Diaspora Scheme (NEADS) introduced by the National Universities Commission (NUC) is a welcome development in the consideration of planning for Science and Technology in a typical Nigerian university. Experts and academics of Nigerian origin in diaspora for whom the scheme is aimed have their quota to contribute to the Nigerian university system. Their programmes will be delivered by
short-term academic appointments to be arranged by the National Universities Commission. The world acclaimed scientist, mathematician/physicist Professor Gabriel Oyibo, has become the first participant of the Nigerian Experts and Academics in Diaspora Scheme (NEADS), having attended the inaugural event flagged of in Abuja on 25th November, 2004.
The objectives of NEADS have been given by the commission’s Executive Secretary to include the following:
(a) To encourage the movement to Nigeria on a short-term basis of academics and experts of Nigerian origin (of which they are many) to contribute to national development through engagement in teaching, research and community service activities in the Nigerian university system.
(b) To tap from the huge human resources of Nigerian origin based within and outside the country but located for the purpose of work outside the university system, for the improvement of the delivery of university education;
(c) To encourage healthy staff movements, interaction and collaboration across and between Nigerian universities and with other sectors of education and national development.
That a Nigerian of world wide scientific repute, Prof. Gabriel Oyibo, flagged off the NEADS scheme gives a great boost to the scheme. His visit to and presentation of papers at the Ahmudu Bello University, Zaria, the Kogi State University, Anyimbga, the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, the University of Ibadan, the University of Port-Harcourt, and the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, was quite revealing both to his understanding of universities in Nigeria and in exposing Nigerian academics to his GAGUT theorem and matters related to it. Nigerians are able to contribute to the on-going global discussions on the controversial theorem thanks to the NEADS flag-off by NUC. His Unified Theory is supposed to unify the four known forces of the universe (Gravitational, Electromagnetic, Strong and Weak Forces) the report from the NEADS Conference states …. The report continues that the Grand Unified Theorem of Prof. Oyibo, produces a set of unified equations from which Yang-mills equation, other physical equations and in general mathematical equations which have ever been known to human beings, can be recovered. The report has it that the solution seems to mathematically represent the modification
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of space-time structure predicted by Einstein’s general relatively theory. Prof. Oyibo has been nominated for the Presidential Medal of Science and The Nobel Prize awards, with the nominations supported by distinguished professors from prestigious universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Oyibo has also been selected by the Cambridge International Biographical Centre (IBC England) as the International Personality of the year 2000-2001 having been awarded the Cambridge IBC’s 21st Century Award for Achievement.
Nigeria’s 4 Specialised Universities
Four Universities of Science and Technology are to be established by the Federal Government. These are to be located in Minna, Yola, Bauchi and Akure. Justification for their establishment is said to have been given as the need to ensure the speedy transformation of the science and technology sub-sector of the country. The science and technology of such universities requires them to showcase the result of their research work to justify the huge government investments on them.
Government’s movement towards science and technology in the university system is a move in the right direction. What remains to be said is an expression of the hope that the momentum will be sustained. If the importance of funding has anything to do with implementation of plans, there is need to take a deep breath and hope that this will not go the way of many other well meaning projects, schemes, and proposed programmes which have failed woefully for lack of funding and determined intention for success.
When in 1976 the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme was launched, it was the pride of the nations future, in the same way that the establishment of the four specialized Universities of Technology recently announced by the Federal Government can be rightly described as the sure hope of Nigeria’s future development in science and technology and a booster to research and development. But how long did the glorious thought of the UPE last? A short lived experience indeed.
It is felt by some schools of thought that the President ignored the causes of the abysmal failure of the UPE Scheme and with only a change of name, he launched the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme in September 2000, stressing, as reported,
that “we cannot afford to fail thus” obviously with the failed UPE Scheme only in mind. It was only shortly after that the reality of the true situation, viz, that schools are staffed with armateur teachers who have inadequate qualifications mocked the programme. Is it the case, one may well ask, that Nigeria seems to be operating with a principle of maximising quantity at the expense of quality? To establish four specialized Universities of Science and Technology is a good take-off for technological advancement. Creation of man-power needs in the area would be one of the first fall-outs of the scheme. But the Nigerian university which today draws up an academic briefs based on the outcome of the expected products of the four new universities of science and technology may be counting her eggs which may never hatch; recall the problems with planning as discussed earlier, viz., that funding may not be forthcoming in plan implementation especially when there is disagreement between financiers’ divers aims and objectives.
Take a typical case of the science based disciplines in the University of Calabar, Nigeria. The analysis on Teacher/Students Ratio (TSR) presents as follows:
Table 1(a): Full Time
Teaching
Units
Agric
Medicine
Science
Soc. Sci.
Mgt. Sci.
PROJECTED
ACTUAL
NUC
Guidelines
No. of
Students
No. of
Teachers
TSR
No. of
Students
No. of
Teachers
TSR
706
2,109
11,848
2,357
2,355
78
222
211
96
58
1.9
1.9
1:56
1.25
1.14
557
1,809
9,633
2,728
2,281
64
185
139
76
44
1:9
1:10
1.69
1.37
1.52
1:15
1:10
1.20
1.30
1.30
Comment: The above analysis shows that the teacher/student ratio is not in line with approved guidelines in the science, social sciences and management sciences disciplines. (Calculations based on 10% growth rate for Nigerian Second Generation Universities) [my own statement].
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The above table shows that the addition of part-time students to the various teaching units did not improve the teacher student ratios.
[The figures are taken from NUC report of the 2004/2005 analysis of University System Annual Review meeting with University of Calabar.]
Comment: The table above shows shortfall of staff of all categories except junior staff. Efforts should be made to adhere to the recommended teacher/student ratio in academic category, please.
From the comments in the two sets of figures 1a and 1b and 2a and 2b, it is obvious that there is a contradiction. It is clear that the University is understaffed in most of the science-based disciplines as commented by the supervising agency, NUC. The same body comments in figure 2a that more money than is approved is being spent on staff emoluments while commenting that there is a shortage of staff as shown in figure 2b as well as tables 1a and 1b which show failure to meet the NUC guideline on teacher/student ratio in major science disciplines. This is bad for planning, any planning, and no less so for science and technology as the university would normally be in a dilemma as to which way to go. To appoint more staff would be to overshoot even further the 60% maximum recommended for personnel emoluments, and yet ’ … efforts should be made to adhere to the recommended teacher/student ratio in academic staff category, please’, as the comment on the University of Calabar presentation concluded.
The Nigerian universities are looking forward to the signing of the Nigerian Universities Autonomy Bill. They are
Teaching
Units
Agric
Medicine
Science
Soc. Sci.
Mgt. Sci.
PROJECTED
ACTUAL
NUC
Guidelines
No. of
Students
No. of
Teachers
TSR
No. of
Students
No. of
Teachers
TSR
1:15
1:10
1.20
1.30
1.30
Table
1(b): Full Time and Part Time Students
Enrolment
706
2,181
12,901
6,346
7,834
78
222
211
96
58
1.9
1.10
1:61
1.66
1.135
616
1,840
11,395
7,343
7,321
64
185
139
74
44
1:10
1:10
1.82
1.99
1.66
Comment: The table above reveals that the university has actually been expending less than the 40% of its funds on goods and services while it has been overshooting the 60% maximum recommended for personnel emoluments. Efforts should be made to adhere to the stipulated percentage.
Table 2(a): Total Salaries and
None Salary Personnel Emoluments
NSPE Vs. Total Goods & Services
1
2
3
4
5
YEAR
TOTAL REC.
ALLOCATION
TO THE
UNIVERSITY
(N)
TOTAL
SALARIES
& NSPE
(N
(2) AS %
OF (1)
TOTAL
COSTS OF
GOODS &
SERVICES
(N)
(4) AS %
OF (1)
2001/02 Actual
2002/03 Actual
2003/04 Budtd
2004/05 Est’d
1,539,940,626
1,432,903,606
3,765,448,794
4,198,533,191
1,563,247,465
1,322,462,167
2,691,789,780
2,904,824,161
101.5
92.3
71.5
69.2
533,814,365
533,519,130
1,644,342,383
1,841,249,030
34.7
37.2
43.7
43.9
NUC G’Line (%)
60 max
40 min
Table 2(b): Staff Numbers of All
Categories
YEAR
ACADEMIC
STAFF
SENIOR
TECHNICAL
STAFF
SENIOR
ADMIN.
STAFF
JUNIOR
STAFF
2001/02 Actual
2002/03 Actual
2003/04 Budgeted
2004/05 Estimated
ACTUAL (Table 9)
NUC GUIDELINE
EXCESS
SHORTFALL
670
753
1059
1047
914
945
-
31
284
322
663
392
162
282
-
120
569
631
988
834
684
739
-
55
1,597
1,459
2,215
1,765
1,671
4345
2674
-
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looking forward to a time when the National Universities Commission will continue to be the quality assurance umpire, controlling delivery of quality education, while universities work to meet the needs of the community which they are by their statutes expected to render service to, and at the same time, fulfil the obligation of teaching and research.
Thankfully, it is reported about Nigeria that in the scientific community, a new generation of able and confident leaders are coming forward despite the brain-drain. Indigenous investment is taking place and countries like Nigeria are in the midst of over-hauling their colonial era research infrastructure with the help of Japan and UNESCO. The leaders of Nigeria and South-Africa are reported to be showing a willingness to turn their countries around and under NEPAD, they have also agreed to evaluate each other’s performance in an effort to expose corruption. With this scenario, universities, the right settings for R&D should experience a new lease of life in science and technology development.
TOWARDS MEANINGFUL PLANNING FOR SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
The National Universities Commission, the regulatory body of the Nigerian university system has taken bold steps in recent years to reposition the Nigerian University systems in the face of global competition, and promote the quality of university education.
The introduction of the Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF), the Nigerian Experts and Academics in Diaspora Schemes (NEADS), Best Practice in University Teaching (BESPUT) Database of Experts in Higher Education, merger of Minimum Academic Standards (MAS) for Post Graduate Programmes, Nigerian University System Merit Award, the reintroduction of Teaching and Research Grant, and more, are all pointing in the direction of repositioning the Nigerian university system for the challenges of the 21st century, a century where science and technology is the principal agent of national development.
In all these introductions the typical Nigerian University has been offered a place for its own development with incentives for participation in the spirit of best practices and the development of knowledge. The ability of the Nigerian university to adopt and adapt to these challenges for their prospects for science and technology development lies in their ability to plan effectively.
THE CHALLENGE
Okafor (1981) gave the timely warning signal that ’within the past decade, the world has been confronted with a new reality. This new reality is increasingly prevailing upon the civilized man to re-examine some of those assumptions which hitherto he had kept revered and watertight. The condition of the globe has changed at a fantastic and sometimes fascinating rate. And the change together with its concomitant effect cannot be ignored, no matter how hard one tries to do so.’
If in 1981 the global changes were described as being fantastic and fascinating, the 21st century global changes answer even more of such descriptions. With the dramatic acceleration of globalisation brought about by the huge advancement in science and technology, especially in information and communication technology (ICT), the Nigerian university needs indeed to position itself to meet the challenges of this age.
Clark (2003) could not have put it better when he stated that promoting sustainable development institutions that can integrate what have too often been what he describes as the ’islands empires’ of research, monitoring, assessment and operational decision support. Nigerian universities have this challenge before them.
THE WAY FORWARD
Recommendations
1. If any nation, including Nigeria, is to become relevant in the committee of nations in the 21st century, blind technology, in the words of Ezenibe (2004) must be eschewed and a focus directed to the type of education, particularly appropriate science
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and technology education that will lead to technological development. Science and technology must be seen for what it really is, a major tool for development. Any country that must move along with the rest of the world must design an educational system that is technology driven.
2. The National Universities Commission is a body established by statute by the Federal Government of Nigeria, to supervise the development of higher education in Nigeria. That body should co-ordinate a review of academic brief in all Nigerian universities in line with the Best Practice in University Teaching (BESPUT) programme to include academic course content that provide adequately for science and technology oriented disciplines.
3. If education is that aggregate of ideas, methods, institutions, facilities and personnel designed and deployed by society to teach its members how to get through life by doing or by pursuing and realising set goals, then the climate for pursuing such goals must be made conducive. The provision of decent living conditions, neat and spacious lecture rooms, well-equipped laboratories and libraries, would create such an atmosphere. Nigerian universities should have these facilities.
4. It has been said that an investment in education always pays the best interest. The Nigerian government should invest in education insisting on best practices and due process in the disbursement of funds, checking wastage in governance and allowing adequate funds for education.
5. The carrying capacity programme introduced by the National Universities Commission should be vigorously pursued to ensure that admission should have a bearing on the carrying capacity of the Nigerian university. This would help check the lobsided teacher/students ratios seen in the tables presented in an earlier part of this chapter.
6. The National Universities Commission (NUC) should be well funded and encouraged to carry out its plan to establish a centre of excellence in one university each to cover the six geopolitical zones. Success in this and other S & T programmes as well as R & D efforts require ample funding for any positive results.
7. The widening economic gap between nations is said to be linked more and more to the corresponding gaps in science and technology (S&T). Funding is crucial to Research and Development (R&D) which should not only contribute more effectively to economic development and influence emerging national policies, but should pave the way for a technology driven advancement. Government should increase Teaching and Research (T&R) allocation to universities.
8. In calling for increased funding, there is need also to stress the importance of putting researchers and policy makers (government) on the same page as suggested by Matsamura (2005), who in stressing that point laments concerning research reports:
They
gather dust on the desks of journalists and bureaucrats after having been opened with reluctance,
and closed with speed. Months of work may have gone into their production; but all
too often, the only use for
these weighty tomes seems to be
as door steps.
To this, Chowdhury adds in the same report that for various reasons, policy makers do not use research results while making policy. It is suggested strongly that for reasonable S&T in Nigeria, R&D must be accompanied by placing researchers and policy makers on the same page.
9. A fundamental need for development of S & T and R & D is to have partnerships in the exchange of people, ideals, and support facilities. Nigerian universities and research institutes need to enhance their own relevance to society by developing partnerships and cooperative relationships with the local community and with industries and national research facilities. As recommended by the World Conference of Science, University of Natal 1998, the university should be open to meet the needs of local industries who should provide funds for research, and should also update their research programmes to meet the practical needs of the society. They should have the objective to promote sustainable science and technology research
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and development.
10. Report of an International Workshop on Science, Technology and Sustainability held in Italy from 6th to 9th February, 2002 has put forward some recommendations which include:
(a) expanding the use of new tools and their products such as high-quality Global Information System (GIS) and remote sensing imagery. These tools, the report stresses, must become more accessible to allow developing countries to understand, and learn to manage and preserve their natural ecosystem. The report further stresses that one of the more reliable and economical means of monitoring is to have satellite information that will allow assessing real-time changes of vegetation cover and other ecological indicators. This report is a good signal for the Proposed Department of Marine Science now running programmes in the Institute of Oceanography at the University of Calabar.
(b) Encouraging linkages between foundations, universities, industry and conservation organisations that support distributed networks, knowledge creation and sustained exchange of scientific information.
11. Due to poor funding, overseas conference attendance appear to have been scrapped since the mid nineties in most Nigerian universities. Where some funding is available, applicants have, in Universities like Calabar, been required to provide 25% of the cost of such conference attendance. The result had been no attendance at all. Government should increase funding for staff development to make way for conference attendance, book publication, advanced studies overseas and sabbatical and research leave, local and international training and retraining of university academic staff. This will keep the academic spirit alive for the growth of science and technology.
12. Universities must ensure judicious utilisation of allocated funds to meet the research development needs of the university.
13. Individuals, companies and industries should be encouraged to institute awards that would promote research and development in the Nigerian university systems.
14. The handout syndrome, now gradually becoming extinct in most universities, should indeed be stamped out. Students should be encouraged to make use of the university libraries for research. Handouts spoon feed students with limited and sometimes indigestible materials and scuttles their inquisitiveness that should encourage research.
15. Strikes in the Nigerian university system have taken a toll on the credibility of the Nigerian graduate. They are destructive of the educational standard and disruptive of the academic calendar. Strikes should be avoided and discouraged.
16. Adequate funding will bring about commensurate facilities including those of good working and studying conditions, good libraries for research, funds to subscribe to foreign journals, availability of internet services to access virtual libraries across the world, attend conferences both local and international. It would make for exchange of views for cross-penetration and fertilization of contemporary relevant information that teachers can give to students. Government must fund education adequately.
17. Information and Communication Technology must be taken seriously. All Nigerian universities should have internet services.
18. If as a country, Nigeria synchronizes her return to seriousness, as Omaigui (2004) puts it, with the almost complete commoditization of high technology, and make the information age the centrepiece of our economic policy for the 21st century (using the universities as the gateway of course) Nigeria’s reincarnation might arrive sooner than expected. But still, he laments that;
It
is hard to be optimistic about Nigeria. The economy
is in tatters, the country’s infrastructure is
in a state of abject ruin, the standard of living has plummeted, and the middle class has seemingly gasped
its last breath after withstanding
years of progressive assassination. The
country’s brand mirrors corruption and international
fraud. The Nigerian passport reeks
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of
criminal signature, as anyone who has dared advertise
it at international airports can attest. The
Nigerian intelligentsia has fled the country’s shores,
unwittingly improving the economies of foreign
lands, while lamenting the state of the motherland
in periodic dose evidence yet of non- zero emotional attachment. The civilian power pipeline is infested with mediocrity, as
looters of yore, salivating to
remount the graft pulpit to scrape
off what little paint remains on the royal walls,
armed with nasal capacity strategically reserved
for opportunities hence. Any sense of self-belonging
has been eroded by decades of incompetent,
venal leadership. Ethnic divisions have
resurfaced with manic vengeance. Morale is low.
19. There are numerous Nigerian intellectuals in the best schools, institutions and corporations around the globe who in the aftermath of the country’s derailment, cowered into seclusion. These could be fished out through foreign embassies, and invited back to salvage the country for the purpose of rebranding and national development. The NEADS programme of NUC is in this direction and should be encouraged and expanded.
CONCLUSION
The Nigerian university system came to a realization of the indispensable role of planning as an important tool of successful development when in the early 80s the planning units were created in all Nigerian universities.
This essence of planning becomes even more relevant in the 21st century as aptly posited by Ventura (2004) that the effective application of knowledge is the answer to the social dislocation in our hemisphere, referring of course to Africa. Such knowledge is best produced, he further stresses, by science and technology. He concludes that when this knowledge is applied with decency, respect, and trust, it becomes an inspiring tool for development.
In this chapter the essence of planning has been stressed giving reasons which a creation of a sense of direction, reduction of conflict areas, more judicious use of lean resources, minimization of waste, among other justifications for the position of planning as a feature of the knowledge society to which the universities belong.
Science and technology are the tools for development in the 21st century world. Science and technology is of essence for countries like Nigeria if development is to take place. It was posited out in this chapter that the widening gap between Africa and other underdeveloped nations of the world and other countries of the developed world is explicable and linked more and more to corresponding gaps in science and technology.
It was noted that there are problems with planning in Nigerian universities which are manifested in the poor communication system, general resistance to change and risk taking, conflict of interests which affect decision making, lack of adequate funding of education by government, overdependence on government for funds, among many other obstacles. There is also the need for universities to be open to meet the needs of local industries who should provide funds for research, pointing out that universities should update their research programmes to meet the practical needs of the society.
Note was taken of some efforts that are being made as exemplified by the November 2004 first ever Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF) where the President called on universities to position themselves to capture and recapture the essence of a world where research rules. The National Economic and Empowerment Strategy (NEEDS) and the Nigerian Experts and Academics in Diaspora Scheme (NEADS) were all noted as efforts in the direction of Science and Technology development.
Although the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria, in an apparent appreciation of the urgent need for science and technology development has proposed the establishment of four new Universities of Science and Technology, there is the doubt that governments own seeming sincerity could be thwarted
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by corrupt officers, poor funding and lack of will of policy makers who refuse to be placed on the same page with researcher.
There is need for Nigerian Universities to see science technology for what it really is, a tool for development and so to move along in a 21st century best practice manner is to be. Plan adequately for service delivery in the university that has science and technology as its focal point.
Although the world’s poorest continent, Africa of course, is rightly at the top of the global agenda in the year 2005, that agenda needs to be set by Africa with the outside world playing a supporting role not the other way round. Nigerian universities should take the challenge.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Denga, D.I. (1991). Nigerian Education, Proposals for a Smooth Voyage to the year 2000 and Beyond. Rapid Educational Publishers, Calabar.
Ezenibe, S.U. (2004). Nigerian Education and the Age of Globalization. Chapt. 9 in Education for Sustainable Democracy: The Nigerian Experience. Okon Edet Uya et al., edited University of Calabar Press.
Hidayat, Banbang (2003). Teaching Science in Indonesia: Synthesis of Issues. In Teaching of Astronomy in Asia Pacific Region. Bulletin No. 20. pg. 35 39.
Okafor, F.C. (1981). Philosophy of Education and Third World Perspectives. Brunswick Publishing Company. Lawrenceville, Virginia.
Udoh, et al Ed. 1994
ARTICLES/PAPERS
Africa (2005) in Nature Vol. 433 Issue No 7027
Clark, W. (2003) Institutional Needs for sustainability science (posted to the initiative on Science and Technology for sustainability (ISTS) web site, 20th Sept. 2003)
Ejike, R. (2005) Why The Virgin Nigeria Deal should survive. The Vanguard Newspaper 4th Feb. 2005 Page 38 and 41.
Matsamura, K.M. (2005). Bridging The Gap Between Research and Policy Science & Development Network (Features Article)
NUC HOLDS First Ever Varsities Research Fair. In NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: CHRONICLE. Vol. 12 No. 2. pg. 1-2, 10-11.
Okebukola, Peter (2004). The State of Nigerian Universities In Nigerian University System. Vol.12 No.I pg.1-2.
Okereke, B.O. (2005). Interview on The State of Education in Nigeria. In ’Speak On The Side of The Poor’ No.4, June 2004 June 2005. p.30-31 and pg. 34.
Ventura, A.K. (2004). Co-operation Is Key To Scientific Growth In The America’s Science and Development Network Opinions.
World Conference on Science for The 21st Century, A New Commitment, 1998. The Development of Science and Technology in Africa.
List of Contributors
Uka, E. M. (Rev) (Ph.D) is a
distinguished Professor in the Department of Religious Studies,
Toyo, Eskor, (Ph.D) is a
renowned Professor of Economics (formerly of the Department of Economics,
University of Calabar)
Inyang-Abia, M. E. (Ph.D) is
a Professor in the Institute of Education, University of Calabar.
Uche, S. C. (Ph.D) is a
Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Calabar.
Bisong, Francis (Ph.D), is
an Associate Professor, in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning,
University of Calabar.
Andrew-Essien, Elizabeth,
(Ph.D) is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Cross
River University of Technology (CRUTECH). Calabar.
Egwu, Igbo N. (Ph.D) is an
eminent Professor in the Department of Public Health, University of Calabar
Alozie, Princewill (Ph.D;
LL.M) Editor, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy & Acting Head, Dept of
Religious Studies and Philosophy, University of Calabar.
Anijah-Obi, Franca (Mrs)
(Ph.D) is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Education, University of
Calabar
Menkitu, I. A. M.Sc; Ph.D (London) is a Professor in the
Department of Physics, University of Calabar
Omang, Julia D. (Mrs) Ph.D
is the Director of Academic Planning, University of Calabar.
Umoren, Grace (Mrs). Ph.D;
is an associate Prof. in the faculty of Education