Koushan Rostamzadeh

Question1
According to the book called The Myth of Global Chaos by Yahya M. Sadowski, the percentage
of civilian deaths is following: WWI 14%, WWII 67%, and Iraq 95%.1Although there is no
information about Vietnam War, it is quite close to the percentage from the reference given us to
analyze. According to "Peaceaware," the percentage follows as WWI 10.74%, WWII 50.62%,
Vietnam 85.74%, and Iraq 92.89% (The Iraq war is counted in the year of the range from 1992).2
Again it is almost the same to the given percentage. There are several reasons that make sense
for this percentage. One is technological development in the world. In World War I, this is the
start that military forces were made, such as airplanes, tanks, and submarines, and powerful
weapons were born 3- e.g. bombs and toxic gas-. After the World War II, those weapons got
more highly developed to enhance their power with the aim of killing, and commonly air
bombings started being used as an efficient method.3 Additionally, chemical weapons might have
enhanced the number of deaths widening the range of influenced area, poison gas in Vietnam
War, for example. For another fact, in the early twentieth century, around the WWI and WWII
era, the aim of war involved those who are in connection to military and political matters.4
However towards the Iraq war, the target aimed at the people more than military bases,5 and
mass killing got easier to happen because of the weapon efficiency.
The reason of the difference among those numbers shown in the beginning probably comes from
how deaths of civilians are counted and to what extent can be called as civilian. It is said that
usually these followings are some of the confusions to make a decisions: injuries, killed, those
who die before or after the war, whether indirect events during the war count, and those refugees
outside the country.6 Also, since war involves nationalism, it is common to underreport the
number of deaths so that it helps the country to expand the power of the nation.3 For these
reasons, the difference of the percentage occurs, but the overall result remains the same since it
ignores a small difference in number. Therefore it can be true to the given percentage.

Yahya M. Sadowski, The myth of global chaos (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1998), 134
Peace Aware,last modified February 27, 2003, http://peaceaware.com/documents/factsheets/War_is_Civilian_Death.htm
3
Modern War and Civilian Causalties, AntiWar.com, accessed July 29, 2011, http://www.antiwar.com/orig/worden.php?articleid=10427
4
Adam Roberts, The Civilian in Modern War, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 12 (2009): 16, accessed July 29, 2011,
doi:10.1017/S1389135909000026.
5
Adam Roberts, The Civilian in Modern War, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 12 (2009): 50, accessed July 29, 2011,
doi:10.1017/S1389135909000026.
2

Adam Roberts, The Civilian in Modern War, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 12 (2009): 20, accessed July 29, 2011,
doi:10.1017/S1389135909000026.
6

Question 2
Global Warming is a forever issue involving social, economical, and humane matters. Green
House Gases, more specifically, Carbon dioxide (CO2), is probably believed to be the biggest
cause on earths warming. It is true that the increase amount of CO2 emitted from fossil fuels
enforces the increase of temperature on the earths atmosphere.7According to Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is said that 95% of global warming results from CO2
emissions from the fuels.1 However, there are some debates that the majority of the causality is
not from CO2 with the fact that over the history of earth, there was a time it was warmer than
present with no correlation with CO2.8 Beside this, there are other important facts that should be
considered regarding Global Warming. One probable cause is land-use. According to Charles F.
Keller, as the figure 6.2 shows almost close to zero for effects on the warming,9 it is insisted that
the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) does not contribute to the warming effect based on the
various comparisons.10 Against this, M.L. KHANDEKAR, T.S. MURTY, and et. al. suggest the
importance of UHI. According to them, IPCC underestimates the land-use effect by the
contribution of less than 0.06C on the warming effect, which Keller follows this idea, but actual
impact is 0.27C per century and 0.18C in the 25 year period,11 which is significant amount
over the temperature increase. It makes sense that urban area and high industrialized and
popularized area increase the temperature of the atmosphere because of its high emission of
green house gases. Another possible effect is solar activity. Again, Keller suggests that to
contribution of the overall warming relates to the sun until 1980.12 He continues that there is no
higher energy from the sun measured; therefore it is not reliable to link the solar activity to the
Global Warming. Against that, it is said that 78% of the warming was caused by the sun in 1885
and 1987, and the figure shows that the cosmic ray emitted from the sun actually more correlates
to the temperature flax than CO2.13 It is very interesting that those two researches show different
graphs about the cosmic ray flux: one shows the big correlation to the warming, and the other
shows a small effect from the ray. Therefore it might need more research on this issue. The third
one is water vapour. And this is the only thing that the both researches agree upon each other.
Keller claims that water vapour could be the major contribution to the Global Warming by
increasing the temperature by about 33C , and also it gives positive feedback of warming up the
atmosphere in cahoots with CO2.14 According to KHANDEKAR, it is water vapour and CO2
that absorbs solar radiation which is the source for the warming effect, and moreover, water
vapour is stronger than CO2; its absorption and holding time is powerful.15 Considering all there
three, water vapour can be a significant component to think about in relation to the Global
Warming and probably, we would come up with new ideas for protecting the earth from over
warming.

Charles F. Keller, Global warming: a review of this mostly settled issue. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 23 (2009) : 644.
M.L. KHANDEKAR,T.S. MURTY, and P. CHITTIBABU, The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science, Pure appl.
geophys. 162 (2005):1568.
9
Charles F. Keller,663.
10
Charles F. Keller, 647-648.
11
M.L. KHANDEKAR,T.S. MURTY, and P. CHITTIBABU, 1570-1573.
12
Charles F. Keller, 657.
13
M.L. KHANDEKAR,T.S. MURTY, and P. CHITTIBABU, 1574-1575.
14
Charles F. Keller, 659.
15
M.L. KHANDEKAR,T.S. MURTY, and P. CHITTIBABU, 1562.
8

Question 3
Conscious experience must be done through the process of thinking. Thinking is processed
through any possible senses humans have, brains, and memories. It is said that if the person sees
X, and understands the fact of X, which is Y, then it can be thought that the person is conscious
of X.16 For the problem that there are two of "me"s, from the same blueprint, I think it is possible
that both of them are "me", if they can think and be aware of things they see.
I would say that being conscious is supposed to mean the situation when a person knows what he
or she is doing at the moment, and every affair will be stored into short- or long-term memories.
In this case, one of "me" should not be able to do this process, and the other "me" is capable of
doing that. If one of "me" can think, then this "me" should have all the past memories, and be
able to remember. But the problem that can be raised here is about unconsciousness. It is agreed
that humans evolved with limitations in learning which involves conscious activities; however, it
can be argued that when humans are in the state of being unconscious, it is hard to tell what we
are exactly doing, that is, we do not know if we are unconscious; therefore we cannot fully
conclude that conscious experience can be considered when we are fully aware of what we do.17
Taking this into account, it is possible that even if one of "me" does not remember anything
because he has been in a state of unconscious mind, that does not mean that he cannot be a real
"me." And if one of "me" has been frequently conscious about things, and the other "me" has
been mostly unconscious for what he has been doing, then the conclusion would be the former is
a real "me." This should not be right because consciousness cannot easy be apart from
unconsciousness. Therefore it is difficult to determine which one of me is me.
However, if we believe that mind only exists on one individual and that would be against the
idea of having two real mes. But again, it is arguable that we might not be able to say this mind
belongs to who since we do not know where mind exists. Additionally, the mind also involves
thinking process, which brings back the conscious problem previously talked, and the discussion
would circulate on and on. From these considerations, it is difficult to decide which one is the
real me based on the mind activity.

16
17

Fred Dretske, Conscious Experience, Mind, New Series 102 (1993): 265.
John Storrs Hall, Self-improving AI: an Analysis, Minds & Machines 17 (2007) : 255