Is European foreign policy workable Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Is European foreign policy workable - Essay Example Other civilizations were characterized as having achieved the phase of development which Europe itself had already passed - for instance, hunting-gathering; farming; early civilization; feudalism; contemporary liberal-capitalism. Europe was the only part of the world which had reached the last phase. Hence, Europe was always believed to be responsible for technological, cultural and scientific progress which are the parts of the contemporary world. Moreover, scientific principles developed for better understanding the world were thought to have replaced certain religious doctrines with respect to the pure logic of European science. The degree to which the world science 'belongs' to Europe is still debated. Furthermore, it would be important to refer to Marx (Smith, Sandholtz, 1995), who studied the issue carefully. In his opinion, European hadn't had any innate superiority, but he nonetheless claimed that European model of the world is followed in many other countries and is characterized as a pattern of scientific attitude towards the world in whole. Europe was the place, where the world 'policy' emerged - in particular, the Ancient Greece, where policy was a main model of governing. Other writers explored certain issues and aspects of European hegemony, for instance, the development of trade and the issue of imperialism. "By the late 19th Century the theory that European achievements arose from innate racial superiority became widespread: justifying slavery and other forms of political and economic exploitation, even being used to validate genocide" (Ginsberg and Smith, 2005, p.41). Europe, where the phenomenon of policy emerged, is probably the conceptual political center of the world - this fact can be exemplified by a number of international organizations, which determine European foreign policy and influence each European country in pacrticular. Nowadays, European foreign policy is a subject of numerous discussions, since it seems controversial due to the number of organizations created in Europe over the last few decades. The greatest and most influential international political organization is European Union. The main values of European Union were clarified by Michael Emerson, who influenced the upgrade of European Constitutional Treaty. The treaty is directed to achieving a stronger position in the European Union with respect to the 'high' world politics. European Constitutional Treaty has already been ratified by twenty-five member states of the union.According to the Constitutional Treaty, Emerson draws out the ten standards of European Union. The great est values include the domination of democracy, rule of law and human rights; the 'four freedoms' (basic human freedoms) (Smith, Crowe, 2006). Furthermore, Emerson highlights the importance of social cohesion, the abhorrence of nationalism, multi-tier governance, stable economic growth, multiculturalism, multilateralism and secularity of governance (IGCC Policy Paper No. 52, 2000). Among the

Case study of Elextra-Quik

Case study of Elextra-Quik In Elextra-Quik, the manufacturing manager, Barbara was very happy about her job of problem-solving team leader and her team did a lot of efforts to contribute companys empowerment campaign. But when they were ready to implement the new ideas, they found not only the top manager Martin, but also the middle level managers resisted the ideas. Therefore, this case leads to questions-how a company change to be a learning organisation? What can Barbara do to continue her ideas in the company? In following part, this paper will answer these questions based on three questions. How might top management have done a better job changing Electra-Quik into a learning organisation? What might they do now to get the empowerment process back on the track? According to ECU study book (2011), learning organization is an organization in which everyone is engaged in identifying and solving problems. The characteristics of learning organization are creating shared vision, team-based structure, employee empowerment, share information, participative strategy, adaptive culture and so on. In order to build a learning organization, the whole levels of company staff need to contribute. Firstly, the top management plays the most important role for transfer organization into a learning organization. They need to do a better job on introducing the plans about changes carefully and deliberately. According to Samson Daft (2009) management is the attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manger through planning, organizing, leading and controlling organizational resources. So the top management is the maker of companys strategy. They guide the direction of where should company go. When there is a change within organization, some problems can not be avoided, such as resistances from lower level staff. So top management does a good job on introducing change is necessary. They need to introduce the plan in detail to make staff and middle managers to better understand the plan. They can show the evaluation about the advantages and benefits of the change to employees. With that, the plan can be accepted by everyone in the company. In Electra-Quik, Mart in needs to keep enthusiastic all the time and support Barbaras ideas in order to make Barbaras plan can be accepted in the meeting. Secondly, in the process of building a learning organization, the middle level managers and employees also play an important role. Middle level managers are the links between top management and employees; they monitor the changes, collect the feedback of changes and report the effects of changes to the top. Employees conduct the changes and provide the feedback to tops. Generally speaking, in learning organizations, participative strategy emerges bottom up as well as top down. Top management shape the vision and direction, and middle managers and employees support and believe in. They are committed to the vision and contribute to the development of strategy (Samson Daft, 2009, p.59). In Electra-Quik, middle manager should evaluate Barbaras ideas even Martin is absent for meeting and transfer the ideas to their staffs. In order to get the empowerment process back on track, Martin needs to step first. He needs to understand Barbaras ideas again and do a personal appraisal. Then on the companys meeting, he should support Barbaras ideas and support her ideas when Barbara explaining the changes. Also he needs to consult with managers and empower employees to resolve the problem, as well as providing the training. With Martins efforts, the middle managers may change their ideas to support Barbara and conduct the changes in whole organization. Also, Martin can implement self-directed teams as the solution. Self-directed team refer to a multi-skilled cross-functional group of employees who share responsibilities for producing service of product (Rockfordconsulting, N, D). In Electra-Quik, Martin may set up some self-directed teams to conduct the empowerment process, and then they can share the responsibility to get the process back on track. Question 2: Can you think of ways Barbara Russell could have avoided the problems her team faced in the meeting with department heads? Middle management jobs have undergone dramatic changes over the last two decades (Samson Daft, 2009, p.24). Many organizations were expected to downsize their middle managers and slash management levels to become more efficient and facilitate decision-making process and to better adapt to the changing environment as well. The department heads are not favor of this empowerment campaign since they are used to managing the flow of information up and down the hierarchy. But todays middle managers should be responsible for the horizontal network for now most work is organized around teams. In addition, the trend in recent years has been towards wider span of control as a way to facilitate delegation (Samson Daft, 2009, p.37). Compared with tall structure, the flat structure has a wider span of control and is horizontally dispersed, which means it has less hierarchical levels and therefore the organization is able to better respond and adapt to change. Thats why the company initiates the empowerment campaign to let employees more involved in the decision-making process and assume more responsibility and enhance the collaboration. In such a structure, it is easier to build the self-directed teams since more authority and responsibility can be delegated to lower managers and employees. However, the department heads are likely to feel anxious and even threatened by new empowerment campaign. According to Samson Daft (2009, p.373), the attempt by the top management of the empowerment usually gets the deadlock because middle managers are unable to delegate. The possible reasons can be listed as following: They are accustomed to make familiar decisions; they feel they may lose personal status by delegating tasks; they believe they can do better job themselves and they are resistant to change because the performance of each department ultimately rests with them. For Barbara Russell, she needs to consult with each department head before the meeting so as to avoid the problems. There are a number of ways that Barbara could use to resolve the problems. The leading point is that the team must identify the problems first and give their suggestions. Therefore communication plays a significant part. She should talk with department heads to be aware of what issues they want to address and how they address them. After they get the information, they can provide their support in helping them to resolve the problems. For example, the team can come up with a reward plan to encourage each department to solve their own issues and allocate some funds to assist them. The members in manufacturing team cooperate with each other very well, but the final report they presented failed to meet the expectations of the department heads. However, Barbara Russell could have avoided the problems if the top management considered building a cross-functional team at the very beginning rather than just rely on her own manufacturing team. According to Graff et al (N, D), the diverse teams can be more innovative and can develop more precise strategies and have advantages over functional homogenous teams in introducing organizational changes. According to Parker (2003), the competitive advantages of setting up a cross-functional team can be listed as following ¼Ã… ¡they may accelerate the process of problem solving; solve complex problems; more closely to connect with customers and meet their needs; they can produce more innovative ideas; members are more able to share information and facilitate the cooperation among departments. But on the other hand, we cannot neglect the barriers in building such a team since it will increase conflict and competition within the organization with diverse team members. Therefore, the trust and open communication seems significant in a cross-functional team. Question 3: If you were Barbara Russell, what would you do now? Why? If I am Barbara Russell, I will improve own leading skills and make some changes based on six elements mentioned in Figure 1. Figure 1: The web of interacting elements in a learning organization Leadership Participative Strategy Team-based Structure Open Information Strong, adaptive culture Empowered employees Learning Organization Leadership(p534) In a learning organization, as a leader of team, Barbara should focus on using personal power and empowerment to manage the team, and try to be a democratic leader to influences and motive the employees. She should learn to share and explain the company vision, facilitate teamwork, initiate change and expand the capacity of people to shape the future. As a middle level manager, she should pay more attention to try to make the team member to understand the company objectives and goals, and be a bridge of communication between employee and top management. In a learning organization, Barbara also should be a transformational leader, who can create significant change in both followers and the organization (Samson Craft, cited in bass, 1995; Devanna Tichy, 1986; EastmanPawar, 1997). Leaders in a learning organization have three distinct roles: 1) Create a shared vision 2) Design the structure 3) practice servant leadership (Samson Craft, 2009). Barbara should work to fulfill employees n eeds and goals as well as to achieve the organizations larger mission. Communication In this case, the department heads complained that changes would destroy the carefully crafted job categories, and $500 refunds would create unethical behaviors, and industrial spy because of bad communication between top management and departments. Here, the communication means two-way communication including horizontal and vertical, exchange information between departments or team. Barbara should practice more active listening skills to interpret and feedback the information and give some suggestions or recommendations to help other departments to figure out the problems. Team work Self-directed teams are the fundamental unit in a learning organization (Samson Craft, 2009). Barbara has to her roll from a traditional manager to a coordinator or consultant to control with team members in stead of control over them. Meanwhile, Barbara should understand that the jobs and objectives are based on team-based structure instead of individual input and effort. Barbara should work with other departments and subordinates as a team. Empowerment Traditionally, managers take all responsibility for the whole departments. Now in a learning organization, all employees are authorized to participate the decision making while the leadership is changing to be transformational. Barbara should change her roll to adapt the changing situation and give all team members the power, freedom to make decision and perform effectively. Also Barbara should use more personnel power and empowerment to motivate employees. Participative strategy Learning organizations have permeable boundaries and often are linked with other organizations, give each organization greater access to information about new strategic needs and directions (Samson Craft, cited in McCune, 1997). Basically, participative strategy means organization sets up the link of the whole supplier chain to share the information internally and externally. With the globalization of business, information becomes more and more important. To some extent, successful companies depend on the most updated information like lasted technology. Barbara should share the information timely and participate the whole link to get the most updated information to achieve the company goals. Culture In this case, one of important purposes of hiring new CEO is to rebuild the company culture. Top management realized the previous culture focused on hierarchy and centralization, which did not adapt the change of environment and became an obstacle to develop the company. As a leader of manufacturing, Barbara should learn and help to build the strong, adaptive culture within the manufactory, and influence other departments as well. In conclusion, Barbara should change the leadership style into democratic and transformational leader, and self-improvement of leading skills in order to adapt the learning organization culture. She has to change her roll in new culture as well, and try to be a consultant, servant and helper within the team, and improve the skills of communication to share the information in time internally and externally. Finally, the company can be successful to transfer from the traditional organization to the learning one. Conclusion Overall, learning organization is very important for todays companies. In learning organizations, all the people are committed to a vision, learn and share information. With that, the whole company will be more efficient and effective. In Electra-Quik, the paper also provide solutions for top management and Barbara to solve the problem when they conducting the changes and empowerment process.

Devaluation and Export Performance Essay -- Economics

Agriculture plays a vital role in the Ethiopian economy, contributing 42 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 80 percent of the employment and 90 percent of total export earnings (Ministry of Finance and Economic Development [MoFED] 2011; Diao et al. 2010). In 2009 with an effort to remove the vicious socio-economic circle, the government of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) developed a Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) with a priority to export orientated agricultural development to lead industrialization (MoFED 2010 P. 22). Despite the over-ambitious plan, however, the performance of the export sector has remained undeveloped which calls for sound macroeconomic policies that are crucial to combat the bottlenecks constraining the export sector. Foreign exchange rate is a key macroeconomic variable that determines performance of export in a country. The causes why export performance depends on the foreign exchange regime in developing countries include: the characteristics of exportable goods, the effectiveness of financial sectors and trading with foreign currencies rather than with the domestic currency (Nilsson K. and Lars N. 2000). Accordingly, Ethiopia's export is characterized by primary agricultural products with inelastic export demand and supply, concentration of market and products, little value addition. The result of primary agricultural product export is a smaller marketing margin and insignificant bargaining power on the world market. The financial sector is also constrained with higher probabilities of the existence of parallel markets that fail at allocating resources to their most efficient usage. Moreover, all trade transactions are carried out with foreign currencies, predominantly with US... ... 2011. â€Å"The Dynamics between Real Exchange Rate Movements and Trends in TradePerformance: The Case of Ethiopia.† Munich Personal RePEc (Research Papers in Economics). Munich. Michael, Nwidobie Barine. 2011. â€Å"An Impact Analysis of Foreign Exchange Rate Volatility on Nigeria’s Export Performance.† European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences Issue 37 (September): 47-55. National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE). 2011. National Bank Annual Report 2009/10. Addis Abeba: NBE. http://www.nbe.gov.et/publications/annualreport.htm (Accessed on Apri 25, 2012). Nilsson, Kristian and Lars Nilsson. 2000. â€Å"Exchange Rate Regimes and Export Performance in Developing Countries.† Oxford: Blackwell Publishres: 331-349. The World Bank (WB). 2012. World Development Indicators: Ethiopia. WB. http://data.worldbank.org/country/ethiopia (Accessed on April 26, 2012).

The Effects of Memory Improvement by Saying Words Aloud

This experiment proposes to study the effects of memory improvement by reciting and saying the words out loud to oneself. Participants will be assigned to either two different types of conditions and will then be required to recall the information of words as best as they can. It is assumed that a higher level of generating the targeted words into memory is improved when readers say the words out loud to themselves. Thus, the hypothesis concluded is that people who say words out loud after reading them are expected to improve their memory in retaining information.The Effects of Memory Improvement by Saying Words Aloud Whenever a person thinks, sees or hear words that are needed later on for remembrance, most of us would automatically try to retain the information by methods of imagery, recitation and elaboration to bring it more meaning in their understanding of the definition of those words. Words and languages are interrelatedly connected and associated with memory. Historically, m emory is a complex system which began in primitive organisms that stores an assorted array of fragments that grows more indispensable as we advance through the years.In terms of retaining memory, humans have extraordinary abilities to accumulate a huge amount of knowledge, but they do not always be able to retrieve or gain access to the parts that have since long been forgotten. Since words serve as a medium to communicate and interact with other people, it is a natural part of daily life that people will say certain words out loud in order to effectively convey particular messages or to recall specific information. According to Macleod et al. 2010), saying a word out loud or at least mouthing it, improves memory function by increasing its distinctiveness, i. e. making it unusual compared to others. The fact that producing a word aloud, which is relative to simply reading a word silently, improves explicit memory (Hourihan & MacLeod, 2010). The past studies done on the effects o f mouthing or vocalizing words to an extent of memory recall often yield consistently similar results in which those who have recited the information out loud were being reinforced to maintain that information for a longer term.Physically moving or acting out the words by means of vocalization would involve certain electrical muscle movement so that information sent to the brain are known to increase mental response, thus it has its relativity on the ‘generation effect’. This generation effect refers to an enhanced memory encoding by which a participant has better memory improvement by being involved in its creation or by acting it out. By vocalizing â€Å"out loud†, recitation in past research by Foley et al. (1983) as cited in Dodson & Schacter (2001) had participants to hear and say words out loud.Reciting words out loud would naturally be one of the most effective method for review because it employs more of the senses than any other review technique (ima gery, auditory). For instance, in Schacter et al. ’s (1999) study, when students were reviewing notes or tests immediately after class by means of vocal recitation, they yielded higher scores in memory improvement because not only will they be consolidating the new information, but also it strengthens the neural traces made to the brain. It ‘provides a basis for employing a distinctiveness heuristic during the test. (Dodson & Schacter, 2001). Reciting words out loud to understand the message conveyed by a sentence or paragraph would only then have a higher chance of that information moving on into the long-term memory, as most verbal information goes first in the short-term memory. When information is rehearsed aloud, part of it goes into our long-term memory. The most recent research done by Hourihan & MacLeod (2010) found that reading words aloud during study explicitly improves memory compared to reading a word silently and this is called ‘the productio n effect’.The researches hold that the production effect is that by saying words aloud would make them distinctive and better recognized than words which are read silently, which will be easier to forget. This distinctiveness is not available for the words read silently (Hourihan & MacLeod, 2010). The production effect has its basis on the generation effect whereby reciting words out loud produce a certain distinctiveness as done by a series of experiments by Macleod et al. , (2008).Moreover, a study done by Strain, Patterson & Seidenberg, (1995) as cited in McKay et al. (2008) found that words containing high imageability (e. g. house, chair, elephant) are proposed to have stronger representations in semantic memory. However, past researches found contrasting results compared to Hourihan & MacLeod’s. Research done by Maisto et al. (1977) as cited in Mohindra & Wilding (1980) in a free recall tests found that saying each word out loud three times had im paired their memory performance when subjected to expected recall.This study is further supported by Folkard & Monk (1979) as cited in Mohindra & Wilding (1980) where they suggested that articulating words impaired free recall. In view of these findings which yielded contrasting or relatively different results in relation to vocalizing words out loud, it can be explained that participants were using a strategic reading process when reading the words aloud, since it does not normally involve the conscious recall of information (MacLeod & Masson, 2000) as cited in McKay et al. 2008). There is also a claim that a potential issue in difference of these researchers’ results could be in the time criterion whereby participants shift the influence of certain words to a different semantic pathway (Strain et al. , 1995, as cited in McKay et al. , 2008). However, recent research done by Reynolds & Besner (2008) suggests that contrary to the view that by vocalizing words out loud is entirely an automatic memory encoding, it in fact requires some form of attention.Previous research was investigated further where participants were exposed to reading lexicon and pseudo homophones aloud that required the use of central attention. In research done by Blais & Besner (2007), repetition of words of lexical representations suggests longer persistence in the early memory processing, as cited by Reynolds & Malley (2008). It was discussed earlier that possibly the mere action of vocalizing words for memory recall will encourage memory improvement at a higher level, thus making a person to be able to better retrieve previous information if need be (Macleod et al. 2010). In another study, Kappel, Harfard, Burns & Anderson, (1973) gave another possible explanation on the advantage of reading words out loud, indicating that serial voiced recall were found to be superior for the later positions, and these results replicates previous experiments done by M urray (1966) and Conrad & Hull (1968). However, Kappel et al. , (1973) proposed that the results reported suggest that differences in participants’ level of processing information to memory between saying out loud and reading silently.Similar to the researches done by Macleod and Hourihan (2010), our proposed study focuses in determining whether reading and saying words out loud would have an effect on people’s memory improvement and recall when acquiring new information. The hypothesis of our proposed experiment is that adults, who vocalize new information aloud is expected to have higher memory improvement and better recall of information, thus have the highest number of correct answers in the test as indication of their reading the story out loud during the experiment.Based on past researches, I am taking the side with the assumption that saying words aloud can aid in memory improvement to gather information during other reviewing or learning new knowledge, as s uch an act would require a certain amount of cognitive effort, thus enabling adults to improve their memory technique on learning tasks at hand. Methods Participants As many as 200 participants from schools and offices will be recruited in this study. All participants will include both English speaking males and females and should be between the ages of 18 to 30 years old.All participants will be divided into two categories, each receiving a story in the English language of an average English proficiency level. It should be estimated that the total number of males and females selected are approximately equal in number. The participants will not engage in any other experiments beforehand. Design In this experiment, we will be using a 1 (memory improvement or performance) x 2 (participants recite the story out loud or does not recite the story out loud) independent design. The first independent variable (IV) is the participants’ memory improvement and their ability to remember certain information in the story.For this proposed experiment, the operational definition of reciting the story out loud is where a participant vocally recites aloud a story as they read and comprehend the story at the same time. The dependent variable (DV) is the vocal recitation of the story either the participants read it out loud, or to just read the story silently. Materials The materials to be used in this experiment include administrative letters sent out to the participants informing them of the research and what is expected of them.Procedural materials include the sheets of paper containing the story, test papers with 30 fill-in-the-blank questions, experimenters’ scripts and a stopwatch to keep track of time. The sheets of paper which contains the story to be later recalled by the participants will be a short story that is in English and contains approximately 1000 words. It is entirely fictional and unique, therefore it is not in any way affiliated to share any res emblance or similarities to stories the participants would have known in the past i. e. fairytales or well-known childhood stories.Thus, we expect the participants to be reading and learning about new information based on the fictional story given. This is done so as to reduce any extraneous variables that may interfere with the results of the experiment. The test papers consist of 30 fill-in-the-blank questions that require the participants to answer by recalling information based on the story provided. This format is chosen to avoid any possibility that participants may get the correct answer by chance of lucky guesses. The experimenters’ scripts will contain the standard instructions for the experimenters to read out to the participants when conducting the experiment.Procedure Participants will be randomly assigned to 1 of 2 rooms. In each of the rooms, it is expected to have approximately similar ratio of male and female participants so as to avoid gender directed outcome s and to maintain neutrality. Participants will be led into the room by the experimenter and be asked to take a seat. They will then be briefed on the experiment and will be required to sign two consent forms, one of which is to be kept for themselves and the other, for the research copy of the experimenter.In Room 1, each participant will be provided with a sheet of paper containing the fictional story to be read out loud by the participants. The following instructions will be read out to them: â€Å"You are required to read the fictional story provided out loud. You are highly encouraged to vocalize your words aloud at your own pace. † In Room 2, each participant will be provided with a sheet of paper containing the fictional story. The instructions read will be as follows: â€Å"You are required to read the fictional story given silently. You are not allowed to vocalize your words by reading the story out loud.You will read the story silently at your own pace. † The experiment will take 25 minutes for the participants to take time to read the story. After they read the story, each participant will be given a surprise fill-in-the-blanks test. The test consists of 30 questions relating to the fictional short story that they had to read earlier. Participants will be given 20 minutes to answer the set of questions. Their answer sheets will then be collected and the participants will be thanked for participating in the research. Statistical AnalysisThis experiment will use an independent t-test to calculate the results of the experiment. This test will be used because this study has only 1 IV with 2 levels (1Ãâ€"2) and uses between-subjects design, in which the participants will experience different levels of the IV.References Besner, D. , O’Malley, Shannon, & Robidoux, S. (2010). On the Joint Effects of Stimulus Quality, Regularity, and Lexicality When Reading Aloud: New Challenges. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 750-764. Retrieved June 16, 2010 from PsychARTICLES database. Dodson, Chad S. amp; Schacter, Daniel. L. (2001). If I Had Said It, I Would Remember It: Reducing False Memories with a Distinctiveness Heuristic. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8 (1), 155-161.Retrieved June 14, 2010 from http://pbr. psychonomicjournals. org/content/8/1/155. full. pdf Hourihan, Kathleen L. & Macleod, Colin M. (2008). Directed Forgetting Meets the Production Effect: Distinctive Processing is Resistant to Intentional Forgetting. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 62, No. 4, 242-246. Retrieved June 14, 2010 from PsychARTICLES database. Kappel, S. , Harford, M. , Burns, V. & Anderson, N. (1973). Effects of Vocalization on Short-Term Memory for Words. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 101(2), 314-317. Retrieved June 16, 2010 from PsychARTICLES database. MacLeod, C. , Gopie, N. , Hourihan, K. , Neary, K. , & Ozubko, J. (2010).The Production Effect: Delinea tion of a Phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3). 671-685. Retrieved June 16, 2010 from PsychARTICLES database. McKay, A. , Davis, C. , Savage, G. , & Castles, A. (2008). Semantic Involvement in Reading Aloud: Evidence from a Non-Word Training Study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(6), 1495-1517.Retrieved June 18 from PsychARTICLES database. Reynolds, M. , & Besner, D. (2008). Contextual Effects on Reading Aloud: Evidence for Pathway Control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(1), 50-64. Retrieved June 14, 2010 from PsychARTICLES database. Wilding, J. , & Mohindra, N. (1980). Effects of Subvocal Suppression, Articulating Aloud and Noise on Sequence Recall. British Journal of Psychology, 71(2), 247. Retrieved June 18, 2010 from Academic Source Premier database.

Salt and ice Minnesotas battle

Salt and Ice; Minnesotas Battle Abstract Salt is applied in the thousands of tons every year to reduce ice and, in turn, reduce accidents on Minnesota roads. When the ice and snow melt each spring, the majority of this solution is relieved into rivers and lakes through storm drains on Minnesota roads. The salt negatively affects fish and aquatic plants by dehydrating them and altering fertilization. The damaging effects of sodium chloride are long term and not easily repaired. The Minnesota Department of Transportation can take ffective action by reducing salt usage and opting to alternate the biodegradable solution potassium formate.Every year the metropolitan area of Minnesota uses 350,00 tons, commerical and government, of road salt. (Homstad). To put this in perspective, if the salt was distributed to the residence of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, each person would lay 260 pounds of salt on the roads. Sodium Chloride(NaCL), the salt that is applied to roads, is the most common p ractice to reduce ice on roads in Minnesota and around snowy parts of the United States. Salt has been the most effective means of deicing roads because it lowers the freezing point of water, there for melting the snow, and it is the one of the cheapest products to use.According to a study done by Marquette University in 1992, accident rates are eight times higher when salt is not applied to icy, snowy roads. Salt is proven an effective reducer of accidents (Kuemmel). What people commonly are not aware of is that salt is generally effective until 1 5 degrees farenheit. After that point, the salts ability to break the bond between the ice and the road rapidily decreases ntil, at about 5f, salt is no longer a method to melt ice. Once the ice and snow melt, the water product runs into storm drains, which consiquntly drain into our bodies of water.The main drainage exit of metro storm drains is into our rivers and streams. The most common; the Mississippi river. Studies vary but between 70 and 80 percent of all salt applied to roads, ends up in water bodies. Both sodium and chloride are natural products, both already present in water and in living species. However, increased levels of both elements have a deadly, long term effect on aquatic life. Chloride in high concentrations is especially harmful to fresh water aquatic life. It dehydrates plants and reduces areation in water, giving fish less oxygen.The salt, also draws moisture from fish and water species, creating an imblance in electrolytes (Marshall). Not only does this imbalance kill and harm living fish, it often times creates alterations in the tisn a ast. Otten time this chloride increase reduces fish's fertility and increases disease suseptibilty for generations to come. Education will only go so far. Humans, especially Americans, have a psycological ard-wiring to think that more is more. Naturally, the assumption is made that applying more salt deices the roads faster. This is incorrect. We generally need a very small amount.Increase in amount does not lower the freezing point further. The most viable solution is to use alternative chemicals to melt salt. Potassium formate is a more costly alternative. The substance melts ice at about the same temperateure that salt does however, the product is biodegradeable. (M ¤Ã‚ ¤tt ¤) It has little to no negative effects in water and generally biodegrades in the ground before ever reaching the water. IJSNLM) The product is man-made, so it is more costly, however a little bit goes a long way with the substance and it does not contain chloride; the most harmful factor in salt.The solution is not to replace salt. Salt is an effective deicer and with reduced usage and usage n rotation with potassium formate, chloride levels will be lowered in water bodies. Training programs are currently in the works to educate snowplow drivers and residence as to how much salt is necessary. (MPCA) The drivers who took these classes significantly reduced t he amount of salt they were dispersing on roads owever they are not mandatory so not all drivers are taking them and there for the overall effect is quite small.Storm drain alterations are a solution but not an effective enough one. In placeing filterationg systems within them small amounts of salt can be prevented from entering lakes and rivers. These filteration systems would still allow the majority of chloride to enter water bodies because upon sodium chloride melting ice it sperates itself into its two elements and essentially disolves in the water. Understandably, tax payers may disagree with the higher price of potassium ormate. However, the solution is not to replace salt with this substance.The solution is to use potassium formate in conjunction with salt therefore, reducing salt usage and chloride concentrations in water bodies. The price would only be slightly more and would reduce prices for fish when more can be naturally harvested. The price for water filtration and pu rification will lower as well when salinity levels decrease. With correct usage, Potassium formate is only needed in small quantities. The benefit to consumers being able to consume more local fresh water fish is also valuable.