Free Custom «Dams for today and tomorrow» Essay Paper

Authors’ opinion on existence of dams

The authors of the essays do not agree on any particular point. Sara Nicholas only states generally that dams go on to providing important service. They however disagree on virtually everything.  Thomas Flint and Christine have the thought that the dams are very important for the environment. On the other hand, Sarah Nicholas thinks that is of no importance to the environment.

Benefits and disadvantages of following authors’ recommendations

According to Thomas Flint and Christine, the dams are a store of water useful in various ways, such as rearing fish, for irrigation, and for environmentally friendly way of producing electricity (For Salmon and our Economy, par 3). For Sarah Nicholas, the dams are a hazard to the environment. She says that dams block free movements of water making the water at the bottom of dams oxygen-deficient and hot. This will displace fresh water fish such as trout and block free sediment movement making beaches to miss the fertile sediments.

Disadvantages of the author’s opinion

Taking Thomas Flint and Christine’s opinion, we would loose fertile riverbeds downstream beyond the dams; we would also reduce the amount of fresh water flowing downstream beyond the dams.  If we would take Sarah Nicholas opinion, we would loose the environmentally friendly source of electricity, source of water for irrigation and other domestic use (The Dam Challenge, par 1).

Stakeholders that might side in either opinion

Farmers and people in hydroelectric power production will favor the dams because of getting water for various farm uses, irrigation and clean source of electric power. Environmentalist in focus of global warming will support the existence of the dams because the hydroelectric power production is environmental friendly.  For those environmentalists focusing on aquatic ecosystem will advocate for the removal of dams because they want aquatic life to remain as natural as ever.

Benefits of Hydroelectric power

The use of hydrometric power conserves the environment.  Contrary to the other forms of power, there is no emission of carbon or any dangerous by-product like in the use of fossil fuel and nuclear power and the easiest way of producing power in this way is by using dams. However, dams cause ecological imbalance or change environmental conditions of a place.  

Strategies used by various stakeholders to pursue their policies

Both groups, that is those who advocate for the removal of dams and those who want the dams to continue existing have been drawing policies based on factual findings such.  Those who want the dams to be exterminated take their well-researched facts to the press and create public awareness. Those who want the dams remain will ague their facts about how the dams are useful and create public awareness too, leading to congress’ approval or disapproval (Downing, par 3).

Those that succeed  

Those that seem to succeed are the ones that are proposing for the removal of dams. They are succeeding because they are saying they are showing the facts on how some dams are destructive to the ecosystem. They also propose other source of renewable energy, which are the wind, and solar energy.  This is why they are succeeding.

The success of removal of dams

The proponents of this have done great research on the damages the dams are causing to the places they are located. They also have gone ahead to create public awareness of the same issue. This is showing people that dams are affecting fish, are affecting plants growing naturally in some places, and making the water not to be fresh.  They have proposed ways of preventing floods e.g. the green water infrastructure. For renewable energy, they have proposed wind and solar energy.

My opinion     

My opinion has slightly charged. I have wanted the dams to keep staying. However, since they have some few disadvantages, I would side with those who want their removal.  Even so, let them not fight for removing all dams. This will be too expensive to set up power production especially through solar.  The two sources again are not consistent in all places.

Bottle water

I prefer tap water to bottled water. This is because tap water is provided at affordable prices. That is to say, the bill paid for this is low. In addition, most governments make sure that tap water is clean for citizen’s consumption.  For bottled water, all the companies are regulated bureaus of standards by various governments. This is to ensure that thy produce safe water for citizen’s consumption.  Most of my friends have the same opinion but some prefer using bottled water. Governments have made it a policy to provide clean tap water to all their citizens at an affordable price.  Bottle water is only convenient when travelling, and that is when I buy bottled water.