Economic Impacts of Climate Change

Economic Impacts of Climate Change Economic Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Agricultural Production in the Middle East and North Africa Region 1. Introduction The accumulation of scientific evidences indicating that growing greenhouse gases will warm our planet becomes clearer. Higher temperature and changes in precipitation level will shrinkage crop yield in many countries. IPCC (2007) reported that most land areas will experience an increase in average temperature with more frequent heat waves, more stressed water resources and desertification. Stern and Treasury (2006) noted, that the â€Å"the poorest countries and populations† will bear the greatest costs of climate change. Therefore, the impact of climate change on agriculture has received increasing attention in the last decade literatures. Climate change coupled with population growth will deeply affect the availability and quality of water resources in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Alpert, Krichak, Shafir, Haim, Osetinsky, 2008; Evans, 2010; Gao Giorgi, 2008). In a similar way, Sowers and Weinthal (2010) argued that since most of the MENA region is arid and hyper-arid, slight changes in water accessibility and arable land have substantial consequences for human security. It is worth to take into account the climatic variability in addition to climate change in order to provide an integrated analysis of the impact of climate variables. Selvaraju and Baas (2007) stated that climate variability is the way climate fluctuates yearly above or below a long-term average value while climate change is the long-term continuous change (increase or decrease) to average weather conditions or the range of weather. In this study, we consider the possible impacts of climate changes and climate variability on agricultural production, with a focus on the region of Middle East and North Africa, where the deleterious impacts of climate change are generally projected to be greatest. In order to achieve such objective, Fixed Effect Regression (FER) is used to Estimate the agricultural production function using cross-section time series data of MENA countries. The advantages of panel data analysis are; getting actual responses is more informative to policy makers than resul ts from field trials. Second, country fixed effects capture all additive differences between various countries (Stock Watson, 2003). 2. Data Sources In order to estimate the production function, cross-sectional time series (panel data) are used. The panel set consists of 20 MENA countries for the time period between 1961 and 2009 including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Table 1 shows the data description and data sources. Due to unavailability of the data for few countries, some observations are missing therefore panel data in the model are unbalanced. The data set consists of two variables group. The first is economics variables such as net agricultural production index number in international dollar, agricultural machinery, total fertilizers consumed, labors, and land. The second data subset is climatic variables like temperature and precipitation. The monthly climatic data were available by meteorological stations rather than by country as shown in Table 2. Therefore, it was necessary to calculate monthly country averages of climate variables and summed up into seasonal data. Table 1 Data description and sources Variable Unit Description Source Agricultural production 1000 I$ Net agricultural Production Index Number (2004-2006 = 100) FAO statistics Agricultural machinery (tractors) Number Agricultural tractors, refer to total wheel, crawler or track-laying type tractors and pedestrian tractors used in agriculture. FAO statistics Fertilizers consumption Ton nutrients Total consumption of chemical fertilizers (N+P2O5+K2O) International Fertilizer Industry Association Livestock Head Buffaloes + cattle FAO statistics Labor Million Total economically active population International Labor Organization (LABORSTA) Land 1000 Hectare Total area of cultivated land FAO statistics Temperature Celsius Monthly mean temperature FAOClim-NET: Agroclimatic database management system Precipitation millimeter Monthly mean precipitation FAOClim-NET: Agroclimatic database management system 3. Climate change and agriculture in Mena countries According to the World Bank, The Middle East and North Africa is one of the regions that is most vulnerable to climate change, with the highest level of water scarcity in the world. The region has a total area of about 14 million km2, of which more than 87 per cent is desert. It is characterized by a high dependency on climate-sensitive agriculture and a large share of its population and economic activities are located in flood-prone urban coastal zones. Bucknall (2007) classify the MENA countries into three groups on the subject of water source and availability. First group is countries have adequate quantities of renewable water, but the within-country and within year variations are problematically large including Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. Second group is countries that have low levels of renewable water resources and highly dependent on non-renewable groundwater sources and supplies by desalination of sea water like Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The last group is countries that mainly dependent on the inflow of transboundary rivers such as the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates including Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Table 2 Descriptive Statistics for Aggregated climatic variables during the Period 1961-2009 No. Metrological stations Temperature (c °) Precipitation (mm/year) Mean Std. Dev. Mean Std. Dev. Algeria 95 19.91 0.99 23.98 5.99 Bahrain 1 26.62 0.91 8.51 7.74 Egypt 52 22.42 0.63 4.14 2.15 Iran 67 17.31 2.70 20.03 9.05 Iraq 29 22.35 2.82 13.62 7.98 Israel 13 19.80 1.53 29.33 14.31 Jordan 15 18.95 1.08 15.77 5.04 Kuwait 15 25.91 1.23 13.73 7.49 Lebanon 12 18.49 1.78 56.58 17.08 Libya 27 21.14 0.80 14.74 4.12 Morocco 34 18.03 0.71 32.29 10.95 Oman 27 26.78 0.60 8.00 5.34 Qatar 2 27.46 0.70 6.40 5.05 Saudi Arabia 67 25.19 0.91 5.93 3.73 Sudan 47 28.30 0.89 48.51 57.62 Syrian Arab Republic 20 18.30 0.90 21.61 7.26 Tunisia 25 19.35 0.98 30.30 8.34 Turkey 315 13.03 0.89 51.31 7.73 United Arab Emirates 13 27.56 1.33 5.47 5.11 Yemen 12 25.52 3.52 9.70 7.44 4. Methodology There are various models can be employed to assess the impact of climate change on agricultural production. Ricardian model, Agronomic model, and crop simulation models are most widely adopted models for the climate impact studies (Lee, Nadolnyak, Hartarska, 2012). The Ricardian model estimates the examines the impact of climate and other variables on land values and farm revenues using cross-sectional data (Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, Shaw, 1994). Crop Simulation Models (CSM) restrict the analysis to crop physiology and compare crop productivity for different climatic conditions (Salvo, Begalli, Signorello, 2013). Because of the country level panel analysis, the production function model is adopted for the analysis in the present study. Model To estimate the impact of climatic change on agriculture production in MENA countries, an empirical production function for country i at time t net agricultural production index is a function of some economic inputs (Frisvold Ingram, 1995) and climatic variables: . Y represents the net agricultural production index,; M, F, L, A, and V are economic inputs which include agricultural machinery, fertilizer consumption, labor, cultivated area, and livestock respectively. T and represent temperature and precipitation. Number of agricultural tractors is used as proxy of agricultural capital stock and number of cattle and buffaloes is used as proxy of livestock production. For climatic variables temperature and precipitation, mean of the winter season (January, February, and March) , spring (April, May, and June), summer (July, August, and September), and Fall (October, November, and December) are involved in the model. Following (Barrios, Ouattara, Strobl, 2008; Belloumi, 2014; Lee et al. , 2012), The agricultural production model in the present study has the following specification form: (1) By taking the log on both sides, the fixed effect panel model is: (2) According to the fixed effect model, ÃŽ ±i (i=1†¦.n) is the unknown intercept for each country that absorb unabsorbed time variant effects and is a time varying effects. For climatic variables, both the linear and quadratic forms are integrated into the model in order to consider the nonlinear relationship between agricultural production and climatic variables. Variability As it is also sensible to estimate the impact of the variability of climatic variable along with the seasonal deviation and the mean temperature and precipitation, the squared of the mean differences of temperature and precipitation for each season observation is used in the second model. Then, This variability was measured by the seasonal coefficient of variation (CV) calculated as the seasonal ratio of the standard deviation to the mean of each climate variable for each country. 5. Results and discussion Review different papers to strengthen the discussion Table 3 shows the results of fixed effects regression analysis in which we estimated the impact of agricultural inputs and climatic variables on agricultural production in MENA countries. The results show that the regression coefficient of temperature is positive and statistically significant in spring, summer, and fall seasons. By contrast, temperature in winter has negative coefficient at significance level of 0.01. Regarding the estimated parameters of precipitation, precipitation during spring showed negative impact at significance level of 1%. The estimated parameters of nonlinear climatic variables indicated that each of the squared summer temperature has positive coefficient at significance level 0.05 while squared winter temperature has negative and significant impact at level of 0.05. In addition, squared spring precipitation showed positive influence. As expected, production inputs showed significant and positive relation with agricultural production except machinery and fertilizers consumption. As inputs and agricultural production are in logarithmic form, the regression coefficients reflect the production elasticity of each input. Therefore, 1 percent increase in each input of livestock, labor, and land, with keeping all other inputs the same, leads to increase in agricultural production by 0.16%, 0.98%, and 0.91% respectively. Table 3 Fixed Effects Regression analysis of climate change Variables Coefficients S.E. P value Intercept -0.0582 0.0160 -0.058 Winter Temperature -0.0582** 0.0160 0.000 Spring Temperature 0.0431* 0.0212 0.042 Summer Temperature 0.0730** 0.0213 0.001 Fall Temperature 0.0408** 0.0154 0.008 Winter Temperature Squared -0.0024* 0.0010 0.014 Spring Temperature Squared 0.0002 0.0016 0.892 Summer Temperature Squared 0.0043* 0.0019 0.028 Fall Temperature Squared -0.0005 0.0010 0.643 Winter Precipitation -0.0006 0.0004 0.128 Spring Precipitation 0.0004* 0.0002 0.050 Summer Precipitation -0.0001 0.0002 0.760 Fall Precipitation 0.0002 0.0003 0.438 Winter Precipitation Squared -5.0600E-06 5.1400E-06 0.325 Spring Precipitation Squared 3.8800E-06 6.2400E-06 0.535 Summer Precipitation Squared 1.5300E-05* 7.6600E-06 0.047 Fall Precipitation Squared -3.4000E-06 4.7100E-06 0.470 Machinery -0.0471 0.0282 0.095 Fertilizers Consumption -0.0269 0.0166 0.107 Livestock 0.1599** 0.0389 0.000 Labor 0.9802** 0.0481 0.000 Land 0.9128** 0.1000 0.000 R2 within 0.8932 R2 between 0.7827 R2 overall 0.7917 F test 120.8300 F-ui=0 951.88** Obs. No 980 The results of Fixed Effects Regression analysis of climate variability as explanatory variables and agricultural production are presented in Table 4. The results suggest that temperature variability in fall season seems to have significant and positive relation with agricultural production while it has negative relation in spring. Squared variability of temperature during winter and summer seasons have significant and negative relation. Furthermore, variability of winter precipitation have positive and significant relation. Likewise, the regression coefficient of squared variation of winter and summer precipitation showed significant and positive relation with agricultural production.. Table 4 Fixed Effects Regression analysis of climate variability Variables Coefficients S.E. P value Intercept 3.8918** 0.0422 0.000 Winter Temperature -0.2451 0.1818 0.178 Spring Temperature -0.5086** 0.1921 0.008 Summer Temperature 0.0418 0.1850 0.821 Fall Temperature 0.8505** 0.1929 0.000 Winter Temperature Squared -0.0825* 0.0408 0.044 Spring Temperature Squared 0.0204 0.0370 0.581 Summer Temperature Squared -0.0571** 0.0216 0.008 Fall Temperature Squared -0.0071 0.0487 0.884 Winter Precipitation 0.0425** 0.0090 0.000 Spring Precipitation 0.0269 0.0774 0.728 Summer Precipitation 0.1717 0.2138 0.422 Fall Precipitation -0.1943 0.1946 0.319 Winter Precipitation Squared 0.0221** 0.0062 0.000 Spring Precipitation Squared -0.0020 0.0034 0.558 Summer Precipitation Squared 0.0005* 0.0003 0.044 Fall Precipitation Squared 0.0056 0.0042 0.18 R2 within 0.793 R2 between 0.943 R2 overall 0.769 F test 11.620 F-ui=0 11.330 Obs. No 980 Marginal Impact analysis The excepted marginal effects of climatic change and variability on agricultural production appraised at the mean are calculated by the first-order differentiation of the equation 2 to temperature and precipitation respectively: (3) (4) The elaticities of climate change and variability of temperature and precipitation are derived from equations (3) and (4) respectively by dividing both equation (3) on and equation (4) on . therefore, the elasticities can be computed as : (5) (6) Where and refer to temperature change or variability and precipitation change or variability respectively. The marginal impact of climate change and climate variability on agricultural production in the MENA region are presented in Table 5. The impact and the elsticities of Climate change and climate variability are calculated using the regression coefficient and mean values of temperatures and precipitation. The results indicate that increase of temperature in winter season has negative impact on agricultural production as one percent increase in temperature during winter season will lead to a decrease in agricultural production value by 1.12 percent. Instead, increasing the temperature during the other seasons showed positive impact. Temperature variability negative impact on agricultural production during winter and spring as one percent increase of temperature variability, will lead to about 0.09 and 0.14 percent decrease in agricultural production. In regard to the impact precipitation changes, the results confirmed that increasing precipitation during winter and fall season have negative impact on agricultural production in MENA countries while it has positive impact in spring and summer seasons. Moreover, the results of the impact of precipitation variability showed that precipitation variability has negative impact during winter and summer seasons, whereas one percent increase of precipitation variability will lead to decrease in agricultural production in the MENA region by 0.037 and 0.013 percent respectively. However, precipitation variability showed positive impact during the season of spring and fall. Table 5 Marginal impacts of climate change and variability on agricultural production Climate change Climate Variability Marginal impact Elasticity Marginal impact Elasticity Temperature Winter -4.517 -1.115 -12.408 -0.087 Spring 3.746 1.567 -29.211 -0.139 Summer 4.130 2.025 7.039 0.027 Fall 2.897 0.927 41.713 0.265 Precipitation Winter -0.162 -0.092 -2.884 -0.037 Spring 0.019 0.005 1.038 0.013 Summer 0.272 0.046 -3.303 -0.071 Fall -0.040 -0.019 0.071 0.001 References Alpert, Pinhas, Krichak, Simon O, Shafir, Haim, Haim, David, Osetinsky, Isabella. (2008). Climatic trends to extremes employing regional modeling and statistical interpretation over the E. Mediterranean. Global and Planetary Change, 63(2), 163-170. Barrios, Salvador, Ouattara, Bazoumana, Strobl, Eric. (2008). The impact of climatic change on agricultural production: Is it different for Africa? Food Policy, 33(4), 287-298. Belloumi, Mounir. (2014). Investig

Life without mobile phones Essay

Microeconomics is generally the study of individuals and business decisions, macroeconomics looks at higher up country and government decisions. Macroeconomics and microeconomics, and their wide array of underlying concepts, have been the subject of a great deal of writings. The field of study is vast; here is a brief summary of what each covers: Microeconomics is the study of decisions that people and businesses make regarding the allocation of resources and prices of goods and services. This means also taking into account taxes and regulations created by governments. Microeconomics focuses on supply and demand and other forces that determine the price levels seen in the economy. For example, microeconomics would look at how a specific company could maximize it’s production and capacity so it could lower prices and better compete in its industry. (Find out more about microeconomics in Understanding Microeconomics.) Macroeconomics, on the other hand, is the field of economics that studies the behavior of the economy as a whole and not just on specific companies, but entire industries and economies. This looks at economy-wide phenomena, such as Gross National Product (GDP) and how it is affected by changes in unemployment, national income, rate of growth, and price levels. For example, macroeconomics would look at how an increase/decrease in net exports would affect a nation’s capital account or how GDP would be affected by unemployment rate. (To keep reading on this subject, see Macroeconomic Analysis.) While these two studies of economics appear to be different, they are actually interdependent and complement one another since there are many overlapping issues between the two fields. For example, increased inflation (macro effect) would cause the price of raw materials to increase for companies and in turn affect the end product’s price charged to the public. The bottom line is that microeconomics takes a bottoms-up approach to analyzing the economy while macroeconomics takes a top-down approach. Regardless, both micro- and macroeconomics provide fundamental tools for any finance professional and should be studied together in order to fully  understand how companies operate and earn revenues and thus, how an entire economy is managed and sustained.

Socialism and the South in Mark Twain´s Huckleberry Finn

In the 1850’s, life in the south was difficult for people of all kinds of people. Whites were expected to be the leaders of society, and were supposed to be educated and proper. Blacks were often enslaved, and they faced racism and discrimination wherever they went. Both groups often wanted to break free from the grip of the southern culture, but it was difficult to escape from social conventions and live by one’s morals. Huckleberry Finn and the runaway slave Jim have to face all of these problems, but these dilemmas are never directly explained in text. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, symbolism is used to show the struggles between freedom, morals, and social conventions through the river, the land, and the raft. The river†¦show more content†¦Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards’† (101). Because Jim is black, he is not expected to be free and traveling south. He must be tied up and appear as a captive to please the southern society. This plan fools the southerners, but the duke can’t see that it isn’t right to make Jim seem like a captive. Being on land makes him unable to understand how wrongful it is, as he is only interested on tricking people into believing the ploy. It is also expected of the group to not have gaudy bindings, as they are supposed to be poor and in the culture, poor people cant have nice things. In chapter 18, Huck meets the Grangerfords, a wealthy family that treats him very well. Sadly, the family’s conflict with the Shepherdsons escalates while Huck is in their company, and a bloodbath occurs. â€Å"I staid in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; s o I reckoned the trouble was still agoing on. I was mighty down-hearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because IShow MoreRelatedLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesproducing the gold he wanted. Many Arawak Indians responded by committing a series of mass suicides. He shipped 500 Arawak Indians back on Europe as slaves, although 200 died on the voyage. He brought Western diseases which spread across North and South America, almost depopulating what is now California. He helped convince many people that the Earth is round. He brought new American foods to Europe and introduced European foods to the Americas. Thanks to Columbus, the wheel and the domesticated

film crime Essay - 1549 Words

Film genres are categories, classifications or groups of films that have a similar, familiar or instantly recognizable patterns, techniques or conventions that include one or more of the following: setting, content, themes, plot, motifs, styles, structures, situations, characters, and stars (filmsite.org and notes). There are many categories of film genre. These categories can cover practically any film ever made by man, although film categories can never be precise. By isolating the various elements in a film and categorizing them in genres, it is possible to easily evaluate a film within its genre and allow for meaningful comparisons and some judgements on greatness. Some genres are considered period-specific, occurring primarily in one†¦show more content†¦An urban wolf can equally well be killer or detective, warden or prisoner. They all speak the same discursive language (Baxter 7). Crime films are often set in a large, crowded city. Exotic locals for crimes often add a n element of adventure and wealth. Writers dreamed up appropriate gangland jargon for the tales, such as â€Å"tommyguns.†(Ebscohost) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Film technique of these films showed a more graphic representation of moods and ambiance due to the light and camera effects, as often seen previously in the Expressionist cinema of pre-war Germany. During the end of the thirties, the influx of European cinema technicians, writers and directors into the USA was bringing Hollywood a fresh set of approaches to cinema as a technique and as an art form. (geocities.com/filmlis) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Another influence on gangster films was the French cinema of the thirties. French directors had more freedom and were generally more concerned with the artistic rendition of filming in their scripts (imdb.com). Often they compensated for their lack of financial means by improvisation and creativity. Also, the â€Å"contestataire† stand taken by the plots of French films, with the very existential approach of the characters, had a strong influence on the development of gangster film in the USA.. (geocities.com/filmlis) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Crime in America was an important vice, too. Many migrantsShow MoreRelated Crime Films Essay2046 Words   |  9 Pages Crime Films When looking at the crime film it is important to understand the nature of the films genre. The genre is a way for the audience to distinguish types of films. These are categorised together because of standard protocols developed for a particular types or styles of film. These films usually follow similar guidelines in order to produce a predictable style for the audience. The development of genre films is not entirely the prerogative of Hollywood. It is more the desire of the publicRead MorePaying For Someone Else Crime Film By Barry Scheck915 Words   |  4 Pages Paying for someone else crime Film by Barry Scheck on â€Å"convicted criminals for a crime that he/she did not commit† Vincent Moto was a black man who was accused of rape and was jailed in prison for ten and half years. Vincent â€Å"if you were ever accused of a crime you did not commit it damages your reputation† he said. He couldn’t look at his daughter because he had nothing, he was at shame. Vincent sister â€Å"he didn’t have a place to stay so heRead MoreA Comparison of the Establishment of Genre and Narrative in Two Crime Films2370 Words   |  10 PagesA Comparison of the Establishment of Genre and Narrative in Two Crime Films In this essay I will compare how genre and narrative are established in 2 crime films. The main iconography of this genre is fairly easy to identify; props such as guns, latex gloves, sirens, rain are used frequently in Hollywood crime films such as Se7en (1995). The conventions of this genre are also fairly easy to recognise: detectives with long trench coats, the killer being the least likely Read MoreThe Film Catch Me If You Can Accurately Show Frank Abagnale Jr s Crimes1240 Words   |  5 PagesDoes the film Catch Me If You Can accurately show Frank Abagnale Jr’s crimes? I believe the movie glamorized Frank’s crimes and made them a little bit better than they actually were, of course you can expect this from Hollywood. Frank Abagnale Jr. made a lot of mistakes as a teenager. He was trying to make a life for himself out in the real world and be able to make money. Frank was determined too, he could think of amazing ways to make a buck. Which eventually led him to posing as a teacher, doctorRead MoreLiterature And Film : Crimes And Punishment : Literature Film, True Crimes1630 Words   |  7 Pages Date Rape Tami B. Eikelboom Arizona State University MLS 598 Crimes Punishment: Literature Film, True Crimes Professor Angela Giron While rape among acquaintances has undoubtedly occurred for many centuries, the phenomenon now known as date rape was not named until 1982, when Mary Koss, a feminist and professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona reported the results of her study on a new and unusual type of sexual aggression which she termed dateRead MoreCrime: A Popular Genre in Literature and Films1232 Words   |  5 PagesAn Examination of Textual Form in 4 Crime Texts Crime is one of the most popular subjects in literature and film. At the same time, however, the genre also boasts an exceptional number of texts that experiment with form, doing so in a manner that causes audiences to reflect on the nature of crime and the relationship between crime and the average citizen. In this vein, one of the challenges of crime writing is to represent justice and crime while doing so in a manner that challenges conventionalRead More Feminism In The Crime Film Genre Essay2058 Words   |  9 PagesFeminism In The Crime Film Genre Throughout motion picture history, women have experienced more transition in their roles, as a result of changing societal norms, than any other class. At first, both society and the movie industry preached that women should be dependent on men and remain in the home, in order to guarantee stability in the community and the family. As time passed and attitudes changed, women were beginning to be depicted as strong willed, independent minded characters, who wereRead MorePsychological and Ethical Egoists in the Film, Crimes and Misdemeanors863 Words   |  4 Pagesof an ethical egoist believe in what we ought to do. These views were both demonstrated in the film â€Å"Crimes and Misdemeanors†. Each of those views make an impact on how one lives their lives, and the circumstances associated with each view. Taking a look at the differences and similarities of psychological egoism and ethical egoism is the first step to understanding the complex characters in this film. Steven M. Cahn explains in Exploring Ethics that â€Å"psychological egoism is the view that allRead MoreFilm Review : Spy Is A 2015 Crime Comedy Film Directed By Paul Feig Essay1377 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction The crime film genre is largely dominated by men. In contrast, Spy is a 2015 crime-comedy film directed by Paul Feig that features two female leads and many females in supporting roles. Women are portrayed as powerful villains and protagonists who are not afraid to use violence, including guns, to do what they want. In addition, characters in the film continually value female friendship and solidarity. Spy opens with Susan Cooper being a desk-bound and trustworthy CIA analyst for herRead MoreSimilarities Between Film, The Crime of Father Amaro and the Book, The Relic1489 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Question1 Carlos Carreras 2002 motion picture The Crime of Father Amaro and Josà © Maria De Eà §a de Queirà ³s book The Relic both discuss topics related to religion and to the hypocrisy that some individuals need to adopt in order to be provided with social acceptance. Society in general is displayed as an environment where people need to employ false attitudes in order for them to appear worthy of their peers respect. Religion is seemingly one of the most important values in both works and it