20 Cause Effect Essay Topics: Interesting Issues to Debate about Environment

If you are tasked with writing a cause and/or effect essay on the book “Living Downstream” written by Sandra Steingraber, then chances are you are facing the most challenging part of the writing process: selecting your topic. Picking the perfect topic can be difficult, at best, especially when you consider how many great topics there are in relation to this book. Thus, below you will find twenty topics that might be beneficial for you, or useful for your next assignment.

Remember that these are only meant as a guide and may not be specifically applicable to your assignment:

1. How Agricultural and Industrial Pollutants Have Been Shown in Medical and Scientific Assessments to Be Linked to Cancer Rates
2. Which Environmental Factors Have Resulted in Higher Cancer Rates, and Which Cancers Specifically
3. What Environmental Factors Have Been Scientifically Studied as Links to Cancer Compared to Genetic Cancers
4. What Has Caused the Imbalance Between Scientific and/or Medical Studies for Environmental Factors versus Genetic Factors in Cancer
5. Which Carcinogens Are Most Profoundly Influential and Detrimental to People and What Effects Do They Have
6. What Causes Carcinogens to Enter the Body and Damage Living Tissue
7. What Has Caused Cancer Rates Among Adults to Increase From a Mere 25% back in the 1950’s to 50% for Men and 40% for Women Today
8. What Effect Increased Introduction of Chemicals into All Areas of Life Including Clothing, Food, Tools, and Housing Products Has Had on Society
9. What Causes Immigrants To Show Signs and Symptoms of the Cancers Prevalent in Their New Home rather than Those of Their Place of Birth
10. What Causes More and Higher Rates of Cancer to be Prevalent in Urban Regions Compared to Rural Regions
11. What Effect Heavy Pesticide Use Has On Rural Communities
12. What Effect Chemical Factories Have on Cancer Clusters in Nearby Populated Areas
13. What Causes Cancer Clusters to Grow in Regions outside of Heavily Polluted Valleys or Rivers
14. What Effect Pollution in Fresh Water and Salt Water Areas Has Had on the Local Fish Species
15. How Polluted Water Has Impacted Fish and Shellfish Populations Compared to the Same Fish Species Living in Non-polluted Waters
16. What Has Caused Cancer Rates in Children to Rise Steadily in spite of No Lifestyle Changes Over the Course of the Last Fifty Years
17. What Effect Damage to the Endocrine and Immune System Has to the Body and the Promotion of Cancers within the Body
18. What Effect Raising Awareness About the Toll That the Use of Chemicals Has Had on The Human Economy and Resulting Cancers Has Had
19. What Effect Acting on Partial Scientific Evidence Can Have For Society
20. What Effect the Adoption of a New Way of Looking at Chemicals Can Have on Human Rights

Aren’t those great topics? Of course, just seeing the list of topics may not be everything that you need to get started on your own work. That’s why we prepared facts that will help to understand the book and a writing guide that will help to master cause effect essay writing. Below you will find a great essay sample below on the topics.

Cause Effect Sample Essay “The Causes of an Imbalance between Scientific and/or Medical Studies for Environmental Factors vs Genetic Factors in Cancer”

The causes of an imbalance between scientific and medical studies for environmental factors which cause cancer versus genetic factors that cause cancer is simple politics and money. Environmental concerns are something which have been often compared to that of politics. There are many political organizations responsible for funding individual research efforts, affording grants, and ensuring that only particular angles are covered. While the book “Living Downstream” has raised a great deal of serious concerns, it  would stand to reason that the work is not able to garner as much attention as it should because it does not play the political game, and instead the political game is playing everyone else.

Of course, the book by Dr. Sandra Steingraber is a collective work which ignores the politics associated with environmentalists and instead provides data and data alone to convince the reader of the current cancer epidemic and the harmful source of said epidemic: chemical residues and pesticides which are now almost entirely prevalent across the whole environment. By not playing the political game, the doctor’s work has not raised the alarm that it should have and has not garnered the worldwide call to arms to stop the pollution and take preventative measures.

Part of the reason for this is the fact that existing research, both medical and scientific, has followed closely the rates of genetic cancers and from that has claimed that cancers rates over the last fifty years have dropped and not risen as was claimed in the book. This is misleading at best. The studies, as clearly covered by the author, are not comprehensive nor do they take into account the environmental factors or cancer rates not related to genetic cancers. Additionally, one must refer back to the politics of the game and review the organizations behind the research, behind the grants, and behind the studies. The results which have opposed any increase or harm brought about by chemicals and pesticides have all originated in studies which have circumventing the main point brought to the surface by Dr. Sandra Steingraber in a clear attempt to avoid discussing the real problem. By focusing financial and, as a result, research efforts on genetic cancers, news sources report reduced cancer rates and people see no reason to stop exposing themselves to harmful chemicals.

Overall, the causes of an imbalance between scientific and medical studies for environmental factors which cause cancer versus genetic factors that cause cancer is simple politics and money. With a focus on genetic cancers and a complete ignorance of environmental factors, big companies who are using said pesticides and chemicals and profiting from them do not have to take a hit to their profits.

References
“BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF PESTICIDES OF PESTICIDES IN MAMMALIAN SYSTEMS”. The Sciences 7.3 (1967): 33-38. Web.
“Chemical Carcinogens: A Review Of The Science And Its Associated Principles. U.S. Interagency Staff Group On Carcinogens”. Environ Health Perspect 67 (1986): 201-282. Web.
“Pesticides And Wildlife”. Oryx 7.05 (1964): 213. Web.
Eckardt, Robert Edward. Industrial Carcinogens. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1959. Print.
GROVER, P. L. “Chemical Carcinogens”. Science 204.4399 (1979): 1301-1301. Web.
Noël, Bernard. “Pesticides”. Lignes 33.3 (2010): 62. Web.
RENWICK, A. G., and B. S. DRASAR. “Environmental Carcinogens And Large Bowel Cancer”.Nature 263.5574 (1976): 234-235. Web.
Steingraber, Sandra. Living Downstream. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1997. Print.