Global Warming and Pollution: Is There Still Time?

While visiting the island of Mauritius last year, I got the opportunity to visit a coral reef conservation at one of the many beachfront hotels the island has. Here, I learned about local efforts that the island of Mauritius had been taking in order to protect marine life. The coral in the water is becoming more and more bleached and tourism is causing a lot of negative impacts on the environment. Tourism plays a positive role in the economy of Mauritius but the beaches are continuously being polluted by tourists, which will eventually make people not want to visit anymore.

Additionally, while driving around, I noticed a significant amount of trash on the sides of the roads. Since there is only one landfill on the island, there is nowhere to put it all and it eventually just ends up going into the oceans. It seems that people aren’t taught very well about caring for the environment in Mauritius; no one separates trash and no one recycles. However, the hotels along the beaches have decided not to use plastic straws in order to help out with the plastic issue, but there must be more efforts than this in order to make any progress because their government isn’t making very many changes to protect the environment. There have also been problems with invasive species in Mauritius, along with a lot of native plants disappearing. Additionally, there is a lot of native wildlife in Mauritius but since invasive species are being brought in, certain animals aren’t able to survive. For, it brings in a lot of new predators.

Not only is pollution an issue on the island, but so is global warming. However, global warming is impacting our entire planet. From the melting of the polar ice caps to the destruction of our ozone layer, global warming is becoming a dangerous threat, and if we don’t act soon and try to reverse the damage we have already done, it will plague earth for millions of years. It is a known fact that the earth goes through a naturally occurring temperature flux where the temperature will either drop or increase every few millions of years, but the increase of carbon offsets in astronomical numbers has sped this cycle up, which is unhealthy for the earth’s ecosystem. Any non-bias set of eyes can evaluate the evidence and clearly see that global warming is a real issue in today’s world and that it has been caused by humans in many different ways from pollution, to creating climate change.

In Mauritius, intense rainfall episodes and sea level rises have caused landslides, cyclones, and immense flooding. Over the last decade, climate change has led to many issues in today’s society like harder-hitting storms in not just Mauritius but also in the United States. An example of this is Hurricane Sandy. The warm water available at the time of the storm striking allowed the hurricane to do extremely uncommon things. This allowed Hurricane Sandy to pick up massive amounts of warm water, turn it into vapor, and (upon hitting land) dump it on top of our east coast. In years prior to Hurricane Sandy, this would have never been possible due to the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is usually cold naturally because of water current patterns. This produced major flooding all over the east coast, and almost put Manhattan completely underwater, which has never been done before. Climate change has significantly enhanced the effects of storms by creating higher water levels, giving the storms the ability to produce a much higher base than usual and pick up more water from the ocean on its way to land. However, it was also able to carry more water with it than seen from other storms in the past. Some scientists also believe that storms are becoming more powerful in the Atlantic Ocean due to ice caps declining in that area. This has been great news for the shipping industry who no longer needs to worry as much when looking out for icebergs, but it gives the ocean’s surface more room to absorb sunlight and heat at an even faster rate, which will diminish other ice caps even faster and create a speedy cycle of doing so (Freedman). We can see that climate change is a very high impacting accomplice when it comes to global warming.

All in all, global warming and pollution are detrimental subjects that we must face not only as a nation but as a coalition with other nations to combat it and stop it if at all possible. Every industrial nation is responsible for causing it in some way or another. Either out of ignorance or because it was a cheaper alternative to act one way, so we must work together to stop it so that we can preserve the earth for generations to come.

Source: https://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-15190

Hong Kong McDonald's

In the article “McDonald’s in Hong Kong: Consumerism, Dietary Change, and the Rise of a Children’s Culture,” James L. Watson discusses the booming success of McDonald’s in Hong Kong along with his experience visiting one. I have personally visited a McDonald’s in Hong Kong before and in many other countries as well. I have made it a goal of mine to visit a McDonald’s in as many countries as possible and plan to visit them in other countries moving forward. I will continue to do so just because I find it very interesting to experience the many differences and/or similarities to the McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.

I was curious to read this article because when I visited the McDonald’s in Hong Kong, I found it rather fascinating how different the experience was versus how it has been for me in the United States. Hong Kong’s McDonald’s restaurants are chock full of surprises. First off, I found it strange that the children in Hong Kong choose to have their birthday parties at McDonald’s. Even though children from the United States also have their birthday parties at McDonald’s, it shocked me because I thought that they would follow more traditional ways of celebrating. In addition, their menu includes some very interesting selections like soy milk, Thai chicken wings, and macaroni and cheese toasties. I was also fascinated by the service that was provided. I was not expecting an employee to personally deliver my food to me and also take my plate when I was finished. It made me feel somewhat guilty. I know wages are low in Hong Kong so it also made me feel the need to tip the employee since it was obviously the reason they were doing it. Most of the McDonald’s restaurants are open 24 hours a day and are always full of people, even when it is 5:00 am, which is when I happened to visit. There are even children doing their homework and homeless old men catching up on their sleep. On the other hand, just like in the United States, I didn’t see any recycling bins which is the one thing that didn’t surprise me. I plan to visit at least one McDonald’s in every other country I travel to going forward so that I can experience how culturally different they are from the ones in the United States.

Read the article here: http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/mcdonaldsinhk.pdf

Ida Husted Harper

Ida Husted Harper was a well-known journalist and advocate for women’s rights during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the United States women’s suffrage movement was occurring. Ida wrote for countless newspapers all over the United States about various articles on women’s issues.

Ida Harper was born on February 18th, 1851 in a small town located in the state of Indiana called Fairfield. Ida lived in Fairfield for approximately ten years until she and her family packed their bags and moved to the city of Muncie, Indiana. After Ida graduated from high school at the age of 17, she decided to attend college at Indiana University. That is until she dropped out to become a teacher and also a high school principal in Peru, Indiana. Not too long after, Ida got married to a man named Thomas Winans Harper and relocated to Terre Haute, Indiana where they gave birth to a girl named Winnifred Harper. Later on, Winnifred also became a writer. Since Ida’s husband was not only an attorney but also a politician, he had many strong connections in the city of Terre Haute, connections that allowed Ida to write woman’s columns for the Terre Haute Daily News. Even though she did so without Thomas’ approval. In 1887, Ida began to focus on women’s voting rights and even helped create a women’s suffrage society in Indiana. Ida’s impressive and brilliant writing skills helped her become the Secretary of the women’s suffrage society.

A few years later, Ida and her husband realized they were unhappily married and eventually got a divorce. But this didn’t slow Ida down. She immediately moved to Indianapolis with her daughter and got a job working for the Indianapolis News. A few more years went by and Ida was still writing columns for newspapers. Ida and her daughter then set foot on a journey to the state of beautiful California where Ida began taking classes at Stanford University. In 1896, Ida committed her time to be a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association where she spent a lot of time working with Susan B. Anthony, a women’s rights crusader. While Ida served as the press relations leader for their campaign towards a state suffrage amendment, her and Anthony became close friends. Anthony eventually asked Ida to move to Rochester, New York to become her official biographer after seeing how well she did with the campaign. Ida then left California and headed to New York where she lived with Anthony and wrote and published three volumes about Susan B. Anthony’s life and work. Ida stayed persistent with her activism in the suffrage movement and later died on March 14th, 1931 in Washington, D.C. from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 80.


Work of Ida Husted Harper:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15220/15220-h/15220-h.htm

Political Cartoon

Political cartoons are meant to be funny and ironic but at the same time informative and somewhat persuasive. The main purpose of a political cartoon is to make the person viewing it reflect upon the political issue being presented. They are also created in hopes of swaying people towards the illustrator’s views. Although I haven’t created my political cartoon yet, I have already planned out how I will design it. I have learned a lot about the negative effects of plastic on our marine life and the strong impact it has on tourism and economies in various countries. Numerous efforts from many different countries are being taken in order to protect the Earth’s marine life but human pollution is tough to fight. The garbage we currently produce, especially plastic, is not only ending up in our oceans but also into the stomachs of fish. Fish that we consume! According to many scientists and their findings, most of the seafood sold in markets have been found to have a disturbing amount of plastic inside of them.

Deciding what to create for my political cartoon came quick and easy for me. I wanted to make my cartoon fun and interesting to look at while also allowing the people viewing it to understand what is being shown. Therefore, I would draw a fish and place it on top of a dinner table with a clear view of the inside of its stomach, and inside of its stomach, would be plastic garbage like water bottles and straws. I would draw this for my political cartoon because I want viewers to receive the message that pollution in our oceans has become a global crisis. I think this cartoon idea would be effective and also ironic because it shows people that our pollution is effecting ourselves first-hand, which causes viewers to look deeper into the issue of pollution and be more aware of their actions. There are many seafood eaters out there, including myself, and if we continue pollution at the rates they are we could eventually have more plastic in our oceans than we do fish! So how can we phase the consumption of plastic out of our lifestyles? There are many ways we can reduce consumption but some include spreading the word, quit drinking bottled water, shop with reusable shopping bags, and recycle properly.

Julian Assange's Innocence

A whistleblower is anybody who reveals illegal or unethical information or activities that occur within a company or government, and they have been around for quite some time now. The United States government has had a long history of disliking whistleblowers and have dealt with them through many forms of unfair punishment, mainly because they don’t appreciate when the truth is revealed to the public. In some cases, articles are written about these whistleblowers being heroes, but many others deem them as traitors. Recently, a whistleblower case regarding a journalist and editor from Australia named Julian Assange has been up for strong debate. In 2006, Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, a website that was created with the purpose of gathering and sharing confidential information to the public. In 2010, WiKiLeaks came to international attention when they published United States documents about the war in Iraq. In 2012, Sweden had tried to charge Assange with rape, so he immediately sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange was also afraid that the United States would try to put him in jail. Little did he know, the U.S. government was spying on him during his time at the embassy and had even placed cameras and microphones in his bathroom. Seven years passed and Assange was still in hiding at the Ecuadorian embassy. That is until he was arrested for skipping bail and is now currently being held in a British maximum-security prison.

There has been a rising concern that this punishment is too extreme for Assange’s whistleblowing acts and personally I agree. The prison holds some of the most dangerous and ruthless criminals. He has little to no contact with anyone and is forcefully confined for 23 hours a day. Doctors have even begun to worry about Assange’s health, saying he is close to death. In my opinion, Julian Assange is a victim and is going through an ugly form of torture for just doing his job and speaking the truth. The United States government has no right to put Assange through such harsh treatment when he hasn’t even been charged with anything. I think Assange’s whistleblowing acts was him being ethical and don’t understand why the first amendment doesn’t protect him against this. As a U.S. citizen, I feel that I have the right to know when illegal or unjust activities are occurring and Assange helped people discover the truth and allowed the world to focus on important issues. These days, being active in politics is important because it is how we fight for what we want and have a voice and freedom of speech. I am baffled by the fact that whistleblowers release stories about wrongdoings, corruption, and crime but the people who do all of those injustices are given zero punishment while the journalists/whistleblowers get punished. How do the U.S. laws still apply to Assange if he wasn’t even an American citizen? It isn’t fair that the U.S. government had enough power to reach into another country, pull him out and place him in prison. They interfered with another country’s government.

Julian Assange arrested at Ecuadorian embassy:https://youtu.be/8oqJiNzJQ_E

Reflection: Working With Live-in-Labs

During my time in India last year, I got the chance to talk with students my age who were exploring sustainable solutions towards problems faced by villages in India. Live-in-Labs members have touched the lives of countless residents during the past several years. So I was excited to find out that my peers and I were invited to help with their program’s marketing efforts involving their service-learning program. This program is designed to help students address challenges and come up with innovative solutions that test problem-solving abilities through fieldwork and projects. Live-in-Labs helps students learn first-hand how to give back to the communities while living in the communities themselves. I was very impressed after hearing about all of the projects Live-in-Labs has successfully accomplished, along with their strong efforts to develop a program focused around exposing international youth to issues of rural communities. Working with them showed me how much Live-in-Labs truly cares about the villages in India and how much time students from across the globe devote to coming up with creative and innovative solutions that help teach these communities how to live better lives. I really enjoyed meeting and interacting with the engineering students and getting the chance to learn about all of their projects and how they are formed/implemented. 

My favorite part of the day was hearing about the various marketing ideas everyone came up with. I gained a lot of valuable information from not just my peers, but the engineering students as well. Before going into the meeting, I imagined that there would be no hierarchy, which there surely was not. Everyone’s thoughts and suggestions were just as important as everyone else’s, which made me throw out more ideas! This is important when going through the brainstorming process because sometimes people (especially interns) are afraid to speak their minds. I also liked how the floor was always open to questions. Sharing their lessons from specific projects helped everyone expand their knowledge and learn how to effectively implement new techniques. We left better marketers! We were organized and extremely focused on our goals. My class was given a valuable opportunity to participate in their marketing efforts and be a part of the Live-in-Labs program. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the brainstorming process of marketing and I believe I gained a lot of valuable skills that can help me in the future.

Below is a pamphlet idea I created for my presentation to the Amrita students: