FMHS APES Third Spring 2019

Amogh Gokhale We all know that there are two main types of resources: Renewable and non renewable. Renewable resources include wind energy, hydropower, and solar energy. Non renewable include coal, lumber, and petroleum. However, we use non renewable resources much more than renewable. This is especially shocking when we see that we are just decades from using all these resources up. According to BBC , at our current rate of consumption, we will run out of all fossil fuels around the year 2050. Now, more than ever, placing a greater emphasis on renewable resources is necessary for our planet to stay clean from pollution from burning of fossil fuels. For a good example of a country that has already switched to green energy, lets look at Denmark. Denmark has put a large emphasis on its use of resources such as wind and hydropower. In fact, Denmark was able to meet almost 140% of its yearly energy consumption with wind power alone! This allowed them to share this power wi...

Lauren Frazier Think about your closet. Are there things in there that you do not wear? Is it going to sit in there for years until you decide it is time to throw it out? Due to fast fashion , consumers consider the cheap clothing that has been made available to be disposable. However, there are more consequences to wasting clothing than just a few bucks. The process to produce this fast fashion has a large footprint on the environment. Man made materials such as polyester require harmful substances like crude oil and hydrogen chloride to be used in factories and then released into the environment. According to the EPA, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, many textile manufacturing facilities are hazardous waste generators. Yet man made textiles are not the only clothing materials leaving a footprint. Even cotton growing comes with large amounts of harmful pesticides: one fourth of all the pesticides used in the U.S. to be exact. A 2006 report by Oakdene Hollin...

The only natural habitat for polar bears is in and around the Arctic Circle. With climate change, the arctic circle and it’s ice caps are melting at astounding rates. This is making a huge impact on polar bear population and could be the determining factor in their survival. According to the World Wildlife Fund , polar bears are considered a vulnerable species, with an estimated population of 22,000-31,000, and there is an estimated high risk of decline. This begs the question: are we doing enough to stop this steady decline? And if not, what more can be done? A popular trend on social media this year emerged as the “10-year Challenge”. Social media users posted pictures of themselves from 10 years ago, and pictures of themselves from 2019. The one that struck me the most was the above image, which shows polar bears in 2009 and in 2019. The image demonstrates the harsh reality of the starvation and habitat loss that polar bears are currently facing. The first polar bear is a ...

Isaac Chiang In today’s society, it is no longer uncommon for anyone to own a car. As more and more cars are produced and resold, the opportunity for individuals to purchase one becomes easier and easier. However, it comes to no surprise that the increase in automobile usage has propelled the release of carbon monoxide (CO) and have littered the air with harmful pollution. In this article, I have chosen to focus my attention on a specific location with an excessive amount of automobile pollution, New Delhi, India. Cars and motorbikes under heavy smog in New Delhi, India In the image above, you can see the heavy smog that pollutes modern day New Delhi. With India’s already massive population of 1.34 billion, the amount of traffic that workers and citizens face everyday adds to the smog in the air as stalling a car will produce way more carbon than driving at a moderate speed. The hours of traffic that clog India’s streets creates a massive generation of air pollution and rui...

Camila Carlo When you think about the beach, what do you think about? The clear water in Cabo? Or maybe the greenish-aqua colored water in Hawaii? Whatever it is, at the rate we are going, the future generations will not relate the beach to beauty, they will relate it to trash. Do you really want to be 103 years old telling your grand-children about how clean the oceans were once upon a time? No? Then let's work together to possibly create more awareness about this issue and hopefully help before it is too late. It is estimated that about 17 million pounds of trash go into the ocean each year. The healthy oceans that once occupied the Earth are now turning into trash cans for many citizens of this planet. Not only does the trash put into the ocean ruin the oceans themselves, but they also put in danger the billions of lives that the ocean serves as a home for. Millions of animals die each year, mainly due to the incredible amount of straws, bags, and other plastic items...

Paula Cao You ever notice how airline food tastes like your dentist's waiting room floor? You have your little bowl of pasta, and it looks like they fished it out your sink drain. And you can't bring food onto the plane, so you're stuck with either hours of not eating the food or hours of wishing you hadn't eaten the food. And they spend half an hour pushing the little cart and blocking the aisle so you can't get to the bathroom, which strangely enough, smells exactly like what you just ate. But even worse than eating airline food (hard to believe) is the waste airline food generates. The last time I was on a plane, I had two meals. Everything was individually wrapped: the bread, the main course, two sides, even the Kit-Kat bar that was already in a wrapper. Everything came in these plastic containers. Seems like a ton of waste. Every tray of food brought onto the plane is thrown away, even if no one eats it (due to health concerns), which is quite wasteful....

Rithika Bandla Imagine a world where a third of our food was not being produced. If we’re not careful, this could become a reality. Since 1995, scientists and beekeepers have been reporting a steady decline in bees and diminishing bee colonies. The role of the bees is a vital part of various ecosystems, and with this rapid decrease in bee population, the environment will suffer if serious changes aren’t made. Bees provide a very important yet under-appreciated service to ecosystems. The key service provided is performing 80% of all insect-mediated pollination, the process which aids in the production of 75% of our crops. A decline in the bee population would directly relate to the diminution of important, nutritious, fruits and vegetables used daily in our diets: fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Geographically, bees are the most essential and effective pollinators. Several species of bees are suffering increasingly in a world that’s moving growing progressively dependent...