FMHS APES Third Spring 2019

By Arun Raja Here in Flower Mound, we don’t really tend to think much about the environmental consequences of many of our actions. Whenever we go get a new pair of shoes, or throw an old one away, we often do not realize the growing problem of shoe disposal and how it is negatively affecting our environment. In fact, there are more than 20 billion pairs of shoes, manufactured each year, enough for nearly every person in the world to rotate through 3 pairs each year! The manufacturing of shoes and shoes in general poses many threats to our planet, as during the process many chemicals and fossil fuels are used to produce this good. This simple, yet necessary good, harms humans and wildlife, while also producing large amounts of carbon dioxide and further contributing to the growing issue of global warming. The largest environmental impacts of shoes comes from the manufacturing stages of the shoe life cycle. However, to no surprise, people seem to think that their shoes are only an e...

Sindhoora Ponnam I went to India about eight years ago and it was one of the greatest places ever, it was my ancestors’ home. The people, the food, the culture, the family is what makes India amazing. However, this home is heavily overpopulated. It is estimated that around 75% of India’s total population bases their livelihoods on farming. My father’s side of the family farms to this day and my mother’s side of the family definitely has roots that come from farming. I deeply connect with this thought provoking and alarming subject. With climate change only growing at a faster rate it is no surprise that this significant amount of farming is having negative impacts on the environment, specifically regarding the degradation and depletion of resources. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor is only broadening as years go by, making wealthier people wealthier and poorer people even poorer. This leaves generations of farmers with few options regarding choice of work. One of the re...

Maria Roth Ever since 2016 Americans have heard the statement “Build the Wall.” After 3 years of continuously hearing the arguments from the right and left side, Trump has started his infamous plan to minimize illegal immigration through the building of a gigantic border wall. Although this may reduce immigration from Mexico, this wall holds far more of an impact than simply abiding to a political agenda: it would cause a chollasal impact on the environment on the border line. Already there are 650 miles of boundaries between the U.S and Mexico; however, the majority of this is not on the natural habitat. Through the creation of this wall, an abrupt shift will occur. Additionally, Congress has given the agency conducting the construction the right to waver imperative laws that protect the environment and species (such as the Endangered Species Act). This allows the agency to not take the proper steps to formulate a plan that is both beneficial to them and the environment, but rath...

Rishit Podder Land Pollution We talk about water and air pollution all the time but land pollution as well as a big impact on the environment as it is continuously polluted and vulnerable. Land pollution simply means degradation of the earth’s surface as a result of human activities like mining, littering, deforestation, industrial, construction and agricultural activities. Land pollution can have a huge environmental impact in the form of air pollution and soil pollution which in turn can have an adverse effect on human health. There are many causes of land pollution, but the main concern is deforestation and soil erosion. Deforestation results in dry land which mean that it can never be fertile again. The problem with that is that the land will eventually become unstable for farming and other crops. In addition, the land will also become polluted by heavy metals such as lead and mercury. It is estimated that over 50 percent of all earth's surface water has been polluted b...

Bianca Pasello Meats are consumed regularly by the majority of the worlds population, but the vast environmental consequences of meat consumption often go unrecognized. Not only are animals mistreated at times, but raising them and manufacturing their meat causes resource consumption. We also need to spend extra money on maintaining the animals at optimal conditions so that higher quality meats are achieved. Because of all these reasons,  Joseph Poore, from the University of Oxford, claims that a “vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.” It is obvious, though, that his suggestion is not a completely realistic solution, but what if there was a way around all these issues? Thanks to modern technology, there is a way! Scientists have been able to successfully creat lab grown meat. They extract a few cells of a cows muscle tissue and are able...

Ryan Oh Recycling. An option that all of us can directly take that, supposedly, shouldn’t be very hard to do. I mean, so often we are told to recycle what we can, but of those times how many resulted in the recycling of un-recyclable items? Yes, recycling technology has been improved upon, and now we have a wider array of recyclable options, however there are still many items that are thought to be recyclable but are not. For example, plastic bags. Yes, these can be recycled it’s just how we recycle them. By gathering recyclables in plastic bags or recycling the baggies in general, we cause problems for recycling equipment resulting in jams, contamination of paper bales, and interference in compost facilities. What we can do to prevent plastic bags from becoming our demise is to give them to recycling programs that focus exclusively on them. Oftentimes, grocery stores offer plastic bag pick-up and drop-off programs. If you don’t have such a grocery store near you, keep a bag collec...

Madison McCann Deforestation has been a issue that has been devastating the earth for decades. Our beautiful forests cover 31% of the land on earth. The forests give vital oxygen for all of the earth, as well as providing homes for both animals and people.  According to the World Wildlife foundation, over 1.6 billion people rely on the forests for freshwater, clothing, food, medicine, and shelter. On top of that most of the threatened and endangered species live in the forests. But due to deforestation we are losing 18.7 million acres of forest each and every year, think about 27 soccer fields every minute.  Every minute the forests shrink due to fires, clear-cutting, ranching, development, logging for timber, and even climate change plays a role in the degradation. This problem is hitting our rainforests the hardest being where most of our biodiversity comes from. as they hold over half of our worlds Species of animals, plants, and insects.  The am...