Monthly- Archives: October 2011

October 25, 2011


HANNAH H

B.P.’s Cover-up and Local Response

On the eve of BP’s catastrophe, its man-made disaster that killed eleven of its workers and numerous innocent animals, bankrupting thousands of businesses on the Gulf of Mexico, the Minerals Management Service, the agency that supposedly regulates and manages oil companies’ leases of our natural resources, was sitting on its hands.  The technology necessary for drilling a mile below sea level didn’t have the right safety protocols to prevent the spill. What was the MMS doing?  In September 2010, Julia Whitty from the investigative journal Mother Jones published an article about BP’s horrific cover up, with all the truths being kept from the general public.  MMS just let BP continue “…gambling at the border of controlled engineering, to be the deepest and cheapest driller of them all,” said Whitty.

After all they’ve caused, is BP taking responsibility?  No, it is covering up its mistakes. In fear of being sued, they decide to pay the victims whose lives they so very much disadvantaged with the BP Compensation Fund. That is it.  They simply don’t care about anything but their reputation. For example, they were and still are dispersing Corexit, a lethal dispersant onto the oil covered waters, fully knowing that the oil that was spilt, plus the dispersed Corexit, is the absolute worst combination possible for the environment.  Obviously the environment will thank BP after this. Even after all this BP still finds time to (according to Whitty) “round down” the numbers of the amount of hemorrhaging oil, and above all, “buy the silence of scientists with lucrative pay and confidentiality clauses”.

The Clean Water Act states that BP must pay $1,100 dollars for every barrel of oil that they spilled. But, because of their use of Corexit and other dispersants, the real size of the spill will forever be unknown, because only a meager amount of oil washes up on shore, “guaranteeing that BP’s liability will be vastly underestimated” (Whitty).

To better understand what consequences for these types of actions should be, we should look to the Canadian Oil Company, Syncrude. Syncrude is the largest oil sands project operator and in April 2008, was fined $2.92 million for killing 1,603 ducks because it had failed to put up warnings for the birds. This incident is on a far smaller scale than the BP Oil Spill, but the amount of money paid has been much more appropriate. Syncrude had to pay for harming nature, as should BP.  The Alberta court decision was fair, and laws protecting nature should ensure BP pays for its crimes. Syncrude was charged about $1,900 per duck.

A staff writer, Patrik Jonsson, of the global news organization, Christian Science Monitor, wrote an article in June of 2010 about the many deaths of the unfortunate animals in the Gulf of Mexico. While the number of animals killed in the BP oil spill is not known, Jonsson reports that there have been an estimated 1,000 slain seagulls.  “One fifth of the entire Juvenile Atlantic Bluefin Tuna population [has been decimated] as of August, the numbers rising substantially every day,” says Mathew McDermott of the environmental website, Tree Hugger. How much should BP pay? In the 10/21/10 edition of USA Today online, the Natural Resources Defense Council said that they thought BP would have to pay billions. Many of the killed birds and sea life were endangered, and the cost for harming or killing endangered animals can be up to $50,000 per creature.

Can you be numb to this fact: BP has resorted to purposely killing innocent animals to preserve what’s left of their reputation!  “Endangered sea turtles and other marine creatures are being corralled into 500 square-mile ‘burn fields’ and burnt alive in operations intended to contain oil from BP’s ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico”, said Suzanne Goldenberg, a U.S. correspondent of London’s Guardian newspaper.

It isn’t only major oil companies that have nature harming ways. Everywhere you look, you can see people tossing their used napkins and empty bottles out the window of his or her car, or onto the sidewalk just a few measly feet away from a small sign, stating “no littering”.  Sometimes you come across streets cluttered with litter and nobody on that street bothers to pick anything up, when just the other day they boasted to their companions about how they were becoming so eco-friendly.

Henry David Thoreau once said, “Thank God man cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth”.  But that was then: in modern times, more than a century later, even the average person can and does fly — but with the help of gas-guzzling, waste-leaving aircraft.  Google has hormone-free chicken in its cafeterias, a free shuttle for employees to take, and an employee incentive plan to walk, bike and use public transportation.  This would seem to be model behavior for an environmentally conscious company.  However they own and frequently use a $60 million “party plane”, which is three times as heavy (and three times as energy consuming) as a conventional executive aircraft, decked out with dining rooms, bedrooms and even customized showers.

Do you do enough to help out their environment? Can we as global citizens afford to be hypocritical any more?  How could we work together to eradicate the state of hypocrisy we’re in right now?

Several sources including the Environmental Protection Agency helped Oberlin College publish an article about recycling. While 56% of the paper used in 2007 in the United States was recycled, many Americans aren’t going any further. For example, Americans could be filling 21 million bags with the amount of food they throw into landfill.

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham with their Cap and Trade policy that supposedly will help the environment are proving to be top-drawer environmental hypocrites. Their policy just lets big companies cover up their just-as-big environmental footprints. The Cap and Trade Policy basically will let the companies have the same carbon footprints, but they can do things such as fund a rainforest to “offset” the footprint.  Corporations can trade their offsets, and Wall Street traders are lining up to bet on these offsets as new types of derivatives!  When will the madness stop?

Supporters of this bill include several companies, such as the Environmental Defense Counsel and the National Resource Defense Counsel, which seems contradicting. Congress has allotted two billion carbon tons to be traded as part of this bill.  Two billion tons is about 30% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions!  But there are countries who oppose this idea fundamentally and morally, like Bolivia. Bolivia’s president Evo Morales has spoken out against Cap and Trade but so far has not been heard as loudly as he deserves to be.

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson says in his essay, Nature: “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore… the city of God”: if nature was only around once in every century, we would be more appreciative of it, but because it is always able to be seen, we see it as a given. Nature is no longer viewed as something we deserve, but something we take for granted. People like Kerry and Lieberman think that ecology and stewardship can be translated into advantages for the business world, but if they observed more closely, or if they listened more closely, they would understand nature’s true meaning. They would understand that nature’s laws trump man’s laws.

Making empty complaints won’t help our planet.

I am handing you, the reader, a questionnaire, to compel you to understand your civic and environmental duties, and to make you stop and think about what you’re doing for the environment.  What ARE you doing and does your conscience approve of your behavior and outlook? Please complete the questionnaire and return it to me.  You may keep this informative essay to better understand the current state of the environment.  I will use your responses in an upcoming presentation about the effects of my inquiries.

 

 

 

QUESTIONNAIRE

1. What do you do think you should do in everyday life that is beneficial to the environment? (List)

2. What do you do in everyday life (and be honest) that effects the environment negatively? (List)

3. Do you contradict yourself in what you should do and what you do?

4. Does your conscience become affected when you do things that you shouldn’t, environmentally-wise?

5. How much effort would you put into changing those habits? Are you open to change?

6. How much do you know about the BP Oil Spill?

7. What are your opinions on their cleanup program?

8. Have you been on the BP website where it states all the ways it is improving the scene near the spill?

9. Should the government have done more about the spill rather than letting BP “handle it” themselves?

10. Should BP have to pay compensation? How much is appropriate for all they’ve caused?

11. Do you think that major corporations should be allowed to hide their footprints?

12. Have you heard about the Cap and Trade Policy?  What are your opinions about it?

13. Have you heard the opposition to Cap and Trade?

 

October 25, 2011


HELEN (HANYU) L

 2011 CTY Reflection

 

Fourteen young students entered bravely into the unknown classroom. With their innocent eyes wide open, they were bewildered by the brick walls and the dim atmosphere in which they were suppose to spend eight hours a day for the next three weeks. The sunlight that was peering through the narrow windows near the roof of the room filled the atmosphere with a glimmer that lowered everyone’s happy mood. Then the lights flickered on. The room was showered by a warm, artificial brilliance that clearly stated: this was a classroom.

I once was scared of that room. I did not know what was going on nor what would go on once I was in there, but that feeling of frustration did not last long enough for me to ponder upon. Two hours into the lesson, laughter already deafened me, and I was proud to say that I had contributed to that sound of joy. The class started off with a few icebreakers and I got to know each of my classmates. Even though I had already “broken ice” with the eleven girls that I shared my hall with, I felt like I was getting closer to them. After a few rounds of the Name Game, the lesson soon flowed into an activity where we would write a sentence, and pass it along to the next person to contribute to our story. We each had wicked minds and facetious thoughts so we decided to write them down on paper making that part of the story our own. Few occasional snickers filled the room. In the end, most of our stories concluded with death and a fat kid named Bobby who died because of his obesity. The teachers got enough of our personalities that day.

As the days passed, the once shy and timid fourteen of us were now increasingly fearless in both our writing and speech. We began developing voice in our essays and successfully built a personal narrative.  We also developed an idea that it was funny to blurt out a word randomly in class. Most of the time, the word was “kumquat” and after its many uses, the word was no longer random, therefore, it lost its purpose.

We also became very close to the teachers: close enough to give them very cool nicknames. At least it was cool in our perspective. Our teacher, Ms. Deonne was changed to a simple “DD” or was it spelled “De De”?  We are still arguing over that. Our T.A was changed from Ryan to Fry Rye, but after acknowledging that he didn’t like to be fried, we changed it to UN-fry Rye. He liked that better.

Wherever we, my friends and I, walked around campus, eyes stared and heads turned.  We were like a magnet, attracting all the attention of the whole campus and even a few teachers. It was not our amiable personalities that brought us this fame, but rather our voices. Certainly mentioned among others that we were the chattiest kids that they have ever met, soon, we were known as the “loud mob of girls that piss people off”, but we tried to ignore those remarks. My friends and I would randomly wave to people and RAs that we had never met before, and we completely abandoned the “Don’t Talk to Strangers” rule. However, at CTY, everyone is family.

It was not very hard to make friends when you live five feet away from ten other friendly, maybe too friendly, girls who take the same class as you. By the end of the first day, we went everywhere together and became BFFLs (Best Friends for Life). Then there were the three other boys in my Creative Nonfiction course. Their personalities took more time to break into. They often did not talk, contribute or socialize. Outsiders might have thought of them as socially ill, however, we eventually boiled up their friendly side.

Besides the fun and social times, CTY is about learning and adopting new ideas.  I remember having difficulties in adapting to the view of someone else. In class, we often have activities where we write in the point of view of someone else. It would always take me forever to start the thinking process of another person’s brain and learn to write from it in less than thirty minutes. We often would be separated into groups of four, and built upon each other to come up with an essay from someone else’s perspective. One time, I was in the group with two other girls and one boy. We had to write in the view of a person under the title of Miss Malaysia. After writing and editing the piece, we thought it would be funny for the boy to read as Miss Malaysia and in the end, we thought right. It ended up being a fantastic presentation; in addition, the boy was later known as Miss Malaysia for the next three weeks.

During the course of Creative Nonfiction, we wrote essay after essay. Our fingers were bruised and they throbbed from the grip of the pen at the end of the session. We wrote personal narratives, travel pieces, newspaper articles, social critiques, memoirs, and poems. After each piece that we bled all our efforts into, the teacher made copies and distributed them out to the entire class. We then had to fix, edit and comment on the thirteen other works that we received. After hours of reading and correcting, we would form into two groups and share our thoughts about the others’ pieces. Some remarks were hurtful but we learned to fix our essays from them.

Down time was something we didn’t have a lot of – it usually occurred before bedtime and during the weekends. However, down time was our period for brainstorming the essays that we had to write the next day. Occasionally, my friends and I would gather into one room and enjoy some food, music and play some cards. These times were few. Most of the time, we would call our families, get ready for bed, or go to the bookstores to refill our necessities. I cannot recall one down time where I was rushed or bored because down time was treasured and should not be wasted.

Revision and change were something that my essays needed, something that my thought processes needed, but something that CTY has no need for. CTY was perfect. I enjoyed every second at the Center for Talented Youth and would like it to stay the same forever.

 

October 25, 2011


JING-WEI L

 

 

Center for Talented Youth: Lancaster, PA

 

 

As I walked down the hallway to my room, I noticed something – there were pictures of squirrels on all of the doors. (I would later learn that squirrels meant first years at CTY.) I was rather pleased with my picture: a terribly obese squirrel nibbling on an acorn. “Stripes”.  Stripes was probably the name of the roommate I would be sharing my room with.  I hoped that she was a nice girl. My first impression after our split-second encounter was that she was a pleasant girl who wore a lot of mascara. I liked my room too: a good springy bed, a nice desk and rocking chair-like chair, a medium-sized mirror, drawers, a big wardrobe, and there was also a good working air conditioner humming along near the windows! Hurray!

Students eat together with their hall (a group of students in a section to a floor) and RAs (people who watch over a group of students in a hall and organize afternoon activities) for the first two breakfasts of the term, but you’re on your own after that for all meals. I would later learn to love CTY, but it’s a different community from all the other sites (CTY has a bunch of sites all over the place, even one in Hawaii I believe) and everyone there practically already knows everyone and is already in all their little groups so “newbies” had some trouble.  I was a newbie, but luckily I had planned to go there with my friend so I was saved from sitting alone and not knowing anything about CTY. The food there was pretty good. There was Asian food, a grill with hamburgers and hot dogs, pizza, salad bar, soup, etc. There was also this section called “Kivo” with kosher food, rolls and wraps, grilled cheese sandwiches, and cheese quesadillas.  There was also dessert: humungous chocolate chip cookies, different kinds of cake everyday, and ice cream (which always had a line)!

First impressions are always subject to change. And mine did. My first class was a little nerve-racking. We had to read essays from old dudes like Aristotle and Socrates, which made my brain hurt and required me to read their papers veeeery sloooooooowly. Some of the people in my class are abnormally fast readers, like Top-Hat. When Top-Hat was done with the article, other people were still near half done. Amazing! Our teacher seemed a little nerdy (as all teachers may seem) as did our TA (teacher’s assistant) and as nervous as we were. He kept on saying “um” a lot and his voice seemed a little weird (his trembling was all gone once he knew us better). There were an equal number of boys and girls in out class, seven of each. There was one really, REALLY tall boy named Happy, who later turned out to be the friendliest, and a very good story teller. His stories about his horrible school would always make the entire class laugh. Soon though, we were all comfortable with each other and Fuzzy (teacher) and Suns (TA-teacher’s assistant) turned out to be beyond awesomeness! Fuzzy would show us all these fantastic videos and after a while, “Larry,” a drawing that Fuzzy often used to teach us philosophy, was known as our beloved class mascot.  Larry looks a bit like Pac-Man and is used to give the class a visual on the lesson Fuzzy is teaching.  Fuzzy would also show us GoogleNews and Twitter so we would know what was going on in the world, which my mom said was a good thing.

We wrote a paper and had a test on the last day and I was very happy with both. We talked about stuff like the brain in a vat: this is the hypothesis that we may actually be brains in jars attached to a machine, making us believe we were living through a regular life as a regular person, not as a brain in a vat. Another topic was whether or not we existed. I distinctly remember the quote “Cogito Ergo Sum” – “I think, therefore I am.” The only thing one can know for sure is that your mind exists. So the physical world could all be a hallucination! We also talked about subjects like dualism – the belief that mind and body are separate; the Chinese room experiment which was an experiment to demonstrate how machines do not understand, and the Mary Experiment – an experiment to see if knowing all the facts of the physical world means that you know everything, and many other topics.

Sometimes our class would collaborate with the class next door to do debates, watch videos or do other fun activities. For the debates there were two sides and then there were the neutral people who would move to the side that had convinced them of their view. We had debates on whether machines could think and whether humans could know if God exists. Both times one side won by a landslide while the other only had one or two people on their side. During the debate about God, a girl from the other class started talking about how cats could sense God … that just made most of the people shift to the other side. (From then on we referred to that girl as the “cat lady.”) On the machines debate, one side just started contradicting themselves resulting in the other side winning. Both were very good debates that helped us learn a lot, while enjoying each other. We also watched a movie about an opera that was very boring and made other people fall asleep. It was a new movie and we were among the first people who saw it. I think the teachers learned to never show that to students ever again though. It was really bad. We also watched two videos about this man named Bill that people really liked but I did not get. (I had my friends explain to me the meaning of those videos later on.)

In the afternoon we would do fun activities that we had signed up for. Activities were also good for meeting new people and I made some new friends. I once signed up for this activity called “Rob Knows Many Things” where we would test the extent of Rob’s knowledge. One great thing about CTY is it’s a place for nerds and it’s a place where you can be yourself, so during that activity we ended up mostly talking about Pokemon cards. Most of the time I signed up for activities with my friends, and tried to sign up for indoor activities. It was kinda hot at Lancaster and if you were outside, you were probably gonna get a bunch of bug bites. After a while I was sick of getting bug bites and wore jeans, like my friend. It was a little uncomfortable, but at least I didn’t get any new bug bites.

On Fridays and Saturdays there would be dances in the evening. People who had been here before and could choose to bring fancy dresses, shoes and jewelry. You didn’t have to get all dressed up though, you could just wear there what you wore all day. The dances were a lot of fun, but my friend and I usually just went to the movie room and saw the movie that they were showing. We didn’t feel like dancing and it made the time pass by a lot faster. During some of the songs there were specific things that people do. Like during the song “American Pie” people form a big circle and then rush to the middle of the dance floor. And there were also “Rave Circles.” At CTY, or at Lancaster anyway, during dances you take two glow sticks on strings (which you can wear as necklaces and carry around with you) and spin them around. People like to practice swinging around the glow sticks whenever they have free time and like to impress each other with new tricks. In rave circles people form a circle and all the people who can swing around the glow sticks go into the middle and show their stuff. All those whirling lights in the dark of the dance floor makes for an impressive show. During one dance two RAs did a planned dance to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Huzzah! The dances are an awesome part of CTY even if one just wants to watch.

The weekends were a time for relaxation and the only days you could do your laundry. We didn’t have any classes except for study hall on Sunday, but otherwise we had a lot of free time on our hands. You could sleep in on the weekends, but I woke up super early on Saturdays to do my laundry because I didn’t want to do it on Sunday and you had to get there early or you would have to wait a long time for a dryer. There were eight washing machines and eight dryers per building, but the first week two of the dryers were broken so I had to wait around an hour for one. It only takes 37 minutes to wash, but an hour to dry. I didn’t like waiting in that hot room for an hour just to do my laundry! My friend told me that it’s even worse at the Johns Hopkins site where they only have around nine washing machines FOR THE WHOLE SITE!! That’s why there’s Internet at Johns Hopkins: people need something to do while waiting, according to her. And there’s no Internet at Lancaster, (you need a password which some students have actually cracked before) probably so that students can concentrate on their studies or something. On weekends you could watch movies or go to the farmer’s market, or just hang out. My friends and I played cards, played computer chess, and typed up stories on a laptop that Tomato, a friend, brought. On Sunday there was “hall bonding” where the hall would all do something together. My hall just went onto Netflix (RAs and instructors had Internet access) and watched the movie “10 Things I Hate About You,” a movie that is based on The Taming of the Shrew, and episodes from “Bones” and “Parks and Recreation” while pigging out on junk food, cup noodles and cup ramen, and SKL. Fun!  Halls would also walk over to Turkey Hill (gas station shop) to buy stuff. Turkey Hill got a lot of business from CTY students. A very popular drink sold at Turkey Hill was strawberry-kiwi lemonade, also referred to as “SKL.” CTY had to put a limit on how many bottles of the stuff people could buy, because apparently people literally would bring along suitcases and fill ‘em up with SKL. Turkey Hill literally ran out and other people didn’t get the chance to buy SKL, which wasn’t fair.

There was also a talent show which most of the people in CTY went to. Most of the RAs went because they had to bring their halls to dinner (some had their day off) but most of the teachers didn’t for some reason. The talent show was very amusing to watch with students performing Korean songs, and RAs doing songs like “Single Ladies” and “Old McDonald.” There was also an RA and teachers dance-off. I think that was a tie. I didn’t think that the talent show would be anything but boring, but I was wrong, and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

The last day of CTY was very sad and many people were crying. I can totally understand. I was a little reluctant to go to CTY because I thought that it would kind of be like summer school, but I was completely and utterly wrong! I loved my experience at CTY and had loads of fun – three weeks was just too short! I hope to return to CTY and take a course as cool as Philosophy of the Mind and with as extraordinary instructors!

October 25, 2011


HANNAH H

BP Oil Spill: Past, Present, and Future

 

In the autumn of 2010, I decided to look into the recent, horrendous BP oil spill. I felt so strongly about the incident that I decided to write an essay and a questionnaire about the topic to educate others. The essay and questionnaire were used to evaluate how citizens react to major world events. The essay was used mainly as a way to inform readers about the horrors hidden behind the infamous BP oil spill and the manipulative Cap and Trade policy. The essay exposed that BP was corralling oil-covered sea animals into small areas to be burned. This was not a mainstream story for obvious reasons. In the questionnaire, many of the questions addressed how people treat the environment, and sought opinions about how major corporations, such as BP, and government officials treat it, as well. The responses were varied and sometimes emotional. In this report I will give an overview of my original project, and will discuss the essay itself and the answers from the questionnaire.

The people who I interviewed were of different backgrounds, locations, jobs and viewpoints. The respondents came from a number of places not in the U.S. such as China, England, and Canada. Others live in California, Connecticut and New York. In total, there were 24 questionnaires filled out and returned. Some reactions were of positive inspiration, such as this one from Person F: “I was shocked to discover all the horrors of the BP oil spill. I feel like I should try my hardest to do my small part”. Some were of doubtfulness— like Person X’s comment that called the facts in the essay “propaganda”.  Now that the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill has just passed, this essay reminds citizens of the fact that the oil is still in the water, and it is still threatening wildlife. Even though everybody still remembers last year’s spill, this year, the Obama Administration is increasing approvals for deep water oil drilling permits. In fact, a well operated by Noble Energy of Houston TX, which is co-owned by BP, has recently received a permit to start drilling. As Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois stated, “You would think that the BP oil spill never happened”.

It must be noted that BP itself has not done a significant amount to help clean up the mess or help the people who were affected because of the irresponsibility of the company. To hide the fact that such an unbelievable number of animals were suffering because of the spill, BP decided to round up animals and put them into small, fenced off areas. The company then burned the animals, destroying evidence. “Endangered sea turtles and other marine creatures are being corralled into 500 square-mile ‘burn fields’ and burnt alive in operations intended to contain oil from BP’s ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Suzanne Goldenberg, a U.S. correspondent of London’s Guardian newspaper. Also, Corexit, the chemical dispersant BP used to “clean up” the oil simply covered up the oil, as well as harming the animals that came upon it in the process.

The original essay and questionnaire project began in the fall of 2010, six months after the spill. Now, more than half a year later, the need to do more to help still holds true. After writing the essay that told people the facts, I still didn’t feel that was enough. I had to take it a step further. To find out how much the essay affected people, I wrote a questionnaire to go along with it. 24 questionnaires (A-X) were returned. I was then able to separate the questionnaires into three categories. The categories were based on the responses given, and I named them group A, group B, and group C . The people categorized into group A were those who seemed as though they were determined to learn more about the topic and act on it. Responses in this category could sound like this, from Person C: “I am excited to learn more about what I can do to help the environment.” The people who were put into group B responded with perfunctory answers, and didn’t seem as though they were truly moved by the essay. One example of this was Person L who wrote in response to a question: “What BP did was irresponsible, however, minor mistakes happen in the government and in major corporations all the time.” Group C were the people who, based on their answers, seemed to think the status quo was just fine, and held disbelief that a major corporation would do something immoral for monetary reasons, such as a person who stated: “ I don’t believe that large firms like BP would do such illogical things such as murdering animals”. In the next three paragraphs, I will analyze the three distinct groups and give examples of why the people were placed where they were.

Group A, again, were the people that seemed like they truly wanted to be more educated on the topic and better the world. Many of the responses were very enthusiastic. These types of individuals will most likely go on to support more environmental causes, and learn about issues that they can help out with fixing. The respondents probably also came from environmentally friendly backgrounds, or already knew some information about the spill, like in Person Q’s case: “As I already knew a lot about the spill, I was excited going into the essay. I now feel as though I know more about the topic than I already did.” Another person, Person O, was incredibly upbeat and seemed 100% ready to go out into the world and help the environment: “Yes, this essay has affected me. I am definitely more aware of the urgency of being environmentally friendly. And I realize there are many things I can do everyday in my life to make the environment better. I will start as soon as I can.”  This group’s members will no doubt feel more determined to work towards the goal of a clean and green environment. These nine individuals’ comments show that they’ve been inspired to do their parts in keeping Planet Earth beautiful.

Group B’s members responded with unimpressive answers to all of the questionnaire’s questions, and didn’t seem very moved by the essay. These people most likely do care about the environment, but do not have enough passion to actually act upon their feelings. Or, they might still be in denial that a person or company would do such a horrendous thing. For example, Person E answered a question by saying that “I think it is inevitable for big corporations to be focused on creating wealth – so it is not shocking that they will do what they can to maximize profits”. While it is true that major companies are focused on creating wealth, giving them the excuse to do whatever they please is NOT the correct thing to do. Another similar answer, written by Person B stated, “I think that the vast majority of employees are good people who worry about their kids just like I do … I am not sure that an organization can be evil.” The six members of Group B probably have not been very educated on environmental subjects, and so that limits their potential commitment to benefiting the planet.

Group C was the group with members that had answers showing they were fine with what is happening right now in the world environmentally. They believed that BP is able to handle the oil spill issue, and will be able to clean up its own mess. Many of the answers were brief, most of them one or two word answers. It seemed they had rushed through the questionnaire and didn’t spend enough time actually thinking through what they were writing down. Out of the nine members of Group C, four of them had answers of simply “yes” and “no”. Other answers, including one from Person X, (who called the essay “propaganda”) answering question 1 of the questionnaire – which was to list all the things people should do to help the environment – stated that he should “live life to the fullest”. These types of answers simply prove how the writers do not care about protecting the earth. Another responder, Person M, seemed to not care at all about the environment, and responded to one of the questions by saying, “I pretty much discount everything in here as noise.” That person does not want to admit that my essay contains facts, not opinions, and wouldn’t admit that large corporations indeed do unspeakable things to earn money and protect their reputations. The people who were put into Group C will probably do very little to nothing to help protect Mother Nature and will no doubt rely on others to do their duty for them.

As citizens of not only our country, but also our world, we must always be dedicated to keeping our environment clean. While Group A members seem inspired to do that already, the people in Groups B and C will need some pushing. When I think about the future, I think about how our cities and countries and world will be covered in fossil fuel fallout. By then, people will regret the mess they caused— but it will be too late. My generation’s children, and their children, and so on, will just be one step closer to a grey and dirty Planet Earth. However, if everybody decides to commit to doing the right thing NOW, then our planet will be a greener and better place.

October 25, 2011


ERIC HUANG

 Biology

 

Biology is not my favorite,

Hard work, hard tests, extremely tedious

Last minute studying in bed, candle lit,

From ATP to bugs eating aphids.

I read about trees, how large, how green,

So tall, so bold, leaves blowing in the air,

The bark has lenticels, in between,

These autotrophs give us energy to spare.

This work is difficult, very tough,

But how could I not see,

All of this will have paid off,

If I score well on the SAT.