12 WINGED POST
STEM
VOLUME 19 • ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 16, 2017
GLOBAL
RESET
Part eighteen of an ongoing series
State assembly holds discussion on climate change anvi banga aquila asst. news editor
Representatives from the California State Assembly hosted a discussion about climate change policies on Jan. 25. The discussion was focused on the SB100 bill, which calls for California to use 100% clean energy by 2045, gives the Public Utilities Commision (PUC) the power to regulate public energy utilities, and requires the California Energy Commision, which is the state’s primary energy policy and planning agency, the state board, and the PUC to create projects to replace fossil fueled energy. “It’s actually proven far easier to meet all our clean energy goals than we thought when we set them,” Jason Barbose from the Union of Concerned Scientists said. “That’s just one thing that influences our thinking it’s that costs continue to come down and it actually looks like we’re kind of there.” Barbose started the meeting with a presentation on recent impacts of climate change. Assembly Members Evan Low, representative of the 28th Assembly District, and Marc Berman, representative of the 24th Assembly District, then spoke for ten minutes each about their positions on climate legislation. “Juxtaposition of 5 years of drought, hot and dry conditions, followed by immense rain may
seem incongruent, but climate scientists have been predicting this for California since at least the 1980s,” Barbose said. “Protracted periods of warm and dry conditions punctuated by immense wet spells with more rain and less snow means we will have both periods of droughts and floods more often in our state’s future.” This was followed by a Q&A session where Barbose, Low and Berman answered questions from an audience that included a wide variety of Californians from small children to energy experts. Low was the first to address the audience, beginning by asking audience members if they had previously taken in part in a community discussion about a topical issue and praising the community’s engagement in the forum. During the forum, the speakers highlighted California’s role as a leader in the international issue of climate change. “California is a leader [in climate change]. There’s an awareness of the importance of the state, from an immigrant perspective, from a perspective of job creation, from a perspective of being a role model,” Tarun Galagali, a senior advisor for congressman Ro Khanna, who spoke on how the renewable energy industry helps to provide jobs said. “In the San Joaquin Valley, we’ve seen 8,000 new jobs just towards renewable energy, gen-
erating over 12 billion dollars in economic impact,” Galagali said. “That is to be celebrated the fact that these kinds of decisions, these kinds of targets can have tangible trickle-down impacts towards communities that have been significantly disenfranchised, is actually saying that here is where jobs are going
POLICY PARTICIPATION Members of the upper school Green Team as well as advisor and Spanish teacher Diana Moss attended an open forum on climate change hosted by Califorina State Assembly Members Evan Low and Marc Berman. The representatives discussed california climate change legislation, particularly bill SB100, which stipulates 100% clean energy use by 2045. The talk occured at Quinlan Community Center in Cupertino on Jan. 25
to go in the future, and here are where jobs have already gone because of ambitious targets.” The audience was comprised mostly of Silicon Valley residents
campaigning for SB100 to pass. Currently, California is aiming for 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
REGENERON RESEARCH Rajiv Movva (12) and Justin Xie (12) were named finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search on Jan. 23. The two will travel to Washington, D.C. in March for the final round.
adrian chu, alex wang & neil bai columnist & aquila opinions editor & copy editor
The 40 finalists and 300 semifinalists for the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) were announced on the Regeneron website on Jan. 9 and Jan. 23, respectively. Rajiv Movva and Justin Xie were named finalists, while seniors Amy Dunphy, Amy Jin, Jimmy Lin and Eleanor Xiao were named semifinalists. The STS is an annual research competition open to high school seniors that began in 1942 as the Westinghouse STS through a collaboration between the Society for Science & the Public and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In 1998, Intel Corporation replaced Westinghouse Electric Corporation as the sponsor of what became the Intel STS. The current sponsor, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., became the sponsor in 2016, and the competition took on its current name. Regeneron STS is available only for high school students and requires applicants to complete short answer and essay questions in addition to submitting a max-
imum 20-page research paper. The 40 finalists receive between a 25,000 to 250,000 dollar prize and go on an all-expense-paid trip to Washington D.C. on March 8 through March 14, during of which the top ten will be announced. “I’ve always been really interested in using theoretical tools like computer science to tackle real world problems,” Jimmy said. “Last year, I learned about the potential applications of artificial intelligence in cancer research, so I worked on developing a system that could automatically diagnose breast cancers reliably. This year, I wanted to take that idea one step further by predicting breast cancer occurrence before it fully develops, with the end goal being earlier treatment options for patients.” Justin’s project is on his research about type Ia supernova explosions, which occur in binary star systems with one white dwarf. “In my project I tried to identify the mechanism behind type Ia explosions a.k.a. how they explode,” Justin said. “I just really like astronomy. Studying stars is very interesting because they’re just extremely majestic.” Rajiv and Justin will compete in Washington D.C. in March for the final round of judging. “Regeneron is something that I’ve always wanted to apply to and being named a finalist is an amazing experience and I’m looking forward to finalist week in March,” Justin said. “I’m looking forward to being able to interact with 39 other students who all really enjoy science but all do other things outside of STEM. I know Regeneron places a lot of emphasis on community service so I think everyone there is very caring and goal-driven.”
FCC repeals highly contested regulations on net neutrality aditya singhvi & srinath somasundaram reporters
The five-person Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal the net neutrality regulations that were put in place during the Obama administration on Dec. 14, 2017. The repeal came in a 3 - 2 vote led by FCC commissioner Ajit Pai . The regulations, collectively known as net neutrality, ensured that internet service providers (ISPs) treated all information on the internet equally. Pro-net neutrality activists say that consumers will begin experiencing changes in their internet consumption soon if nothing is done to bring back the regulations. “You’re going to have less options because competition has been sort of squashed,” Dylan Gilbert, a policy fellow at Public Knowledge, which is an organization campaigning for net neutrality, said. “You’re going to have a glitchy, unreliable internet experience, and you could potentially have a censored experience as well.”
According to Gilbert, there are three forms of interference that an ISP could potentially engage in: blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. Blocking involves the ISP completely restricting certain information, while throttling is the slowing down of that information. Paid prioritization involves the ISP asking companies to pay to have their information prioritized and travel through an internet “fast lane”. “[A] large [video] provider has the money, probably, to pay for the fast lane,” Gilbert said. “So, if you and I are interested in streaming content, we are gonna choose the one that is going to get to us faster. That is anti-competitive because it picks winners and losers when it comes to who gets to send their content online. We don’t want to deter possible new, innovating startups from being able to compete.” However, those opposed to net neutrality say that the free market would actually enhance competition by exposing businesses to a free market.
KATHERINE ZHANG
Seniors advance to national round of Regeneron Science Talent Search
“The government is controlled by large corporations, which means the regulations end up favoring them, and harming their smaller competitors,” said Josh Steimle, the CEO of MWI, an international digital marketing agency, citing a Princeton study that concluded that corporations largely control the government. Others believe that the internet should be left unregulated until large problems arise in real life rather than acting in the face of the possibility of them. “It may be a solution looking for a problem, and if the problem doesn’t exist then putting in regulations to stop a nonexistent problem for occuring can have unintended consequences and side effects that are unforeseen,” computer science department chair Dr. Nelson said. The recent repeal is being challenged in courts by various groups. Furthermore, senators are currently attempting to reverse the repeal of net neutrality through the Congressional Review Act (CRA).