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Volume CXVIII No. 24
Established 1904
April 23, 2021
EARTH DAY 2021
Single-use plastic consumption skyrockets amidst billions of disposable face masks BY ESTEFANIA DECAIRES Contributor
Caroline Montana for The Stute.
HOW COFFEE WASTE CAN HELP THE PLANET BY RIYA SHRESTHA Contributor
Coffee lovers no longer have to worry about the waste they generate from coffee pulp, just like tea and fresh juice lovers. All the pulp of tea, coffee, and juice can be decomposed and used as fertilizers for vegetation or forestation. Although the properties of the pulp of all three are vastly different from each other, the uses have similar advantages and disadvantages. Using decomposed fruits and vegetables as fertilizer is a common composting technique; however, the use of coffee and tea pulp is not as popular. A recent Science Daily article brought attention to the use of coffee to boost forest recovery. However, it is a common Columbian practice to reuse the coffee pulp in coffee farms. Similar practices take place in Nepal and India with tea pulp (as it is more common to drink tea than coffee there). This Earth Day, let’s learn about how to reduce, reuse, and recycle all the waste from the drinks we absolutely love. The Science Daily article additionally highlights a study conducted in Costa Rica, where they used coffee pulp on degraded tropical land. The study lasted for two years, and the nutrients in the soil were measured at two times: right before adding the coffee pulp and at the end of the study. It was observed that the nutrients in the soil — carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus — were significantly elevated in the area covered with coffee pulp. Another noticeable change was that trees grew to be four times taller in grounds covered with coffee pulp than the ones without it. In this case, there was no mention of composting the coffee pulp; however, the Columbian practice differs. According to the Columbian practice, the coffee is left in rooms with walls made of bamboo, floors
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There’s no vaccine for denial BY COSETTE LIM Science Writer
The COVID-19 pandemic has given society a fast-motion glimpse of what climate change could entail, as both the pandemic and climate change have demonstrated lasting global impacts on people’s health and quality of life. Notably, the two have affected minority and low-income communities the most, and it’s safe to say that COVID-19 has given us an idea as to how a global crisis like climate change can affect our society. The social and economic shutdowns that occurred early in 2020 led to noticeable changes in greenhouse gas emissions, as decreased transportation, business closures, and a work-fromhome lifestyle took place. However, despite the sharp decline in emissions, NASA’s ozone-monitoring data has proven this to only be a temporary dent in our global efforts to combat climate change. As global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise again post-lockdown, the pandemic’s influence on reduced global greenhouse gas emissions won’t last
Why climate change needs to be addressed in a post-pandemic world long. Government policies and economic incentives that can secure long-term emissions cuts will need to be established to stifle the effects of climate change. According to a study published by Nature, global carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4% in 2020, compared to the previous year, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept worldwide. It was also shown in this study that due to the sharp decline in vehicle transportation following the lockdowns in early 2020, the United States contributed the most to the global dip in emissions with an approximate 13% decrease. However, although the decline is significant, many climate researchers believe that these effects of the pandemic will not last once the pandemic is under control. As the global economy begins to pick up and vaccine roll-outs continue to occur worldwide, the rate of global emissions is expected to rise again. And according to a report released last month by the International Energy Agency, carbon dioxide out-
put not only rebounded last December, but the levels of carbon emissions rose 2% higher than that in the same month of 2019. Zhu Liu, an Earth-system scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing and co-leader of the international Carbon Monitor program, explained in an article in Nature, “I imagine that when the pandemic ends, we probably will see a very strong rebound [in emissions].” The pandemic has provided us with a unique perspective on the challenges that lie ahead for countries to commit to a fight against climate change. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the world would need to cut carbon emissions by 7.6% each year for the next decade in order to prevent the globe from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which is the goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. A reduction at this scale would be much
Read the full story on thestute.com Caroline Montana for The Stute.
The role COVID-19 has played on the environment can be seen as positive, on the surface. We all saw those videos of dolphins returning to the water canals in Venice due to the lack of human activity, or pictures of cities in China where the smog that surrounded the cities cleared out. However, on a deeper look it seems that there is a particular issue that has not received attention from most media outlets and the general public. The issue is the increase in plastic consumption and its negative impact on the
environment. COVID-19 has triggered an increase in single-use plastic. Plastic bottles are one of the most common plastic pollutants in the world and for the last few years, they have been causing many environmental problems. About 60 million plastic bottles are used every day, and about 90% of them are not recycled; therefore, they either end up in landfills or they end up in our oceans. Specifically during the pandemic, one of the most common forms of plastic consumption was
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Nuclear HOW’S THE energy: its HUDSON? benefits and Since the Clean Air drawbacks Act of 1970 and the BY SARA DEUIDICIBUS Staff Writer
Clear Water Act of 1972, the state of the Hudson has greatly improved.
A great topic to discuss on Earth Day is the types of energy we use, how we use them, and the pros and cons of each. Since an analysis on each of the popular energy sources (wind, solar, water, etc.) would take an entire publication of space by itself, this article will focus on the one which is perhaps the most debated — nuclear energy. Nuclear energy takes uranium atoms and conducts nuclear fission — splitting them — to eject heat and radiation. Because of this split, neutrons from the atom’s nucleus are released and go on to collide with other uranium atoms, split them, and cause what is known as a nuclear chain reaction. Uranium atoms can take the form of one of many types of uranium isotopes. Isotopes are atoms of an element that have the same number of protons but differ in their number of neutrons. Specifically, U-235 is the isotope variety that is used in nuclear power production. So, even though uranium is 100 times more common than silver, the U-235 isotope is harder to come by. According to the Department of Energy, nuclear energy is the “largest source of clean power” in the United States. Since fission is used to produce nuclear energy, “The heat released […] is used to create steam that spins a turbine to generate electricity without the harmful byproducts emit-
On this Earth Day, I chose to take a look in my own backyard — the Hudson River. Bordering the largest city in the United States, it is no surprise that the Hudson River is not in pristine shape. With such large population densities on either side, the Hudson River is in the prime location to face extreme pollution. However, would you believe that the Hudson is actually doing better than it has been in almost 50 years? General Electric (GE), the multinational conglomerate corporation, played a large role in polluting the Hudson River. Headquartered in New York, the corporation dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) directly into the waterways between 1946 and 1977, until PCBs were banned in the United States for their detrimental health effects. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, PCBs have been declared as probably carcinogenic in humans as they have caused a variety of health issues. These chemicals have affected humans’ immune systems, reproductive systems, nervous systems, endocrine systems, and more. PCBs in the environment
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BY RAYNA INDELICATO Science Editor