Horgan Seminar Blog

  Jesal Gandhi The Real “Bee Problem” If you have kept in touch with issues in science and the environment over the years, you may have heard of “the bee problem.” To those unaware, this problem involves declining population numbers of bees, which leads to less pollination and subsequently food chain issues. However, what most people are misinformed about is the fact that wild bees, not honey bees, are the species that are declining rapidly. In fact, the rise of honey bee populations is itself posing threats to not only wild bee populations, but to the environment as well, and these effects are exacerbated by climate change.  So why exactly is the fall in wild bee populations such a problem? To understand why, we need to view bee species as analogous to keys, while the plants they pollinate are the locks to these keys. Honey bees can be seen as a universal key that can unlock (or pollinate) a wide variety of plants; however, due to this universality, honey bees are very in...

  Kevin Mamo Professor Horgan HST - 401 A October 29th, 2022  Earth’s Health isn’t the only thing failing While the world focuses on the ice caps melting or hurricanes slicing through coastal cities (and rightfully so), there is another urgent issue stemming from climate change. The rising temperatures bring about the drastic change in weather leading to warmer climates and heavier rainfall throughout the year. The spring season now has heavier rainfall and a damper environment which leads to more standing water, and summers bring droughts which also lead to the formation of pools of water rather than free flowing streams. Many people see these changes and form tunnel vision by only noticing the obvious problems such as lack of water leading to bad crop yield, dehydration, and less hydro powered energy. However, these new conditions that are being amplified by climate change also bring the silent problem which is that of vectors.  A vector is a living organism that can ...

  Sustainability is a widely discussed solution to combat climate change in the modern world. As a result, it has become a guiding principle in many aspects of our lives. Specific changes have been implemented in order to combat climate change with sustainability such as shopping with reusable bags, developing hybrid cars, opting for clean power alternatives, etc. These changes are made with the intention of offsetting our carbon footprint, reducing pollution, and lowering the use of our natural and nonrenewable resources. Additionally, “reducing carbon emissions is one of the most effective and necessary climate-related actions” as CO 2 in the atmosphere has been proven to be a large contributor to global climate change.  Furthermore, the issue of climate change has sparked many car manufacturing companies to rethink their designs in order to participate in sustainability development. More specifically, within the last few years, a shift from combustion engines to electr...

  Christian Szablewski-Paz HST 401 Professor Horgan 1 November 2022 Unsettling Truths of Climate Change I am unsure if it is just me that has this sentiment, but whenever I hear about climate change on the news or during conversation, I just become depressed.  It almost appears that there is nothing a small person like me can do to fight climate change, but rather, it is in the hands of governments to put regulations into place that will actually make some impact against climate change.  It also appears that many of the policies put into place by the government to fight climate change are to receive votes, rather than to actually fight the problem at hand, which is even more depressing.  What specifically comes to mind is the banning of plastic straws in multiple blue states around the country.  According to National Geographic, of all of the pollution filled in our ocean, plastic straws make up a mere 0.025%, but leaders in favor of this have hyped it up to b...

 Dhihan Ahmed Climate Change           You know those movies where everything looks utopian when in reality everything is falling apart? Those movies where everything is seemingly perfect and yet things couldn’t be more wrong? That’s been the state of our planet ever since the Industrial Revolution and it’s showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. With our planet warming up at a rate never before seen in Earth’s history, it’s only a matter of time before we face the same dystopian fate as those movies.           First and foremost, what could climate change possibly be that warrants this much concern and severity? Climate change, according to the United Nations, refers to “long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns”. This is not talking about natural shifts in temperatures of course, as the Earth has a vivid history of changing between Ice Ages and warm periods. This is strictly referring to irregular weather...

  On the 3 rd of June this year, at Roland Garros, one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world, a climate activist entered the court during a widely televised match and chained herself to net. She turned towards the cameras so they could capture exactly what the words on her shirt said: “WE HAVE 1028 DAYS LEFT”. Her efforts, although radical, were valiant. It takes courage to make a vehement statement when the world around us seems to go about daily life with a distinct placidity. Her actions exuded the enormous fear inside of her and were reflective of the fatalistic attitude that large numbers of climate activists propound, that we are close to a point of no return. Radical acts of climate fatalism, like this, emphasize the urgency of taking action. It’s now or never. Although, how true is this notion? Are we almost too far down the cliff to climb back up?  This attitude of climate fatalism is silly and yet, oddly necessary.  Susan Joy Hassol, the dir...

  Global Warming Is Affecting More Than We Think There is a countdown clock in New York City that tells us when we have passed the point of no return. But with the earth’s temperature getting warmer and no one doing anything, who’s to say that we haven’t already hit zero on our countdown? The main reason why I question whether or not we are out of time is the melting glaciers. We can tell that they are melting, obviously, but when glaciers melt, it causes more than just rising sea levels. The water temperature actually begins to rise as well. According to the World Wildlife Fund , there are millions of animal species that reside in the world’s oceans, so without their usual water temperature, many species will alter their migration patterns. Take narwhals, the unicorns of the sea, as your example. Researchers in Canada studied a group of 40 narwhals from 1997 to 2018 and saw that their migration shifted 17 days later over the twenty years. The University of Windsor researchers a...

  Katie Bloomer Materialism, recycling, and climate change As a kid, I thought that I was an environmentalist because I turned the lights off when leaving a room, used a reusable water bottle, and recycled. It turns out that these things are the absolute bare minimum and the difference they make could be seen as negligible in the grand scheme of things. In reality, there needs to be a complete shift in the culture surrounding sustainability in order to avoid the devastating effects that climate change will otherwise have in the future. Global warming is a universal crisis that impacts everyone regardless of their individual environmental contributions. The increasing temperature is largely due to rising carbon dioxide levels, to which human activity is the main contributor. More specifically, factory manufacturing and landfill disposal processes release significant amounts of carbon dioxide. This unnaturally large amount of carbon dioxide blocks heat from escaping the atmosphere as...

  Zachary Martis Electric Engines, the Future of Travel             Over the past few centuries, going back to the Industrial Revolution in the United States, humans have been pumping toxic chemicals into the air to have power and electricity. Large factories spew out these chemicals through smokestacks, then large trucks or boats would need to fuel their engines and carry the goods across the country or world. Every part of the United States imports, and exports mainly revolve around some way that is polluting the Earth and with the most recent estimate of the United States exporting over $2 billion dollars’ worth of goods annually, there has been a huge push to get away from traditional toxic engines to a greener solution.              In recent years, one of the main topics of controversy in the world has been climate change and whether if there’s anything...

Rahim Salhi      Mental health is a pretty broad topic. It’s also a very individual and personal thing to explore and talk about. Seeing a loved one struggle with the signs of a mental illness may be incredibly challenging and heartbreaking. Knowing the right way to assist and support a loved one may sometimes be challenging. Everybody is unique, and every circumstance is unique as well. Both good physical and mental wellness are crucial. In fact, more than half of all Americans will be diagnosed with a mental disease or problem at some point in their lives. These are some of the most frequent health problems in the United States. The World Health Organization (WHO) conceptualizes mental health as a “state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”. In any given year, one in every five Americans will su...

     Imagine if every single day when you wake up, you are involuntarily thrown into a constant battle; not with work, not with your friends and family, but with yourself. Daily tasks as simple as eating breakfast and going to the gym become the most stressful activities of your day, because the fear of being “too fat” has consumed you. The only thing running through your mind, controlling every move you make, is a single numerical value on the scale, and your only concern is maintaining this number. This form of mental illness may seem abstract and difficult to understand for the average person, however, those fighting bulimia and other eating disorders are accustomed to the unfortunate reality that I have portrayed. Victims of mental illness including body dysmorphia, depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. have their own, unique battle to fight every single day, and the individuality of these illnesses makes understanding them exponentially difficult.  The ...