Environmental Sustainability & Studies

  Veganism: How a Vegan Lifestyle Is Beneficial to Humans and the Environment By: Kyanna Gonzalez Vegans: Are They Right? By Gimlet Veganism is a controversial dietary lifestyle choice that strives to eliminate animal products from human consumption. Animal products can be considered dairy, meat, or any products such as honey that were made by animals. Some vegans choose to make the switch in their lifestyle due to feeling morally wrong for consuming products made by animals kept in inhumane, mass-production farms. While some individuals simply make the switch to veganism to limit their environmental footprint as meat and dairy production on a mass scale requires a lot of resources and contributes to negative environmental impacts. Using information from the podcast Science Versus titled Vegans: Are They Right? , the question being considered in this blog post includes: Is veganism better for the environment and human health?  In terms of greenhouse gas pollution, a vegan diet...

 The Life History of a Sticky Note: Human Use and Environment Concerns By: Kyanna Gonzalez      Sticky notes tell a life history of humans that starts from their production and ends when humans dispose of them. Invented in 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, was researching different adhesives when he accidentally discovered microspheres, particles within an adhesive that can be attached to multiple surfaces while still retaining their overall stickiness quality. Even more, the famous color of the original sticky note, yellow, was also by accident as this was the only color of paper available in the labs during the first rounds of testing and production. Dr. Silver’s invention of a re-stickable adhesive transitioned from a removable bookmark to a resource for communication by the 1980s allowing humans to produce, communicate and express themselves better. Sticky notes began growing popular in professional settings like offices, and schools where a lot of wri...

     Invasive Species: For the Better and For the Worst By: Kyanna Gonzalez        Invasive species, for the most part, have a bad reputation in regard to environmentalists and biologists. Interestingly enough, some invasive species can benefit native populations who are endangered by providing an abundant source of food. In the article “ Pigs to the Rescue: An Invasive Species Helped Save Australia’s Crocodiles” Anthony Ham writes how with over twenty-million residing in Australia, feral pigs are considered an invasive species and are estimated to contribute to the major loss of mammalian life as well as habitat loss. Arriving in the late eighteenth century with European settlers, the feral pig population expanded across Australia in the 1980s when the wild buffalo populations plummeted in part due to human efforts to contain the buffalo population growth (Ham 2022). With more available resources and land to grow, feral pigs grew to become an abunda...