Ricky Ma

While looking for another challenge, this particular one caught my eye because it was similar to something that came up in my research for the course. The challenge that I completed was "Make School More Affordable"  where I helped raise funds in an effort to make education more accessible for women around the world. While researching for my annotated bibliography, one of my concerns was resource scarcity and food/water security that would arise from climate change. In researching this concern, I found a citation that stated that the main issue for resource security is not really stemming from climate change affecting food supply but rather the population growth that is currently ongoing. One of the solutions stated was to educate women which would stunt population growth and thus contribute towards alleviating our resource scarcity issue. By reading the "Learn More", it was made really apparent by this line as to specifically why educating women would lead to the reversal of climate change: "Curbing the growth of our human population is a side effect, though a potent one. It could dramatically reduce demand for food, transportation, electricity, buildings, goods and all the rest, thereby reducing emissions". I also learned that with educating women, the population growth crisis is only a side effect in which the main effect is the reversion of climate change. Thinking about it, it makes a lot of sense as educated women will be able to make more informed decisions in their life and possibly not make as many rash decisions. With the population growth stunted because of this,  there will be fewer people in the world and thus just because of there being fewer people, there will be fewer carbon emissions due to less food, electricity, building, transportation, and goods usage. This is why educating women is so incredibly important. Not only are we alleviating the disparity in gender equality by doing achieving this but we are also saving our world by stunting population growth and thus reducing carbon emissions in the process. To do my part, on my Instagram, I helped raise funds by posting a story advertising and encouraging my followers to go support the malalafund which is an organization dedicated to alleviating the education disparity in women. I browsed through their Instagram and found a story directly talking about their cause then linked their Instagram page which users can donate through. This way, I hope to contribute something to alleviate the education disparity within sexes and in a broader sense, at the same time, revert climate change. I'm going to continue spreading the word and supporting the cause as this is very important in my opinion. One question that I want to investigate and learn more about is what specific structural systems are creating this disparity in education?

Today, I finally did what I wanted to do my whole life which is to plant a tree. Not just any tree, but I planted a papaya tree today! I have always loved eating papayas so today, I took the initiative to go get a papaya tree and plant one within my backyard. This was incredibly fulfilling for a multitude of reasons. First, in line with supporting community gardens, by planting a tree; I am actively contributing to the reversion of climate change as trees are a "net carbon sink" meaning that they sequester carbon from the atmosphere and put it into the soil where they can no longer cast its deleterious effects on the Earth. Through photosynthesis, they remove CO2 which is a greenhouse gas from the environment and use it to create sugars or food. By finally planting a tree, once this tree gets bigger, it will serve as a net carbon sink where I am reducing the amount of CO2 and greenhouse gases present within the air. Furthermore, I also no longer need to go to the store and buy papayas as in the future, I would be able to harvest and obtain some by just going into my backyard. Not only am I reducing my carbon emissions by not driving to the store as much but I also get to save money because I no longer have to buy my own papayas. By planting this tree, I get free papayas and save the world? Who wouldn't do something like this! Something that I learned that was really interesting was when Shubhendu said within his Ted Talk: "Once established, these forests are going to regenerate themselves again and again -- probably forever". I never thought of forests and trees as being resilient; however, I was utterly wrong. It is comforting to know that my papaya tree if treated properly will be able to sustain itself for a long time for many years to come.  I can't wait will this tree becomes mature! I definitely hope to plant more trees in the future and I also hope to gain many friends and family to do it as well. I understand that my one tree probably won't make that much difference in the grand scheme of things but if I plant more trees and get my friends and family to do it as well, the impact can become pretty sizable. I wonder why more people do not plant trees? It was quite a simple and quick process. Maybe it is because of the lack of a backyard for many people but they could also just go plant a tree in nature as well!

Today I learned why community gardens are so incredibly important in our fight in which they essentially serve as capture gardens for carbon. This is fascinating because something that is so archaic such as gardening has large implications in our fight against our current climate crisis. Our world is currently heating up drastically because of the increase in greenhouse gases within our atmosphere such as CO2. Amazingly,  community gardens are able to sequester carbon into the soil by "channeling carbon from the atmosphere into the soil via photosynthesis." This means that the more plants and gardens we have, the more carbon we can sequester into the soil and mitigate the effect of greenhouse gases on our climate and atmosphere. These gardens and its plants take the CO2 within the air and uses it for photosynthesis and in the process, removes these greenhouse gases from our atmosphere. Additionally, something else that I also learned from reading the "Learn More" is the concept of carbon farming which is agricultural practices that sequester and keeps carbon within the soil rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. Majority of our Earth's area is being used for urbanization and processes that exacerbate climate range. As I drive around Hawaii, rather than seeing the mountains and the oceans, I see houses and skyscrapers. The mountains are like a mosaic of houses. Imagine if some of this land was dedicated towards gardens that can sequester carbon via photosynthesis. If this was achieved, I would say that we would have a really good fighting chance against climate change. This is why for my eco-challenge, I donated to the community garden at The Cathedral of St.Andrews in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is incredibly important to support and sustain these gardens because if these gardens are gone, urbanization and carbon sources are going to replace these gardens which is going to further worsen climate change. While looking at the community gardens in my area, I found that majority of the gardens are on the east side of the island and there are in the West. I found that the reason for this was mainly due to financial reasons. We have to support these community gardens as not only do we benefit from the produce and resources they produce but they also sequester and take carbon out of our atmospheres. With our financial contribution, we can cause the creation of more gardens and sequester even more carbon from the atmosphere. Donations are important and it is something that I am going to continue doing. I am also going to spread the word about why supporting these gardens is important and hopefully instill change within other people. DONATE! I wonder what else I can do to help spur the development of gardens on the west side of the island. This is something that I am curious about and something I will look into.

 

The challenge I completed was to study and research how to dispose of bio-plastics and then teach it to my friends in order to spread the word. Before this challenge, I didn't realize how complicated and nuanced disposing of these bio-plastics is. To be honest, I did not even really know what bioplastics are. I assumed these were the plastics that we can are biodegradable and you can just dispose of them anywhere we please. This cannot be further from the truth. The research I did today was incredibly insightful and I truly learned a lot. For example, I finally learned that bioplastics cannot be recycled in the way that we usually think of (blue recycle bins). They are unique and require special disposal methods. Not all are naturally biodegradable as well. Only some are able to be composted at home; however, most of the time it needs to be sent to an industrial company for professional degradation and composting. Landfilling is never the sustainable option as the bioplastics send here are not recycled nor composted! If the bioplastic is not compostable at home, which one can know by looking at the labels, it is imperative that one disposes of it through an industrial or commercial composting facility. Otherwise if not done this way, it has to go through the landfill. Properly disposing of these plastics is important not only for climate change but for our oceans. The "learn more" tabs really solidified for me the severity of plastics found within our ocean. Without proper disposal, this situation will only get worse. It is already incredibly hard to deal with and the fact that our society is "starting cleanup efforts when trash has already made it into the ocean diverts attention from the real solutions: reducing, reusing and recycling." Thus, the most important thing to do to preserve our ocean and its ecosystem is to stop pollution at its root, with proper disposal. These are all things that I vocalized and informed my friends about and both of them were very incredibly receptive. They asked me clarifying questions as to what they should do instead and were shocked that they couldn't dispose of these plastics within the blue recycle bin. The concern in their voice really resonated with me and I was glad that I was able to teach them something that I researched and that I feel is really important. I now hope that my friends and I as well, implements this knowledge and dispose of these plastics properly. I informed them of the company "Hawaii Earth Products", since all of us live in Hawaii, as an industrial composting facility on the island that they can call or get into contact with if they ever need to dispose of these plastics. Somethings that I wanna learn in the future is what other materials that I may be disposing of improperly.

The challenge I finished was inviting my friend to calculate their carbon footprint. I was drawn to this as I feel like many people in the world are blind to what their carbon footprint is. I certainly was until I took a class that forced me to calculate it myself. When I finished, I was baffled as to what my carbon footprint was. All of my daily small actions that I didn't think about much up added up to an unacceptable amount of carbon footprint. Yet, despite this many people are blinded to what their actual carbon footprint is. This is why I think its incredibly important to be that catalyst for people to check what their footprint is. I believe that only then, can change be made. The impact and introspection one feels when they see their carbon footprint, I believe, is enough to make the CEO of a corporation stop and think about their impact on the earth and what future they are leaving behind for future generations. The picture above is my friend who took the carbon footprint test and the result and discussion that I had with him is just as I expected. He had the same immediate reaction as myself. He was appalled at what his CO2 footprint was every month; he couldn't believe how high it was. After discussing, we came to the mutual conclusion that spreading the word and MAKING people see their carbon footprint is vital towards our progress towards a greener earth. on-going degradation will lead to healthier communities and bring about important and distributed economic development benefits. People being conscious of their impact and just how much they are contributing to the exacerbation of climate change will be the pivotal force in "preventing on-going degradation [that] will lead to healthier communities and bring about important and distributed economic development benefits". Until then, the world will stay blind and continue to destroy our climate as they are not realizing the implications of their actions. If the action of me forcing my friend to do this can have such a profound effect on how he views the world and his actions; imagine what could happen if everyone got one friend to calculate their carbon footprint. Now both of us knowing what our impact is, we can take steps to reduce our footprint. It is much more tangible and we know exactly how much we need to change to reduce our footprint. This tangibility is what makes us motivated for change. I am going to ask more friends to do this as I believe it is pivotal in changing the world for the better. What is it going to take for institutions to force their people to do the same? 

I replaced my manual thermostat to a smart thermostat! With this change, I definitely feel a quality of life difference as my house is "more energy efficient, more comfortable, and less costly to operate". This smart thermostat is amazing and it's crazy in terms of the kinds of stuff that it can do. I was really concerned about the amount of energy that my household was using and a large part of it was attributed to the use of an air conditioner. My dad and I seemed to always have an A/C turned on 24/7. Whenever our energy report came, our hold house always used way more energy compared to our neighbors. This was highly concerning and I really wanted to bring down the amount of energy our household used. Through this challenge, I learned directly how more energy use negatively affects our planet. There is a positive correlation between carbon emissions and energy usage; something that I didn't know about before. Now with the smart thermostat, I took action and was able to drastically decrease the amount of power that our household uses. This thermostat in conjunction with my phone tracks our household movement patterns and closely monitors the temperature of our house to optimize energy usage. As a result, overall, we are using less energy in the house as we went from using 25% more energy than our neighbors to only 5% more. Our old thermostat didn't change energy usage and optimize it at all in terms of outside temperature and our daily movement. Thus, a lot of energy was wasted when it wasn't needed. I am still extremely comfortable at home and actually, I would argue that I am more comfortable. It was way too cold sometimes with the old thermostat but now, it always feels just right. I often find myself also using the eco mode on this thermostat which is a function that was void on my old thermostat. The eco mode constantly calibrates and changes the home's temperature instead of constantly cooling or warming. I feel happy that I am using way less energy at home and thus decreasing my carbon footprint on the world. However; instead of using a smart thermostat, I can just not use it at all which is the even better alternative. This is something I am working towards and something I hope to achieve in the near future. A further question that I have regarding this is what is in the future for smart thermostats? How else can this system be refined to make it more energy efficient? It is already so incredibly good; it is hard to fathom ways that it can be even better.

Why am I here?

Like many of my other peers, I took this class as my last writing class needed for my medical school requirements. Not only is it a writing class but it is also an upper-division course that will help me graduate on time! I did not realize or think how important the course content would be. Every day, I hear on the news how climate change is worse than we initially thought or it is accelerating at a pace that science did not predict. I get really anxious and scared whenever I hear things like this as the world that we all love will soon be uninhabitable. The lives that we live will soon be no more if climate change continues at the pace it is going. It is also infuriating that the world is not taking it seriously enough. I fear for the future of our generation as well as all future generations. Actions need to be taken NOW. This climate crisis will affect everyone and everything. I didn't fully think of the implications of this climate crisis on my career but this class has already unveiled the curtains over my eyes and made me think about how my future career as an internal medicine physician will be affected. As internal medicine is a very broad specialty that treats many organ systems, the field will probably change a lot when climate change progresses to a point that new diagnoses arise across all organ systems. I am scared of the health implications in the future. This is why I feel so strongly on invoking change and myself, taking action to move toward a greener earth. I am excited on joining this challenge as it will be my introduction to living a more sustainable life style.

Included below is a picture of my home: Hawaii. Soon enough, I fear that views like this will no longer be possible. With sea-level rise and climate conditions becoming unfavorable for produce and greenery,  views like this would completely change.  This is why it's important for me to reverse climate change. I love nature  and we need to preserve it so that our future generations can continue to enjoy the world that we live in today. In the future, I hope to be able to continue seeing views like this and I will do everything in my power to take action and start my transition toward a sustainable lifestyle. This challenge is only the beginning.