Sriharsha Talapaneni

Recently my and I have started to plant plants in our backyard. We have been doing this for the past month and have actually increased the number of plants to about 20 to to 30 at this point. These are just some of the plants that we planted. We intend to plant more varieties of plants and also increase the number of each of them.  

I have actually started working on this for a long time. I realized that there are multiple barriers for girls in unprivileged households to attend school and one of the most important ones are health barriers. This especially true for girls underprivileged household in India. 

These households still have a strong patriarchal hierarchy and many of the girls in the household are not sent to school to get an education but are rather kept at home and taught on how to become a good wife.  Even though this sounds weird in the 21st century, you would actually be surprised at the number of households that still strongly believe this in India. 

Recently I have collaborated with an organization called CARE INDIA. Through this organization, I was able to spread awareness of the importance of education for girls to these household and we also provided them with all the resources needed for these girls to attend schools, which includes sanitation pads and other necessary things. 

So far we were able to send more 52 girls to schools, and the organization has also plans to build a school dedicated just for women in three to four villages and encourage all the girls in these villages to attend it. 

About two weeks ago I got my utility bill from the LADWP, and it turned out to be an astronomical sum. It turned out to especially high because we just started to use the air conditioning as it was getting hotter every day. The past two-month utility bill was more than the last 6 months just because of the use of the air conditioning. 

Looking at the utility bill and comparing it to the others who were using eco air conditioning and compared to those who signed up for the renewable energy option at the LAPDW. 

Based on this my roommates and I decided to sign up for the renewable energy option at the LAPDW. Furthermore, we also got someone to install an eco option for our air conditioning. In addition to all this, we also submitted a petition to our apartment management to switch to more renewable energy forms and encouraged them to take the first step, which was to install solar power panels on the roof of the apartment.  

I just started to eat food without any distractions. I ate without watching any television, youtube, or scrolling through social media. I realized that doing this helped me finish my food at a much faster rate and it also helped me enjoy my food more. 

So recently my family decided to buy another car for me after I graduate for me to move around. During this time I was heavily debating as to which car to buy. I was heavily debating between a Honda Accord which runs just based on fuel and a Toyota Prius which is a hybrid car. 

I was looking at my options and exactly what I would use the car for. I really loved the Honda Accord as I always loved Sedan cars over hatchbacks. 

As I started to weigh my options, I realized that I would be using my car a lot to move around the bay area, which is generally a very large area, and that I would be traveling a lot and therefore burning a lot of fuel. 
And guess what I finally decided to buy the Prius and actually even let go of my love for sedan cars. I am extremely proud of this decision in hindsight. This is because I would be using this car a lot and by buying a hybrid, I was able to both help the environment and save of gas money.  

This quarter I have been taking a plant biology class. In this class, we have started to learn about how plants have slowly changed over time due to climate change and air pollution. Furthermore, one of the primary topics we discussed was how modern farming has been greatly harming the land and in a sense has been causing pollution as well. Modern farming techniques have been destroying the soil and have been causing decarbonization, erosion, desertification, chemical pollution. It is said that in about 50-100 years we will most probably have a public health crisis because of the destruction of soil and diminished nutrition from the food supply.  

Based on this I started to read up on regenerative agriculture, and I learned that regenerative agriculture not only does not harm the soil and land but also helps to improve it. It uses technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment. Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient-dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies. 

Looking at this I attended a presentation on regenerative agriculture and how they can encourage farmers and counties to adopt this practice. The presenter called out to all the policymakers and talked about how soil pollution is one of the least known and talked about pollution. However, it is one of the most important ones, as it directly leads to reduced food quality and increased public health crises. 

After this presentation, I learned the importance of making people aware, and I have actually taken the first step by sharing an article about regenerative agriculture on Facebook and helping to spread the word about soil pollution and make policymakers aware and force them to take action to encourage regenerative agriculture.