Next Generation Diplomacy

Written By: Alfred Xavier September 11, 2001; This date has rung through the minds of the majority of Americans for the past two decades.  That day started a long chain of events leading to a quagmire for the United States that perpetuates to even now. Since then, we have lost 2,448 Americans in the conflict we all know as the War in Afghanistan, better known as the War on Terror. There is arguably nothing else that has remained as controversial and prominent in US politics as this topic, so it is worth talking about--especially in light of recent events. As of August 15, 2021, the Taliban have marched into Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and have declared the War in Afghanistan over, forming an interim government and declaring the pre-existing Afghan government as no more. Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, has fled from the country in fear of bloodshed, and the soldiers of the Afghan National Army have provided little to no resistance against the arrival of the group, hinting at t...

 Written By: Matthew Lin ARE Solar, a company which has a documented record of professional installation of top-quality solar systems, “The average American household produces 14,920 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year, assuming an average monthly energy consumption of 957-kilowatt hours.”. If we assume that every American is part of a 4-member nuclear family, and if we consider the population of America is around 330 million, that would mean that we produce approximately 1.2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide each just from using fossil-fuel generated electricity, however, this is obviously all conjecture. Beyond this, we must keep in mind that these figures of massive amounts of carbon emission are only from fossil-fuel-generated electricity. According to the SEIA, a national non-profit trade association of the solar-energy industry, electricity only contributes to 28% of the greenhouse gas emissions and thus we can see that total emissions should be 3-4 times that value. Wit...

Written By: Sandy Saleh What is Commercial Fishing? For centuries, the paradigm of aquaculture has created a pigeonhole altered by economic and social facets. For one, fish was one of the earliest incorporations into the human's daily diet. The methods of acquiring fish have become diverse, ranging from hunting mollusks in the shallows of water to capturing fish in lakes and rivers with nets and traps. From this, it is evident that the implementation of artificial innovations forever altered the vanity of fishing. The idyll of inebriated uncouth sailors hauling thousands of sea creatures on top of a schooner sluiced with the indulgence of water has become a mere jaded tantalization of the reality.                 Specifically, the inception of commercial fishing and harvesting delectable seafood from bodies of water through commercial profit and monetary gain is a derivative of the necessary technological innovations during the Indu...

Written By: Ethan Chiu   Skyline of Taipei, Taiwan at dusk. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a country is defined as “an area of land that has its own government, army, etc.” Based on that definition alone, Taiwan is undoubtedly a sovereign state. Why, then, is Taiwan claimed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) based in Beijing, officially called the Republic of China (ROC) based in Taipei, and not a part of the United Nations?  Simply put, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) fled to Taiwan after losing the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, and they are still perpetually at war. The Kuomintang’s legacy, along with the constant threat of an invasion by the PRC, has left deep scars on the Taiwanese people and has contributed to the formation of a distinctly non-Chinese Taiwanese identity. Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that measures civil liberties worldwide, ranks Taiwan as the second freest democracy in Asia due to its cont...

Written By: Rich Liu Fossil fuels play a vital and varied role in the modern world, from space travel down to indoor heating. However, as versatile and seminal as this source of energy may seem they are ultimately detrimental to the biosphere that is the earth. President Biden’s recent proclamation for National Ocean Month combined with his decision to suspend oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge serves to emphasize the importance of bold climate action in his agenda. Due to the immense exhaustion of onshore oil wells and years of on-land oil exploitation, drilling leases have become a new focus. Undeveloped centers of natural resources such as Alaska and the Arctic are gaining notoriety from energy corporations due to the vast raw materials and abundant resources that have yet to be touched. An estimated $1 trillion worth of oil, gas, and other resources are buried under the Arctic ice and water with approximately 11 billion barrels are considered to be easily ob...