Next Generation Diplomacy

What is Fast Fashion? And Why is it a Problem?  By  Emily Zhu We hear about fast fashion all the time, how it's unsustainable and destructive. But what is fast fashion?  Fast fashion is cheap clothing being produced very quickly. It's made in bulk, and the idea is to obtain the latest trends at an affordable price. Sounds good, right? With that also comes horrible working conditions and negative impacts on the planet, and much more. But before I delve deeper into all that, let's talk about the history of fast fashion.  To start, in the 1800s, all "fashion" was produced by hand. If you could, you would make your clothes. This was a very inefficient way to make clothes. Still, due to a shortage of other options, this continued until the industrial revolution where things like sewing machines made it easier and faster to produce clothing. Eventually, clothes became a way of personal expression, and trends were popping up left and right. So, clothing brands such as Za...

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: 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...

Written By: Alex Wang The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) classifies the global economy into either industrialized economies or developing/emerging economies. This classification is further divided into other groups such as emerging industrialized economies, least developed countries (LDCs), and more, all based on a specific country's manufacturing value-added or MVA. 1 As the global economy grows, we can see that Africa continues to fall behind as, far and away, the world’s least industrialized region. South Africa is the sole “industrialized” nation on the continent. With this in mind, we see Africa’s rapid industrialization on the horizon, with an estimated 100 million jobs migrating from China, as the manufacturing hub, to Africa over the next decade. 3 Of seminal importance is the sustainability of this development, economically to improve the living standards, but not at the cost of the environment. Ethiopia’s successful tackling of this eco-frien...