Topic Presentation - Samantha Agustin

Topic Presentation 

     This time around, we all chose new topics and presented starting from my group, Group 3. Our group chose the topic of Climate Change whilst Group 2 chose Gender Inequality and Group 1 chose Infrastructure. 

     As for our group, we all did our best to provide video and photo evidence of the impacts of climate change itself. With that, we divided the work into our respective sections within the book and we chose which topics we wanted to work on. My group members did a magnificent job at providing evidence on how it was predicted and spoke about how the temperatures would change due to human kind alongside the destruction of nature. Our temperatures have risen in the past few years even concluding 2016 and 2020 as the hottest years ever recorded. More and more natural disasters have come about such as the ice caps melting, the frequent hurricanes/tornadoes, and even record breaking snowstorms. We also spoke about how major corporations are the main cause and root of global warming as they try to paint the fault on society for their actions. Almost all corporations have moved to China and third world countries due to the government and also to pay their workers less money than the would have here in the U.S. Due to that, child labor is prominent in those countries, most children and adults having to work in dangerous environments making them pass out or even die. In China, the pollution has gotten so bad, that people have to wear masks to even survive in certain cities in order to survive the dangerous gasses. As we are told to restrict our daily usage of electricity and water, they continue to pollute the world with whatever products they make and its shipment. Even the food we eat pollutes the world due to its packaging, shipment, and chemicals used to keep them "fresh". Food industries are responsible for 34% of gas emissions and 5.4% of food production emissions. An example being strawberries, since they easily soak up anything around them, all of the strawberries we eat have fertilizers, pesticides, and whatever air pollution that is in the area. We also spoke about the severity of what mankind has done to the Earth and alternatives to reduce our carbon footprints such as solar panels, wind turbines, and carbon captures. We also listed different ways we can contribute to saving the Earth with organizations who help spread information about climate change and pick up pollution around the beaches as well as on the streets. Celebrities such as, Leonardo DiCaprio, have been very prominent in spreading the message about helping our Earth and spread awareness of the situation. It may not seem like much but having famous people speak out about climate change creates a bigger audience who would like to follow their footsteps.

    The second group did their greatest on presenting about Gender Inequality and it's monstrosities. They first began speaking about the legal protections towards these situations and the rising murder cases in the LGBTQ+ community such as the Pulse club. It hit close to home considering I am part of the community as well and it pains to see this discrimination still happening in this day and age. In the 19th century, many queer people have been physically and emotionally abused, forcing them to be secretive of who they truly are or even go as the extent of committing suicide due to all of the torture. A recent case in 2016, spoke about a cop who sexually harassed a trans woman as she was walking on her way home. The cop allegedly put his thumb on her waistband and pulled her pants down in the middle of the street resulting in a $25,000. It is absurd that these types of situations are let go with just paying instead of it being seen as a serious crime where he should be paying his time in prison as well as removing his title as a police officer. Such acts are inhumane and it's terrifying knowing they are able to roam around harassing others. They later played a video about the homophobia in Russia, it was incredibly graphic so I had to turn away at times. Groups of people would forcibly strip and beat them until they admitted to stop being queer. At times, they victims wouldn't get away with it, resulting in their death. As well as, 2006 in Miami, there was a worker named Brian Stone who worked for Red Robin and was fired due to his sexual orientation and was also mocked by his boss for attending a gay parade. The discrimination has even reached to the point where many queer individuals have gotten UTI's for having to hold in their urine because of public bathrooms. Most of the time they're either kicked out of the bathrooms or berated into leaving by employees or even other individuals. The group also spoke about how these situations can be prevented by  making stronger laws in order to protect them and start including them in healthcare. Our healthcare systems should not discriminate in aiding those in need, especially our health. When it comes to health, everyone, no matter who we are, should be helped. It is our God given right in this world to live, they shouldn't take that away because of how we choose to live our life. They also began to speak about the discrimination that lies amongst immigrants who immigrated to the United States. Some may not have suffered but most have due to struggling to flee to a better country for themselves and their families. It's also shocking that there's been discrimination of all types considering that immigrants are what founded this country and are everywhere around the world. Later on, they began speaking about gender inequality at work such as the unequal payroll between men and women. They also spoke about the Gender Gap especially with degrees and also the sexual harassment that happens on a day to day basis in work environments. Such as catcalling, degradation, and even worse. Such matters aren't spoken much about since it is difficult for victims to get the help they need because their voices are shut out. I wish this was spoken more about, especially in government laws.

     For the first group, they spoke about the infrastructure regarding our transportations, technology, and construction that happens in our country. Lately, there has been budget cutdowns so for all three, construction will be given 360 billion in order to fund new projects, technology will be given 130 billion to fund new technological advances in the country, and 117 billion in order to fund transportation across the country. They spoke about the bills and services to allow better broadband services around the country. Cryptocurrency has also become a major problem to the country and the world in to which they had to create laws and taxes for cryptocurrency. Having shortages in cars and computers due to crypto people hoarding them in order to mine cryptocurrency.