In recent years, climate change and global warming have been pressing issues, sparking many debates on how to best combat it. Increasing temperatures, rising oceans, and air pollution all pose a threat to the future habitability of our planet. One of the primary reasons for these issues are our overuse of fossil fuels and their resulting emissions of carbon and other harmful chemicals. As a result of human industrial activity, the rate of growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 0.6 parts per million (ppm) in the 1960s to about 2.3 ppm in the past decade. As a result of the increased amount of this greenhouse gas in the air, more heat is trapped in the Earth and unable to escape, leading to temperature increases and other dangerous climate effects To reduce our emissions of carbon and other chemicals into the air, we must transition away from burning fossil fuels for energy, and move towards cleaner energy sources, such as solar, wind, and hydro power. These energy forms produce much less waste than fossil fuels, but need to be implemented on a large scale basis for a consistent noticeable decrease in chemical emissions.

As an effect of the coronavirus, many people have been quarantined in their homes and suspended from non-essential work. This has led to a large decrease of cars on the road, and less manufacturing plants burning through massive amounts of coal. As a result, carbon emissions have decreased globally, for example with China’s emissions cut by 25% at one point during their lockdown.    Many large cities that have been consistently plagued with air pollution problems, such as Los Angeles, Seoul, and Delhi, have had about a 50% reduction in air pollution. From just the past few months of lower levels of carbon emissions, we are already able to see tangible environmental benefits as a result.

Although we are seeing some benefits as a result of decreased emissions for now, once lockdowns are lifted the world will simply revert back to the same usage level of fossil fuels from before the coronavirus. Because of this, we need to take efforts to shift to cleaner energy forms now, while we are in a downtime of fossil fuel usage. Due to the current quarantines, however, it would be difficult to physically replace energy systems with renewable sources, so I would propose that governments and companies take action to prepare the framework for the shift. For example, they should research what clean energy source would be most suitable based on the environment around their manufacturing/office locations. In addition, power utilities companies, such as heating and electricity, should also be examining how to best reduce their usage of fossil fuels. Simply exploring ways to reduce carbon emissions and how to use cleaner energy forms would be a great step forward towards actually implementing these solutions for a greener future.

Climate change and the environmental issues that it brings are something that we need to take action against. If we live our levels of fossil fuel usage untouched, the situation will spiral out of control to a point where we will be unable to stop the issue. Because of this, we must take advantage of the current reduced emissions as a result of quarantines to start the process of transitioning towards cleaner energy forms, that have much less harmful environmental impacts than fossil fuels.

The issue I will address is how easy it is for viruses to spread with the current regulations on international travel, as shown with the Covid-19 outbreak. It will aim to discuss precautions on travel that could be made to lessen the spread of future pandemics. It is an intervention on current policy discussion as it does not directly focus on coronavirus, as lots of policy in a similar area is specifically targetted towards it. Rather, this issue brief is trying to target how to stop the spread of outbreaks in the future, so that we do not have a situation like we currently have again, by examining what allowed the coronavirus to spread so rapidly and understand how we can stop that. There may be some overlap, as improving travel regulations could also help with diminishing the current spread of Covid-19, however, it intends to primarily focus on stopping future outbreaks.

I will discuss the exigence by using the recent kairotic example of Covid-19. By describing how the virus itself has symptoms plaguing our society, such as the quarantines and shortages of goods, it shows the nature of the problem itself. From there, I will discuss how these issues could have been preventable had the virus not been allowed to spread as rapidly as it did, which is why we need to work on improving the international travel regulations directly. The issue brief should be able to show its exigence through the recent example of all the ongoing problems that were caused due to our inability to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The cause category I intend to focus on is inadvertent. As a result of the poor hygiene in airports, and lack of screening for easily spreadable infections, the coronavirus was able to rapidly reach many countries and infect many people. This falls into the inadvertent category because a lot of the hygiene-related issues are caused by a lack of awareness of individuals, not cleaning up after themselves or practicing unhygienic behavior allowing for germs to spread. Furthermore, the lack of screening still fits in the category since it is something airports and other forms of international travel have the ability to do, yet don’t due to the costs it would require to add or some other external reason. Generally, the spread of viruses results from unintentional behavior, as it isn’t logical for most people to intentionally want to get themselves and those around them sick, but it also isn’t entirely accidental as it is often preventable, thus not solely determined by luck and fate.

Mandates are the policy instrument I would intend to use. I think this would be best since imposing punishments for breaking rules would be the best way to discourage the behavior. For example, mandates would discourage people from intentionally traveling with spreadable sickness, and could force more people to clean up. Inducements could potentially be useful, but many people already practice healthy behavior and the spread of viruses is more dependent upon extremely bad practices by a few people, targetting the few people with punishments would be more effective. System changes would be the other policymaking type I would focus on. The main thing I think this would be useful for is to force airports around the globe to have greater cleanliness, by having regularly used objects (machines used to check-in, everything customers touch on the plane, all doorknobs, etc) be regularly disinfected, and enforcement of face masks and other precautionary measures for employees for staff on the plane, to prevent them from getting any illness and passing it onto other passengers.

The deliberation I helped moderate was, “Sentenced to Rehabilitation: Rehumanizing the Prison System,” and the ones I attended were, “The Art of Swiping Right: A Discussion of Dating in the Digital Era,” and, “Let’s Not Beat Around the Bush” How Can We Fight Stereotypes in Porn?”

One thing that was strong about every deliberation I saw was the weighing of pros, cons, and trade-offs among different solutions. Every approach was given ample time to discuss its main idea, strong aspects of it, and drawbacks/unintended consequences that could result from it. It never felt like the moderation of the discussion was skewed towards one approach or another, even if the audience clearly supported one over another, which helped the deliberation stick to its true goal of understanding everyone’s thoughts.

An aspect I really liked about our deliberation was how we brainstormed a wide variety of ways to address the problem. Within certain approaches, we would think of potential problems with our solution and think of different ways of solving it. For example, with our approach of increasing education in prison, we ran into the issue of lack of teachers and brainstormed a list of different ways to increase the supply of educators or incentivize current teachers to work in prisons. I noticed a similar trend in the porn deliberation, as the topic of implementing better sex education in schools was discussed under many different perspectives and many different possible curriculums for different age groups. In the Dating one, I felt like the discussion mostly focused on individual views on each approach, rather than a multitude of different ways to address the issue, which brought the conversation to be more in terms of individual ideals and core values, which isn’t a bad thing.

Another thing that stuck out to me in the porn deliberation was the discussions of personal and emotional experiences, as well as known facts. During the approach about sexual education, participants recollected upon their experience with it during their academic careers. This discussion brought about the shared ideas that our current sex education program is ineffective, tends to avoid discussing actual issues, and is often treated as a joke. After, statistics were brought up that confirmed these ideas, which made the entire discussion seem extremely relevant and informative. From my memory, most of our deliberation was about hypothetical ideas and values and logical steps that spring from them, rather than relying heavily on many personal experiences themselves, which resulted in a different type of discussion.

Another strong aspect of the deliberations was ensuring mutual comprehension among participants. Within both the porn and our deliberation, I noticed that either moderators or other attendees would ask clarifying questions about what was just said, which helped to further the overall understanding of the group. For example, in our discussion, I remember there was confusion about how funds could be redirected to the prison system without increasing taxpayer money, and someone talked about how budget reform could take away money from large pieces of spending, such as the military and bureaucracy, and this could be shifted to prison reform. I did not notice this very heavily in the dating deliberation, and it seemed like when there was potential confusion about what someone said the moderators would sometimes move on to a separate topic without resolving the issue, or another participant would say something on their mind that was unrelated to the previous response.

Adequate speaking distribution was something that I felt could have been worked on for all three of the deliberations I saw. In our one, there was a little corner that was kind of isolated from the discussion, and there was not much conversation that resulted from there. Within the porn and dating discussion, there was an extremely large amount of people, which also led to the problem of not everyone talking in the discussion. Within our deliberation, we did try to avoid the issue by directing questions towards a specific side of the room, but there was no such effort within either of the other groups. I think this could have been better solved by having more questions that everyone answers, similar to how everyone went around and stated their personal stake in the issue. This would ensure everyone gets a minimum amount of discussion times, at the cost of increasing the amount of time on a question though.

Finally, all the participants in the deliberations listened carefully to what others said, even during a disagreement. Everyone was respectful to each other and took the questions and content very seriously and discussed their views in a mature manner. I remember in our discussion, with the topic of voting rights, participants had clearly conflicting views but were still able to talk through their values and reach a point of common understanding among each other. I was especially surprised how during the porn deliberation and dating one (which discussed Tinder a lot), nobody made immature jokes despite the topics opening themselves up to it; everyone stayed on topic and was willing to discuss the issues.

Overall, all the deliberations were very informative and helped to educate me to form stronger decisions on each issue. Although they did not change any of my core values, the insight gleaned from the discussions was able to reinforce my own views and understand the viewpoints of others.

Recently, the state of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the Juul, a vape company, for creating a youth vaping epidemic. Vaping has grown at an extremely high rate among the youth, up 135% in the past two years, and although some steps have been taken to combat the issue in teens, it remains as an epidemic. This is a result of Juul targetting the younger generation with their advertisements, the ease of access of nicotine and tobacco e-cigarette products, and the poor ad campaigns against vaping.

First, Juul has been known to target a youth audience. They were recently discovered to have bought ads on sites targetting kids, such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, using images of young models vaping. Furthermore, Juul used many sweet, fruity nicotine flavored e-liquids to attract a younger audience. Although these flavored name brand Juul pods are now banned, there are still other alternatives available in stores and online. This is a major problem because the e-cigarette products that were meant to help smokers quit are now attracting a younger audience who are instead becoming addicted to nicotine products.

Example Ad

Another issue with youth vaping is how easily accessible nicotine products are for the underage to buy. A 9-year-old showed in front of the Colorado General Assembly, “All I have to do is enter my address, payment, fake birth date and the highly addictive, highly damaging nicotine product would come straight to my door.” Due to how weak the age verification for buying these substances online, it is extremely easy for underage teens to order them to their homes with no penalty, which is a major flaw that has lead to the growth of vape and e-cigarette usage.

To combat teens buying these products while underage, many states have raised the minimum age. For example, Pennsylvania raised the minimum age to buy nicotine and tobacco products from 18 to 21. Although this may seem like a useful action, it does not change the fact that teens always have the option to order products online. Furthermore, the American Lung Association gave our state an F for tobacco taxes and smoking prevention programs, showing that our current level of activity is not enough useful action has been taken against vaping.

There have been many ad campaigns against vaping and smoking among teens, however, they are oftentimes ineffective, or even detrimental. Forbes made an article describing the issue, saying, “They employ outdated internet memes, puppets mimicking the Breakfast Club, and zombies harassing innocent store clerks. Their actors can be awkward and theatrical, their messages ham-handed and overwrought.” Essentially, because of how embarrassing the ads are, teens ridicule them (something I have personally seen extremely often), thus dampening the impact, and in some cases even leads teens to try e-cigarettes. Although the message of the ads is valid, their execution and delivery do not connect with their target youth audience, which severely weakens their effect.

 Example of Ineffective Anti-Vape Ad

There has been some federal legislation to combat vaping, name the ban of single-use flavored nicotine cartridges that was mentioned earlier in the blog. More action needs to be taken to curb the number of youth vaping, however, it difficult to directly find a solution. Most of the vaping related illnesses and deaths have been linked to vitamin E-acetate, which was used in substitute THC vape cartridges, but these are already illegal as marijuana is federally banned. Furthermore, it is difficult for the government to regulate the large online market for vape products, as well as the underground market that sells the products to the underage. Stricter identification laws to purchase vape products online could be a good step forward against the epidemic.

In conclusion, vaping is a serious problem causing high rates of nicotine addiction among youth. Although there are some steps that have been taken against them, such as ad campaigns and the ban of many popular flavored cartridges, it simply is not effective. Because of the high market demand by the youth for these e-cigarette products, they will (and have been able to) find workarounds to fuel their addiction. For example, full disposable vapes have been increasing in popularity, and are also available legally in many flavors, so addicted teens can simply shift from Juul to the newer, legal nicotine trend. More laws that restrict the purchase of nicotine products through stronger identification verification could be useful, but even still the problem is complex and this would not solve the underlying issues behind the youth vaping epidemic.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of programming software that uses logic to think and adapt their behavior based on their previous learning from their experiences. It is a rapidly growing field, with some modern programs being just as, if not more intelligent than humans. There are even AI developed conversational robots for customer service calls that are indistinguishable from humans. This level of advancement, however, raises ethical concerns. Should an artificial program with a mind just as, if not more, developed than that of a human have similar rights? Should an AI-controlled living being have the same kind of rights? Should humans know when they are interacting with another human or a robot? Should we compromise the efficiency of AI to make them less autonomous? 

This month, a study was published showcasing the world’s first programmable organism developed from frog stem cells; it is called a xenobot, and they are about 0.04 inches long. Michael Levin, one of the study co-authors, said, “These are entirely new lifeforms. They are living, programmable organisms.” If you think about what Levin is saying, this is an entity that is composed of living cells but is being entirely controlled by the implanted code of the developers. There are further plans to scale the xenobot up to be human-size, living robots, with a full nervous system and blood vessels. Although this technology has many incredible uses, it is extremely concerning when considering some of the quotes published in the study including, “we cut the living robot almost in half, and its cells automatically zippered its body back up,” and “it’s almost like a wind-up toy.” These quotes show that the scientists do not have moral considerations for the xenobot, as they treat is like an object despite it being composed of living tissue and muscle, and having mental capabilities on par with humans.

In addition to the issue of the AI itself having rights, there is also the conflict of whether or not humans should be informed if they are interacting with AI or not. Studies showed that when not informed if cooperating with an AI robot or human in a game, the participants were far more cooperative with the AI, however once informed that they were interacting with the software they became far more disruptive. Essentially, since the humans knew that they were not interacting with another human, they disregard their moral compass and are more likely to use abusive language or insults since the AI does not possess the emotional qualities of a human. As a practical example, this means that with the AI customer service, if the caller is informed that their service provider is non-human, then the overall quality and efficiency of the service will be degraded, whereas if the caller was uninformed if they were talking to a robot or human, efficiency would be optimal. For example, Google developed an AI assistant that was capable of conversation over the phone, but the public was outraged that the bot does not say it is not human, and would otherwise be deceiving the person on the other end of the line. Google agreed to have the bot initially disclose that it is software at the start of the phone call, despite it reducing the overall quality of the conversation through doing so. We cannot have optimal operating efficiency of AI while maintaining total transparency of it, so we need to pick between one or the other, as the two are mutually exclusive from each other.

A third potential issue with AI is its lack of programmed morals. AI software is coded with clear goals and incentives, and if executed will simply try anything possible to reach these goals, unless coded to avoid certain method (this would be the equivalent of morals). YouTube’s AI search algorithm, was coded to provide searches that would result in the most traffic on the site, which seems like an uncontroversial goal for the site. What this resulted in, however, is extreme, polarizing content being recommended. It seemed innocent at first, with videos of jogging leading to videos of ultramarathons, and videos of vegetarianism leading to those of veganism. However, a researcher reported that after watching footage of a Trump campaign rally, she was recommended videos including a white supremacist rant, and a Holocaust denial conspiracy theory. This tendency of YouTube’s AI algorithm to recommend to extremes based on a certain video has contributed to the polarization in the country because the algorithm sought only recommendations that would lead to the most viewership, and was not coded to recognize the ethical problems with this method. Although this compromises the optimal efficiency of the program, it is something that needs to be considered when creating AI software.

To sum up, AI software could help to bring a far more advanced and efficient future, however, it is held back by the civic issues of the ethics of its implementation in living cells, the issue of its most optimal efficiency relying on it being non-transparent to the public, and the lack of moral restraints intervening between the AI’s pursuit of its programmed goal. If these issues can be resolved, potentially through the limitation of AI in living creatures, compromising on the level of transparency of AI to maintain its efficiency and the implementation of restrictions on how AI achieves its intended purpose, then it could be a much more useful, controllable, and ethical tool for the future.