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"Cultural Perspectives On Gun Laws" by Mika P.

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On October 26th, a Dallas policeman shot his son after thinking he was an intruder. Fortunately, no serious injury or death occurred. No charges were filled and an arrest was not made. After I read this I began to think, what would people who don’t live in the U.S. might think about this. According to Reutters, in 2011, 47% of Americans reported owning a gun. In other parts of the world owning a private gun has many different laws. In the UK the gun laws are extremely strict. You have to have a Shotgun Certificate and a Firearm Certificate. To gain the Firearm Certificate you must be over the age of 14 and you must have a good reason for needing one. You must also have two different references and state all or any of your criminal records. This certificate has to be renewed every five years. According to Business Insider, in 2011, the UK had 0.07 gun homicides for every 100,000 people and the U.S. had three gun homicides for every 100,000 people. Because of the strict gun laws i...
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“Trash: The Silent Killer” By Hannah H.

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Between California and Hawaii, there is a swirling vortex of trash that is threatening the underwater ecosystem. This mass of garbage grows every day, and researchers now say it is twice the size of Texas and will continue to increase exponentially. Many people have never heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Two questions that I have is how did we let this happen? And what can we do to fix it? Video link: https://youtu.be/0EyaTqezSzs  There are five offshore plastic accumulation sights in the world. The largest one is right by the U.S. in the North Pacific Ocean. The trash starts off in rivers and eventually makes its way to the ocean where the currents pull it into the gyres. Once there, it will break down into smaller microplastics making it less likely for the disintegrated trash ever to leave. Each year it is estimated that 1.15 to 2.41 millions tonnes of plastic enter the ocean each year. Most of the trash is less dense than water meaning it will float. Right now the ...
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"Seeing the World - Destroying the World" by Stella R.

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Studies have found tourism has a large impact on global warming and environmental problems. Recently it has been found that tourism accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gases, which does not sound like much but is 4 times more than originally thought, and has shown to be growingat 4% annually. Greenhouse gases aren’t the only environment- harming effects of tourism, as tourism hurts biodiversity and creates ozone layer depletion. One of the biggest environmental problem tourism gives us is hurting biodiversity, taking over wildlife reserves and killing species. It hurts biodiversity as hotels, restaurants and tourist attraction are built, destroying rainforests and other land areas that used to be animal and plant habitats. So how is tourism hurting the environment so much? Tourism accounts for greenhouse gases mostly through transportation. Transportation caused 75% of tourisms greenhouse gases, with planes being the main source of that. Greenhouse gases are what causes the gree...
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