The effects of secondhand smoke

Author: Haley Sprague

Essay topic: Effects of secondhand smoke.

Haley Sprague

Mrs. Long

English 10

12/21

Secondhand smoke is a worldwide problem. I know that this issue matters because, second-hand smoke is deadly and can seriously harm children and even animals. According to the American Lung Association, second-hand smoke causes approx. 7,303 deaths from lung cancer and 33,950 deaths from heart disease each year. I disagree with smoking  because it can cause secondhand smoke, which has harmful effects on people without previous health problems and even worse effects on those who already have health concerns.

Secondhand smoke can cause many different effects. One serious danger of Secondhand Smoke is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Well, first off, people can become depressed after their baby dies of SIDS. But, after a long period of time, this could have a serious affect on our population. Chemicals in secondhand smoke appear to affect the brain in ways that interfere with its regulation of infant’s breathing. Infants who are exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are also at greater risk for SIDS. A few ways to prevent SIDS are to 1. Not to smoke when pregnant, 2. Not to smoke at home or around an infant and, 3. Put a baby to sleep on it’s back. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/health_effects/

One of the core effects of Secondhand Smoke is that, secondhand smoke can be directly linked to cancer (lung cancer, larynx cancer, mouth cancer, and many many more)and other connected diseases, which kill millions worldwide annually. Smoking kills approx. six million people per year.

Some studies have connected secondhand smoke to mental and emotional changes (Depression, Substance Abuse, Anxiety disorders, etc.) as well. Such as, some studies have shown that exposure to secondhand smoke can be affixed to symptoms of depression.

Secondhand Smoke can also be related to coronary heart failure/disease. Such as Cardiomyopathies which causes problems with the muscles themselves. Agina, a disease where there is discomfort or pain in your heart because it is not getting enough oxygen and not enough resources; this can be caused by spasms in the coronary arteries. These spasms can be triggered by smoking/secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke causes approx. 600,000 people dying prematurely each year.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/tobaccocancer/secondhand-smoke http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en

So, what is a main cause of all of these deaths/diseases? I feel that a couple core causes of this issue are just the popularity of tobacco and tobacco companies wanting to make a large sum of money.

Here are just some real world statistics:

According to http://www.worldometers.info/ at 3:04 AM 11/23/16 there had been approx. 1.95 Billion cigarettes smoked worldwide. That day.

The average pack of cigarettes costs $5.25. The average pack of cigarettes contains about 20 cigarettes.

So, one cigarette costs a little more than one American quarter at 0.2625 cents per cigarette.

So, what? It is only a quarter. Well, what is 0.25 multiplied by 1.95 billion? 487,500,000 dollars, pretty expensive cigarette. Do you have 487,500,000 dollars? Chances are that most people would quit smoking if they were offered that much money.

Luckily, there is some hope for some people to survive, as long as they know what is going on and how to aid in preventing it. Everyday people can have an impact on this issue by being informed. Informed of the dangers that they are putting themselves and others at risk to whenever they smoke. The best way to take action is to inform others. Some people smoke because it relieves stress. In a way, it does. Nicotine is a stimulant. It will cause the blood in the body to be pumped throughout the body faster. What some people do not know is that, the smoke they are giving off is also hurting the people around them as well.

The issue of SHS is important because, smoking has become a deadly addiction to this world. The by-product is secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke has killed children (SIDS), secondhand smoke has killed adults and secondhand smoke has also killed our infrastructure. People are so addicted that, at this point, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the US.  The United States alone is in this moment 19.9 trillion dollars in debt http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html (Not just tobacco’s fault). Researchers also find that 8.7 percent of all healthcare spending (approx. 170 billion dollars a year) is for an illness caused by tobacco smoke.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-healthcare-costs-smoking-idUSKBN0JX2BE20141219

The cause of secondhand smoke is smokers and the large industrial companies making huge money off of each cigarette and not using any of it to warn users and better society.  

All in all, second-hand smoke kills more than half a million people a year.

Cited Works:

"Cigarette Smoking Costs Weigh Heavily on the Healthcare System." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

"Health Effects of Secondhand Smoke." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 07 Dec. 2016. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

"Health Risks of Secondhand Smoke." Health Risks of Secondhand Smoke. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

"Real Time World Statistics." Worldometers. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

"Tobacco." World Health Organization. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

"U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time." U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2016.

Author: Tyler Mendoza Essay topic: Bullying

Tyler Mendoza

Laura Long

English 10

12/8/16

         The Worst Problem In The World

       You come home exhausted and depressed. Another horrible day you have gone through full of older and bigger kids giving you a hard time. It’s your first year of high school. You’re smaller than most kids and not as strong. In middle school everyone just left you alone but now there are way more people around and everyone is different. For fun, other kids pick on you about your clothes, looks and personality. The bullying happens every day of the week. You come home after school every day and don’t talk to your parents or siblings. They realize you are depressed and they also get affected negatively. They miss spending time with you and they hate seeing you not enjoying life. This is not their usual child. You are embarrassed and frightened about what may happen to you if you do open up to your parents or anyone else about the situation because you are afraid of the consequences. It seems that the bullying is affecting everyone around you. And unless you or someone else stands up to the bullying, it doesn’t get any better.

      We see the affects of bullying take place in many different ways. Bullying is a very major problem because by bullying one person you can affect the family of the victim, friends of the victim and even yourself. If the parents or the friends see the sadness in the kid and how different he is acting because they are getting bullied they will feel sad and hurt that their kid or friend is being harassed and they can not do much about it. When someone is getting bullied they start to act different around parents or close ones to cover up the emotion that you are feeling. They will notice this happening and they will feel depressed that someone is changing you. A lot of the times when someone is getting bullied harshly and it doesn’t get any better, the bullied victim can take their own life to get away from the constant pain. If this happens then everyone around the victim is negatively affected. The people that cared deeply about the victim like family or close friends may want to commit suicide as well because of losing a loved one. The bully will also be affected if the victim harms them selve. Everyone will turn on the bully because of what he caused. The bully will also regret bullying and feel horrible about what he caused. Sometimes the bully will take their own life because of regret. If you cause a death when you know you didn’t have to, your life will never be the same. There is also a chance that you can go to prison for murder if the information gets out about you being the reason for the suicide. Bullying always causes major problems for multiple people. Always think of the deeper meaning of something. Before bullying someone, remember how many people you can affect by doing so.  

      By looking at the statistics recorded about bullying in schools, we need to understand how impact full and widespread bullying really is. One school reported that 64% percent of children who were bullied did not report it. Only 36% of the students reported the bullying. This shows that the kids were more than likely being brutally bullied because if 64% of the students that were being bullied did not report anything than they were likely to frightened to report the bullying. They could have thought that by reporting the bullying that would get them bullied even more. If a bully got in trouble because someone in the school told the staff about what was happening then the bully would automatically assume it was the victim of the bullying. This is the main reason that most people are afraid to speak up about bullying. People get bullied for a lot of different reasons. A lot of times bullying takes place when a person doesn’t like a certain quality in another person or just wants to make fun of another person for a certain quality. Some of the reasons for being bullied reported most often by students were looks (55%), body shape (37%), and race (16%). Bullying is very common around the US and other countries. People all around the world are getting treated poorly and disrespected every day multiple times a day for a quality that they are born with. Bullying is something that needs to be stopped in order for the world to become a better place. 

      It would be extremely difficult to completely end bullying worldwide as it occurs everywhere around the world, but the people of this world can come together and stop bullying. If you are being bullied, you need to speak up and tell someone about it. If you are not comfortable with telling the staff at your school or the police, talk to your parents or even the bullies parents. This way you can work it out and put a stop to the bullying without getting anybody in trouble. Tell them how you feel when they bully you and tell them that they have no reason to be making your life miserable. The bully will most likely want to stop the bullying because they realize that you don’t want them in any trouble and you want no harm towards them, you just want the bullying to stop. If the bullying continues even after talking to the parents or your parents, then you need to take the issue to your school staff or the police. They obviously have not learned anything from when you talked to their parents and have not tried to change. It is now a problem they have forced you to solve the hard way. Another way we can put a stop to bullying is by standing up for people who are getting bullied. If you witness someone getting bullied in your school, don’t be afraid to let the school staff know about this.The staff is not allowed to tell the bully who told them about the bullying. Wait until after school hours so nobody sees you going to the office. This could prevent your name from coming up in rumors about who told the staff. By speaking up, you can potentially save somebody’s life. Sometimes the person that is getting bullied is to afraid to speak up. Or they might not want to get the bully in trouble. This is why you need to take a stand and help the bullied child out. By speaking up about the bullying you can change lives. Don’t be afraid to speak up because if you don’t, the bullying will just get worse and worse. And if the kid that is getting bullied commits suicide or takes it into his own hands and causing a murder or a violent revenge, you will forever feel awful that you could’ve prevented something horrible from happening. Yes, bullying is a problem that seems to never slow down, but if more and more people all around the world came together and did whatever they could to help stop bullying, the problem will definitely reduce. 

      There is a section in The San Francisco Globe titled “This Guy Was Bullied. Read His Graduation Speech.” The section starts off with a freshman in high school named Kyle walking home from school one day and seeing a kid from the same school that he goes to walking on the opposite sidewalk with a large amount of books and binders in his hand. He witnesses the kid getting pushed to the ground and punched by multiple other kids. Kyle walked over to the bullied kid and helped him carry his books and binders to his house. They lived fairly close. The two kids bonded very well and Kyle asked him if he wanted to hang out with him and his friends. He accepted. Kyle's friends also liked the bullied kid. Kyle and the bullied kid developed a very good friendship over the 4 years of high school. On graduation day the bullied kid gives a speech about the first day he met his best friend Kyle. In the speech he says that he was planning to kill himself that weekend and he cleaned his locker out so his mom didn’t have to when he was dead. This is why he had all those books that day.  “ Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.”  There is no doubt that bullying is a major problem that seems to never stop happening. But together, the people of this world can help out to end bullying. Every chance you get, help someone out and speak up to help someone. Take just a little time from your day and go save somebody’s life! Don’t be the person that could have prevented someone from losing their life. Never be afraid to help somebody if they need it. If you are a good person, you will do something to prevent bullying from taking place just like Kyle did in the story. By speaking up and helping out with bullying you are a hero and you will never regret it.


Works Cited

https://www.stopbullying.gov/news/media/facts/

http://sfglobe.com/?id=627

http://www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/stats.asp

Global Warming: A Real Hot-Button Issue

Andrew Primeau

Laura Long

English/Lang Arts 10: (Daily:01) Sec. 101

2 December 2016

Global Warming: A Real Hot-Button Issue

Global warming is a potentially disastrous issue that could eventually wipe out all life on Earth. Global warming is causing the planet to heat up at an unprecedented rate, and humanity must do more to stop it.

Global warming is a process in which greenhouse gases trap incoming heat from the Sun in Earth's atmosphere, warming the planet like a greenhouse (hence the name “greenhouse gas”). Greenhouse gases are mostly emitted by the burning of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, and the current concentration of greenhouse gases is large and growing. For example, carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases, is at 400 ppm1 (parts per million) in the atmosphere. That might not sound like much, but considering how large the atmosphere is, 400 ppm is quite a lot of carbon dioxide, and that’s just one greenhouse gas.

In order to slow or even stop the warming of the planet, we must stop burning fossil fuels, and instead use renewable resources like solar power or hydroelectric power. In fact, we’re already starting to switch to renewable resources; as of 2015, total US energy consumption was about 4 trillion kWh2. Of that amount, 0.6% was generated by solar power, 6% by hydropower, and a whopping 20% by nuclear power2. There have also been improvements in usage of renewable resources in homes; Tesla unveiled a solar roof3 that could cost less to install than a regular roof4. With advancements like these in renewable resources, we could knock out global warming in no time.

However, the public is still not completely on board about global warming. According to Gallup polls, only 64% of adult Americans said they were worried a “great deal” or a “fair amount” about global warming, only 59% believe the effects of global warming have already begun, 41% believe global warming will pose a serious threat to their way of life, and 65% believe global warming is primarily attributable to human activities5. To be fair, these numbers are higher than before, but still not high enough.

In conclusion, global warming is a potentially disastrous issue, and we must do more to stop it. However, in order to do more about global warming, we need the public to agree that global warming is a huge issue. While we are making serious advancements in renewable resources and their usage, we’re still  quite a ways away from stopping global warming (let alone reversing it; that’s a whole other problem). If you want to help, look into powering your house with renewable energy, contact your congressman or senator, or just raise awareness. Do something, so that one day, we might finally tackle this issue, and enjoy our planet in peace.

Works Cited

1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations." Current Greenhouse Gas Concentrations. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <http://web.archive.org/web/20161109122729/http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html>.
2. U.S. Energy Information Administration. "U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." What Is U.S. Electricity Generation by Energy Source? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). U.S. Energy Information Administration, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3>.
3. "Tesla Solar." Tesla Solar | Tesla. Tesla, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <https://www.tesla.com/solar>.
4. Muoio, Danielle. "Elon Musk: Tesla Solar Roof Will Likely Cost Less than a Normal Roof." Business Insider. Business Insider, 17 Nov. 2016. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-solar-roof-cost-less-than-normal-roof-2016-11>.
5. Gallup, Inc. "U.S. Concern About Global Warming at Eight-Year High." Gallup.com. Gallup Inc., 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 02 Dec. 2016. <http://www.gallup.com/poll/190010/concern-global-warming-eight-year-high.aspx>.

THE ELECTORAL
COLLEGE 

By: Ian Elder

To some people's surprise it's not the people who vote for the next president, but a group of 538 electors. These people are a part of the electoral college and they all meet up every four years to decide who will be the next president. This system has an assortment of problems. It's not very democratic, nor representative.

The electoral college is somewhat of a complicated system, but in short. Each state gets a certain amount of electoral votes (how many house representative they have plus the 2 senators). then Every four years when a new president is elected the electors from each state will vote for whichever president won the majority in their state. So if a candidate gets 51% of the popular vote in California, they get all 55 electoral votes (even though 49% voted against them). A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidents (no matter how many people voted against them). As a result, A presidential candidate wouldn't care whether they got 51% of the vote in California for 100% either way they get the 55 electoral votes they need to win.

With this system the candidates are try to win states not people. This is why candidates spend most of their time in swing states. Only two states (Maine and Nebraska) have a congressional system for disputing electoral votes; where someone can win half of the electors and the other half go to the other candidate depending on who the different districts voted for. With the electoral college it becomes possible for a candidate to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. This hasn't happened just once but rather 4 times in american history.  

Four time a president won the presidency despite having the majority of the population vote against them. This has happened in 1824 when john Adams won with 38,000 more votes against him, than in 1876 when Rutherford won with 250,000 more vote against him, again in 1888 when Harrison won but lost the popular by 90,000 votes, and most recently in 2000 when bush won despite losing the popular by 540,000 votes.  A system where someone can win with up to 540,000 people voting against them is not very democratic, nor representative.

Possible worse than a president winning though not winning the majority of the populist, are the 4 million people who can't vote in the first place.  Their are just about 4 million people who live in american territories, but have no say in who their next president will be. These people are american citizens follow american laws, pay federal taxes but have, but they can't vote for people who could dramatically change their lives.  

In conclusion, the electoral college is supposed to represent the people and in some cases it does ok but others it does quite the opposite. A system that lets a candidate win despite losing by 540,000 votes is not a very good system, nor is it very representative when you exclude 4 million people from the equation. The electoral college is a rather outdated system, and if it can’t be exchanged for a better one (direct vote) it should at least be reformed.

Work cited

"Presidents Winning Without Popular Vote." FactCheckorg. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.

"U. S. Electoral College: Frequently Asked Questions." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.

"U. S. Electoral College: Presidential Election Laws." National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.

"U. S. Electoral College: Who Are the Electors? How Do They Vote?" National Archives and Records Administration. National Archives and Records Administration, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016