Journey to the Center of the Earth

As of the 5th of August, the number of mass shootings (incidents with at least four casualties) in the U.S. in 2019 stood at 255, marking an average 1.18 shootings per day. With these figures, the United States holds a gun violence death rate of roughly 12.5 deaths per 100,000 people, one four times as high as those of Syria and Yemen. In terms of homicides as a whole, in 2017, 73% of homicides in the U.S. involved a gun, which falls in stark contrast to the 38% of Canada, 13% of Australia and 3% of England and Wales. The correlation is clear: as a gross generalization, many western countries with stricter gun control policies tend to experience lower rates of gun-related homicides than those who stubbornly defend the right of civilians to bear arms. From the nations mentioned above, for instance, Canada mandates gun safety training for and performs rigorous background checks on those who wish to purchase firearms. The usage of such firearms is also significantly more rest...

Above: a brunch was held for the 16 olive farmers with whom I worked As mentioned in my last Global Scholars capstone project update, I spent a few weeks this summer hard at work in Catalonia, Spain to continue my goal of supporting the independent olive farmers of the region. While I spent time working in the field, the main focus of my visit was both to collect footage of the area and to conduct various interviews with either the farmers themselves or with others closely linked with the olive oil production process (such as the manager of an olive mill).  These interviews were recorded, and I intend to post them on the project website (www.myolivegrove.org) as soon as they have been translated from Catalan. The image above of the mayor of the town in which I was based provides an example of how these interviews were held. My finalized capstone project will likely involve educating the community on the struggles faced by these farmers (hopefully in a way that directly be...

In the past few months, Brazil has been the victim of major setbacks in the preservation of the Amazon rainforest. Over the course of this year, over 1,330 square miles of forest cover has been lost (in comparison with the 957 square miles last year). This June alone saw a rate of deforestation verging on double that of June just one year ago. A significant force at play in this recent decay of environmental protection is undoubtedly the poor policy of the nation’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is both overly dismissive of related studies and supportive of an excessively anti-control mindset. Indeed, Bolsonaro seems to condone the recent spike in deforestation. Part of his presidential campaign involved promising to remove regulations on protected land, which he described as an economic and agricultural hindrance. Soon after taking office, Bolsonaro granted the Ministry of Agriculture the right to certify the protected status of indigenous lands, a right previous...