Owen's Opinions

Where’s The Beef? For my junior theme research paper I took a look at the consumption of vegan meat options in America. I wanted to look at a topic that was important to me and for the last year or so I have been looking a lot at what affects the climate and ecosystem and specifically what we are doing as humans to negatively affect it. A few months ago I watched a documentary that explained how the meat industry causes a large portion of the global pollution as well as having many other negative effects. They also explained, however, that there is an alternative in the form of plant based and lab grown meats. I used that documentary, Explained: The Future of Meat, as well as other documentaries, books, scientific studies, and more to help me dig deeper into the subject.  By the end of the writing process I had formulated an opinion on the topic and believe that everyone should do what they can to support companies that are bringing about change in the meat industry. Raising a

Racism  Recently I was thinking about why it is that animals with major differences can live in harmony while humans struggle to accept each other even when it is in their best interest. To understand just how unique and strange this behavior is in the animal kingdom, we must first understand what race is. According to Britanicca , in the United States, “...the term race generally refers to a group of people who have in common some visible physical traits, such as skin colour, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation.” While the lines between races is decided by what society views as an important physical difference, such as skin color, most Americans see race as “geographically separated populations”. African Americans are from Africa, Asian Americans are from Asia, and so on. Here is a helpful video that summarizes the differences between race and ethnicity. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of highschool that I was finally informed that race is not a scientific ter

For 17 years, I have lived in Kenilworth , a small, wealthy, primarily white square mile town north of Chicago. The tiny town is known for being highly exclusive and afraid of outsiders, it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized just how true that was. The town is very diverse and has been since its creation in the late 1800’s and the small middle school, Joseph Sears school reflects its demographic. All the kids from kenilworth go to the small public school in the center of town where the kids grow up knowing nothing except what is directly in front of them. I, like most other kids at that school, was oblivious to the changing world because Kenilwoth was not changing with it. Kenilworth recently started discussing a small tif , which is like a tax, that would incentivise small new businesses to open restaurants and other services on a popular road that goes right through Kenilworth. The tif would in the end help taxpayers as the new businesses start paying taxes. Cur