作者： chenchen

How Fast Fashion Became Faster — and Worse for the Earth

The spring dance is in two weeks, and my friend needs help choosing a dress. She beckons me to her phone where an endless mosaic of elegant dresses, not one over $20, dances before my eyes. After much deliberation, she settles on a glamorous sapphire gown with pleated details lining the bodice. Another two weeks later, the dress carpets the bottom of a landfill, worn only once.

Welcome to the world of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the 1990s, retailers began to introduce trendy, cheaply-priced, poorly-made clothes on a weekly basis, intending to match the breakneck pace at which fashion trends move. Style became cheap, convenient and consumable.

Fast fashion, however, is ultimately a privilege. It is a privilege to buy clothes solely for their style, and it is a privilege to ignore the environmental consequences of doing so. In reality, the aggressive cycle of consumption perpetuated by fast fashion means that the clothes we wear are now more likely than ever to end up as part of the 92 million tons of textile waste produced annually.

During the pandemic, as stores closed, consumers ditched fast fashion staples such as H&M and Zara, instead opting to order from e-commerce social media sensations such as Shein and Asos. (Shein is now valued at $100 billion, more than H&M and Zara combined.) These brands represent an escalation of both fast fashion and its environmental toll.

These fast fashion newcomers thrived during the pandemic because of their unique business models. They exist entirely online, allowing them to ship the thousands of new styles they release daily to consumers directly from their warehouses, avoiding supply chain snags and U.S. import duties in the process. Meanwhile, a reliance on cheap overseas labor and synthetic textiles keeps prices irresistibly low.

These practices, however, are hurting the Earth more than ever before. Because these retailers rely solely on international shipping to move their products, they only exacerbate the annual billion tons of greenhouse gasses released by shipping. Virtually all of these brands sell clothes that contain petroleum-based, resource-intensive synthetic fibers such as polyester and nylon. During their lifetime, these fibers are responsible for 35 percent of the microplastics contaminating our oceans and can subsequently take centuries to decompose in landfills.

Though fast fashion represents an understandably alluring combination of style and savings, now, more than ever, we simply cannot quantify the true cost of our clothing with a price tag. When consumers want to update their wardrobe, they can do so sustainably by thrifting, reworking old garments or researching environmentally-conscious brands.

For now, I’ll be at my next school dance rocking the same dress I did last year.

Works Cited

Beall, Abigail. “Why Clothes Are So Hard to Recycle.” BBC Future, 12 July 2020.

Monroe, Rachel. “Ultra-Fast Fashion Is Eating the World.” The Atlantic, 6 Feb. 2021.

Nguyen, Terry. “Shein Is the Future of Fast Fashion. Is That a Good Thing?” Vox, 13 July 2021.

Okamoto, Katie. “Your Laundry Sheds Harmful Microfibers. Here’s What You Can Do About It.” The New York Times, 21 April 2021.

Saul, Jonathan. “Shipping’s Share of Global Carbon Emissions Increases.” Reuters, 4 Aug. 2020.

Williams, Lara. “Rise of Shein Tests an Industry’s Go-Green Commitments.” Bloomberg, 10 April 2022.

Megaconstellations: ‘Stars’ You Don’t Want to See in the Sky

During hot summer nights, my neighbors and I would peer eagerly through our telescope, eyepieces whizzing from blurry stars to the luminescent moon. Like generations before me, I dreamed of galactic battles, Martian populations and meeting Hans Solo. For thousands of years, the seemingly untouchable space has captivated the collective human imagination.

Now, vast networks of satellites that form “megaconstellations” are changing the game. Space has become the lucrative new frontier for the corporate world, with operations like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper taking center stage in an effort to provide a global broadband internet service.

The Union of Concerned Scientists reports there are currently over 4,000 satellites in lower Earth orbit, with over tens of thousands to come. Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned with the problem of satellites “photobombing” astronomical observations. As the satellites orbit around Earth’s view, vast captures of distant stars are marred by bright streaks. Polluted images must be thrown out, potentially costing millions of dollars and devastating astronomical observations.

But the problems don’t end there. Miscalculations and the harsh space environment make the satellites especially prone to collisions and degradation, breaking into debris and “space junk.” Thousands of pieces of debris float around the atmosphere, triggering the Kessler Syndrome, where debris causes collisions, causing more debris, and increasing exponentially. As Professors Aaron Boley and Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia report, a “single major fragmentation event from one satellite could affect all operations” in lower Earth orbit. Like a catastrophic domino chain, megaconstellations may eventually render space inaccessible.

While faster internet is undoubtedly a convenience, it shouldn’t come at the cost of keeping our celestial space pristine. Ironically, the current hustle to monetize space closely resembles our own planet’s environmental predicament. When faced with new frontiers, our society tends to adopt an attitude of over-accumulation, especially in competitive markets. This spatial fix ultimately hinders our ability to benefit from these precious environments, as we focus too much on extraction, too little on preservation.

Our collective inheritance of space also means we must act as responsible stewards. Instead of scrambling to fix an irreparably damaged environment, it’s critical to take action now. One proposed buffer explained by The New York Times is a robust international regulatory regime to guide and manage the appropriation of outer space. While it’s unrealistic and ultimately stifling to halt innovation in space, modeling a convention similar to the Air Convention would enable us to harness benefits while ensuring sustainable use.

The age of space commercialization has only just begun. This great “global common” provides a unique space for contemplation, inspiration and celebration across ages and generations. For the sake of aspiring astronauts, astronomy fanatics and Solo fans, let’s keep space clean.

Works Cited

Boley, Aaron C., and Michael Byers. “Satellite Megaconstellations Create Risks in Low Earth Orbit, the Atmosphere and on Earth.” Scientific Reports. 20 May 2021.

Ferreira, Becky. “Amazon Satellites Add to Astronomers’ Worries About the Night Sky.” The New York Times. 10 August 2020.

Sutter, Paul. “Megaconstellations Could Destroy Astronomy and There’s No Easy Fix.” Space.com. 6 October 2021.

Stolen Art: Why We Need Repatriation

The legacy of imperialism is scarred with suffering. After millions of deaths and treaties forged through blood, that’s not a particularly controversial statement. Yet in the softly illuminated halls of museum exhibits, Western countries flaunt their imperialist history by displaying plundered art.

A couple of years ago, I visited the Summer Palace in Beijing. Glazed towers rose above a lush forest, painted against the blue sky and the even bluer Kunming Lake. However, as my mother told me then, this complex was a shadow of the old Summer Palace, which was sacked by British and French forces in 1860. Led by the British commander Lord Elgin, pieces were taken to be auctioned, and the fallen palace was burned to the ground.

Now, regal scepters and shining jade from the old Summer Palace grace the Royal Collection and other British museums. Each unreturned artifact is a reminder of the century of humiliation that Western nations imposed upon China. As Chinese nationalism grows, this resentment festers in the already tense political relations between the East and West.

But the issue extends beyond China. In the world of art history, Elgin is an infamous name. Starting in 1802, Lord Elgin’s father and his men carved intricate friezes and metopes from the famous Athena Parthenon in Greece and shipped them to London, where they are now kept in the British Museum. The Greek government has since demanded the return of these artifacts, known as the Elgin Marbles.

If the Elgin Marbles were repatriated, they would be displayed in the Acropolis Museum. Here, in the exhibit where plaster molds of the Elgin Marbles stand in lieu of the real ones, soaring windows offer a panoramic view of the Acropolis. Only here, where the viewer is free to envision how these artifacts once decorated the Parthenon, can their full historical context be appreciated in all its antique glory.

However, some fear that repatriation would cause the downfall of encyclopedic museums. Referring to the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a gem taken from the Sikh Empire following the colonization of India, the former British Prime Minister David Cameron stated that “if you say yes to one you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty.”

But perhaps some museums should be emptied.

The British Museum’s founder, Sir Hans Sloane, funded his collection through imperial networks and backbreaking Jamaican slavery. In Belgium, the Africa Museum — where Congolese were once exhibited like zoo animals — was constructed with profits from King Leopold’s cruel Congo.

No matter what renovations are made, history cannot change. These museums, built on the foundations of colonialism, serve as modern shrines to oppressive imperial ideals, and refusing to return stolen art is an insult to all those who suffered under them.

Works Cited

Bernhard, Meg. “Belgium Confronts Ugly Colonial Past, but African Museum Changes Don’t Please Everyone.” Los Angeles Times, 31 Oct. 2019.

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “The British Museum Was a Wonder of Its Time — but Also a Product of Slavery.” Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Oct. 2017.

Bowlby, Chris. “The Palace of Shame That Makes China Angry.” BBC, 2 Feb. 2015.

Nayeri, Farah. “Remembering the Racist History of ‘Human Zoos.’” The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2021.

Ouroussoff, Nicolai. “The New Acropolis Museum: A Dialogue With Antiquity.” The New York Times, 30 Oct. 2007.

Tweedie, Neil. “The Koh-i-Noor: Diamond Robbery?” The Telegraph, 29 July 2010.

High on Helping: The Dangers of Voluntourism

As an Asian student in the United States, I’ve faced my share of cringe-inducing cultural insensitivity and casual imperialism. But in the summer of 2020, ironically, I was guilty of the exact same.

A group of peers and I had traveled to Myanmar, ostensibly to create a musical to promote and preserve the Wa people’s artistic culture. The fact that none of us had any background in anthropology, musicology or production was strangely irrelevant. “Hi! I’m here to protect your heritage by publicizing your customs to the world,” I announced shamelessly to the Wa chief.

Welcome to the rapidly growing industry of voluntourism, which markets itself as a seamless blend of charity and leisure. Organizing trips for over 10 million people annually, voluntourism agencies reap billions from their clients’ good intentions. The seemingly benevolent nature of the activity has made it a top choice extracurricular for students who can afford it.

Unfortunately, most participants (including my past self) are blind to its disturbing consequences. In the words of a New York Times article, voluntourists assume that “simply by being privileged enough to travel the world” they “are somehow qualified to help ease the world’s ills.”

The idea that voluntourism is based in egotism, not altruism, may be a tough pill to swallow. But voluntourists’ actions are often fruitless due to the volunteers’ limited involvement and expertise. Put bluntly, many of these trips serve no purpose other than to pad resumes and fuel social media posts. It is up to universities, at whom much of this business is aimed, to point out explicitly how superficial — or downright detrimental — these efforts can be.

Voluntourism implicitly teaches students to develop a “white savior” complex toward the regions they visit. More insidiously, residents of host communities can become dependent on foreign influence — financial influence, that is, because none of the voluntourists’ other impacts typically last longer than their trip. As Pippa Biddle illustrates in the book “Ours To Explore,” once one group “[finishes] building bathrooms at a local school and [leaves] for home, the structures [will be] demolished to make way for a new project, built by a fresh set of volunteers.” She even documented how children in Uganda learned to “rub dirt on themselves before running toward arriving volunteers.”

Many students don’t realize that to better the world, they don’t have to leave their own neighborhoods, let alone their continent. While helping seniors set up grocery deliveries may not sound as exciting as building schools for impoverished children, it demonstrates what colleges really want to see, without the hefty price tag and overtones of imperialism. As I learned myself, all that matters is having a long-term positive impact — there’s no need to make a song and dance.

Works Cited

Bansal, Sarika. “Do No Harm: The Dark Side of Voluntourism.” Driving Change, 8 Dec. 2021.

Biddle, Pippa. “Ours To Explore: Privilege, Power, and the Paradox of Voluntourism.” Potomac Books, an Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

Kushner, Jacob. “The Voluntourist’s Dilemma.” The New York Times, 22 March 2016.

To Meme or Not to Meme

Sometime in late February, I go about my usual routine: homework, short respite on TikTok, repeat. As I mindlessly swipe past dance trends and makeup tutorials, the unexpected catches my eye: shaky footage showing solemn soldiers marching, weapons drawn.

Immediately, I open the comment section to find users just as dumbstruck as I am. One proclaims, “I can’t believe I found out about a war on this app,” and thousands “like” the comment in agreement.

With that, most teenagers, including myself, first became aware of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the social media platform TikTok.

For today’s adolescents, consuming news via social media is second nature; memes, in particular, are used to keep up with ever-evolving world affairs. With fast-paced production, easy-to-understand lingo, and laugh-out-loud humor, memes have connected an entire generation through a common language.

However, criticisms have arisen, claiming memes trivialize serious subjects. The Russia-Ukraine war has been no exception, with jokes being shared about World War III drafts and how Marvel’s Avengers would react in such a scenario. In the spur of online frenzy, memes have homogenized real-life tragedies with humor.

Social media has led to a point where “the trivial follows the dire, the personal appears alongside the public,” according to Hayley Phelan in a guest essay for The New York Times. “War starts to blend with entertainment.”

This, in turn, begs the question: Can crises be memed?

The majority of meme content has been fueled by teenagers whose coming-of-age has been accompanied by generation-defining events. As the digital media strategist Joshua Chapdelaine said in an article for Teen Vogue, memes create the “perfect vessels for high-anxiety moments when words may be difficult to find.” Processing emotions through unprecedented times can be complex, but memes alleviate that difficulty through their ability to transcend emotional boundaries.

Moreover, memes allow teenagers to openly participate in discussions regarding political and social developments. With their less intimidating nature, memes ease the process in which opinions are shared and formed. “As the memes and their narratives travel and spread, they help shape the larger cultural narrative … just as all memes, from toxic to wholesome, help create cultural narratives,” writes Aja Romano in Vox. Accessible by anyone, memes serve as the youth’s entry into becoming well-informed citizens. At a time of undeniably high sociopolitical tension, it is crucial that youth are aware of global issues; memes facilitate exactly that.

Despite seemingly lacking sophistication, memes are effectively raising awareness for a teenage audience. Just as the generation before had political cartoons, today’s youth have memes to engage in political discourse. Through this revolutionary method of communication, memes are shaping the way teens interact with the world.

Works Cited

Colombo, Charlotte. “Westerners, Please Stop With the Memes and Hot Takes on the Ukraine Crisis.” HuffPost, 7 March 2022.

Colombo, Charlotte. “Memes and War: Why People Turn to Jokes During Times of Crisis.” Teen Vogue, 3 March 2022.

Phelan, Hayley. “Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin and the Insidious Meme-Ification of War.” The New York Times, 26 March 2022.

Romano, Aja. “Reckoning With the War Meme in Wartime.” Vox, 25 Feb. 2022.

How ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Diminishes Same-Sex Parents and Their Children

As a rosy-cheeked nine-year-old, I beamed as I walked down a grassy aisle blanketed with flower petals. Serving as a ring bearer for my two dads’ wedding in 2014, I had spent months crafting handmade ring pillows to celebrate my parents. I felt proud to be a part of history.

But today, trouble is brewing. Stories like mine could become off-limits in schools in light of a recent wave of hateful legislation. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed House Bill 1557 — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents — on March 28. The bill stipulates that classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity “may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students,” according to The New York Times. Similar bills have been introduced in more than a dozen states.

These bills’ vague language calls into question how they will be applied: Who gets to decide what is “appropriate” for a particular age group? Opponents of Florida’s bill have rightly pointed out the danger this ambiguity poses to L.G.B.T.Q. students. But less discussed is how the children of same-sex parents will fare as a result of “Don’t Say Gay.”

Kids with L.G.B.T.Q. parents may grow up without their teachers acknowledging their families. It’s not far-fetched to imagine lawsuits from bigoted parents seeking to use these laws to shut out any L.G.B.T.Q. presence in the curriculum. Even progressive teachers may steer clear of recognizing same-sex parents in class out of fear of losing their jobs. Paula Stephens, a first-grade teacher in Florida, said she now does not know how to proceed with her usual curriculum. This is probably the most sinister aspect of “Don’t Say Gay”: In trying to navigate such deliberately vague language, teachers may have to choose between their own livelihoods and treating their students humanely.

Some same-sex parents have already taken a stand against this injustice, including Lourdes Casares and Kimberly Feinberg, a Floridian couple who mounted a legal challenge to “Don’t Say Gay” on March 31. If laws are passed in other states, other families should follow their lead. We must also compel state and local officials and their corporate supporters to take a stand against this hate.

Advocates of “Don’t Say Gay” claim they support the rights of families; they hid behind “Protect Children” and “Support Parents” signs next to Gov. DeSantis when he signed the bill. But this begs the question: Which families are we protecting? Certainly not ones like mine. I remember the day my parents were given the right by the Supreme Court to get married. I shudder to think about children who have to watch their parents have their rights taken away.

Works Cited

Block, Melissa. “Teachers Fear the Chilling Effect of Florida’s So-Called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law.” NPR, 30 March 2022.

Carlisle, Madeleine. “‘I Hope This Law Is Obliterated.’ Plaintiffs in the First Lawsuit Challenging ‘Don’t Say Gay’ in Florida Speak Out.” Time, 31 March 2022.

Nierenberg, Amelia. “What Does ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Actually Say?” The New York Times, 23 March 2022.

Planting the Next Chapter of Farming

Ask a Gen Zer about his or her dream job. The answer will likely be anything but “a farmer.”

Younger people have pursued urban opportunities without a second thought in recent decades, deepening a generational distance from rural life. The result is a dwindling and aging population of farmers worldwide. The farming population in South Korea hit a record-low in 2019, with nearly half the farmers being 65 or older; young rural Africans are leaving their small farms at “alarming rates”; and the rural population in the United States has declined for the first time in history, with over 100,000 small farms disappearing in the past decade.

Our world needs farmers more urgently than ever, and Generation Z is the only sprout of hope.

Farmers are wilting in a world where food demand only rises. In a New York Times article, author Ana Swanson details the mounting load of challenges modern farmers plow through each day, ranging from droughts and storms intensified by climate change to supply chain disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic. Coupled with countless international conflicts that ravage farmland, the farming sector approaches a looming demise.

Turning a blind eye to this issue is not an option. Not only is agriculture the foundation of global food security, but the growth of its sector can also be twice as effective in reducing poverty than that of other sectors. The preservation of local and global biodiversity — the key to strengthening resilience to climate change and other crises — also depends on heeding farmers’ rich set of traditional agricultural knowledge.

If the urgency for a greater pursuit of farming is so crystal clear, why does our generation remain so distant from it? The problem is our perception. Young people view farming as an archaic, unprofitable and unskilled occupation, the International Fund for Agricultural Development explains.

This notion couldn’t be further from the truth: The future of farms shines with bountiful innovations and technological upgrades. Satellite technology is being integrated into crop monitoring, vertical farms with highly-controlled environments are making efficient use of space and resources, and sensors, robots and drones are facilitating farming with unprecedented precision. The time is ripe for any blossoming environmentalist, physicist, biologist or engineer to make invaluable contributions to a new, sustainable farming system.

It’s time for us to steer the wheel of farming. As Gen Zers, we are more than familiar with technology, we understand the gravity of the global food crisis, and we have a knack for navigating our way through hardship.

So, start searching up some cool agricultural technology or visiting a nearby farm. Every small effort you make is a step closer to planting a promising chapter of agriculture ahead of us.

Works Cited

“Agriculture and Food Security.” United States Agency for International Development, 3 Feb. 2022.

Booth, Amy. “The Reason We’re Running Out of Farmers.” BBC.

Johnson, Kenneth M. “Rural America Lost Population Over the Past Decade for the First Time in History.” University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy, 22 Feb. 2022.

Kim, Yon-se. “46% of Farm Population Aged 65 or Over in Korea.” The Korea Herald, 7 March 2021.

Semuels, Alana. “‘They’re Trying to Wipe Us Off the Map.’ Small American Farmers Are Nearing Extinction.” Time, 27 Nov. 2019.

Swanson, Ana. “Food Prices Approach Record Highs, Threatening the World’s Poorest.” The New York Times, 3 Feb. 2022.

“Why Are Rural Youth Leaving Farming?” United Nations, April 2016.

When a sphere of spike proteins suddenly skewered the world, I had a built-in bubble to cushion the blow.

My mother, inspired by her family’s traditional Chinese siheyuan home, moved her parents in with her when she married. Like the siheyuan's multigenerational courtyard-cuddling wings, our own block nestles my aunt, uncle and cousins. From my grandmother, I learned the neat fold and flip of a wanton. From my grandfather, Chinese grammar and composition. Auntie Alex spouts algebra tips, and my cousins enumerate ways to cheat at Monopoly. I double as my grandfather’s iPhone Genius Bar and bolster my grandmother’s spirits during chemotherapy.

Yet only as I watched my peers in single family homes traverse a cruel seesaw of virus risk and social isolation did I fully appreciate our alternative way of living.

Even with a new normal that permits safe sociability, I hope more Americans rediscover the value of multigenerational living. The unextended household is a relatively recent conception; humans have long lived in multigenerational networks. In American suburbia, the nuclear family unit has accelerated an epidemic of loneliness, a homeownership crunch, and simultaneous child care and senior care crises. Research shows that both seniors and young people benefit socially and financially from multigenerational households. Fortunately, such arrangements are proliferating — 20 percent of Americans resided in multigenerational households in 2016, which is the highest proportion since 1950.

Nevertheless, structural barriers to reshaping suburbs remain: My state of California has long suffered from a pox of single-family zoning, while the average household size continues to ebb nationally. American culture still exalts the single-family home, and families shoved together by economic (or pandemic) pressures may revert to the “norm” once those pressures ease.

It’s easy to fetishize individual “freedom,” and crave some measure of privacy, independence and noise cancellation. For young people, living on one’s own is often part of forging an adult identity. But leaving the nest shouldn’t mean permanent exile for fledgling adults. Humans need social connection to thrive, and many Americans idealize the self-determination of single-family living while underestimating the benefits of togetherness.

With the passage of Senate Bills 9 and 10, “single-family” lots in California can now boast four separate dwellings — or a modern siheyuan — and builders increasingly offer flexible, multigenerational-friendly floor plans. To really change how Californians and Americans live we need a more fundamental change in social and cultural expectations. No individual can rescript the American dream or rezone the neighborhood. We could all think twice, though, before casting a side-eye at a young adult who’s returned home to stay in her parents’ basement. It sure beats quarantine!

Works Cited

Cohn, D’Vera, and Jeffrey S. Passel. “Record 64 Million Americans Live in Multigenerational Households.” Pew Research Center, 27 July 2020.

Grose, Jessica. “‘It’s Pretty Brutal’: The Sandwich Generation Pays a Price.” The New York Times, 11 Feb. 2020.

Hafner, Katie. “Researchers Confront an Epidemic of Loneliness.” The New York Times, 5 Sept. 2016.

Jackson, Candace. “Opinion | The New American Dream Home Is One You Never Have to Leave.” The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2018.

Kolomatsky, Michael. “Millennials Face a Steep Climb to Homeownership.” The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2020.

Muennig, Peter, et al. “Living With Parents or Grandparents Increases Social Capital and Survival: 2014 General Social Survey-National Death Index.” SSM — Population Health, 10 Nov. 2017.