Avid Weekly Article: What Stereotype Does Lin Need to Overcome?

If I were to conduct a study confirming college discrimination against Asian- Americans, I would first examine the reasons why certain Asian-American students were denied admission into colleges across the country.  After examining the reasons I would look for patterns in similar ideas between admission departments and see if they match up.  Also I would have to look at SAT scores and grades from high school and see whether or not the Asian-American students were rightfully denied admission or whether it seemed that even though they had exceptional grades, they were not let in due to their race. I do agree with the results printed in this article.  Even though I wasn’t previously aware of these shocking realities, I now realize that some colleges really are denying admission just because of nationality or race, which is extremely wrong. I was especially shocked when I read the part of the article that stated that Asian-American students need SAT scores about 140 points higher than white students.  It is extremely unfair that essentially these students are being punished for doing well in school, simply because it is too close to their stereotype. A point proving this is a stuffy conducted that states, “The 1990 probe determined that Harvard admitted 13.2 percent of its Asian American applicants and 17.4 percent of whites, even thought the Asians had better grades and scores.” This whole situation overall is shocking and flat out wrong, I think that this issue should be shown to more people in America to allow them to be aware of what’s really going on in college admission departments. 

AVID Weekly Article Response (Natural Gas Use)

Although there are many pros and cons to natural gas use, I believe that over time if we continue to use this risky source of fuel, it will end up destroying our environment. On the basic overview of it, natural gas looks promising and efficient. The cost is about one third less of that of oil. It’s cheaper and fast to build power plants fueled by natural gas.  As well as these advantages, natural gas only emits half as much carbon as coal. So what problems are there with this energy source? In reality natural gas isn’t what most people perceive of it.  “Under the best conditions, we may enjoy those benefits, but under more adverse conditions, gas can be a worse generator of greenhouse gas than coal, can wreak massive local environmental destruction and can undermine energy efficiency and renewable energy.  And without a strong set of policies to guide natural gas development, the worse case is far more likely.” One of these cases is climate change.  By generating a kilowatt-hour’s worth of energy with a natural gas turbine this only produces about half of the amount of CO2 that could be generated by electricity at a coal plant.  This unburned natural gas eventually ends up becoming a very powerful greenhouse gas.  For example only one molecule of leaked gas contributes as much to global warming as 25 molecules of burned gas.  In conclusion to these statistics, if the whole system of exploration, extraction, and compression leaks by even the mere amount of 2.5 percent, it is as harmful as coal.  In addition to all of this there is the damage that the wells can do to a gas site. Most wells today produce brackish water and many other gross byproducts, such as benzene and toluene from underground.  If these materials spill onto nearby farmlands, they literally salt the earth. Gas can be a major contributor in our energy future, but there is no room for mistake with this energy source.  It can produce great problems such as land destruction, water quality, and climate change.