Karly+L’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

In the America I grow old in, I want to see people working toward the future- I want to see people thinking of the long-term rather than the short-term. I want to see people building a better world for tomorrow rather than prioritizing ease and comfort today. In the America I grow old in, issues like health, education, and environmental conservation will be priorities in order to make sure our future is brighter.

The American public education system gets budget cuts after budget cuts, focuses on test scores and numbers, and leaves little room for individuality. Students’ health is placed on the backburner as we are driven towards our society’s narrow view of success: college and stable employment. Meanwhile, students are sleep-deprived, stressed, and learning the wrong things. Study after study has proven that teens need 8 to 10 hours of sleep- with brains that make it difficult to fall asleep before 11pm (and sometimes hours of homework that makes 11pm seem early) and a national average school start time of 8am, this is nearly impossible. Personally, I get seven hours on a good night. Sleep deprivation results in zombie-brained, inexperienced teens with only partially developed brains: a wonderful mix. After all, this is the same demographic that is most likely to get into a car crash. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to higher risks of depression and anxiety. But sure, let’s blame social media for that. Schools- so focused on math and reading scores- often overlook and even completely cut programs that have amazing benefits. Music, sports, arts, and language programs are always the sacrificial lambs of the school budget. I mean, Foothill only started up with sports a couple of years ago, and we still have to ship our music students to other schools. Sure, we’re a tech school- it’s in the name- but if teaching kids is what the school wants to do, arts are an important part of that process. Students who play music have higher cognitive functions and emotional awareness than students who don’t. Being an athlete myself, I can tell you how valuable a team atmosphere is- not to mention that working out lowers stress, releases endorphins, and can ease the depression and anxiety issues that plague one in five teens. The public education system is how we make sure the next generation is prepared to be leaders and innovators, but it is hindering students from reaching their full potential. Budget cuts for schools may mean extra cash for other projects now, but in the long run, public schools will continue to be deprived of opportunities.

Environmental conservation should be a no-brainer, right? Who wants to pollute the world and slowly kill off everything on the planet- including humans- in the process? Well, I guess some people simply don’t believe that this is exactly what we are doing. To prove to you the importance of environmental conservation, I first have to prove that it’s real. Let me introduce you to NASA- a small, unknown organization that really doesn’t know very much about science. They claim that global warming is in fact supported by a couple of concepts that may be difficult for some minds to grasp: like rising temperatures and sea levels, increasing concentration of unhealthy chemicals like carbon dioxide, melting ice, and acidification of oceans. I know, these are extremely hard to measure, and it’s not like you have a way of knowing that the global temperature has risen 1.7 degrees since 1880- because absolutely nobody had mercury thermometers starting back in the sixteenth century, when it was invented, and which we still use today in scientific fields. And of course, even if that was accurate, we would have to ignore the fact that the years since 2001 have given us sixteen out of the seventeen hottest years ever recorded on Earth. Clearly that means nothing. And environmental protection is so difficult- imagine having to do things like recycle and pay attention to how much energy and water you’re using, and overall trying not be wasteful. What a dystopian future that is. There’s a reason we call it “mother nature” or “mother earth.” Our environment takes care of us and gives us everything we know. Right now, we’re not exactly treating our “mother” very well, with piles of trash bigger than Texas floating around in the ocean. Shouldn’t we start giving a little back?

While we’re taking care of our planet to keep it healthy, we should start doing the same for our bodies. I’m not going to give you a lecture about how yoga cures all diseases (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually work), but I am going to talk about the fast food industry. We’ve seen the colorful cartoon advertisements for McDonald's, Wendy’s, Chick-Fil-A- these ads that make their food look juicy, tender, flavorful, wonderful. But it’s all just sugar. A McDonald’s one dollar soda can have anywhere from 30-80 grams of sugar. For reference, an apple has about 23 grams of sugar and a boatload of fiber, vitamins and minerals to balance it out- plus if you eat one a day, you keep the doctor away. If you drink one soda a day, you get diabetes. According to the CDC, about 21 million people in the US have been diagnosed with diabetes. About another 8.1 million have undiagnosed diabetes. Total, that’s about 9.3% of Americans- and that number is predicted to rise. The FDA does little about this, and in fact continues to subsidize less healthy crops like corn. According to a study cited by National Geographic, people who eat more products made from subsidized crops are at a higher risk for health issues like high cholesterol and obesity. The food industry, in fact, has a lot wrong with it, but I don’t think I have time to rant about that right now.

Clearly, not everyone agrees with my speech. It would be impossible to always agree with everyone on everything. I could say the sky is blue and someone could come back with, “No, it’s azure.” Neither of us would be wrong, and neither of us could prove our opinion. My point is that we could do one of three things with conflicting opinions: not talk about them and pretend they don’t exist, argue non-stop until everyone is too worn out to do anything, or compromise. It’s what gets us through the day. As you can see every time you turn on the nightly news, this is an area we need improvement in. Whichever channel you turn on, someone is brutally bashing the other end of the spectrum. This helps exactly no one: nothing gets done and neither side of the argument get anything they want. In the America I grow old in, I want us to talk civilly about important issues. Clearly, ignoring and repressing opinions is working about as well as a square wheel. If we want reform, we’re going to have to work as a country to get it.

All of our future Americans are vastly different, except for one thing: we all want something to change. This speech is about what could be, what we want to be. I want to see a future where we make sure the next generations have less problems to solve than we do. And I know that if we’re willing to work together, we can work towards an America we all want to grow old in.