Have you ever noticed how much professional athletes get paid compared to the average American doing manual labor? The highest paid American athlete in 2015 earned around $300 million dollars in 2015, meanwhile the minimum wage is $7.25. Minimum wage jobs like fast food cooks, cashiers and dishwashers are daily, hard working, manual labor jobs and the benefits usually aren’t great. Professional athletes like boxers, basketball players and football players do their job occasionally and get paid millions of dollars and the benefits are endless. 

I believe that this is quite a big problem. Workers who do hours of labor get paid very little and have to support themselves, and maybe even a family while earning just over $15,000 dollars annually. This seems quite unfair compared to athletes who have weekly games where they do their job and get paid millions for very little labor.

Now, I do understand that you have to be in excellent shape to be a professional athlete, and there are some risks while playing these sports, but it doesn’t seem fair that they are being paid millions of dollars when many manual labor jobs also include those risks. For example in order to be a quick and efficient waiter/waitress you do have to be in shape as well.

These jobs do require different skills and different types of hard work but the difference in the amount they get paid is far too large. Now, of course I do not think minimum wage jobs should earn millions of dollars but neither should professional athletes.

2016 has marked the second year in a row where the major nominees for the Oscars have been all white. Even President Obama has put his two cents into the conversation, “Are we making sure everyone gets a fair shot?”

But it isn’t just the lack of representation for African Americans. According to the LA times, it has been 54 years (since 1957) since a Latina person has won an Academy Award. However, white actors are being applauded when playing Latino and Asian characters.

But this isn’t a new issue. Ever since the film industry has started, it has been white dominated. Maybe people have been giving more attention to diversity in media recently because of the popularity Black Lives Matter has been given, and the resurgence of topics being brought to popular media because of social media. Obviously the hashtag #oscarssowhite has brought together many people with similar ideas to solidify what they want to see in the media. According to a study done on 18 top Hollywood companies done by NPR, 94% of the CEOS were white, and 100% were male. The overwhelming white dominance in the film industry both cuts away important stories that can be told through a minority’s perspective, but also takes away opportunities from talented people of color and LGBT people.

African Americans have been going against Hollywood by making their own films and TV networks. Although African Americans have made strides in diversity, African Americans have repeatedly been given stereotypical roles. Like being a maid or a slave.

Other minorities like Asians and Latinos have been given stereotypical roles as well. Asians are usually given roles that are related to being smart and not speaking English. Latinos are also treated like African Americans and Asians in that they often are portrayed as servants or people who can’t speak English.

LGBT members are rarely given diverse roles in popular film, they don’t go far from the flamboyant feminine gay men. Like roles in Modern Family and WIll and Grace. However more diverse LGBT roles are now being seen in popular series such as Orange is the New Black. 

Indigenous people are possibly the most stereotyped for example they are often portrayed as being “blood thirsty savages” and of being red face. Their plight has been gaining more attention due to the push by the Native community to change the logo of the Washington Redskins.

It’s important to have roles for minorities that aren’t just stereotypes. Dejra Bishop, a 15 year old sophomore at Highland Park Senior High, talks about diversity, “It feels good because I’m not just stereotyped as something bad. Black people can be good characters as well.”

Did it feel warmer than usual to you last year? Well you’re not the only one. 2015 has officially gone down as the warmest year on record since 1880 when they first started keeping track of global temperatures. Not only was 2015 the hottest year on record, it was also a part of a 39 year streak of above average temperatures. What’s the cause of these crazy numbers? According to the third U.S National Climate assessment “The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.” The burning of fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide and natural processes cannot fully absorb those gasses so the rest of it ends up going into the atmosphere. All of this has many harmful effects on ecosystems, biodiversity, and of course us humans.

In December, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change conference was held in Paris and the 195 participating countries agreed to a global pact named the Paris Agreement. These countries agreed to reduce emissions to try and reduce the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. This agreement is to be adopted through these countries’ legal systems and by doing so, they are then required to try to reduce their emissions. Many people have said that this is a big step to help the rising temperatures.

This may seem like a daunting task to many, but I believe that we already know the solution to these problems. Renewable energy resources like solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal energy are the greatest alternatives to burning fossil fuels. The earth does not have infinite amounts of fossil fuels, and burning them is just damaging our planet. Thankfully there are is an infinite amount of renewable energy resources and these will not damage the planet.

Another problem with fossil fuels is that  those sources are spread out and some countries don’t have any. Renewable sources can be found anywhere, and most countries have at least one.

Therefore, I believe that if the world would start to switch over to these renewable energy sources, and continue to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, global warming might slowly become something of the past.