Project Palm Tree: Your Daily Source of Information!

 Refugees  " An estimated 30 – 34 million of the 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons are children below 18 years of age (end-2019)." “To be called a refugee is the opposite of an insult; it is a badge of strength, courage, and victory.” — Tennessee Office for Refugees A refugee is defined as " someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence."  "A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group."  Refugees may have fled conflict, persecution or war, or violence and may have crossed borders in hopes to obtain safety.  They may flee with minimal resources such as clothes and food and often leave behind jobs, homes, possessions, and loved ones.  There are different types of refugee which include and why they may flee:  Religious or Political Affiliation Climate Change Stateless Persons Internally Displac...

 Homelessness " It's estimated that no less than 150 million people, or about 2% of the world's population, are homeless. However, about 1.6 billion, more than 20% of the world's population, may lack adequate housing." "We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can't solve." -Linda Lingle Homelessness is defined as " the situation of an individual, family, or community without stable, safe, permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect means and ability of acquiring it.” The major causes of homelessness include the lack of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, and the lack of needs services.  Homelessness impacts both the personal mental well-being of an individual and physical well-being.  Mental impacts include low self-esteem, an increase in substance misuse increased danger of abuse and violence, development of behavioral problems, and increasing chance of entering the crimi...

  Phishing " According to the FBI, phishing incidents nearly doubled in frequency, from 114,702 incidents in 2019 to 241,324 incidents in 2020. The FBI said there were more than 11 times as many phishing complaints in 2020 compared to 2016." "Very smart people are often tricked by hackers, by phishing. I don’t exclude myself from that. It’s about being smarter than a hacker. Not about being smart." – Harper Reed Phishing is described as a [1]" type of  social engineering attack  often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers."  It takes place when an attacker, masked as a trusted identity gets an individual to open and email, text message, or instant message.  Few results of phising include identity theft, unauthorised purchases or stealing of funds.  There are numerous different types of phising attacks that depend based on the attack.  This includes spear phishing that targets a specific group of or type of indivi...

 Resource Depletion  " Global resource extraction grew more or less steadily over the past 25 years, from 40 billion tons in 1980 to 58 billion tons in 2005, representing an aggregated growth rate of 45%." "The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value." ~ Theodore Roosevelt Resources, whether in the form of money, trees, fuels, as well as other natural energy resources as we know are depletable and there will come a time where they will not be easily available to us, the only thing that’s in our control is the time period they can last for. The rate at which humanity has consumed these limited resources is alarming and we are on the brink of overconsumption. Resource depletion is an uprising problem that is becoming considerably harder for us to solve solely because a large majority of the resources we use are rarely replaceable. Humanity is consuming limited...

Paper Wastage  " Paper accounts for 25% of landfill waste and 33% of municipal waste. 50% of the waste of businesses is composed of paper as U.S offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year." "If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library." -Tony Benn Paper is an essential part of our daily life from youth to adulthood, from notebooks to printouts. The basic paper composition includes c ellulose fiber, s izing materials such as starch and rosin, m ineral fillers to improve smoothness, opacity, and color and pigments. In the 21st century, the problem of paper wastage is steadily becoming more serious. Paper accounts for around [1]26% of total waste at landfills. Paper wastage also leads to various other resources being depleted such as water oil, and trees from which over 50% of the paper is made.  It is unfathomable that packaging makes up [1] 1/3 or more of our trash and U.S offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. One...

Childhood Obesity   " 38 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2019 and over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016." "Childhood obesity isn't some simple, discrete issue. There's no one cause we can pinpoint. There's no one program we can fund to make it go away. Rather, it's an issue that touches on every aspect of how we live and how we work." - Michelle Obama Childhood obesity is extremely dangerous to adolecents and youths. Causes of childhood obesity may include genetics, engineered junk foods, high calorie intake and hormonal factors. Childhood obesity [1]" occurs when a child is well above the normal or healthy weight for his or her age and height. The causes of excess weight gain in young people are similar to those in adults, including behavior and genetics." Childhood obesity may lead to future problems such as low self esteem, social problems such as bullying an...

 Poverty " Around 1.89 billion people, or nearly 36% of the world's population, lived in extreme poverty in 1990." Poverty is defined as (1)“the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods.” A measure of poverty is when an individual is placed below the international poverty line which is sustaining a living at less than $1.90 a day. We are taught about the vicious cycle of poverty that is near impossible to break out of, since grade school and a real life example of it can be witnessed throughout the globe. The factor that makes poverty a serious issue is the never-ending nature of it.  If one is born into poverty no matter the skills and wit they possess, due to lack of financial aid, it becomes a challenge to pursue after it. Numerous measures have been takes in hope of reducing the impacts of poverty such as setting up of non-profit organisations, (2)creating and improving access to jobs and basic social services as well as progressively ...

 Endangered Species  " There are 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List, and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction." "We all have a responsibility to protect endangered species, both for their sake and for the sake of our own future generations." ~ Loretta Lynch An infinite variety of creatures walk the earth alongside us, yet they are faced with numerous challenges that have forced them on the path of extinction. Animals play an extremely significant part in our lives, yet are still taken for granted. They are present in our lives in different forms such as food, companions, accessory, clothing, and even as an outlet for a hobby (hunting). It’s a well fact that poaching has been deemed illegal for a variety of reasons and due to it being a major threat to wildlife globally and loss of biodiversity. However, only a small portion of the wildlife trade is considered illegal such as the poaching of tigers and elephants for their tusks, skin, a...

 Food Shortage  " 226.7 million people are starving in Africa. One in four people suffers from hunger there – which means that the share of the worlds hungry is highest in sub-Saharan Africa."[2] The majority of us are granted the privilege of having three nutritious meals daily, however, for millions of individuals, their main everyday daunting task is to provide food and nutrition for themselves.  A variety of factors influence and affect the shortage of food and water even for individuals who are not faced with the additional burden of poverty.  The most straightforward one being the domino effect created due to global warming.  Water shortages for irrigation, droughts, infertile land, and acid rain due to pollution leads to the destruction of crops, and the rapid melting of glaciers and ice caps.  Although such shortages are faced by various countries and people, it is largely centralized in Africa[2].  Lack of sufficient nutrition makes people vu...

 Water Pollution  " Each year 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are dumped into US water." "Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends have become global garbage cans." -Jacques Yves Cousteau Numerous lakes, seas, ponds, and oceans, all are extremely significant parts of this globe, however many water bodies are polluted by plastic items, sewage, heavy metals, organic chemicals, and microbes. Britannica [1]defines water pollution as " the release of substances into subsurface  groundwater  or into  lakes , streams,  rivers ,  estuaries , and  oceans  to the point where the substances interfere with  beneficial  use of the  water  or with the natural functioning of  ecosystems .  Water pollution has reached the extent until which [2] every year more people die from unsafe water than all forms of violence, including war. In reality water pollution ind...

 Basic Human Rights: " Approximately 27 million people are currently enslaved in the human trafficking trade around the world." According to the United Nations, a few of the basic human rights include (1)the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, access to water and sanitation, and countless others. Human rights determine the basic standard of living for millions and ensure they live with dignity and have the freedom to choose their path in life and follow their beliefs. Human rights become a medium of guaranteeing people basic amenities required for survival such as food, shelter, as well as an education to provide them with an option to take advantage of opportunities presented to them. Furthermore, they guarantee equality, liberty, and security protecting people from being victims of abuse at the hand of more powerful individuals.   Human rights, although are universal, inalienable, a...

 Forest Fires: "Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more destructive storms, more intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize." ~ Lester R. Brown Trees are vital for our survival whether in the form of fuel, providing oxygen, habitat for biodiversity, timber for construction, and as a source of fruits yet we fail to treat them how they deserve to be treated. Forest fires unfortunately not an unknown concept to us, and their devastating impacts and consequences even more evident in the twenty-first century. 2020 started of with bush fires that flooded social media sites and the news due to their consequences and appalling impacts. The bushfires tha...

 Humanitarian aid: "Human trafficking is a communitywide problem, and as such, it requires communitywide solutions." -Jacky Rosen " Over 1 billion people are now living in countries affected by long-term humanitarian crises and the number of countries experiencing protracted crises has more than doubled over the last 15 years, from 13 to 31." Humanitarian aid or assistance is defined as (1)“ material and logistic assistance to people who need help and among the people in need are the homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines.” The number of victims that require humanitarian assistance is steadily rising whether due to armed conflict or extreme climate events. Widespread hunger, displacement, death, and destruction are just a few in the constantly growing list of issues that require aid. Similarly increased vulnerability due to climate change, unsanitary living conditions, minimal hygiene, lack of sufficient water and sanitation has put...