Wise Monkey News is here to provide young people an opportunity to discuss the issues that affect their lives. We hope that, through your participation, this website serves as a forum for the development, exchange, and expression of ideas that will prepare us to assume our positions as the leaders of tomorrow's world. Have something to say?
Uniting Eco-efforts
by: Kristina Koenig - printed on 02-20-2002
No college campus is perfect from the idealistic perspective of an environmentalist. Everyday, cans and paper are thrown away instead of recycled; paper products are used in excess; people rarely use double-sided printing; annual food waste from campus food services may be enough to feed some small 3rd world countries; faucets and showerheads leak and sidewalks are watered in a way that makes water seem like a endless resource; faulty heating systems create unnecessary wintertime saunas; lights and computers are left on 24 hrs/day; harsh cleaning chemicals and fertilizers are used and fed to our rivers; heavy machinery is used for building and landscaping; students drive across the street to school; non-native species are planted for aesthetic purposes ? the list could go on forever.
Corporate world different from reservation
by: Stephanie Nichols - printed on 02-14-2001
I walk to the “bus barn” and hear the snow crunch beneath my feet. As the cold crisp South Dakota air touches my face, I feel alive and ready to begin the day. After fifteen minutes of warming up the school bus, I embark on my route, which will bring 65 children to school in one of the most remotely isolated places in the country, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As I make my way across the reservation, the rising sun glistens off the morning frost that blankets these beautiful hills, and once again, I’m reminded that I’m privileged to be here.
Seeds of mass destruction in slow motion
by: Mono Vergara - printed on 11-07-2001
I was thinking about the hundred of miles that I have walked freely. I thought about people playing in the fields on a sunny evening. I thought about a Cambodian kid chasing his dog after they went fishing. But suddenly I heard an explosion; the innocent child?s life is over. As another seed of death explodes, another life is taken.
According to the Red Cross, 26,000 people are either killed or injured by Anti Personal [AP] land mines every year.
Setting up and making Me, Inc. work for you
by: Meighan Doherty - printed on 11-07-2001
I have discovered a disturbing trend among seniors here at UP: we have no idea what we want to do next year! When we were seniors in high school the decision for us was simpler - college or a job. Now we must decide what our four years here on the bluff have prepared us to do with our lives. Sure we say we are a nursing/business/biology/social work/theology/theatre or whatever major. But what does that mean for our lives? If you haven?t noticed, the economy and the job market are pretty darn pathetic right now.
Ancestral Voices: Rediscovering two cultures in ruins
by: Ben Muse - printed on 09-11-2002
In the thick, green jungle of the Peten region of northern Guatemala lies one of the great cities of the worldÂ’s memory; Tikal, once a bustling city with towering pyramids housing the bones of deified leaders and a burgeoning acropolis, sits half excavated form the decay of the jungle.
China’s Environment versus Economy
by: Jefferson Azevedo - printed on 10-10-2001
It is impossible to talk about China without taking into account the environmental problem. With a population of about 1.2 billion people – one out of every five human beings in the world – China alone has the potential to raise the greenhouse effect to levels far beyond scientists’ worst nightmares. And this is considering that its population, four times as big as that of the United States, uses only half as much energy and resources as America does.