Hi everyone, I did a two week internship through Divea, a Swiss carbon capture company, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in the Laboratory of Advanced Separations (LAS) las August. Here, my project was to experimentally develop a carbon capture membrane from a polymer. The methods being used were novel and had not been tried before. This is a review of what I did at Divea.

In a world overwhelmed with data, graphs, and warnings, a haunting melody or swelling orchestral score can sometimes do what science alone cannot. Make us feel. As the climate crisis grows dire, a powerful yet effective psychological tool is starting to take shape in response: music. Whether in documentaries, performed live, or integrated with trendy modern-day songs, music plays an important role in helping climate change efforts. Its ability to make people feel, relate, and understand the need for a better planet is a true testament to music’s ability to help people empathize.

Whether your science teacher brought it up in class or you saw it trending online, the Big Beautiful Bill has been taking the media up by storm in the past few months. Issued, and finally passed under the presidency of Donald Trump, American citizens say it’s one of the boldest environmental laws in years and is something that could change the way that we deal with climate change. However, whether the bill benefits or hinders the efforts to slow the warming of our Earth is still up for debate. 

As a child I was an enthusiastic explorer, meaning that I visited a lot of national parks across the country. From the peaks of Yosemite to the swamps of the Everglades, I quickly discovered the natural beauty that our nation has to offer, and the vast, diverse landscapes that vary drastically amongst different states and regions. However as I grew older and continued to visit more national parks, I noticed some large differences. I noticed that the landscapes tended to be drier, with less vegetation than prior years. I noticed that there was less and less snow every single winter.