Based on my personal electronic device usage, I really don't use much electricity: I've got a computer and phone to charge, an alarm clock to power, and lights that I use in my room. That's a very small portion of my overall energy footprint, though. Living in a large building with 40 other people, we have a lot of collective spaces that require lighting, heating, and other electricity draws. 

I need to be more consistent about turning lights off and encouraging others to do the same. I also really need to improve in unplugging my chargers when I am not using them. I can also do a better job at unplugging anything in my room at my parent's house whenever I leave there and return to my home. 

Fortunately, I don't need to use motor vehicles very often; in fact, I only need to drive a car once a week, which is really excellent for me. I can continue to spread awareness about energy consumption and encourage my friends to be cognizant of their energy footprint as well.

My own home is fairly close to an industrial area of a neighboring town, which puts my home in the 90 percentile for PM 2.5 concentrations, which I certainly never thought about. Traffic proximity is in the 38 percentile while ozone is in the 65 percentile, though diesel particulate matter rests in the 87 percentile. Frighteningly, the lead paint indicator is in the 96 percentile because so many of the houses in my community were built prior to 1960. Likely as a consequence of this, we are in the 97 percentile for cancer risk, with 49 lifetime risk per million. My home is fairly near hazardous waste and wastewater discharge, and especially in an area where a good number of businesses have risk management plans.

The majority of these things have not yet affected my personal health, but they have likely had an impact on the members of my community that have lived in La Grange Park their whole lives. It's hard to be totally aware of all of these factors because they are unseen but not unfelt. I imagine that there are other regions of the U.S. where these percentiles are all off-the-charts, but it is hard to look at all of the factors simultaneously. 

Food apartheid is a cause of social stress, physical health problems, and a propagation of systemic inequality. If people are forced to shop outside of their community to get nutritious food, the economy of the community suffers. 

With access to nutritious food, a community becomes more resilient because its members are healthier, happier, and more free to do other things than focus upon changing the system so that nutritious food becomes available. I think of places like farmer's markets: a community buying nutritious food right from its own members, totally cutting out the middleman of the supermarket chains. Farm-to-table concepts make the economics of food more important; they can also inspire the next generation of farmers, who are going to be critical to the aim of ending food apartheid. 

My fourth core value is a commitment to protecting and healing the natural environment. The Earth sustains our lives and we have a moral duty to uphold the profundity and beauty of nature. I definitely need to cultivate more conscious environmental habits myself and continue to encourage others to be Earth-supporters, not just eco-friendly. I want to continue to see companies develop sustainable practices not because it's the "in" thing to do but because a healthy Earth means a healthy human race.

My third value is a commitment to my family: parents, siblings, and extended family. They are the ones who raised me, gave me so many blessings and opportunities, and have supported me every moment of my life. I am forever grateful for their impact on my life and hope that I will continue to bring joy and love to their lives.

My second core value is being an a conscious and intentional citizen of society. This includes the religious community of Holy Cross, the University of Notre Dame, the United States, and all of the world. We are meant to be global citizens because we are to be brothers and sisters to all.

My most fundamental value is a profession of the Catholic faith: belief in God and Jesus Christ, who was incarnated so that humanity might be freed from the slavery of sin. The Catholic faith is an integral part of my identity and I am currently in formation with a religious community. My faith is foundational to my past, present, and future.

A just society needs to be reality. To actualize this potential, equality for all people is necessary; no one should be discriminated based on any characteristic. How could we ever justify saying something like, "You're different than me, so you are wrong"? We must recreate our over/against mentality into a within/together concept of society.

 I think that people get disagreement and justice all mixed together, imagining that there cannot be justice if there is disagreement. There has to be justice especially when there is disagreement because the world is not going to agree on everything! If there cannot be justice when in disagreement, there will never be justice. That is a huge problem; advocating for justice starts right now.

Environmental factors contribute a great deal to my personal health. As someone with seasonal allergies, congestion is a common symptom when the weather changes. I also had mild asthma when I was younger, which would be impacted by more air pollutants hovering around the Earth's surface. All of these cleaning supplies, especially ones that get washed down the drain, can end up returning to our bodies through our drinking water. There are thousands of chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) popping up in water supplies around the country, primarily from household cleaners and personal care products. There is a grave foundational issue in the United States regulation of chemicals: in most situations, companies are not required to show that their chemical is safe before usage; instead, they just roll it out and its up to agencies like the EPA to run analyses and test these new chemicals, which are created at rates never seen before. 

I think about clean water a lot and what a gift it is to not be overly concerned with the water I am drinking each day. But we as a country and as a world need to do a better job of understanding that chemicals we make to help us in the short term could really hurt us in the long term.

In Illinois, people in prison cannot vote. This is a really difficult issue for me to consider; on the one hand, I recognize that those who have genuinely committed crimes should lose their privilege to vote. On the other hand, though, there are certainly people who are incarcerated wrongly or are imprisoned because of petty crimes who may still deserve the privilege of voting. My thoughts are still developing on this issue.
I do think that gerrymandering is a huge problem around the country because active disruption to districts is occurring through this ridiculousness. A fundamental flaw of our government is that voting is difficult when a functioning democracy should have no easier activity for its citizens. I think that gerrymandering must be stopped (though I really don't know how, I would trust some of my political science friends to understand better than I) and the inherent difficulties need to be lessened, like the ID requirement. In addition, no one should ever be wrongly purged from the voters' roll- that is a gross misconduct that is either terribly lazy or devious.

The whole world can greatly benefit from constructive communication by recognizing that we are relating to people first and the conversation topic second. I like to think that constructive communication and compassionate listening are all summed up in this way: our conversations are a people-thing, not a topic-thing. The eight principles of constructive communication are excellent guidelines for how to communicate more effectively. I disagree with the title of the first one, though; I think that we should be people-oriented but recognizing that we are called to be companions to all, not competitors. If we can set aside our over/against mindset in favor of compassionate listening and constructive communication, the whole world will be relating much more positively.

The only landfills near my home in Illinois are in post closure or certified post closure stages. The nearest active landfill is in the south side of Chicago, clustered by other landfill in state site programs. Those on the south side of Chicago will suffer the ill effects of living near a landfill and disposal facilities, especially since one is an incinerator. This manifestation from the articles is very logical because I am from a mostly white, upper-middle class neighborhood so there aren't any landfills even close that are still in operation. The location of landfills is never something I'd given much thought to previously; I'm hoping to be more mindful of my privilege in factors I've never considered.