It’s that time of year again: Christmas. Time to string up the lights, light the fireplace, hang the wreaths, and, most importantly, set up the tree. With this cardinal part of seasonal decor comes a yearly debate, whether to go with a real or a fake Christmas tree.

     This question is not as shallow as sacrificing tradition for convenience, this decision goes as deep as weighing the financial and environmental impacts of both. After looking at the debate from a financial, environmental, and performance standpoint, I have come to the conclusion that getting a real Christmas tree is the way to go.

     Financial view: Wanting to save money is a valid reason why someone might choose a fake tree. Faux Christmas trees cost on average a little over $100 and usually last from four to six years. Real trees, on the other hand, cost on average about $80 and only last for that year. Pricing obviously will differ with quality and size, so someone could probably make either option work on a tight budget.

     Environmental view: With the state of the earth at the moment, it is important to keep the impact of your choices in mind. Just the production of fake trees is exponentially more harmful than the whole process of producing, transporting, and discarding real trees. They are mass-produced in factories and are made of plastic and metal, which are not biodegradable. Also, extensive amounts of carbon emissions are produced from manufacturing and transportation and tons of waste is created from the packaging and discarded trees. This process is very harsh on the environment from start to finish, all for a cheap tree that only lasts about 4 years. 

     Real trees on the other hand are ethically and sustainably grown on local farms. This means very minimal transportation or packaging is required. Not only is it majorly cutting down on carbon emissions, real trees produce tons of fresh oxygen into the environment. It is beneficial for air quality and supports small, local farms. Also when it is time to discard them they are completely recyclable and can be used for paper or lumber. 

     Performance view: There is no debate that real Christmas trees will always take the win in this category.  There is nothing that gets someone in the Christmas mood like the fresh, pine smell of a genuine tree. There are a few fake ones that try to replicate it with chemical-smelling pheromones and perfumes but they never really do the trick. Nothing can compare to the real deal. Not only the smell but the look of them too. No matter how advanced a faux tree one gets, you can always tell the difference between them. Plastic and metal can never truly replace fresh pine and wood.

     Still, the question remains, which Christmas tree is best? Even though real trees seem to be the clear answer, it isn’t for everyone. Every family and house is different, so what is the right option for one house may not be the right one for others. Everyone’s situation has different circumstances, with different solutions and that’s ok. This being said, I do recommend getting a real tree this holiday season if possible. But at the end of the day, Christmas is never defined by what type of tree you have, but by the people who gather around it.

     Recently Musk has filled the headlines of every publication with his various attempts to make his “public town square” that he calls Twitter profitable.

     He’s tried creating a subscription service that gives you a blue check, which failed miserably, cleared out the entire executive board of Twitter, cut 7,500 jobs, and told the people that are staying that they have to be “hard core” if they want to stay.

     At this point it just seems like Musk is throwing every monetization strategy possible at the wall and seeing if it sticks. It seems only natural for him to do so, though, after making what seems to be an impulse buy and trying to back out of it, and being forced to purchase it by law.

     Although he reluctantly bought it, having to sell $4 Billion of Tesla stock to do so, he still has carried out his objectives: removing all moderation from the app to make a “public town square,” although with the obvious restrictions (nudity, inciting violence, some, but not all, misinformation etc.). 

     But the problem with this, coupled with his blue check subscription, is with this promise he allows the spreading of misinformation and relative echo chambers, especially with one of their comment features, which allows accounts to set replies to only be sent by people they follow.

     Twitter was already a sinking ship though, did he make it any worse? Yes, through virtually no content moderation countless advertisers have pulled out, reasoning that they don’t want their company to be seen next to a tweet by Kanye featuring a Swastika inside a Star of David, which is why Musk has stepped back on his promise, banning him from the platform. 

     Although this was not that big of a step back as although Musk promised prior to completely eliminating content moderation and said when he bought it that those rules have been enforced, Twitter themselves never said they were changing their policy and their content moderation rules never changed on their help page.

     But that in itself is a major problem, people don’t even know what the rules are because you have the CEO saying one thing and the actual company saying another.
    This is a big dilemma because, like I said prior, Twitter needs money, and ads are one of the main ways to do that, but when you don’t promise brand safety, and, on the contrary, have an extremely unhinged CEO that randomly tweets things, of course you are not going to get any advertisement money. 

     You can’t have both Elon, either save the sinking ship by actually enforcing content moderation or die trying to make your personal utopia. Actually moderating would also likely increase its user base, if you aren’t constantly ridiculed for the most minor opinion you have and you are able to have an actual conversation with someone then of course your user base would increase. 

     The thing is, though, we are in the middle of a company that’s been running for a decade being transferred to a person who has never dealt with content moderation, and a man who is also trying to take the company out of the debt that he put them in from the purchase. There have been A LOT of bumps in the road but Twitter will likely bounce back, to be fair its user base is at an all time high right now. 

     If Musk can learn how to moderate it enough to make it friendly for advertisers while also maintaining some free speech, and find new ways to monetize it enough to not make that much of a loss, then it will likely still be around for it. Then Musk might be able to focus on his actually profitable company, Tesla, whose stock has fallen drastically since the purchase of Twitter due to Musk’s recent disinvolvement in Tesla.

     Only time will tell though.

 3,200. 3,200 is around the number of teens that smoke their first cigarette, vape, or hookah every day in the United states of America. This is horrifying considering that most of these teens use a vape, and studies have shown that most teens transition from vape to cigarettes. What is also surprising is that most lifetime smokers have attended to starting young: 5.6 million teens who started smoking as teens will die early as adults.

     How are kids/teens getting hooked on vapes? It all has to do with advertisement. Tobacco companies appeal to young highly impressionable teens by making vapes look like cool, sleek gadgets. They also discount prices to make it easier for teens without jobs to get one. 

     Now onto solutions that have worked in the past. One solution is rising cigarettes, vapes, and hookah prices. This will make them unaffordable to teens. Another idea that has worked is limiting tobacco marketing. Doing this will cause teens to not see it as cool or a good thing/safe thing to do.

     Two other options to stop the uptick in teen vape usage, are teaching the dangers of smoking and providing quitting programs. If we teach the youth about the dangers of smoking it is most likely that they will use a cigarette, vape, or hookah. There are so many dangers that it could be a class for high school. Quitting programs. Quitting programs are really effective, and the best part is that they are free. There are so many quitting programs in the state of California and THEY’RE FREE. This is most likely the best way to help teen smokers stop from smoking. 

     Let’s see what the teen’s parental guardian can do to help. The first thing you can do to help your child is talking to them, start early about telling them the danger of smoking. If your child is smoking, try to understand why they’re smoking in the first place. In the end it is more than just the cigs, vapes, and hookahs, it’s the nicotine addiction.

     Another helpful tip to help a child is to prepare them for peer pressure. Because in a real situation a random guy on the side of the street won’t make your kid try smoking, it will be one of their friends. Teaching the child to say no to smoking is one of the best things a parental guardian can do for their children. 

     These next tips are pretty short but important. Set a good example for the child. If you don’t want the child to smoke then the parental guardian has to stop. Next up is to establish a smoke-free zone. Don’t let anyone smoke in the house, or inside the car. If the teens have nowhere to smoke and realize they are in the wrong.

     Mission Viejo High School has a vaping problem no doubt, and it is happening in the bathroom. But some ways to solve this problem that doesn’t involve closing off the boys bathroom to everyone, is to have a supervisor just there. Even if they go in a check on the bathroom once in a while letting kids know that the supervisor’s pattern is unpredictable.