English For Today chapter 12: Environment and Nature

Unit Twelve : Environment and Nature

Lesson 1

Water, Water Everywhere…

A. Warm up activity

❏ Ask an elderly villager or relative how the nearby river was in his or her youth. Then compare the state of the river at present and write down the differences. Make a presentation in a group.

❏ With a group of friends, make a survey of ponds/water bodies in your locality. Then ask an elderly person living in the area if there were more of them in his younger days. Imagine the reasons why the water bodies/ponds had been filled up and write them down.

B. Now read the four lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and answer the questions that follow:

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

Coleridge' poem, a ballad, narrates the harrowing sea-voyage of an old mariner who at one point of his journey didn't have any water to drink because of a curse. Not only the cursed mariner, we too know how important drinking water is in our life. We know we cannot survive without it. In fact, two-thirds of our body is made up of water. Not for nothing is it said that the other name of water is life. Is there a crisis in our time with regard to access to clean drinking water? The United Nations in a meeting on the eve of the new millennium identified the drinking water problem as one of the challenges for the future. But do we need to worry about the problem as ours is a land of rivers and we have plenty of rainfall? Besides, we have a sea in our backyard too.

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One of the sources of water in our country is the rivers. Rivers are everywhere in our life, literature, economy and culture. But are the rivers in good shape? Unfortunately, they are not. A few are already dead and several are going through the pangs of death. The river Buriganga is an example of a dying river. A report published in The Daily Sun describes what has happened to the river Buriganga and why. Its water is polluted and a perpetual stench fills the air around it. But that is not what it was like before.

Figure

Description: A black-and-white view of a riverbank: a large arched building with a tall slender tower at right, a few small boats on the water in front.

The report says that the river had a glorious past. Once it was a tributary of the mighty Ganges and flowed into the Bay of Bengal through the river Dhaleshwari. Gradually, it lost its link with the Ganges and got the name Buriganga. The Mughals marveled at the tide level of the Buriganga and founded their capital Jahangirnagar on its banks in 1610. The river supplied drinking water and supported trade and commerce. Jahangirnagar was renamed Dhaka which grew into a heavily populated city with a chronic shortage of space.

The city paid back the bounty of the river by sucking life out of it! According to newspaper reports, the Buriganga is dying because of pollution. Huge quantities of toxic chemicals and wastes from mills and factories, hospitals and clinics and households and other establishments are dumped into the river every day. The city of Dhaka discharges about 4500 tons of solid waste every day and most of it is directly released into the Buriganga. According to the Department of the Environment (DoE), 20,000 tons of tannery waste, including some highly toxic materials, are released into the river every day. Experts identified nine industrial areas in and around the capital city as the primary sources of river pollution: Tongi, Tejgaon, Hazaribagh, Tarabo, Narayanganj, Savar, Gazipur, Dhaka Export Processing Zone and Ghorashal.

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The river would need a monster's stomach to digest all the wastes mentioned above. There is a limit up to which it can put up with its cruel and thoughtless treatment. There are other rivers in the country that are suffering the same fate. Unless we take care of our rivers there may come a time when we will cry ‘water, water' and find it nowhere.

C. The following words can be used both as verbs and nouns. Make sentences to show the differences:

a. waste b. subject c. release d. marvel e. shape

D. Collect some reports on the dying rivers in Bangladesh from newspapers and magazines. Write a paragraph summarizing the main points.

E. Make as many sentences as you can using the substitution table.

6. Write a report for your college magazine on the state of water bodies in your locality.

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Lesson 2

The Greta Effect

A. Warm-up activity

• Ask one of your friends whether your friend has ever thought about the pollution in our environment. Does it bother your friend?
• Create groups of five of your classmates and make a list of environmental hazards that are happening in your area. Now think of the possible solutions to the problems and make a group presentation.

B. Now read the short biography of Greta Thunberg, a young environmental activist and answer the questions that follow.

Figure: Photo Credit: Hanna Franzen—EPA-EFE/Shutterstock.com

Greta Thunberg is an environmental activist. She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2003. When she was eight, she started learning about climate change. The more she learned, the more baffled she became as to why so little was being done about it. At the age of 11, Greta became so sad about climate change that she temporarily stopped speaking!

Greta has Asperger syndrome, a condition that affects how people socialise. But Greta views her condition as a positive, calling it her "superpower"! She says it helps her see the world in black and white, and that there are "no grey areas when it comes to climate change."

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In August 2018, Greta decided to take action. Instead of going to school, she made a large sign that read ‘Skolstrejk för Klimatet”: SCHOOL STRIKE FOR CLIMATE’, and calmly sat down outside the Swedish parliament. Her aim? To make politicians take notice and act to stop global warming.

Greta’s strike was picked up by the Swedish media, and the word started to spread. Soon enough, tens of thousands of students from around the world joined her #FridaysforFuture strikes – skipping school on Fridays to protest against climate change.

In March 2019, climate campaigners across the world, and inspired by Greta, came together to co-ordinate the first Global Strike for Climate. Over 1.6 million people from 125 countries took part!

Since her strike began, Greta’s life has become a whirlwind! She’s given rousing speeches to politicians, to the EU parliament, the UK parliament, to protesters and more. She’s appeared in documentaries and had loads of books and articles written about her. She’s even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!

In August 2019, Greta travelled on a wind and solar-powered boat from Plymouth, UK, to New York, USA – the journey took 15 days. Her passionate speech [COPYRIGHTED EXCERPT OMITTED: Greta Thunberg's speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, New York, 2019, as quoted in the textbook] has drawn much attention from all over the world. Thunberg was known for changing how some people think and act about climate change. Her impact is called “the Greta effect.”

Greta has named Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, as one of her greatest inspirations. In the 1950s, Rosa sparked a civil rights movement that improved the lives and treatment of millions of African Americans.

C. Write answers to the following questions.

a) How has Great Thunberg dealt with her Asperger syndrome? b) Why did Greta stop attending her school? c) What did Greta’s travelling on a solar-powered boat symbolize? d) Has Greta’s activism created any impact on the society?

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D. Listen to the speech by Greta Thunberg delivered at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, in 2019, and work in pairs to discuss the reasons for her despair and anger in the speech.

Speech QR code:

Figure

Description: A black-and-white QR code, printed to the right of exercise D.

E. Did you ever feel angry and like Greta seeing environmental degradation in your locality? Have you ever felt the necessity to do something to change the situation? Write your thoughts down and share it with your class.

Reference: Greta Thunberg Facts! National Geographic Kids . The link is https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/kids-club/cool-kids/general-kids-club/greta-thunberg-facts/ , https://www.britannica.com/biography/Greta-Thunberg

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