The Ailing Planet: the Green Movement’s Role, Part Three

The Ailing Planet: the Green Movement’s Role

PART THREE

Paragraph Eleven      DETERIORATED ENVIRONMENT

A three-year study using satellites and aerial photography

conducted by the United Nations, warns that the environment

has deteriorated so badly that it is ‘critical’ in many of the eighty-eight

countries investigated.

Word Meanings and Explanation

1. deteriorated    became worse

Paragraph Twelve     Population Explosion

There can be no doubt that the growth of world population

is one of the strongest factors distorting the future of human

society. It took mankind more than a million years to reach the

first billion. That was the world population around the year 1800.

By the year 1900, a second billion was added, and the twentieth

century has added another 3.7 billion. The present world

population is estimated at 5.7 billion. Every four days the world

population increases by one million.

Word Meanings and Explanation

1. distorting                 destroying

2. billion             one hundred crore

Paragraph Thirteen Development is the best contraceptive

Fertility falls as incomes rise, education spreads, and health

improves. Thus development is the best contraceptive. But

development itself may not be possible if the present increase in

numbers continues.

Word Meanings and Explanation

1. Fertility state of being fertile

Paragraph Fourteen       Controlling Population

The rich get richer, and the poor beget children which

condemns them to remain poor. More children does not mean

more workers, merely more people without work. It is not

suggested that human beings be treated like cattle and

compulsorily sterilized. But there is no alternative to voluntary

family planning without introducing an element of coercion.

The choice is really between control of population and

perpetuation of poverty.

Word Meaning and Explanation

1. condemns       dooms

2. sterilized         to make a person unable to have babies

3. coercion           force

4. perpetuation   continuation for a long time

Paragraph Fifteen      Indian Population

The population of India is estimated to be 920 million today — more than the entire populations of Africa and South

America put together. No one familiar with the conditions in

India would doubt that the hope of the people would die in

their hungry hutments unless population control is given

topmost priority.

Word Meanings and Explanation

1. priority                     precedence

2. hutments                  encampment of huts                       

Paragraph Sixteen     Transcending Concern

For the first time in human history we see a transcending

concern — the survival not just of the people but of the planet.

We have begun to take a holistic view of the very basis of our

existence. The environmental problem does not necessarily signal

our demise, it is our passport for the future. The emerging new

world vision has ushered in the Era of Responsibility. It is a holistic

view, an ecological view, seeing the world as an integrated whole

rather than a dissociated collection of parts.

Word Meanings and Explanation

1. transcending concern       exceeding desire to protect

2. demise                                 end or failure

3. emerging                            becoming known or transpire

4. ushered in                          began

5. integrated                          closely connected

6. dissociated                         not connected

Paragraph Seventeen          The Role of Industry

Industry has a most crucial role to play in this new Era of

Responsibility. What a transformation would be effected if more

businessmen shared the view of the Chairman of Du Pont,

Mr Edgar S. Woolard who, five years ago, declared himself to be

the Company’s “Chief Environmental Officer”. He said, “Our

continued existence as a leading manufacturer requires that we

excel in environmental performance.”

Word Meanings and Explanation

effected               made something happen

Du Pont              Conglomerate company, DuPont is the world's eighth-largest chemical producer.

Edgar S. Woolard Jr            (Born 1934) is an American businessman. He was chairman and chief executive officer of DuPont from 1989 to 1995

Paragraph Eighteen            Borrowed Planet

Of all the statements made by Margaret Thatcher during the

years of her Prime Ministership, none has passed so decisively

into the current coin of English usage as her felicitous words: “No

generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy

— with a full repairing lease”. In the words of Mr Lester Brown,

“We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have

borrowed it from our children.”

Word Meanings and Explanation

Margaret Thatcher     Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990.

decisively            in a manner that settles an issue convincingly or produces a definite result

felicitous             apt

freehold              permanent and absolute tenure of land or property with freedom to dispose of it at will.

tenancy      possession of land or property as a tenant.

inherited   received

borrowed            to take and use something that belongs to somebody else and return it later

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