LOGIN | NEU REGISTRIEREN

Schule > Englisch > Ausarbeitungen, Interpretationen und Zusammenfassungen > Speech about environment (Vortrag für den Englischunterricht)

Do you feel guilty every time you get behind the wheel of your car?
Do you feel guilty every time you start your washing machine?
Do you feel guilty every time you want to print something?

Our response to these questions would be NO, but for our environment it would be better if we would answer with YES.

Our society blows so many exhaust gases into our atmosphere, so that we actually do not know where they come from.

We often go by car for short tracks, e.g. to the supermarket but especially on these tracks our car needs the most petrol. The exhausted gases reach their maximum on the first kilometers, too. Like the engine, the catalyzer has to get going first.
But we do not pollute our atmosphere just by driving around.
The poisons, which are primarily responsible for the destruction of our environment, are called Polychlorinated Biphenyls, abbreviated PCBs.
You can find these chemicals in printer’s ink as well as in fabric softeners and other products, which we use in our daily life.

With the help of our waste water system, these toxic substances arrive sooner or later in our rivers, seas and oceans, where they contaminate thousands of fishes.
If we betake us to northern areas of our earth, poisoned fishes are just the beginning of a very long food chain. These fishes are eaten by polar bears and seals, which are again hunted by the Intuits of the Arctic.

In the end, humans poison themselves with the output of toxic gases, like PCBs.
That is why the WWF says that the Arctic has become the dump of the world.
According to the current report of the science magazine “Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health” 1% of all polar bears which live in the area around the Baltic Sea have characteristics of hermaphrodites which means that they are not propagable.
This aspect is attributed to the high concentration of PCBs and other pesticides in the polar ice, where they can only be decomposed very slow.
But polar bears are not the only animals which are affected by these poisons.
Even whales, which have contaminated fishes as their food basis, show a high concentration of PCBs in their bodies. Despite this knowledge the Japanese government advises a whale’s meat as healthy food.

But not only contaminated rivers, seas and oceans destroy the basis of the existence for many species which live in arctic areas.
The constantly rising temperature of the ocean, which is caused by the decreasing ozone layer, which let energetic sunrays strike the water surface, causes that the winters become less frosty.
According to the Federal Office for Ocean Traffic and Hydrography the Winter 2007/2008 is classified as the winter with the least ice for 300 years.
The pack-ice which melts too fast obliges hundreds of just born ringed seal babies to go into the cold water before they have the chance to develop a grease film, which they actually need to survive.
How dramatic this situation really is, was declared by Cathrin Münster of the WWF-Baltic Sea-Bureau on the 10th of March 2008 in Stralsund: “In some areas there will be no seal baby that will survive this winter”.
According to the organization’s information, there are only 7000 exemplars of this endangered species left. A hundred years ago, they were 180000.

The Cree-Indians already said:
“Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”

Perhaps the big American commercial enterprises discover the truth in this prophecy in the next time and maybe they enforce their endeavor to protect our environment. The first step to do so would be the signing of the Kyoto-contract.
For many species there is no escape from the extinction, like for polar bears and seals but there is still hope for us, for the human being.

Download: PDF, DOC