Chapter 2
Writing
IC3 Section
IC3 | IT | TOEFL | Best Answer
Vietnamese translation of IC3
Persian translation of IC3
Language Lessons
Assessment
Water Ecology / Sinh thái học về nước
بوم شناسیِ (اکولوژیِ) آبGuiding Question: What are your sources of clean water? |
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn: Bạn hãy cho biết đâu là nguồn nước sạch? |
سوال راهنما: منابع آب آشامیدنی شما کدامند؟ |
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Skills:
In this chapter you will do these things:
English Language Skills:
- Guided Freewriting
- From Sentence to Paragraph
- Writing a Paragraph in Response to “Water Planet” Video
- Categorizing Vocabulary
- View “Water Planet” Video
- Analyzing Transcript Paragraphs
Vietnamese Language Skills:
- Write a Short Paragraph on the Environment
- Vocabulary
- The Classifier “Xe”
IC3: The Problem With Water
- Five Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water
- Interview Excerpts on Nestle and Freyburg, Maine
- Water Costs Nothing for Those with Everything and Everything for Those With Nothing
- Excerpts from Global Issues (Anup Shah) Water and Development
Taking It Further: Taking It Further Explanation
IT: Opening Word
TOEFL
Intercultural Communicative Competence
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The Problem With Water
Let me see if I understand this. For 1/6 th of the world’s population, the “water” problem is (1) finding enough clean water to sustain human life. For another portion of the population, they have been duped into thinking that bottled water is healthier than tap water, but in fact, (2) bottled water is no better than tap water. And another problem with bottled water is in the making: (3) the huge water bottle phenomenon produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. (4) Add to that that people in poverty are losing their access to water because it is now a commodity. AND (5) there is fear that the world’s water table is going down, down, down, and global warming is compounding the problem. We are finding that water is a finite resource on which we all depend for life. As Ben Franklin said, “When water is dry, we learn the worth of water.” Did I get it right? See for yourself. Read the collage of articles below and watch the video called “ Water Planet”narrated by and found on Leonardo Dicaprio’s Eco-Site at http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/files/videos/waterplanet.html What do we do? How do we respond? |
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Five Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water http://lighterfootstep.com/2008/05/five-reasons-not-to-drink-bottled-water/ Bottled water is healthy water — right? That’s what the marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio. In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact isn’t stopping people from buying a lot of it. Estimates variously place worldwide bottled water sales at between $50 and $100 billion each year, with the market expanding at the startling annual rate of 7 percent. Bottled water is big business. But in terms of sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It’s costly, wasteful, and distracts from the brass ring of public health: the construction and maintenance of safe municipal water systems. Want some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit? We’ve rounded up five to get you started. |
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1. Bottled water isn’t a good value Take, for instance, Pepsi’s Aquafina or Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water. Both are sold in 20 ounce sizes and can be purchased from vending machines alongside soft drinks — and at the same price. Assuming you can find a $1 machine, that works out to 5 cents an ounce. These two brands are essentially filtered tap water, bottled close to their distribution point. Most municipal water costs less than one cent per gallon. Now consider another widely-sold liquid: gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground in the form of crude oil, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world), and shipped again to your local filling station. In the U.S., the average price per gallon is hovering around $3. There are 128 ounces in a gallon, which puts the current price of gasoline at fraction over 2 cents an ounce. And that’s why there’s no shortage of companies which want to get into the business. In terms of price versus production cost, bottled water puts Big Oil to shame. |
2. No healthier than tap water In theory, bottled water in the United States falls under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration. In practice, about 70 percent of bottled water never crosses state lines for sale, making it exempt from FDA oversight. On the other hand, water systems in the developed world are well-regulated. In the U.S., for instance, municipal water falls under the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency, and is regularly inspected for bacteria and toxic chemicals. Want to know how your community scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group’s National Tap Water Database (http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/yourwater/). While public safety groups correctly point out that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there’s very little empirical evidence which suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent. |
3. Bottled water means garbage Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch [ http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled ], that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away. That assumes empty bottles actually make it to a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world’s major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food. Thanks to its slow decay rate, the vast majority of all plastics ever produced still exist … somewhere. |
4. Bottled water means less attention to public systems Many people drink bottled water because they don’t like the taste of their local tap water, or because they question its safety. This is like running around with a slow leak in your tire, topping it off every few days rather than taking it to be patched. Only the very affluent can afford to switch their water consumption to bottled sources. Once distanced from public systems, these consumers have little incentive to support bond issues and other methods of upgrading municipal water treatment. |
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There’s plenty of need. In California, for example, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the requirement of $17.5 billion in improvements to the state’s drinking water infrastructure as recently as 2005. In the same year, the state lost 222 million gallons of drinkable water to leaky pipes. 5. The corporatization of water In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity’s most precious resource. Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water. What can you do? There’s a simple alternative to bottled water: buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don’t like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparking fresh at a fraction of bottled water’s cost. Bottoms up! |
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Excerpts from an interview with Elizabeth Royte: Nestle and Freyburg, Maine
by Tara Lohan,
AlterNet, June 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/86690/ (see the entire interview at this website)
When Elizabeth Royte first began following the story of the town of Fryeburg, Maine, battling the giant multinational Nestle, it seemed like an easy David and Goliath story. But it turns out that when it comes to water issues, there is a whole lot of gray. Her new book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, is about the backlash in a rural Maine town over Nestle's bottled water business. She writes, "Incomplete knowledge drives the town's narrative. No one can say for sure how much water lies beneath Fryeburg or what removing it will do."
The story tackles the environmental costs of sucking spring water, which are still largely unknown and further complicated by each side's geologists for hire. It also deals with the backroom deals, the politicking and the legal maze as citizens get their hands dirty with democracy.
While the main narrative is about Fryeburg, the book is really about the conundrum of what to drink. If bottled water is bad, then what about our tap? Is tap water safe? Why are kids today growing up on bottled water? Why is the federal government cutting funding for public water infrastructure?
Royte addresses these issues in our interview below.
Tara Lohan (TL): The narrative of your book follows the ongoing story in Fryeburg, Maine, where residents are battling the world's largest food and beverage company, Nestle, which produces Poland Spring water. Explain what's going on in Fryeburg.
Elizabeth Royte (ER): Right now the town is being sued by Nestle. The company drilled a well in the town of Denmark, and they have very small dirt roads and then couldn't get the water out of the town so they built a pipeline to Fryeburg, and they wanted to build a tanker station where the trucks would fill up and then they'd haul it to the bottling plant in Hollis or Poland.
First, Nestle was given a permit to operate the tanker station, but the people who live near the tanker station fought the permit, and eventually the town's appeals board denied the permit. So Nestle sued the town, and the judge sent it back to the town to hash out whether it is a permitted business in a rural residential zone. Essentially it was a zoning issue.
The planning board looked at it again and then decided no, the tanker station is not a permitted use. So, Nestle appealed, but the planning board was upheld. That was three decisions in a row that went against Nestle, so Nestle a few months ago took the town back to court again. It is costing the town a great deal of money, and there is a citizens group that has formed to fight the tanker station, and they have spent tens of thousands of dollars. And there are people in the town who aren't talking to each other, and there are lots of hurt feelings.
TL: But that's not the only issue with Nestle in Fryeburg, right?
ER: Yes, there is a well in Fryeburg also that is already pumping 180 million gallons a year of water and delivering it to Hollis and Poland. When you drink Poland Spring and it says it came from Evergreen Spring, it came from Fryeburg. An elderly man who lives on the town's pond believes the pumping is affecting his well and the pond. That is in dispute, and I talk about that in the book.
The people who are fighting the tanker situation are fighting it on the grounds that they don't want the truck traffic in this rural community. It is a zone issue for them. Others see an environmental issue with the pumping.
TL: Why is it so difficult? If you are taking out 180 million gallons a year, as is the case in Fryeburg, there has got to be an effect, right?
ER: Nestle says that this is sustainable, that they've done all these hydrogeologic studies that say they are taking out x amount, and x plus y are replenished. So there is no net loss. They say what they're taking is extra water, and I make the point in the book that there is no such thing as extra water. The 180 million gallons used to go somewhere, and even if it wasn't staying right there around that spring it went to a pond or into the soil -- it was feeding an ecosystem. We may not know exactly what is going to happen when that's gone, but it just doesn't make sense to me that absolutely nothing would happen when you subtract those gallons.
TL: You wrote that what is happening in Fryeburg is what a modern water conflict looks like.
ER: Yeah, you might say, why go to a town that has plenty of water to write about a water war. And you think about water wars in dry parts of Africa or India, and a lot of concern about global water scarcity has focused on the developing world. But here I'm going to Maine, and there is plenty of water there. But I believe, increasingly, this is what a modern water war will look like. You have a corporation, Nestle, coming in and wanting to lay claim on more water, and then looking to more towns throughout Maine (and others states, too, like Michigan and California) to increase their market share.
They know that there is a demand out there, and they are trying to meet that demand. Maine might not be suffering from a drought now and might not be in the future, but the people are worried about what Nestle might be planning to do. They are taking water for bottles now, but someday are they going to want to pull out more of it -- and ship it not just out of state but out of the country? I'm not saying that Nestle has these plans or that it is legal, but as water becomes scarce in other places, whose hand is on the tap is going to be increasingly more important.
TL: I like that you write about how kids these days are growing up thinking that water comes from bottles and not taps and that water fountains are unclean.
ER: I talk a lot about tap water. When people started drinking bottled water, no one was worried about their tap water -- it was just fashionable to drink bottled water. Marketers also played on the need for hydration. But if you were supposed to drink eight glasses a day, affordability became really important. Marketers did play a bit on fears of tap water in a backhanded way. They wouldn't come right out and say tap was unhealthy or dirty. But by emphasizing the purity of their water, it was an implication that tap water wasn't pure.
As we've neglected our infrastructure and the Bush administration has scaled back on clean water protection, tap water has declined in quality. I think a lot of people don't like to talk about this but if I can say anything in this book, it is that we can't abandon tap water and we have to protect municipal water supplies so that we can all be drinking safe water from our taps.
TL: I like that in the book you referred to it as an infrastructure disconnect -- that we don't know where our water comes from. But we have this with not just water; many people also have no idea where our food comes from, or our energy.
ER: Right, and my last book ( Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash) was about where things go after they leave us and then how they come around to bite us again in our water and food. So many people, it seems, don't understand the social and environmental impacts of it all.
TL: So how do we get out of it this cycle of disconnect?
ER: Well, education. Be aware of it. Make smarter decisions about what you buy and how you use energy and water. When you realize that everything is connected, you will be more careful about how you live and I hope, lighten your impact on the planet. I just did a story for the New York Times Magazine about Orange County's toilet-to-tap program, where wastewater is being reclaimed for drinking.
At first I wondered -- if people know that they are going to be drinking this water again, it would be nice to think that people would take better care of what they put down the toilet, like would we switch to biodegradable cleaning products, would industry use nontoxic materials, would farmers cut their use of pesticides? Then I realized that is a false hope, because everyone is relying on the technology to clean it up, and it might even have the effect of letting polluters off the hook while we are spending $29 billion a year to run this very high-tech plant, and it gets everything out, so why should we bother. That's the "faith in technology" problem.
I think we should stop using antibacterial soap indiscriminately, and I don't know if it is possible for drug makers to reformulate drugs so they break down faster in water, but I think the drug manufacturers do have some responsibility, too.
TL: Do you think that federal guidelines may catch up with this eventually?
ER: It is going to take a long time because they don't want to regulate anything they can't tell people how to get rid of and can't supply the money to help with. It is like with perchlorate or MTBE. If they decide we need to regulate it, then utilities will have to test for it, and they won't be meeting standards because they don't have the money for the equipment.
It has to be done in stages. First, know what is out there and how fast the drugs are degrading or not. You have to know how long the drugs stay out there, what sunlight does to them, what temperature does and what happens in various mixtures.
TL: Probably one of the biggest problems with bottled water is the environmental impact. Talk about the carbon footprint of it.
ER: In 2007 there was an awakening and an enormous backlash against bottled water, and it was because of the carbon footprint. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute did some calculations, and if you figure in the energy it takes to produce, transport and dispose of each bottle, it would be the equivalent of filling each one a quarter of the way with oil. Only 14 percent of the bottles make it into recycling systems, and the rest go to landfills or incinerators, and it takes 17 million barrels a year to make water bottles for the U.S.
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Water costs nothing for those with everything and everything for those with nothing
From the Tap or the Bottle... Living in a big city in Russia for my entire life, I was used to buying bottled mineral water. It never occurred to me to drink from the tap because anyone who did got very sick. Every morning when I brushed my teeth, I used mineral water. When we ran out of bottles, I used special filters and boiled the water. This took forever. Sometimes I went to school without brushing my teeth. Now I’m an exchange student in the United States. Can you imagine my surprise when I saw my host parents drinking tap water? But they still buy mineral water. I don’t know why. ~ Olya Chebykina, Russia from: Water Rights and Wrongs |
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Excerpts from: Water and Development
by Anup Shah , September 1, 2007
http://www.globalissues.org/article/601/water-and-development.
Much of the world lives without access to clean water. Privatization of water resources, promoted as a means to bring business efficiency into water service management, has instead led to reduced access for the poor around the world as prices for these essential services have risen. This article looks into this issue in further detail below.
Introduction—A Water Management Crisis Leading to Lack of Access to Safe Water for Much of the World
Consider the following:
The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report 1, focusing on water, notes the following:
- Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
- Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
- More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
- Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
- 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consumed around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
- Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
- The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
- Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
- Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
- To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.
- (See pages 6, 7, 35.)
- 400 million children (1 in 5 from the developing world) have no access to safe water. 1.4 million children will die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation (State of the World’s Children, 2005 2, UNICEF)
- A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World. (Maude Barlow, Water as Commodity—The Wrong Prescription 3, The Institute for Food and Development Policy, Backgrounder, Summer 2001, Vol. 7, No. 3)
“Already, corporations own or operate water systems across the globe that bring in about $200 billion a year. Yet they serve only about 7 percent of the world’s population, leaving a potentially vast market untapped.” (John Tagliabue, As Multinationals Run the Taps, Anger Rises Over Water for Profit 4, New York Times, August 26, 2002)
Already some one third of the world’s population is living in either water-scarce, or water-short areas. It is predicted that climate change and population growth will take this number to one half of humanity. Yet, as Maude Barlow has commented, it is not necessarily over-population causing water shortages: “12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.”
The United Nations appears to concur:
We reject this [Malthusian perspective that global water problems are a problem of scarcity and population growth]. The availability of water is a concern for some countries. But the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability.
— 2006 United Nations Human Development Report 5, 2006, p.2
Indian scientist and activist, Vandana Shiva noted in a documentary that the water crisis is a human-created crisis only in the last two or so decades. In other words, it is not so much of a water shortage crisis, but a water management crisis. That documentary was World Without Water, from True Vision Productions broadcast by Britain’s mainstream media channel, Channel 4 on April 29, 2006.
The main reason for the water crisis, the documentary implied, is the commoditization of water. By promoting water as a commodity, this has led to increased control of water by multinational corporations. In turn, there has been increased fear that the poor are shut out, because the MNC’s main responsibility is to shareholders and to increase profit. As a result, though there may be many people in terms of market access, many people are too poor to afford it. The World Bank, IMF and others have encouraged countries around the world to privatize water access in the hope for increased efficiency as well as follow other policies such as removal of subsidies for such provisions. In doing so, the poor have found themselves being shut out as prices have risen beyond affordability.
The documentary traced the struggles of
- A family in Bolivia living just behind a water plant, unable to afford the 9-month salary equivalent connection charge [highlighting the issue of access inequality and water access privatization];
- Poor Indian farmers in Rajasthan facing water shortages and worse because the Coca Cola company had taken so much water from nearby wells and aquifers [highlighting the issue of need versus luxury];
- Tanzanian people’s struggles with water privatization, and even the struggles of the poor in the world’s richest country, the United States [highlighting water resource commoditization and privatization versus water as a human right with universal access].
Around the world, the documentary noted, water access issues are reaching crisis point, similar to the ones they highlighted in detail.
Coca Cola vs. Indian Farmers: Luxury vs. Necessity
The documentary’s look at Coca Cola (Coke for short) company’s activities in India highlighted problems also seen around the world. Because Coke had been pumping water from local wells and aquifers, this led to farmers digging deeper and deeper to search for water, sometimes under dangerous conditions. Some farmers were digging as deep as 450 feet without finding water. The documentary noted that they wanted Coke to leave for they brought them nothing but misery. Indeed, earlier in 2000, violent protests by farmers in the state of Kerala led to the closure of Coke there.
The documentary also noted that for each liter of drink from Coca Cola, some 3 liters of water was needed.
When asked, Coke noted all the activities they were pursuing to be a more responsible neighbor. Coke also claimed that government figures showed they did not cause the drop in water levels, yet those figures showed otherwise. They also noted that agriculture is responsible for more water usage than Coca Cola. While this is partly correct, this applies more to industrial agribusinesses, not small farmers.
Furthermore, farmers are arguably using the land for more productive (and necessary) purposes than Coke. In addition, Coke, typical of many global companies, have used the lands (and, in this case, water) of the poor countries, to produce products to be mainly consumed by people in wealthy countries.
Privatization in both rich and poor countries can mean many cannot access safe water
In Tanzania, the documentary noted the hardships and struggles of the poor when the country followed rich-country and World Bank advice and privatized their water services. In a region where currently 11 million lives are at risk from water shortage, these policies are having serious impacts. Privatization led to increased prices and lack of access, rather than increased access.
In Bolivia, even though much of the major city covered by the documentary was connected up by the global water company, the poor could not afford the connection charges. Some 200,000 people in that city—a quarter of the population—were not connected. (The French company that owned the water services there said in the documentary that the poor “chose” not to be connected.) Numerous health and social problems developed, especially for the children and the poor were resorting to illegal connections. (We can often see such actions by poor as being “illegal”, but when the system itself encourages such last-resort actions and “corruption” we hear less of that aspect.)
In Detroit, USA, the documentary noted that the poor in the richest country in the world were also affected by similar global problems. Like families in Tanzania, many African Americans in Detroit were finding they needed to make daily trips to get water. The documentary followed the struggle of a woman who had fallen behind on her water bills because her disabled husband’s medical bills had grown so much. Yet, some 40,000 households (some 100,000 people) in Detroit were facing water shortages in similar ways, simply for being too poor to afford the bills. In this particular case, city officials were also accused of running down the water service so that it could be privatized and thereby reduce their accountability.
. . . (Go to http://www.globalissues.org/article/601/water-and-development for the full article which includes: Water Access Policy: Following Neoliberal Ideology; Privatization vs. Democratic Accountability of Management of a Fundamental Resource;andWater: A Human Right or a Commodity?)
Water and Environmental Issues
Along with access issues comes use issues. The Coca Cola example noted above highlighted one issue of luxury versus needs. Another issue is the efficient (or inefficient) use of water in industrial agriculture, factories and plants.
It takes a great deal of water to manufacture our goods:
- 1 newspaper takes 150 gallons
- 1 liter of orange juice takes 1000 gallons
- 1 pound of beef takes 2500 gallons
- 1 new car takes 40,000 gallons
— WaterDoc.org 15, Hart Productions Inc, 2005
Food First, mentioned above, charges that “While transnational corporations over-exploit water resources as they expand industrial and agricultural capacity, they pollute the water table through pollution or overuse. Meanwhile developing countries—under onerous lending requirements enforced by the World Bank—have had to aggressively export their way out of debt, devastating watersheds and placing water supplies in danger.” Quoting them further, and at length:
In the race to compete for foreign direct investment, countries are stripping their environmental laws and protection of natural resources, including water protection. In some cases, such as the world's 850 free trade zones, they either look the other way as environmental laws are broken and waters are criminally polluted or actually set lower standards in these zones than for the rest of the country.
Throughout Latin America and Asia, massive industrialization in rural communities is affecting the balance between humans and nature. Water use is being diverted from agriculture to industry. Huge corporate factories are moving up the rivers of the Third World, sucking them dry as they go.
Agribusinesses growing crops for export are claiming more of the water once used by family and peasant farmers for food self-sufficiency. The global expansion in mining and manufacturing is increasing the threat of pollution of underground water supplies and contaminating the aquifers that provide more than 50 percent of domestic supplies in most Asian countries.
To feed the voracious global consumer market, China has transformed its entire economy, massively diverting water use from communities and local farming to its burgeoning industrial sector. As the big industrial wells consume more water, millions of Chinese farmers have found their local wells pumped dry. Eighty percent of China's major rivers are now so degraded, they no longer support fish. Economic globalization and the policies that drive it are proving to be totally unsustainable.
— Maude Barlow, Water as a Commodity—The Wrong Prescription 16, Institute for Food and Development Policy Backgrounder, Summer 2001, Vol. 7, No. 3
(Some further examples of unnecessary/wasteful uses of water are described or hinted to in this site’s section, Behind Consumption and Consumerism.)
Climate Change and Water Security
Climate change is going to increase water security:
Many of the world’s most water-stressed areas will get less water, and water flows will become less predictable and more subject to extreme events. Among the projected outcomes:
- Marked reductions in water availability in East Africa, the Sahel and Southern Africa as rainfall declines and temperature rises, with large productivity losses in basic food staples. Projections for rain-fed areas in East Africa point to potential productivity losses of up to 33% in maize and more than 20% for sorghum and 18% for millet.
- The disruption of food production systems exposing an additional 75–125 million people to the threat of hunger.
- Accelerated glacial melt, leading to medium term reductions in water availability across a large group of countries in East Asia, Latin America and South Asia.
- Disruptions to monsoon patterns in South Asia, with the potential for more rain but also fewer rainy days and more people affected by drought.
- Rising sea levels resulting in freshwater losses in river delta systems in countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Thailand.
- 2006 United Nations Human Development Report 17, 2006, p.15
Future wars over water?
For a number of years now, we have heard of predictions that future wars will be fought over control of essential resources, such as water. To some extent, most wars have already been about that. However, in terms of water itself, some experts question this prediction. Inter Press Service (IPS) notes a number of experts disagree with the view that future wars will be over water 18, and instead feel it is mismanagement of water resources which is the issue, not scarcity (which is the underlying assumption for the prediction of such wars.)
That same IPS article quotes Arunabha Ghosh, co-author of the United Nations Human Development Report 2006 themed on water management who says, “Water wars make good newspaper headlines but cooperation (agreements) don’t.… there are plenty of bilateral, multilateral and trans-boundary agreements for water-sharing—all or most of which do not make good newspaper copy.”
Others have noted that there are many more examples of cooperation than conflict in regions with shard water interests. The Stockholm International Water Institute opines that “10- to 20-year-old arguments about conflict over water are still being recycled.”
At the same time there have been various incidents that fuel the fear of water-related wars, such as Israel’s recent bombing of the Lebanese water pipelines from the Litani River to farmland along the coastal plain and parts of the Bekaa Valley, and the conflict in Sri Lanka where the rebel group diverted a canal.
Other examples that might be worth watching include the Panama canal as that country considers nationalizing it, the North West Passage through Canada’s northern polar region that is now opening up more due to climate change, which the US argues should be an international water way, and various others that may affect water dependency further up or downstream (e.g. between India/Pakistan, Israel/Jordan, various Nile-dependent countries 19 throughout northern, eastern and central Africa).
The Stockholm International Water Institute also argues that “Such arguments [for water wars] ignore massive amounts of recent research which shows that water-scarce states that share a water body tend to find cooperative solutions rather than enter into violent conflict,” which may offer hope that conflicts do not arise, at least not due to water resources.
(Go to http://www.globalissues.org/article/601/water-and-development for the full article and sources for this information)
Taking It Further Explanation
Near the end of each IC3 chapter, professors or instructors are asked to plan "applied learning" events, interviews, research, or service projects on- or off-campus. "Taking It Further" means that our on-campus, classroom learning are just a first step in broader learning that affects our vocations, professions, and community service.
For instance, throughout our completion of chapter 1, all participating campuses and partners to this IC3 exchange are completing "web profiles" that will be used extensively by members of each pod. This "takes further" the relationship building of pod members. Another example, at the end of chapter 2 (Food and Water Security), a language class using IC3 could link with a biology department to examine "best practices" in protecting a clean watershed. In Vietnam, this could involve the students' applied learning of water security in terms of the health of the Mekong River, upstream and downstream inter-state concerns, and the long-term viability of industries alongside fish and rice farming. Here in Virginia (USA), our students will examine our watershed, which flows into the Shenandoah River and the Chesapeake Bay, and from there the Atlantic Ocean. Or at the end of chapters 6, 7 and 10 (Domestic Economics, Regional Trade, Globalization), a class could interview merchants and vendors of one's village or city to discern their wisdom in making a living in an age of globalization.
There is no single set of learning objectives for the Taking It Further exercises. Hopefully, each participating campus and partner to IC3 can share through pod dialogues your lessons learning through this exercise. There may even be collaborative study, research, or service for certain Taking It Further ventures among IC3 partners.
IT Exercises and Activities for Developing Ideas:
Opening Word
Pull up the “Start” menu in the bottom left hand corner of your screen.
Go to “All Programs” and open Microsoft Word. Once the program opens you should have a blank document in front of you.
Write a few sentences answering the question “Who in the world am I?”
*There are a number of good websites that provide glossaries for computer terms. If you do not understand a word associated with these descriptions, go to: http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/definition.php?harddrive as one example.
Saving a Document
Be sure you have disk that will work in this computer and insert it into the disk drive.
Click on the “File” menu in the top left hand corner of the screen. Notice that on the “File Menu” there are two save options, “Save” and “Save As.” Select “Save.”
You now have the “Save” box in front of you. This is like a map of your computer’s storage space. From here you can place the document you have just written anywhere on your computer.
Look in the top left corner of the save box for the words “Save in:” look to the right of these words and notice there is a picture of a folder and the words “My Documents.” If you were to tell the computer to save your paragraph right now, it would be stored in the folder called “My Documents.” Click on the arrow facing down to the right of the picture of the folder and the words “My Documents.”
Now you can see all of the different places that you can put your paragraph. On the list look for the picture of a disk and click on the words “3 ½ floppy (A:)”
Now you have opened your disk and should be able to see if there are any other documents on it. Look to the right of “Save In:” and “3 ½ floppy (A:)” and you will see three pictures of folders. Click on the folder that looks like it has three lines coming out of its top right corner. This will open a box called “New Folder.”
Name this folder after yourself so in the box next to where it says “Name:” type in your name. Click OK in the top right corner of the “New Folder” box and you will notice that in the “Save” box your folder name now appears where it once said “3 ½ floppy (A:).”
Look to the bottom of the “Save” box and see that there is some text highlighted in blue next to the words “File name.” Call the paragraph that you have just written “Who in the World am I” by typing that in the box where the words are now highlighted in blue.
Click on the button that says “Save” Your document is now saved on your disk. You will be able to see the words “Who in the World am I” below the toolbars and above your document.
Click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner to close Word.
Exercise:
The following information technology (IT) skill-building exercise is the same for all Chapter 1 books. The objective is for you to discuss the substance of your answer in your Listening/Speaking class, develop your answer with the related selections in your Reading class, and complete your written response to the IC3 question, "Who in the world am I?" for your Writing class. You may work on this writing assignment in your desktop folder, and then save this document to the appropriate folder on your formatted disk. The following IT exercise offers instruction for your desktop and disk work, and finally asks that you copy and paste this writing assignment into the www.emu/ic3 forum site for Level I, Chapter 1. Once you have completed this step, you are sharing your work in a second language with "coursemates" half-way across the world. In turn, you are learning from them as they share with you in your language (their second language) on the same IC3 question.
To begin:
You will need one new 3 ½ floppy diskette (disk) for your completed written work and posting to "Best Answer" entries on the www.emu.edu/ic3 forum. Be sure that your disk is new. Alternatively, you may save your work on a used disk, but the following formatting exercise will erase all data on your disk.
Formatting a floppy diskette (disk):
- On your computer desktop, double-click on "My Computer."
- Insert the disk that you want to format in the A: drive. Note: formatting a disk will erase anything you may already have saved on the disk.
- Right-click on the "3 ½ Floppy (A:)" icon
- Left-click on "Format."
- Left-click on "Full" and then "Start." A blue line will advance across the bottom of the screen. When this line is completed, another box will pop up. Select "Close." Or if you have a newer software program, a blue box will pop up and tell you that your formatting is complete.
Files and folders overview:
Most tasks involve working with files and folders. Folders are used to provide a storage system for the files on your computer, just as you use manila folders to organize information in a filing cabinet.
Folders can contain many different types of files, such as documents, music, pictures, videos, and programs. You can copy and move files from other locations, such as another folder, computer, or the Internet, to folders you create. You can even create folders within folders.
For example, if you are creating and storing files in the “My Documents” folder, you can make a new folder within “My Documents” to contain the files. If you decide that you want to move the new folder to a different location, you can easily move it and its contents by selecting the folder and dragging it to the new location.
Creating a folder on your floppy disk:
- Left-click once on "3 ½ Floppy (A:)."
- Left-click on "Make a New Folder."
- The new folder will appear at the end of the list of file names and will be blue-highlighted and named "New Folder."
- With your cursor on this blue-highlighted line, rename the folder in this way. Type in your given name, followed immediately (with no space) by L1. This designates that this is for your written work in Chapter 1 of the Level I level of the curriculum. For example, if your name is "Huyen" this folder name would be huyenL1.
- If your teacher asks you to submit written exercises for the level 1, he or she may then identify whose work it is and the level and chapter of instruction in the curriculum.
Creating a folder on your desktop
- Right-click in a blank space on your desktop.
- Left-click "New" and then "Folder."
- The new folder will appear as a new icon on your desktop. It will be blue-highlighted and read "New Folder."
- Rename the folder by typing a different name in the highlighted area. This "difference" will be slight. Add "desk" to the folder name on your disk. Adding to the example from above,"huyenL1" would now become on the desktop, "huyenL1desk." This folder can hold your "draft" work until it is saved to your 3 ½ floppy disk.
Completing and saving your written work:
- Open "Word" or whatever word processing program you have on your computer. Then type in your response to "Who in the world am I?" IC3 question
- Check your spelling and grammar. DO NOT rely on any "spell-check" or "grammar-check" feature of your computer, for this curriculum means to help you build these skills. This curriculum DOES NOT wish to see you lazily rely on someone else's software for correct spelling and grammar. In the end, it is not the computer, but rather you who will benefit greatly from bi-lingual competence and IC3 knowledge.
- As you work on the writing assignment for Level I, Chapter 1, do so in the desktop folder.
- Across your Listening/Speaking, Writing, and Reading exercises, you have been addressing in depth the IC3 question posed at the start of Chapter 1. When your answer to this question is completed, save this document onto your disk. On the menu bar, click on the "File" box at the top left portion of your computer screen. Then click on "Save As."
- Open your desktop by clicking anywhere on the screen, other than in the Word document you have been writing. Left-click on your desktop folder. In our example above, this is "huyenL1desk." At the bottom of your screen, there would be a blue-highlighted "File Name" bar. Type in "L1writing." Your assignment is now saved as a Word document on your desktop folder.
- Now save this work to your disk. On the menu bar, click on File, then Save As. This should open a message box. Your file's name should appear in the "File name" dropped-down box. In the "Save in" dropped-down box, choose "3 ½ Floppy (A:)." Click on Save. Your writing assignment is now saved as a Word document on your own disk. You may remove the disk from the computer.
- Posting your work to "Best Answers": You are now ready to post your document in the "Best Answer" forum.
To copy files and folders to a CD
- Insert a blank, writable CD into the CD recorder.
- Open “My Computer.”
- Click the files or folders you want to copy to the CD. To select more than one file, hold down the CTRL key while you click the files you want. Then, under “File and Folder Tasks”, click “Copy this file”, “Copy this folder,” or “Copy the selected items.”
If the files are located in “My Pictures”, under “Picture Tasks”, click “Copy to CD” or “Copy all items to CD,” and then skip to step 5. - In the Copy Items dialog box, click the CD recording drive, and then click Copy.
- In My Computer, double-click the CD recording drive. Windows displays a temporary area where the files are held before they are copied to the CD. Verify that the files and folders that you intend to copy to the CD appear under Files Ready to be Written to the CD.
- Under CD Writing Tasks, click Write these files to CD. Windows displays the CD Writing Wizard. Follow the instructions in the wizard.
Notes
- To open “My Computer,” click “Start,” and then click “My Computer.”
- Do not copy more files to the CD than it will hold. Standard CDs hold up to 650 megabytes (MB). High-capacity CDs hold up to 850 MB.
- Be sure that you have enough disk space on your hard disk to store the temporary files that are created during the CD writing process. For a standard CD, Windows reserves up to 700 MB of the available free space. For a high-capacity CD, Windows reserves up to 1 gigabyte (GB) of the available free space.
- After you copy files or folders to the CD, it is useful to view the CD to confirm that the files are copied.
Save using a memory stick/USB flash drive
What they look like:
USB flash drives are produced by many manufacturers, so their appearance varies. They also vary in regard to how many megabits they can store. Typically, they are not much larger than a package of chewing gum. They have a plug on the end that you need to plug into a USB port.
Both the USB flash drive and the USB port will be labeled with a symbol. Look for this symbol when attempting to use a USB port or memory stick.
Installing a memory stick:
The USB port will be located either in front of the computer or behind it. Most of the public access computers in the Reference Room of the University Library have the USB port in front. Look for the silver Dell symbol on the front of the machine. Pick up the light gray panel surrounding the Dell symbol, and you will see the port. If the port is in back of the computer, you need to look for the USB symbol.
Look at the plug end of the flash drive before you plug it into the port. You want to make sure you plug it in the correct side. Once you have plugged the flash drive in, a pop up window will appear saying “Found new hardware disk drive.”
Saving a file to a USB flash drive
Click File and Save. At the drop down "save in" menu, look for and select the Removable Drive (It might be “E”, “F”, “G” or some other drive.). This is where you want to save your work.
*You must follow this procedure before removing the memory stick/USB flash drive:
Look for an icon with a green arrow on the bottom right hand section of the computer screen. If you move your mouse over this icon, it will say “Unplug or eject hardware.” Double right click on this icon. You will get a screen that says “Unplug or Eject Hardware.” Select the device you want to unplug, and click stop. If you see a submenu, select the brand name of your storage device. Once you have selected the device and clicked ok, you will get a message stating, “The USB Mass Storage Device can now be safely removed from the system.” Now you can unplug the device.
Introduction
These exercises draw upon an article written by Peter DeMenocal, “After Tomorrow: Climate science and political reality” from “Orion,” January/February 2005.
Directions: In Questions 1-15 each sentence has four bold type words or phrases. Consider the first bold type word to be A, the second one B, the third one C, and the fourth one D. Choose the one word or phrase that must be changed in order for the sentence to be correct.
Example: Three years of drought led to fields that were brown and dusty and cattle who were lean and gave little milk.
The answer is D because the word who is wrong.
1. A twenty-six year megadrought that gripped the American Southwest to the late thirteenth century A.D., contributed to the collapse of the Anasazi Civilization.
2. These people had built elegant stone villages in the semiarid highlands and canyons and was the ancestors of the present day Pueblos.
3. It is the history of the Maya culture in Central America who provides possibly the best example of how an extended drought can impact a highly developed, technologically advanced urban society.
4. The Maya had thriving for nearly two thousand years and their cultural achievements were comparable in many ways to those of any modern nation.
5. They were accomplished astronomers, mathematicians, and urban planners that built large, well-engineered cities and had established trade networks.
6. There society was closely governed and populated with an estimated eight to fifteen million people in cities and rural villages across Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula.
7. This thriving civilization collapsed at the peak of its cultural and scientific development, among 750 and 950 A.D., and the decline coincided precisely with a 150-year drought that gripped the region.
8. A climate record consisting of annually laminated sediments revealed that the three regional wave of societal collapse corresponded with the decade-long extreme droughts that hit the region during the already dry period.
9. As with the Anasazi, many archeologists recognize the importance of social conditions in contributing from the collapse.
10. However, the extended drought appears to have been a primary factor in gradually reduced the carrying capacity of the land
11. The land was already suffered from overpopulation and overexploitation of resources.
12. The successive waves of societal collapse appear to have been triggered toward these smaller drought events that affected the land..
13. The scientific community are now very confident that much of the warming over the past century is attributable to human activities.
14.Because comparing paleoclimate evidence of climate changes to archeological records of cultural changes, we have been able to learn a great deal about the broader social impacts of exceptionally large changes in climate.
15. Such records extend back only a century or two, and however can’t tell us much about the full range of climate variability in nature
Best Answers to Guiding Question:
After you have completed the Reading, Listening/Speaking, and Writing chapters 2, how would you answer the following question?
Guiding Question: What are your sources of clean water? |
Câu hỏi hướng dẫn: Bạn hãy cho biết đâu là nguồn nước sạch? |
سوال راهنما: منابع آب آشامیدنی شما کدامند؟ |
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