THE EARTH IS OUR HOME

The Earth is our home. What sort of home it is depends on how we treat it, just as the houses we live in depend on how we take care of them.

Do you like to fish or swim? Do you like to walk through the woods? Do you like to breathe fresh air? Or to watch birds and hear them sing?

If you do, we'll have to treat our Earth home in a different way. Why? Because we are making lakes and rivers too dirty for fish to live in or for people to swim in.

Because we're cutting down our forests too fast, we are spoiling the nature.

Because we're making so much smoke, dirty air often hides the sky and even nearby things. The dirty air makes it hard for us to breathe, and it can cause illness, and even death.

Because we're putting so much poison on the things birds eat, they are finding it hard to live.

Have you seen smoke pouring out of tall factory chimneys? Have you smelled the gas fumes from the back of a bus? Have you noticed the smoke from a jet plane taking off?

All of these things make the air dirty — they pollute it. In crowded cities thousands of automobiles and factories may add tons of poison to the atmosphere each day.

Have you wondered where the sewage from one house, many houses, a big city goes? It pollutes rivers and lakes and may even make them die. Fish can't live in them, and you can't swim in them.

Have you wondered where the wood for houses comes from? And the paper for books and newspapers? From our forests. And what does the land look like when the trees are gone?

Have you thought where the poison goes that we spray on gardens and grass to kill insects and weeds? Onto the things the birds eat, making it hard for them to live and share with us their beautiful colours and songs.

Have you seen piles of old cars and old refrigerators? Not very nice to look at, are they? Have you seen piles of old boxes, glass jars, and cans? Not very beautiful, are they?

If we don't do anything about this spoiling of the world around us — its air, its water, its land, and its life — our lives are not going to be so nice. But there is much that we can do.

Factories can clean their smoke. Cars and planes can be made so that their fumes do not add to the pollution.

The dirty water from factories can be made clean. Sewage, too, can be changed so that water is clean enough to use again. Fish can live again, and you can swim again in oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes.

The mountains can still be covered with forests if the cutting of trees is done with care. We must plant again where we have cut. And we can have enough wood for houses and paper for books.

There is no need to throw away things we do not want or cannot use any more. We can change many things back into what they were made of, and use them again. Old newspapers can become new paper. Old glass jars can be turned into new glass. Old iron can help to make new cars and refrigerators.

We can also learn not to litter. We all know the sign: DO NOT LITTER. But not everyone does what the sign says.

For a long time, people have used their Earth home without thinking of what was happening to it. Now we see that we must treat it better if it is to be a nice home. It can be.

(from Speak Out, abridged)

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR PACKED PLANET?

The official number of people on our planet is 6,000,000,000. Six billion!

The world's population is growing very quickly. It adds up to 184 people every minute, 11,040 every hour, 264,960 every day and 97 million every year! Just imagine how many people there will be on our planet by the year 2150 if the present trend continues.

Of course, the world's population hasn't always grown so quickly. In fact, the number of people on the planet started off growing very slowly. That's because people didn't live as long as they do today.

As time passed, better medical care and nutrition and cleaner water helped people live longer. Population growth began to pick up speed. Before long, the world's population doubled — and it has kept doubling!

Every new person added to the planet needs food, water, shelter, clothes and fuel. More people mean more cars, roads, schools, hospitals and shops.

The trouble is our planet's riches are limited. Take water, for example: although water covers most of the planet, less than 1% of it can be used for drinking and washing. One out of every 13 people around the world does not always have enough clean water.

Food shortages are even more common.

In many countries, there is simply not enough food to feed the growing populations. 150 million children in the world suffer from poor health because of food shortages. Worldwide, 1 of every 7 people does not get enough to eat. As more people drive more cars, use more electricity, throw away more litter, and cut down more trees, our planet becomes more and more polluted.

Although every person uses the planet's resources, some people use a lot more than others. The richest billion people — especially Americans — use the most resources. They also produce the most waste.

Of course, having 6 billion people also means that there is more brainpower around to find a way out.

(from Speak Out, abridged)

"SMOG" WAS INVENTED IN BRITAIN

It was in Britain that the word "smog" was first used (to describe a mixture of smoke and fog). As the world's first industrialized country, its cities were the first to suffer this atmospheric condition. In the 19th century London's "pea-soupers" (thick smogs) became famous through descriptions of them in the works of Charles Dickens and in the Sherlock Holmes stories. The situation in London reached its worst point in 1952.

At the end of that year a particularly bad smog, which lasted for several days caused about 6,000 deaths.

Water pollution was also a problem. In the 19th century it was once suggested that the Houses of Parliament should be wrapped in enormous wet sheets to protect those inside from the awful smell of the River Thames. People who fell into the Thames were rushed to hospital to have their stomachs pumped out!

Then, during the 1960s and 1970s, laws were passed which forbade the heating of homes with open coal fires in city areas and which stopped much of the pollution from factories. At one time, a scene of fog in a Hollywood film was all that was necessary to symbolize London. This image is now out of date, and by the end of the 1970s it was said to be possible to catch fish in the Thames outside Parliament.

However, as in the rest of western Europe, the great increase in the use of the motor car in the last quarter of the 20th century has caused an increase in a new kind of air pollution. This problem has become so serious that the television weather forecast now regularly issues warnings of "poor air quality". On some occasions it is bad enough to prompt official advice that certain people (such as asthma sufferers) should not even leave their houses, and that nobody should take any vigorous exercise, such as jogging, out of doors.

(from Britain, abridged)

DO WE LIVE TO EAT?

How much food do you think you will eat by the time you are seventy nine?

The average Frenchwoman, for example, will eat:

25 cows 9,000 litres of orange juice

40 sheep 6000 litres of mineral water

3 5 pigs 1.37 tonnes of apples

1,200 chickens 768 kg of oranges

2.07 tonnes of fish 430 bags of carrots

5.05 tonnes of potatoes 720 kg of tomatoes

30,000 litres of milk 1,300 lettuces

13,000 eggs Hundreds of packets of coffee,

50,000 loaves of bread sugar, spaghetti, etc

12,000 bottles of wine 8 kg of dirt

Delicious, isn't it? How many cows and pigs have you swallowed already?

Scientists say that we eat about half-a-ton of food a year — not counting drink!

Some people eat even more.

According to WHO (World Health Organization), Americans are the fattest people in the world. 55% of women and 63% of men over 25 are overweight or obese.

Britain has replaced Germany as Europe's most overweight nation.

Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland also have some of the heaviest people in Europe.

Even in such countries as France, Italy and Sweden, Europe's slimmest nations, people (especially women) are becoming fatter.

The epidemic is spreading!

So think twice before you start eating!

(from Speak Out, abridged)