Speech on Environmental Issues Today Research Paper Example

Speech on Environmental Issues Today Paper Albert Einstein said Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. Our planet is in trouble! Pretty much everywhere you look today you will hear or see something reminding you that our planets health is failing. If our planet where a person it would be about time to buy the burial plot and write out the last will and testament. Just a brief list of the things that is ailing her is pollution, acid rain, climate change, the destruction of rainforests and other wild habitats, the decline and extinction of thousands of pieces of animals and plants. ND so on. Think everyone in here can agree that all Of these issues exist and that humans have caused them. Thankfully many of us are concerned about the future of our planet and unless we can find a way of solving the problems then the environment will suffer. Know this all sounds so depressing but we cant get overwhelmed. Every one of us can do something to help slow down and reverse some of the damage. We cannot leave the problem-solving entirely to the experts we all have a responsibility to our environment. We must learn to live in way that will sustain our world like learn to use our natural resources which include air, freshwater, forests, wildlife, farmland and seas without damaging them. As populations expand and lifestyles change, we have to keep the world in a condition so that future generations will have the same natural resources that we have today. Here I am going to list just a few examples of the threats to our environment as well as some ideas to help you to do something about them. We will write a custom essay sample on Speech on Environmental Issues Today specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Speech on Environmental Issues Today specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Speech on Environmental Issues Today specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Waste We humans create a lot of trash! Between 1992 and 2008 household waste increased by 16% and we now produce just under half a ton per person each year. Most of this trash is hauled away by the garbage man and buried in a huge landfill or it is burned. Both of these options are harmful in their own way. Is all our trash really trash? If you think about it, a lot of what we throw away could be used again. It makes sense to reuse and recycle our trash instead of just trying to solve the problem of where to put it! Much of our waste is made up of glass, metal, plastic and paper. Our natural resources such as trees, oil, coal and aluminum are used up in enormous amounts to aka these products and the resources will one day be completely used up. So in order to cut down on the energy used lets reuse. What can you do? * Sort out your trash. Organic matter (e. G. Potato peelings, left over food, tea leaves etc. ) can be put in to a compost heap in the garden and used as a good, natural fertilizer for the plants. Aluminum cans, glass bottles and newspapers are often collected from our doorsteps, but other items such as plastic bottles, juice cartons and cardboard may not be, in which case they can be taken to nearby recycling banks. You can find out where they are by just searching on line. * Use recycled paper to help save trees. Chlorine bleach is usually used to make newspapers and this pollutes rivers. Its better to use unbleached, recycled paper whenever you can. * Take your old clothes to charity shops. Some are sold, others are returned to textile mills for recycling. * Try to avoid buying plastic. Its hard to recycle. One way to cut down on plastic is to refuse to use plastic bags offered by supermarkets and use cloth re-useable shopping bags instead, or re-use plastic bags over and over again, until they Wear Out and then recycle them. Pollution The air, water and soil of habitats all over the world have been, and are being polluted in many different ways. This pollution affects the health of living things. Air is damaged by vehicle emissions, and power stations create acid rain which destroys entire forests and lakes. When fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal are burned to provide energy for lighting, cooking etc. They create polluting gases. Oils spills pollute sea water and kill marine life; chemical waste from factories and sewage, and artificial fertilizers from farmland, pollute river water, killing lilied and spreading disease. What can be done? * Dont litter. Use less energy by switching off lights when rooms are not in use, not wasting hot water, not overheating rooms. * Use a bicycle or walk instead of using a car when you can. Or radishes, and use the HOVE lane. * If you spot pollution, such as oil on the beach, report it. If you suspect a stream is polluted, report it to the local EPA office.. * Organic foods are produced without the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, preventing these pollutants from contaminating habitats and entering the food chain. So it may cost a little more but it is better for you and for the environment The Greenhouse Effect Certain gases in the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorocarbons, act like the glass in a greenhouse, allowing sunlight through to heat the Earths surface but trapping some of the heat as it radiates back into space. Without this the Earth would be frozen and lifeless. However, due to the Human Effect ,greenhouse gases are building up in the atmosphere, causing a greater amount of heat to be reflected back to Earth. This results in an increase in average world temperatures and is already causing more droughts, flooding and extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes which we have all seen on the news. Some ways to Help * Dont waste electricity or heat. Electricity and heating are produced by burning coal, oil and gas and this action gives off carbon dioxide. The more We use the more We pollute. * Car fumes produce carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide so try to cut down on car trips if possible. Use a bike or walk its good exercise for you too! * Recycle as much of your waste as you can. Methane, the most effective greenhouse gas, is released into the air as the rash in landfill sites rots. Now I realize we cant all live on a farm and grow our own food and all drive smart cars. We Texans normally cant walk or take a bike places because everything is so far away. My dream job has always been one that I could ride a bike to, that sounds funny but every little bit helps. Some other things I did were to change out all of my light bulbs with energy efficient ones, and reinstated my house. This and other things save me money but they also save the environment. Let me leave you with one last thing: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Definition and Examples of Telicity in English Grammar

Definition and Examples of Telicity in English Grammar In linguistics, telicity is the aspectual property of a verb phrase (or of the sentence as a whole) which indicates that an action or event has a clear endpoint. Also known as aspectual boundedness. A verb phrase presented as having an endpoint is said to be telic. In contrast, a verb phrase that is not presented as having an endpoint is said to be atelic. See Examples and Observations below. Also see: AspectGrammaticalizationTransitivity EtymologyFrom the Greek, end, goal Examples and Observations Telic verbs include fall, kick, and make (something). These verbs contrast with atelic verbs, where the event has no such natural end-point, as with play (in such a context as the children are playing). - David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 4th ed. Blackwell, 1997 Testing for TelicityOne reliable test to distinguish between telic and atelic verb phrases is to try using the gerund form of the verb phrase as direct object of complete or finish, which refer to the natural point of completion of an action. Only telic verb phrases can be used in this way. . . . [What did you do last night?] - I finished {repairing the roof / *repairing}. (Repair the roof is a telic VP while repair is atelic.)It was 11:30 p.m. when I completed {writing the report / *writing}. (Write the report is a telic VP while write is atelic.)He {stopped / *finished / *completed} being their leader in 1988. (Be their leader is an atelic VP.) Unlike finish and complete, the verb stop refers to an arbitrary endpoint. It can therefore be followed by an atelic verb phrase. If it is followed by a telic one, stop is by implicature interpreted as referring to a provisional endpoint preceding the natural point of completion: I stopped reading the book at five. (implicates that I had not finished reading the book when I stopped reading it) (Renaat Declerck in cooperation with Susan Reed and Bert Cappelle, The Grammar of the English Tense System: A Comprehensive Analysis. Mouton de Gruyter, 2006) Verb Meaning and Telicity Because telicity is so dependent on clausal elements besides the verb, it could be debated whether it is represented in verb meaning at all. In order to explore that debate, lets start by comparing watch and eat. Examples (35) and (36) provide a minimal pair, in that the only element that differs in the two sentences is the verb. (35) I watched a fish. [Atelic-Activity](36) I ate a fish. [Telic-Accomplishment] Since the sentence with watch is atelic and the sentence with eat is telic, it seems we must conclude that the verb is responsible for the (a)telicity of the sentence in these cases, and that watch is by its nature atelic. However, that easy conclusion is complicated by the fact that telic situations can also be described with watch: (37) I watched a film. [Telic-Accomplishment] The key to whether each of these situations is telic or not is in the second argumentthe verbs object. In the atelic watch example (35) and the telic eat example (36), the arguments look identical. Go a little deeper, however, and the arguments do not seem so similar. When one eats a fish, one eats its physical body. When one watches a fish, it is more than the physical body of the fish that is relevantone watches a fish doing something, even if all it is doing is existing. That is, when one watches, one watches not a thing, but a situation. If the situation that is watched is telic (e.g. the playing of a film), then so is the watching situation. If the watched situation is not telic (e.g. the existence of a fish), then neither is the watching situation. So, we cannot conclude that watch itself is telic or atelic, but we can conclude that the semantics of watch tell us that it has situation argument, and the the watching activity is coextensive with . . . the arguments situation. . . .Many verbs are like this- their telicity is directly influenced by the boundedness or telicity of their arguments, and so we must conclude that those verbs themselves are unspecified for telicity. - M. Lynne Murphy, Lexical Meaning. Cambridge University Press, 2010 Telicity in the strict sense clearly is an aspectual property which is not purely or even primarily lexical. - Rochelle Lieber, Morphology and Lexical Semantics. Cambridge University Press, 2004