Writing for an Academic Discussion Are our actions causing more harm to the environment than in the past or are we now making a stronger effort to protect and preserve it?

Question: Are our actions causing more harm to the environment than in the past or are we now making a stronger effort to protect and preserve it?

 

 

Discussion

1.     Check out Fridays for Future and Greta Thunberg.

2.     Which opinion do you agree with? Why?

 

 

☆Essays for ideas and expressions

Sample Essay 1

This essay is taken from “Writing for the TOEFL iBT, Barron’s”

 

Sample Essay 2

We hear things like the first statement that humankind is harming the earth every day, and most people seem to agree with it. Let’s take a look at the second one. It says that the idea of the first statement is an exaggeration and that we are “making the earth a better place to live.” The question is for whom are we making the earth a better place to live.

   Humans try to change nature into what humans want it to be. We build roads in plains and mountains for transportation, build structures as shelters against elements and for other purposes, or make facilities for resources such as water pipes or nuclear reactors. We build cities so that we can fend for ourselves. However, when someone gets something, someone else loses it. When human society gains something involving nature (development), the environment loses something (destruction).

 

Effect of Human Activities, Especially in the Last 200 Years   Human Activity ↙           ↘    Development of Society        ⇔   Destruction of the Environment

 

When we were cavemen, most of our activities were part of nature. Like other animals, we slept in our “nests,” and hunted and gathered what we needed to survive. We made a fire to cook, but it was not enough to cause global warming. We collected pretty stones and shells for some reason, and it had little effect on the environment. Perhaps we ate a species too much and drove it extinct, but the influence was not so strong as to change the whole environment.

   Now, highly-developed technologies allow us to affect the environment on a large scale. We clear-cut forests to make cities and fields; bulldoze mountains to build residential areas, to mine minerals, or to make golf courses; and drill rocks in the desert and ocean bottoms to get oil and gas. We also kill insects with chemicals to grow food, overfish to satisfy our palate, and wipe out some species for the fur and skin to enjoy fashion and hobby. In addition, we pollute the air, water, and soil for production and transportation. Furthermore, we have started global warming by releasing a large amount of greenhouse gases into the air.

   By doing these things, we invade other animals’ natural habitats, deplete natural resources and destroy the environment. To survive, to expand our territories, and to enjoy ourselves, we are doing harm to nature. It is obvious that our activities are causing environmental strain. Our activities might make our lives convenient, but they affect nature.

   The word “ecological damage” in the writing topic is about disturbing ecosystem and causing decline or extinction of life. It is predicted that about one-fourth of all plants and vertebrate animals may go extinct by 2050 due to global warming. Ecological damage is not an exaggeration.

   It is true that we cannot live like a caveman. We need energy. We need food. Development is good for us. However, it is usually bad for the environment, and in the end, it is bad for us as well because humankind is part of nature.

 

 

☆Sample Response Structures   

Sample 1 

【Thesis】Both scientific data and our current experiences show that we have been pressuring the environment to the point of no return, and we are not making a course correction.

【CO2】Global warming is in progress. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has passed the threshold of 350 parts per million several years ago. This means that we cannot stop global warming anymore even if we stop burning fossil fuels right now, and yet oil industry is still expanding. We are knowingly doing harm to the environment as a result of big businesses prioritizing short term profits.

【Effect on the Environment】Climate crisis is clearly felt by all of us now. No one is now opposed to the view that summer is getting hotter year by year, and the average temperature later proves that our sense is right. The polar ice is melting in an unprecedented rate. Fishermen report that they see different fishes from those they used to catch, meaning fishes are moving away from warmer water. Farmers see their crops affected by higher temperature and stronger and more frequent disasters. Extinction is now exponential.

【Counterargument-treatment】Technologies to soften the impact of climate change exist, but governments have little will to use them because of professional lobbysts from related businesses. Environmental movements have not achieved a decisive success partly because the leaders are paid by businesses according to “Planet of the Humans”.

【Conclusion】Scientists call these changes anthropogenic climate change. There is no denying that human activities, especially greenhouse emissions, are destruction the ecosystem and causing our demise.

(252 words)

 

 

Assignment

・Watch the following movies for reference:

An Inconvenient Truth: An Academy Award-winning documentary film in 2006 about climate change, or global warming, presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore. Al Gore’s claim is that global warming is real and largely human-caused. (Wikipedia)

 

Planet of the Humans: A documentary released in 2020 that has shown the failure of the environmental movement, especially those to fight global warming and the cause of the failure. It reports that solar, wind, and biomass power plants cannot reduce or even increase greenhouse gasses and that the reason why this fact has not been known is that leaders of environmental movement are paid by or making money by owning the renewal energy companies. The criticisms about the movie have been disproved, and it has been found that the media and pundits that criticized the movie were paid by the “green billionaires”.

Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.

 

                                                   DRAFT