Weekender
Water
BBC Learning English – Weekender
Water
January 27, 2006
Jackie: Hello, I’m Jackie Dalton, welcome to the programme.
The focus of today’s topic is water. The United Nations Environment
Programme has said that water is probably the most serious environmental
problem we face apart from climate change. The Earth has all the water it
needs to supply the six billion people who live on it with clean, safe drinking
water. But millions of people are going to die because of water shortage. If
there is a shortage of something, there’s not enough of it. This is because water
resources are mismanaged – mismanaged - not looked after or used properly.
Now we’re going to hear from Peter Gleick, a water resources expert. Does he
think countries are getting better at sharing water resources or not?
Peter
The future we’re heading for is a world in which billions of people do not have access to basic
clean drinking water supplies. We’re going to see increasing competition among nations for
shared water resources. The Nile is shared by ten nations, the Tigris and the Euphrates are
shared by Turkey and Iraq and Syria – three nations who have never been friendly in different
combinations at different times. And we have not adequately figured how to cooperate over
these shared resources.
Jackie: So the answer is no. Peter doesn’t think countries are getting better at sharing
water resources. He says the future we’re heading for is a world in which
billions of people will not have access to basic supplies of clean drinking. If
you don’t have access to something you can’t get to it. And instead of working
together, he says we’re going to see increasing competition among nations for
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shared water resources. Nations will be competing against each other, instead
of cooperating, instead of working together.
Jackie: Now Peter will tell us that water is tied to everything. It affects and is affected
by everything.
He’ll use the word ‘ecosystem’ which is all the living things in an area and the
way they affect each other and the environment. He’ll say water is a
fundamental component of our ecosystem which means it’s an important part
of our ecosystem.
We’ll hear the word ‘implications’, which means effects. If something has
political implications, it affects politics, if something has economic
implications, it affects the economy.
Tied to
Ecosystem
Fundamental component
Implications
Peter
Water is fundamentally tied to everything. Water is tied to the way we produce food. It’s
tied to our natural ecosystems. It’s a fundamental component of our climate system. Water
has political implications, economic implications, environmental implications, social
implications. It’s not an exaggeration to say that water touches everything in human
existence and we’re not very good about thinking about our water resources and protecting
our water resources, and managing them wisely.
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Jackie: Next we’ll hear Peter talking about what he thinks needs to be done. He’ll also
use the word ‘efficiently’. If you use something efficiently you use it in an
organised way with very little waste.
And he’ll use the expression ‘afford to’. If you can’t afford to do something
you mustn’t do it because it would cause a serious problem for you. Here are
some examples of this phrase in use:
Voice
I can’t afford to get a bad score in the exam, because if I do I will fail the whole course.
We cannot afford to make mistakes at this important stage in the project.
Jackie: So those expressions to listen out for again:
Efficiently
We can’t afford to
Here we go…
Peter
We need a new way of thinking about water. We can no longer afford to take the water we
need without thinking about ecosystems. We can no longer afford to waste water when it’s
possible to use it efficiently for the things that we need. We can no longer afford to fight
over shared water resources. We have to think about ways of co-operating over those water
resources.
Jackie: Peter says we can no longer afford to take the water we need without thinking
about ecosystems. We can no longer afford to waste water when it’s possible
to use it efficiently for the things that we need. It’s time to cooperate, not fight.
And that’s all for today.
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