ACTIVITY 1: READING COMPREHENSION
Read the
article and answer if the statements are True or False:
FEEDING
THE PLANET
Can you name some things that harm our
environment? If you said cars, you’re right. If you said smoke from large
factories, well, that’s a big part of the problem, too. But maybe you
didn’t think of something in your daily life: your dinner. Agriculture,
which produces your food, is more harmful to the environment than cars,
trucks, trains, and airplanes combined. Today’s farming uses our water
supplies inefficiently. Chemicals used on farms run into rivers and lakes and
pollute them. When rain forests and grassland are cleared for farm
animals and crops, the result is often the extinction of wildlife. Farming
methods release harmful gases into the air. These gases are an enormous
contributor to global warming.
By 2050, the world population will
be 9 billion, 2 billion more than it is today. Because of population
growth, the problem of feeding so many people is huge. There will be a growing
need for food all over the world. As countries such as China and India continue
to become more prosperous, there is an increasing demand for
meat, eggs, and dairy.
How can we increase the amount of food and
maintain a healthy planet? Here are some solutions.
1. It is important to stop cutting
down forests for agriculture. This is very destructive to the
environment.
2.
We don’t need to eat so much meat. Producing meat wastes valuable
resources and contributes to global warming.
3. We must stop wasting food. In rich
countries, about 50 percent of food goes in the trash. In poor
countries, a lot of food is lost between the farmer and the market because
storage and transportation are not efficient.
It won’t be easy to make these
changes, but if we don’t try, the result will be terrible for future
generations. All of us have to be thoughtful about the connection
between the food on our plates, the farmers that produce it, and the effect on
the planet. As we push our shopping carts down the aisles of our
supermarkets, our food choices will decide our future.
Text: https://eltngl.com/assets/downloads/gic7e/gic_l2_u6.pdf