A CHILD IS BORN

Germaine Greer

This essay is an extract from the book “Sex and Destiny” written by a feminist writer Germaine Greer. In this essay, she presents a comparison between the parent-child relationship in the rich west and the traditional East. She shows the differences between a traditional society and a modern society in matters of pregnancy, child birth and child rearing. She tends to consider the matrimonial practices of the traditional societies as having greater advantages than those of western attitudes. Her main opinion is that in the traditional societies the people who surround a pregnant woman make her feel good and lessen her mental pain.

A pregnant woman of the traditional society in the east does not feel alone while she is pregnant because other people also support her. But in the modern society of the west the woman herself should observe her pregnancy. In this society the birth of the child is also unattended and it is done at hospital. But in traditional society the birth is always attended. The people of traditional society use their own experiences in matters of matrimonial practices.

In many traditional societies, after marriage the bride goes to live with the mother-in-low and the wives of her husband’s brothers. She is not thought as member of new families until she has to birth a child. So the bride also longs for the child, but western people think that such mores (custom) are backward, cruel and wrong. The reality is that in western society, too, woman loses her surname after the marriage. Her surname is changed under her husband’s name. In many traditional societies the relationship between mother and child is more important than the relationship between husband and wife. In some such societies the child’s relationship with the rest of his family is more important than with his parents. His physical intimacy with other members may be greater than with his parents.

In the traditional society the child birth is celebrated as a ceremony. It is also thought as the success of the woman. The woman goes to her mother’s house where she is provided everything that she desires. Such tradition can be found in Bengal. But child birth is not celebrated in this way in modern society. There is the present of nostalgic tone in woman in this society.

In the present time the import of western medicine in traditional society has been a great problem. The allopathic doctors are providing expensive drugs in peasant communities, but they are not in sufficient quantity. Modern hospitals have been made by foreign aid in traditional society. But the services in those hospitals are very poor, so the woman is getting great difficulties at the time of child birth (delivery). it is true that death attends too frequently in the traditional birth places, but there are worse fates than death in hospitals. Now modern western technology is forcefully intruding in traditional society but it is true that there is the population explosion soon.

In this way the writer shows her favor towards the methods that are applied in the traditional society in matters of pregnancy, child birth and child bearing.

THE CHILDERN WHO WAIT

Marsha Traugot

   

  ‘The Childern who wait’ is an essay written by Marsha Traugot. In this essay, she suggests reasons for a new trend in adoption in America. Now a wider verity of families can open their house to children who in the past would have been labeled unadoptable.

In the beginning of her essay she quotes an advertisement related to a five and half year’s old girl- Tammy. She is a handicapped black girl and she is beyond infancy.  After giving her description Traugot carries out the history about adoption .Twenty years ago or until about 1960 the process of adoption was strict. If a child was not white that would not adopted. Adoption was done only of the child that was infant and healthy. A family having older siblings could not also take a child in adoption. Similarly, only middle or upper class childless white couples could adopt healthy white infants.

     

           But in the last 20 years the field of adoption has undergone radical change because of various civil rights movement, birth control, changing moral and social science researches. The numbers of healthy infants available for adoption have reduced due to birth control, legalized abortion, changes in attitudes towards sexual behavior and marriage. Unwed mothers and teenagers could keep their babies with them without insult. Then there was scarcity of the healthy children people turned their attention to other children.

Child welfare specialists became increasingly concerned about other handicapped children. Black civil rights movement encouraged interracial adoption. So the number of children in foster care dramatically increased. It created disastrous results to the children sent in foster care. So the focus of the system was changed and the social workers started finding the ideal adoptive family. In the present time, the social workers also try to match the children with adoptive family. They evaluate the characteristics of the child and search a suitable (appropriate) family.

   The essayist also says that in seeking to match child and family, the social worker must overcome his/her own attitudinal barriers .in the present time there are many  adoption agencies that find the potential adoptive parents. These agencies look first to the families listed with them. If there are also no likely candidates the child can register with regional state of adoption exchange. Sometimes they also organize parties where children, workers and prospective parents meet informally. If the prospective family cannot be found to a child even after doing these processes to the child is advertised with the help of media. This technique has helped much to provide homes to the children who wait.

        

                        Because of the changes in attitudes in different aspects as well as in the field of adoption many children have got the supportive families and writer also hopes that Tammy will also get a warm supportive family life in the near future.

 

WOMEN’S BUSINESS

 Ilene Kantrov

Women’s business is an essay written by Ilene Kantrov which is about some women from the United States of America who have been successful in business. It tells about other business women who followed Lydia’s footsteps. It deals the subject of how women took part in the business and what things were produced and sold by them.

In the beginning of this essay the writer describes about the business method of Lydia E Pinkham. In 1879 she appeared in the newspaper advertisement by advertising a remedy for “falling of the womb and all female weakness.”The medicine produced by her was known as Lydia E Pinkham’s Vegetable compound. She prepared the product by using traditional methods. She not only advertised for her product but also put forward women’s rights, temperance and fiscal reforms. She also opened a department of advice and suggested other women about diet, exercise and hygiene. She also printed testimonials from women reporting cures. She also advertised in courageous manner. As a result of such bold marketing, her she became very famous.

    

    In the following century some other women also followed her business pattern. Among them two were Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. They competed not only in selling cosmetics but also in luring {attracting) publicity by their marriages to European aristocrats. Elizabeth Arden also produced different facial treatments. She also practiced and advocated yoga. Her rival A Helena Rubinstein also published a book explaining the benefits of eating raw foods.

     

    Margaret Rudkin and Jennie Grossinger were other to women entrepreneurs that followed Lydia.E.Pinkham’s business pattern. Grossinger ran hotel in upstairs New York renowned for its food and entertainment. She had also hired a public relations man Margatet Rudkin produced additive free wheat bread that was very helpful to person suffering from asthma. At first she had baked such bread as diet for her asthmatic son. Next entrepreneur was Gertrude Muller who invented the “toidey seat”. With her products .She also enclosed her booklets about childrearing. One of her booklets was also distributed by doctors.

Next black female capitalist Annie Turnbo Malone also cast herself in the role of social activist .Her business was on a hair dressing preparation. She developed an innovative marketing strategy .She also established a school for training agents in her porosystem of hairdressing. Like other capitalist she also started advising other women about hygiene .Thrift and other homely virtues.

  

    Though the women capitalists aimed and to serve as well as sell, they frequently put profit head of altruism the latent conflict between the profit motive and the social service is perhaps best found in Lydia Pinkham.

I Have a Dream

-Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr-known for his policy of passive resistant and oratorical skills, a leader of black people and campaigner of civil rights-delivered the speech “I have a dream” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. King states that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation frees the slaves announced on 22 September 1862, American Constitution drew up in 1787 preserving of individual and federal states’ rights and Declaration of Independence based on unalienable rights; Life, Liberty and Pursuit of happiness issued on 4 July 1776 were limited on the paper but the implementation was strictly beyond from the people and nation. So King assists his views to provide freedom and equality to black peoples and eliminate the racial injustice by developing the sense of brother hood and sister hood and unity among black and white.

King questions on the implementation of written rights stating that Negros are still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination. They are neglected and are in exile in their own land. For freedom and equality, until the Negros is granted their citizenship rights, they will continue their non-violence revolution. In the response, they must forever conduct their struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline and allow their creative protest to degenerate in to physical force with soul force. Their action should not cause any distrust in among the white people because their destiny is tied up with the destiny of the white. So they should develop the sense of our.

The black people will be satisfied when they are not oppressed by the police brutality guided by white. When they are tired they must get lodging in the Motels and Hotels. They should be allowed to go where the whites go and get the rights to vote with the sense of why they are voting. King reinforces the people to keep the fighting until they get justice and they are created equal. His dream is deeply rooted in the American dream which gives the priority on material prosperity. It is a dream of freedom and equality, Justice and security, and dream of the land where the content of character is more important than color of skin. All the racists will no longer believe in color. The black and the whites will work together, eat together and they will be brothers and sisters. All the differences will disappear. There will be a sweet music of liberty which will be common of the Americans guided/inspired by Negros spirit resounding all over the country. At last they will all be free.

                                   A synopsis of I Have a Dream               

GODS GRANDEUR

                                                                                 Gerard Manley Hopkins

About Poet:  God’s Grandeur is a fine religious poem written by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Though Hopkins lived and wrote in the 19^th century, he is one of the leaders the modernist movement in poetry. His poem too, were published in the 20th century, first by Bridges in 1918 and then by Charles William in 1930.Hopkins was influenced at oxford by john Henry Newman and he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1866 and became a Jesuit two years later.

About Poem:      In this poem Hopkins praises the magnificence and glory of God in the world. The poem is about the presence of god in the world, existence of the nature, and behaviors of human beings. In the beginning of the poem the poet says that this world is filled with energy and power of god. God’s magnificence is spread all over the world. He also questions that many generations have passed in this world and everything on the earth has been made useless. Because of lack of divine will, human beings can’t feel the greatness of God. The world has been degraded and made ugly by commercial activity and materialistic aimed at worldly gains. He also says that human beings lose their sensitivity because of industrial activities. The earth has also been bare now but they can’t feel as that. But in the last six lines he expresses his belief that nature is never spent .Though the surface is spoilt. The freshness is deep down the things. He also says that the brown edge in the east is springing though the blackness is in the west. In the end of the poem he says that God is spiritually active in the world with his warm affection of love, so the Holy Ghost covers protectively over the world which is bent in sleep and forgetfulness.

Use of Rhetoric:  The idea of this poem is although people in the present time don’t obey God’s commands and think that the world is spoilt .This world is full of the glory of God and God is still present in this world spiritually. This poem is full of literary devices like alliteration and assonance .The words “seared bleared” are some examples. They have added beauty in the poem .The words,” have trod” have been repeated for three times. This repetition has been done to give emphasis. This is a sooner in which the poet has completed his saying in fourteen lines.

Interpretation: “God’s Grandeur” starts off with a claim: the earth is full God’s special power, God’s vitality. But the earth is ultimately temporary. The fire will go from it one day. It will reach a peak, then slowly spread, and then collapse. (This is confusing – don’t try to take Hopkins too literally. Let your imagination feel and see the images he presents).

The speaker states that the natural world is inseparable from God, but at the same time temporary. The speaker wants to know why don’t people don’t take better care of the natural world. Why don’t they recognize and respect the power of God that is running through our environment? He says that people have been endlessly tromping and trudging through the world for so long, and now the surface of the earth is calloused and burnt over by industry. It looks blurry and out of focus with all this industry, and endless hard work covering it.

According to the speaker, we humans stunk up the earth – everything looks and smells like people, and all the bad things people do. (The speaker doesn’t sound too keen on people here.) The ground we walk on doesn’t have any flowers or trees or grass on it. And we have to wear shoes, so we can no longer feel the ground itself. We have lost our connection with the natural world.

But don’t worry – the speaker assures us – nature never stops. It’s hiding underground, like a hidden spring. And even though the sun always sets in the west bringing darkness and night, it always rises again in the east, bringing light and morning. The speaker assures us that morning follows night, and light follows darkness, because the Holy Ghost is always hovering over the messed up world, pondering deeply, and worried. The upside, though, is that the Holy Ghost watches over the world and treats it in much the same way a bird would treat her unhatched eggs, providing comfort, security, warmth, beauty, and motion.

THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE GHOST SHIP

                                                                               Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This is a story written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian novelist .It is written in the stream of consciousness style. Here is no plot in the story in usual sense, but the story dose trace a chronology of events. Involving the protagonist’s passes from a time of weakness as a bay without a man’s strong voice to a time in which his strength and power are asserted his new man’s voice.

The protagonist of this story is the boy. Many years ago he had seen the huge ocean liner for the first time. It was without light and without any sound. It had been seen by the old slave port. The ship appeared and disappeared in the fifteen seconds. After sometime, it headed towards the shoals, and ran to the ground, broke up and sank without a single sound. At that time the boy was without a man’s strong voice and had stayed very late on the beach to listen to the wind’s nights harps. It was unbelievable to him and next day he himself thought it was a dream and he didn’t tell anyone and didn’t remember the vision.

   Again in the same night on the following march, he saw the illusory liner by the slave port. It was appearing and disappearing as in the previous time. Then the boy told his mother about the ship. But she didn’t believe and felt sad. But she sent a boat man to see what had happened .The boatman couldn’t see anything except different fish and hairs of drowned victims. But the boy insisted and his mother promised to watch with him the next March .In the same night of the next march she sat in an easy chair and started thinking about her husband who had died eleven years ago. Next morning when the boy came to see his mother he found her dead body in easy chair. Then the boy became orphan.

        In the following March, he again saw the huge liner and cried to inform others .There also came some villagers after hearing his voice, but they could not see the liner and they became angry and beat him seriously. They also thought him as the source of disaster and didn’t give any charity .So he had to steal fish from the boat. But the boy determined to show the villagers who he was .In the same night of the next march he rowed a stolen boat in the sea of the slave port towards the mouth of the bay. He suddenly found the huge liner in front of him .It seemed that the liner was grouping for the invisible channel. It didn’t have any light and sound. The boy lighted the lantern that was in his boat .That lantern guided the pilot and the liner corrected its course and followed the next day the boy was able to guide the liner up to the shoals. On the bank the liner seemed very large. It was twenty times taller than the steeple and some ninety-seven times longer than the village with its name engraved in iron letters, Halalsilag. The villagers also came to see that liner .They were very much surprised to see the largest ocean liner in front of the this is a story if self-discovery. It tells us that truth is obtained after great efforts.

A Story

                                                                                           – Thomas, Dylan (Marlais) (1940-1953)

A Story, written by Dylan Thomas, is a narrative story in which a child is the narrator. It humorously presents the adult’s world from the perspective of a boy. The story is about a day’s outing to porthcawl by charabanc (old motor coach).The boy, narrator, used to live with his uncle and his wife when he was so high and much nice as in the child. The uncle was red hairy, noisy and so big like a buffalo, his noise like a sound of dismantling ship and his braces  are straining like steel cables but his wife (aunt) was small and quiet and moved about on padded paws (quickly like a cat).His uncle Thomas had a small shop in front of the house.

One evening, when the boy was reading an advertisement for sheep-dip at his uncle’s shop, three persons came there. At that time he felt that narrow shop would burst. And it was like all being together in a drawer that smelled of cheese and turps and twist tobacco and sweet biscuits and snuff and waistcoat. Uncle and his friends talked about their annual outing. Mr. Benjamin Franklyn had collected enough money for the bus and twenty cases of pale ale (beer) but will sentry had followed him. He could not get privacy at all. When Franklyn was known Bill was keeping an eye on the money he was surprised that they supposed him to be dishonest.

One Sunday evening the boy and his uncle were not allowed to play checkers so they were eating sardines. Mr. Franklyn and will came in with the list of every one paid fully. The uncle checked the list and approved it. When Franklyn and Bill sentry went out, his uncle’s wife said that she would go to her mother questioning to his uncle whether he liked her or the outing. The uncle chose the trip then she hit on his head with china dog lifted on chair her by uncle. After that she was quiet and quick all the day. On the Sunday morning the child found a note on the kitchen wrote by his aunt stating to his uncle that there were some eggs in the in the pantry, take his boots of before he went to bed and she had already left home. Then the uncle told him that it was same every year.

The charabanc drew up outside and the members of outing objected the when his uncle bringing him because he had not paid his contributions. After they were talking about others and forgot the boy. When they crossed out of the village they were found that they had left old O’ Jones. They had to drive back to receive him to village later Jones got on Mr. Weazely wanted to return his home to take his teeth but other said that would not be necessary for Jones.

The Charabanc pulled up outside the mountain sheep near the small pub. The land lord-long lean man- welcomed them as a wolf must have welcomed the sheep. They were gone to the pub and that boy was kept on watching the Charabanc to save from stealing. Forty-five minutes after, A French-onion-seller bicycled down the road and stopped at the door. The boy followed him to get pub. But he could not recognize the member of outing because of they turned red. They were all drunk so they were shouting and arguing. They had drunk the bar dry Mr. Weazley had won string of onion but they were useless without his teeth. Then they left bar. Whenever a public house crossed over, they had to stop because Mr. Weazley would be coughed like a Billy goat because of he was dying of berth. Even the bar was locked; they would drink outside the doors.

On the way there was a river and all they went in to the cool water on to the slippery stones. Some of them were slipped on the stone and his uncle said it was better than Porthcawl. That was being dusk. All thirty members of the outing were drunk and wet. They were taking enjoy without caring the outer realism of the world. They stopped at the Hermit’s Nest for a run to keep out the cold. On the way home, through the moonlight, old O’Jones was cooking supper in the middle of the Charabanc. Mr. Weazley coughed himself blue in the smoke. Then they all chimed down in to the moonlight. They carried out the remaining cases of pale ale and drank with crushed potatoes and sausage sitting down in a circle. At last, the boy began to sleep against his uncle’s mountainous waistcoat but will sentry called out who went there on the moon.

A synopsis of A Story

Summary of ‘Traveling Through the Dark’

                                                                                           William Stafford

‘Traveling Through the Dark’ is a poem by William Stafford well known for its narrative and the emotionally difficult situation in which the narrator discovers himself that readers easily could overlook the work’s technical excellence. It presents a great tension between the two realities, two system of life. On one hand are efficiency and responsibility, unglamorous virtues that we learn to admire when we face danger or loss. On the other hand, there are emotions warmer than efficiency and much deeper than good judgment.

Literal Interpretation:

While travelling through the dark, the narrator finds a dead deer on the edge of the Wilson river road. He very clearly rationalizes that the best way is to push it into the river as the road is narrow, it may cause more accident. With the help of the light of the tail-light of the car, he reached the heap and found that it was a recent killing of the doe. She was already stiffened so he started dragging her off. But he found that she was pregnant and the fawn was there still and alive waiting to be born. He was suddenly stopped in his physical action and the mental action began. When he touched the side he came up with a reason. He stood there thinking about the baby. The engine inside the car was making a purr sound. He was turned red in the glare of the warm exhaust. He couldn’t decide what to do at the moment. He felt it very hard to bring out any good judgment. Meanwhile, he pushed her in the river. Eventually he did what he said in the beginning. He thought it the only alternative finally stood in front of him.

Critical Interpretation:

The poem carefully combines more formal elements with the relaxed diction of free verse. The lines involve variations of rhythm like the iambic pentameter. Stafford also flirts with rhyme by employing near rhymes, half rhymes, and off rhymes, particularly relying on assonance or consonance: “road” and “dead”; “killing” and “belly”; “waiting” and “hesitated”; “engine” and listen”; “swerving” and “river.” The partial and imperfect rhymes hide the poem’s deliberate construction enough that the language does not appear forced or artificial, with the narrative sounding frank and unfiltered. With its four quatrains and closing couplet, the poem even seems to feel like a camouflaged form, one that resembles an extended sonnet and reads like one.

Throughout the poem, Stafford embeds internal rhymes or echoing sounds as well, subtly delivering an underlying lyricism that does not call too much attention to itself; instead, the words almost come across as delivered in natural speech. The speaker’s informality seems as intimate as an admission confided to a friend or family member. In fact, Stafford has reported the initiation of this poem began as he related the story to one of his children the morning after he’d returned from teaching late one night, having experienced the event dramatized in the poem’s lines.

Many have observed the ways William Stafford bridges conflicting worlds in his poem: the human and nature, civilization and the wilderness, technology and the environment, emotion and reason, the physical and the mystical, life and death. As a number of other poets have done, Stafford conveys the clash that occurs when one state intrudes on the other, crosses unmarked borders, and delight drifts into disaster.

Beginning the poem, the speaker at first chronicles a moment of discovery with an opening line that would appear positive if isolated: “Traveling through the dark I found a deer . . .” In fact, Stafford organizes his lines and words so carefully that he directs the reader through the experience both spatially and spiritually, as he evokes and lifts levels of emotion. The order in which he reveals his finding is also remarkable: “the heap, a doe, a recent killing.” The speaker brings his reader closer while also gradually unveiling disturbing specificity. The speaker continually moves from darkness to light, from ignorance to comprehension. He repeats the technique later when he touches the deer: “her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, / alive, still, never to be born.” The process moves from life to death, from an awareness of the situation to an understanding of the consequences. (The various options for interpreting the word still: quiet, motionless, inanimate, stillborn, even now, yet, nevertheless, in spite of that, etc.) Indeed, at one point physical contact also causes a shift from the emotional to the rational: “My fingers touching her side brought me the reason.”

The need to make a decision in this situation confronted by the speaker leaves no pleasant choice. His options are as narrow as the road he travels in that mysterious and dark night. In the first stanza, he already acknowledges he must clear the route, “to swerve might make more dead.” However, by the final lines in the closing couplet, he returns to words originally mentioned in that opening stanza, and to his pattern of contemplation: “I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—, / then pushed her over the edge into the river.” Ironically, as many might suggest, in literature a river often symbolizes life, but also the inevitable passing of time that does not hesitate for anyone.

One could question the reference to “us all,” and wonder whether Stafford has the right to include everyone in his thinking. On the other hand, the speaker could only be referring to the group present at the scene: the deer, the fawn, the animated automobile whose engine “purred” as the speaker ironically gives life to this object along with the “wilderness” that is listening, the traveler himself, and even the reader now in attendance. In either case, Stafford creates a dramatic moment, a pause for reflection before he acts, as he knows he must.

Stafford’s imagery creates ambiguity and blurs distinctions between participants. When he writes, “I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red,” the syntax implies almost equally that the exhaust was turning red but so was the speaker, and some of the emotions traditionally associated through symbolism or connotations linked to the color red (blood, embarrassment, anger, aggression, conflict, violence, sacrifice, war, a warning of danger, etc.) may be evoked and loosely tied to the speaker’s state of mind.

To sum up, the poem reveals many darkness such as physical darkness, moral darkness, emotional and reasoning darkness through the beautifully interweaved words into narrative and stative stanzas by both mental and physical actions.

SUMMARY OF HURRIED TRIP TO AVOID A BAD STAR

                                                                                          M. Lilla & C. Bishop Barry

The essay “Hurried Trip To Avoid a Bad Star” by M. Lilla and C. Bishop Barry is taken from the article “Karnali, Roadless World of Western Nepal” which was published first in the National Geographic 140.5 (November, 1971). It presents an exploration of the region which the authors did on foot for fifteen adventures months.

The authors started their trek from Jumla to view how Karnali Zone is economically linked to lowland regions of the south, Terai.  The fellow travelers from the nearby area carried baskets filled with medicinal herbs, hashish, hand-knit sweaters and blankets to sell in terai. When they came over the steep of Hari lekh, of about 11,350 ft, they met a Chhetri woman of 30. She told him that her husband had gone to terai in search of work 15 yrs ago but didn’t return yet. So as he seems from the distant village she told him to send her husband if he had been in those areas.

Thereafter in an oak and rhododendron forest of about 9,000 ft they saw a group of eight or nine men working around a small fire processing silajit, from a tar like deposit which oozes from mountains in their home valley, Sinza. When asked why they hadn’t processed it in their home, they replied that they were under a bad star so they left their village and processed it on the way. According to them, they should do any work on a propitious day. That’s why, to avoid the bad star, they hurriedly made their trip at night. This portion of this essay gives its title.

As they descended lower regions, winter gradually lessens. Their way passed through a saal forest where they saw skeletal looking bare saal tress with hardly few leaves left on few of them. They heard a chopping sound from all directions. They saw women chopping the left green branches and leaves for their domestic animals. When Barry described the prospects of deforestation to them, shrugging their shoulders they asserted that the cows must eat. This showed them that the mountain would be bare and eroded in a few years.

Finally they reached Nepalgunj. There he saw all the fellow travellers were busy in buying sweets, doughy pretzels, machinery goods and ironware, spice, jewellery and distillery equipments.

Looking at such the hardest way of life, the geographers appreciated the people. The agriculture yields only subsistence reluctantly. So they have to combine farming with other pursuits for which they need to make journey through formidable paths.

To sum up the essay, it highlights how the people of Karnali zone are dependent on terai for their bread and basket because of the lack of trade, good market, employment opportunity, industry. They produce their food crops and handicrafts but there’s no market to supply it. They have to descend to terai for work. They have to come to lowland regions to buy basic goods for their life. Besides, the essay also depicts the predicament of the Karnali people showing their account of lifestyle, superstition, tradition and culture of thousand years old and simple human frailties set against the staggering backdrop of Himalayas at an altitude of 11,000 ft in the remotest mountain province of Karnali via plateau down to the plains of terrain, Nepalgunj.

 

Summary of “Two Long-Term Problems: Too Many People, Too Few Trees”

                                                                                                                                                                                              Moti Nissani

The essay entitled “Two Long-Term Problems: Too many People, Too Few Trees” by Moti Nissani provides a brief introduction to the twin problems of Overpopulation & Deforestation. The essay opens with the conclusion of “The World Scientists Warning to Humanity”of the year 1992, which states that human beings and natural world are on a collision course because of the harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment by human activities. It further mentions that if those activities aren’t checked in time the life we imagine won’t sustain on the earth. So to avoid the collision course the fundamental change is urgent. Thereafter, the essay states the conclusion of joint statement of the same year, the Royal Society of London and U.S. National Academy as to achieve the sustainable development on the earth, the irreversible degradation of the environment should be halted for which the forthcoming 30 yrs would be crucial.

The essayist then moves on to the aggravated states of the present world and environment. Some of them are;

• The chances of contracting cancer, emphysema (breathe trouble), asthma and other diseases are much more than earlier
• The trouble of the effects of the things like lead and dioxin on children’s health and intelligence
• Loss of true wilderness
• Afraid of having poison everywhere in farm, in food, in forest, in water, soils etc.
• Disappearance of many species of animals and birds from the ecosystem
• Growing ignorance towards carrying capacity and sustainability
• Production of long lived poison
• Problem of pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification etc

These exacerbated conditions of the world and environment make Nissani believe that the world is really facing the challenge of overpopulation. Human populations have been in flux. Since the beginning, the birth rate was slightly higher than the death rate. But with the advancement in medicine, sanitation and nutrition the balance between the birth rate and the death rate has been disturbed and the birth rate has gone much higher than the death rate which causes the rapid growth in population. Let us consider the example of Nepal.

 

Year	Population	Growth rate (%)
1951	9 million
1991	23million	2.5
2000	24 million +
2026	46 million
2165	368 million

 

In such a case when Nepal isn’t able to support 23 million how can it support 44 million let alone 368 million? More people need more food to survive, more place for settlement.

Because of the higher population

• The pollution of rivers, lakes, air, drinking water and soil increases

• The quality and value of life will be eroded.
• Hospitals and production of food often fail to keep pace with the growing number of population for improved quality of life
• Aggravation of crime, ethnic conflicts and warfare.
• Occurrence of challenging and frightening problems such as desertification, depletion of nonrenewable resources, acid rain, loss of wild species, ozone layer depletion, and the greenhouse effect etc.

To save the biosphere, the population growth should be controlled. Many countries like Germany, China, Thailand and Egypt have proved by controlling the population growth. Many factors such as

• Modernization
• Literacy
• Media campaigns
• Readily available family planning measures and contraceptives
• Equal economic, educational and legal opportunities for women

Can help check or control overpopulation.

Deforestation is the other long-term problem caused directly or indirectly by population explosion. Because of the poverty and other factors, third world people are forced to move into, harvest, clear, burn or cultivate tropical forest. They convert forest into farmland. They destroy forest

• For fuel.
• for dam and pastures
• for producing paper, for making furniture, fulfilling insatiable demand of burger
• Many forests are damaged by pollution, tourism, construction of houses and factories.

The destruction of forests, in turn, leads to many problems such as greenhouse effect, irreversible loss of many thousands of species of plants and animals, landslides, soil erosion, siltation of river and dams, droughts and weather extremes. The consequences of deforestation are uncertain. Anything can happen but they are sure to damage the quality of life on earth.

The essayist suggests various measures should be taken to prevent deforestation and its several consequences. They are;

• Easing population pressure on tropical forests through effective investments in family planning and education
• Moves towards participatory democracy
• Providing economic opportunity to the poor and illiterate
• Greater efficiency in the use of wood products (through tax) or recycling
• Reforestation
• Use of technological innovations

Concluding the essay, the essay emphasizes that we know it can be done, how it can be done, for the sake of our children and other creatures sharing this planet. So we have knowledge but in the lack of courage, compassion and wisdom we are unable to convert our knowledge into reality.