Snow Melting on Mount Kilimanjaro
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT.
A new study says ancient snow on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone in about twenty years. Huge layers of ice formed on the African mountain during a wet period about eleven-thousand years ago. But scientists say the ice on top of the mountain is melting because of rising temperatures in recent years.
Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio led the study. It was published in Science magazine. The scientists used maps, modern 1)navigational satellites and markers placed on the mountain to measure the ice. They found the ice on Mount Kilimanjaro has 2)shrunk from about twelve square kilometers in nineteen-twelve to about two square kilometers today. That is about an eighty percent reduction in the ice. Scientists say the ice will be gone by the year two-thousand-twenty if it continues to melt at its current rate.
Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa. It is almost five-thousand-nine-hundred meters high. The top part of the mountain is covered with snow. The mountain rises above flat land, called the 3)savannah. The land is home to many different kinds of animals.
Many stories have been written about the famous mountain. The most famous is Ernest Hemingway's “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. Some ancient beliefs in Africa consider the mountain to be a holy place.
About twenty-thousand people visit Mount Kilimanjaro every year to see the famous snow-topped mountain. It even has its own international airport. The government of Tanzania fears that the melting ice will affect tourism and weaken the economy. The decreasing ice already has reduced the amount of water flowing from the mountain to some Tanzanian rivers. Water from the mountain supplies many villages.
The scientists are working to save pieces of the shrinking ice for more study. The frozen layers tell about Africa's weather in ancient times. The ice also provides information about the world's climate. Experts say other ice glaciers around the world are melting because of climate change caused by human activities. But they say natural climate change could be the cause of Mount Kilimanjaro's problems.
This VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT was written by Cynthia Kirk.
World Food Day
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
More than one-hundred countries celebrated World Food Day on October sixteenth. The event 1)observed the establishment of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in nineteen-forty-five. The main message of this year's World Food Day was “Water: Source of Food Security”.
Officials want people to understand how a lack of water can help cause a lack of food. Officials say the world's fresh water supply must be supervised more carefully in order to increase the world's food supply.
Water covers about seventy-five percent of the Earth's surface. Yet, only a small amount is fresh water that can be used for crops. Experts say food production will decrease as the ability to use these fresh water sources becomes restricted. UN officials estimate about seventy percent of the total amount of fresh water is used by farmers for their crops.
Officials say the need for food increases as the world's population grows. The UN estimates that by the year two-thousand-thirty, the world will need sixty percent more food. Most of that increase in food will come from intensified agriculture supported by water 2)irrigation. However, fresh water is already in short supply in many countries.
Jacques is the director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. He says that twenty countries do not have enough water to produce the food their populations need. Ten nations withdraw more than forty percent of their total fresh water resource for agriculture.
Mister Diouf fears that the problem will only worsen as the need for water by people and industry grows. Mister Diouf warns that it takes one-thousand times more water to feed the human population than it does to satisfy its thirst for drinking water. Because of this, water is one of the most important issues in the world today.
This year's World Food Day attempted to increase public knowledge about Earth's growing fresh water problem. Countries around the world marked the day with special events. Organizers urged policymakers to approve new measures to control water use for agriculture.
The Food and Agriculture Organization will take part in the International Year of Freshwater next year. It will also be present at the third World Water Forum in Japan next year.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Jill Moss.
This is Bill White.
World Health Report 2002
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English Development Report.
The 1)life expectancy of people around the world could increase by five to ten years if action against common health risks is taken. This is one of the findings in this year's World Health Report released recently by the World Health Organization. The report is called “Reducing Risks, Promoting Life”.
Researchers found that ten major threats to good health are common around the world. The chief of the World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, called them the ten leading killers. They include unsafe sex, poor nutrition, high blood pressure, use of tobacco and alcohol, unsafe water and unclean living conditions. Also included are high levels of dangerous fat in the blood, indoor smoke from solid fuels, a lack of iron in the body and too much body weight, or 2)obesity. Together, these ten health risks make up forty percent of the fifty-six-million deaths worldwide each year.
Doctor Brundtland called for reducing the ten main health risks by twenty-five percent within ten years. If this were done, life expectancy in industrial countries could increase by ten years. In developing countries, it could increase by five years.
Currently, the number of life years lost because of these health risks differs around the world. Doctor Brundtland says the differences these health risks create between rich and poor nations are shocking. For example, about one-hundred-seventy-million children in poor countries are 3)underweight. They do not weigh enough because they do not get enough food. However, more than one-thousand-million adults around the world are too fat. These people are mostly in rich, industrial countries.
Doctor Brundtland warns that the cost of 4)inaction is serious. For example, she says nine-million deaths a year linked to smoking will be reported by two-thousand-twenty if steps are not taken soon. Currently, about five-million people die each year from diseases related to smoking.
Doctor Brundtland says that AIDS and the H-I-V virus are having a huge effect on the length of life in Africa. Currently, life expectancy at birth in southern Africa is forty-seven years. The W-H-O estimates that ninety-five percent of H-I-V 5)infections in Africa were caused by unsafe sex. She says there is an urgent need for sex education and the use of 6)condom devices to prevent the spread of H-I-V.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss.
Pest Management
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Since nineteen-forty-five, farmers have used 1)pesticides, poisons made from chemicals, to kill insects that damage crops. One serious problem with pesticide use is that people get sick. Every year about five-hundred-thousand people are poisoned by pesticides. About ten-thousand people die.
Some scientists are working to develop other ways to keep insects and disease organisms from harming crops. One method is to choose plants that show a natural resistance to certain insects. Then these plants are used to produce new plants. The new plants will have more resistance than the parent plants. For example, corn or 2)maize plants grown to have more Vitamin A than normal plants can fight off insects that feed on their leaves.
However, if levels of Vitamin A get too high, humans and animals that eat the maize may get sick. So it is important to study this kind of insect control very carefully.
Some plants produce natural poisons against insects. For example, potato plants produce poisons everywhere in the plant, including sometimes in the potato itself. These poisons kill insects. But they can also kill people. People should never eat potatoes that have turned green after being left in the sun.
Another method is to plant crops when the harmful insects are not present. In this way the plants grow before the insect 3)population gets too large to damage them. Grains such as wheat and barley are planted in this way to protect them from an insect known as the 4)Hessian fly.
Water also can be used to limit harmful insect populations. One method is to add a lot of water to 5)alfalfa plants growing in a field. Other smaller plants grow and limit insects like 6)aphids. Limiting water in certain situations can have the same effect.
Turning over the soil, called plowing or 7)tilling, is a way to keep small organisms that cause disease from attacking the plant. Like the other methods, this must be done with care. Plowing can cause soil to be blown away by wind and water. The loss of soil from plowing has become a major environmental problem around the world.
You can get more information about pest management from the group, Volunteers in Technical Assistance. You can contact VITA through the Internet at its world wide web address w-w-w dot v-i-t-a dot o-r-g (www.vita.org).
1)Solar House Competition
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT.
Experts say in the near future, many houses in the United States will be powered by energy from the sun. Many people in Washington, D.C, recently were able to see what some of those homes might look like. Several hundred college students from across the country took part in a competition to see who could build the best solar-powered house. The United States Department of Energy organized the competition.
Students from fourteen colleges and universities took part in this Solar 2)Decathlon competition. Student teams competed in a series of ten contests to see who could design, build and operate the best house powered only by the sun.
The solar homes were built on 3)the National Mall, the grassy open area between the United States 4)Capitol building and the Washington Monument. The solar houses were set up in the middle.
Each team included at least twenty students of design, architecture and building sciences. The students gained the money to buy equipment and materials for their house. Each house cost as much as two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars to build.
A solar-powered house has a roof designed to take in the heat of the sun and change it to energy. That power is then stored in a 5)battery bank which supplies power to the whole house.
As part of the competition, the teams were expected to spend most of the day in their homes doing normal activities. The activities used electricity powered by the sun. For example, the students cooked food, used computers, operated lights and washed clothes in machines. They even drove around the solar village in electric cars powered by a solar battery.
Richard King is the director of the United States Department of Energy's solar energy programs. He created the idea for the Solar Decathlon. He says the contest is designed to show Americans that solar energy works. He says the use of solar energy in the United States is less than in other parts of the world. Seventy-percent of solar equipment made in the United States is sold to developing countries.
Mister King says only about twenty-thousand American homes are solar-powered. He says contests such as the Solar Decathlon could influence more builders and homeowners to support the use of solar energy.
This VOA Special English ENVIRONMENT REPORT was written by Cynthia Kirk.
1)Organic Food Labeling
This is Bill White with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Last month, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman announced a program that will set new rules for “organic” agricultural products in the United States. Mizz Venemen said the new rules will increase public trust in the organic food industry.
Organic foods represent a fast-growing market of products that provide a choice for the American public. Americans can now buy products that are grown or raised without added chemicals.
New laws for organic foods make the use of the word “organic” the same throughout the food industry. Americans who buy an organic product can now be sure that government rules support that claim.
Under the new rules, organic meat, chicken, eggs and milk products must come from animals that have not been given drugs or chemicals to increase growth. Organic crops must be grown without using most chemical pesticides that kill insects and other crop-destroying organisms. There are also restrictions on the kind of 2)fertilizers used for plants that are to be marked “organic”. In general, organic farmers grow or raise food using 3)reusable resources.
For the first time, any product that is marked “all organic” must now contain one-hundred-percent organic material. A product that calls itself “organic” must be at least ninety-five percent organic. And a product must contain seventy-percent organic material to claim that it is “made with organic” substances.
The Department of Agriculture says it makes no claims that organic foods are safer than other products. However, many people consider organic foods healthier. Americans will now be able to know if a food product is organic by a newly designed sign, or label, from the Department of Agriculture. Food producers can chose to put the label on their products if they meet federal requirements.
Organic foods are not a new development in food production. They have been grown in the United States since the late nineteen-forties. In fact, so-called organic ways of growing and raising food are the oldest ways. The need to show a difference between organic and non-organic production has come about in modern times. Oil-based fertilizers, genetic engineering and man-made growth chemicals have made labeling products “organic” necessary.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Mario Ritter.
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