Climate Change is nowadays one of the most important problems on Earth.
This phenomenon is due to human activity: toxic gases such as carbon dioxide produced by factories or exhaust fumes from transport polluting the air.
On the one hand, this toxic atmosphere is the cause of some diseases, for instance, allergy and asthma: in huge cities like Mexico, people have to wear masks, owing to the fumes of cars, motorbikes, planes… On the other, global warming is occurring as a result of carbon dioxide emissions, because it absorbs and retains heat in the atmosphere and, as a consequence, global weather patterns and temperatures are being upset and this is called Climate Change.
If we don’t stop this, we are going to suffer extreme consequences.
Firs of all, the ice caps are melting due to the increasing temperatures. Consequently, sea levels will rise and cities or villages in the coast will be flooded in few years. Therefore, people who live there will have to move to other cities and a lot of islands won’t exist any more. There will be a lot of citizens living in a limited space! Furthermore, many people will have lost their jobs which depend on tourism (hotels, restaurants, amusement parks..)
This situation is very dangerous and we have to find a solution for future generations. However, this is difficult because everybody has to be aware of the problem and make an effort.
First, in a personal level, I think each person should use a means of transport that doesn’t pollute, such us bicycles, public transport or walk more often: we could thus reduce the number of cars circulating and their emissions. Besides, in my opinion, we should pay a congestion charge in all big cities.
At home, we must separate and recycle rubbish and stop using plastic bags: we should use reusable cotton bags instead. We can choose not too buy things with excessive plastic package.
We should also choose renewable energy produced by wind farms or solar panels.. and reduce the use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas which produce a lot of carbon dioxide.
The government should pass environmentally friendly laws and all factories should meet certain standards in order to reduce their toxic emissions.
This is a vital matter for human beings, as well as the other living beings in our planet. Therefore, everybody will have to do something about it.
Paula Bartolomé, Elena Jimenez and Lara Torres are students in First Bachillerato. This mix of their essays shows the structure , contents and connectors (cause, effect, consequence, example, adittion, opinion…) as well as correct punctuation , Grammar and specific Vocabulary required for this kind of composition. I am also hopeful that these small contributions will help rise awareness about environmental concerns and make people do the right thing.
Thank-you!
Las orillas literarias del Mississippi
El Mississippi es un río que da mucho de sí. Dicen las gentes poco informadas que América no tiene historia, como si la historia fuese una cuestión relacionada con la vejez y el tiempo. En cambio, yo veo la historia en relación con la intensidad de la vida. Pongo un ejemplo: ¿cuál es la historia de Suiza? Será extensísima si uno la cuenta por siglos y estará llena de aristócratas ariscos, egoístas y gigantones, pero a nadie le emociona en exceso, que yo sepa. ¿A quién va a apasionarle un país dominado por los banqueros y cuyo gran invento es el reloj de cuco? En cambio, los Estados Unidos, como quien dice un país casi recién nacido, presenta una historia apabullante, la más intensa de casi todas las peripecias históricas de nuestros días. Sumen, si no, acontecimientos: descubrimiento, colonización, guerra de la Independencia, guerra de Secesión, conquista del Oeste, industrialización; y los indios, los gánsteres, los pistoleros, la lucha por los derechos civiles, la guerra de Vietnam… Nueva York, las Vegas, San Francisco… ¡qué se yo! Compare el lector con el reloj de cuco. La Historia del mundo contemporáneo tiene su mayor protagonismo en este joven país de América.
Hace unos meses, viajé recorriendo un buen tramo del río Mississippi, entre la localidad de Hannibal, al norte de la ciudad de San Luis, y Nueva Orleáns, en su desembocadura en el Golfo de México. Hannibal es el pueblo en donde nació y pasó su infancia y primera juventud el escritor Mark Twain, cuyo nombre bautismal era Samuel Clemens. Y el pueblo, al que en la ficción llamó San Petersburgo, es el escenario de sus más famosas novelas: “Las aventuras de Tom Sawyer” y “Huckleberry Finn”.
Hannibal hoy es casi un parque temático dedicado al escritor. No sólo hay dos estatutas suyas en la localidad, sino otra en la calle principal que representa a Huck y Tom, hombro con hombro, partiendo en busca de aventuras. La casa en donde nació Twain es un museo que celebra su memoria y hay un restaurante que se llama como él y otro bautizado Tom Sawyer. El escritor, que era un gran humorista, se hubiera tronchado de risa al ver su retrato encima de una hamburguesa y a su personaje ofreciendo “hot dogs”.
Rio abajo llega uno al condado imaginario de Yoknapatawpha, que en realidad se llama Lafayette, y que constituye el territorio sobre el que se cimenta casi toda la obra novelística de William Faulkner. El escritor, que nació en el pueblo de Oxford, muy cerca del rio Mississippi, pasó casi toda su vida en su pueblo y, como es natural, su casa es también museo. En Oxford han sido más discretos que en Hannibal y no hay ninguna hamburguesería que se llame Faulkner.
Y en fín, más abajo, en New Orleans, junto a la boca del rio, Tennesse Williams situó algunos de sus dramas, entre ellos el inolvidable “Un tranvía llamado deseo”.
Muchos de quienes afirman que los Estados Unidos carecen de Historia, suelen añadir que tampoco cultura. Y yo me pregunto: ¿Qué rio de Suiza –por no decir de Europa- puede presumir de haber visto crecer en sus orillas tanta y tan grande literatura?
Filed under: Students´Own
¿Has oido hablar de Proust?
Básicamente, se levantó una mañana y al desayunar tomó una magdalena: el sabor desencadenó un torrente de recuerdos que plasmó en siete tremendos volúmenes: En busca del tiempo perdido.
“Y de pronto el recuerdo surge. Ese sabor es el que tenía el pedazo de magdalena que mi tía Leoncia me ofrecía, después de mojado en su infusión de té o de tila, los domingos por la mañana en Combray.”
Bueno, esto es algo parecido… a nivel escolar… Many thanks to Sofía, Francho, Raúl, Laura, Javier. 4ºESO
SMELL, ODOUR, PERFUME, SCENT, AROMA
WATER
The smell of the sea reminds me of holidays because I used to go to the beach with my family. And I have always liked the smell of rivers because in summer I used to have lunch with some friends and later, we would go to the river for bathing and sunbathing. Did you know that each river has a particular smell?
WILD-WOOD
The smell of wood makes me think of the Sunday excursions I used to do when I was a kid because I used to love it and I still like going to the mountains whenever I can.
The smell of the grass always reminds me of the football matches with my friends at the end of the class.
CHOCOLATE & CO
The smell of hot chocolate reminds me of my childhood: when I was about six years old, my family and I used to play chess, parcheese and cards and drink hot chocolate in winter afternoons.
I’ve always liked the smell of butter, because it makes me think of France. However, I don’t like the smell of cheese because it brings memories of feet, so I never eat it!
BOOKS
Another smell I like is that of new, unpacked books – it always makes me think of my first year at school: I was anxious to start and I bought the text books in September.
FLAVOUR- TASTE
When I taste some fish, it makes me think of my summer holidays on the beach when, at night, we had dinner in the “chiringuitos”.
Oranges and paella remind me of Valencia, too. I can remember my grandfather cooking the “paella” and my uncle picking the oranges from the tree.
The taste of cookies brings back memories as well: when my grandmother made them. Now she still makes them and when I taste these cookies I can´t help thinking they are the best biscuits in the world!
There are some other flavours that make me think of the past… for example, there was a type of candies called “Sugus” that I used to eat when I was a child. Nowadays, I hardly ever eat them but, when I do, I remember the good old times, so careless and easy-going!
SOUNDS GOOD
There are sounds that make me think of my childhood, too.
For instance, when I listen to a lullaby, I immediately remember when my mum put me to sleep.
I also like the sea-sound (I think is one of the most beautiful sounds ever) because it reminds me of my summer holidays on the beach. I spent the best moments of my childhood there so I feel sad and happy at the same time when I listen to it and remember those moments…
Besides, there are other sounds and songs that bring back memories such as a specific type of bird (may be an owl) that I used to hear in summer evenings and mornings – if I now hear its voice in another place, I always think of the hot nights by the Mediterranean Sea.
On the other hand, the sound of cars brings back memories of a very big city and I imagine it sounds like an earthquake!
All of these memories remind me of nice things, of my past!
644 WORDS
Filed under: Uncategorized
Decía Jorge Manrique que cualquier tiempo pasado nos suele parecer mejor. Para los budistas, sin embargo, sólo existe el presente.
Alumnos de 4º ESO, recuerdan el pasado, cómo era su ciudad, qué solían hacer en sus días de infancia: Francho Acín, Martín Aso, Javier Bandrés, Guillermo Barrio, Daniel Lacasa, Sofía Lacasta, Claudia Lacasta, Laura Gómez, Raúl Betés, Bryan Lacassy, Cesar Casas, Oscar Bermejo, Gabriel Cabrera, Adrián Galindo, Lucía Lara…cada uno la suya, re-escriben, re-leen y juntos publican esta encantadora composición. 472 palabras.
El resultado merece el esfuerzo.
Filed under: Students´Own
Childhood, Like in Good Old Times!
Ten years ago my city was lovely. Now, it’s lovely too, but some things have changed…
When I was five years old, this place was a little village with some 10.000 inhabitants.
The first thing I can remember is that the city looked bigger ten years ago.
Jaca is a small city in the north but for me, at that time, it was like an enormous place which never ends!
There weren`t so many houses or cars. I can remember its old shops, the lovely winter with lots of snow, the corn harvest in the suburbs (now, blocks of flats everywhere).
There used to be a great Biscós Square with a little garden but now there’s a horrible Square with an underground car-park.
There also used to be small skiing resorts but they aren’t small now, they are huge resorts with a lot of noise and pollution. Is it necessary?
I also remember that there weren’t any motorways. Why? Because the town was very small and we didn’t need them!
When it was hot, for example, we used to go to the river and we ate there. We used to have salad, sandwiches and some ice cream. We used to watch the ducks and geese that there used to be by the river but now, all of them have disappeared.
Or we used to go to the mountains and we would run down the slope until we fell down!
When I was young – more than now- we also used to go to Zaragoza and buy some new clothes or we used to go out for a walk, that was very nice, too!
When it was snowing, we used to go to a big garden and make igloos or snowmen, very good times…
Although I had to go to school, I don’t remember that I had to study or do any homework… All the time was fun, and I used to play many games with my friends. My old school is closed forever, though, and now that I am at High School, we have a massive quantity of homework and exams!
My life now is harder than in the past but I like it anyway.
Nowadays, we can’t go to the cinema because it was closed four years ago. However, there’s a new swimming pool and there are many parks for children.
My friends and I go running every day and we also go to the supermarket to watch people go by at the weekends. It is fun!
And in summer, when the weather is hot, I sometimes go to the river with my friends and not with my parents, not anymore!
Finally, I don´t like the beach. I hate the sand! I prefer camping because when I do this, I am -more or less- relaxed.
When I was a child, I used to spend some time on the beach in summer. In the afternoon, I used to go to the park and I would play with my friends.
Then, in winter time, on Sunday evenings, I remember I used to read books with my mother. After that, we would go to my grandmother’s and we used to eat some biscuits. ♥
When I was four years old, I started skiing: I used to go to Somport. Later, when I was eight, approximately, I used to go to Candanchú. Then my father would help me with my heavy skis.
However, now I go to Astún where I always meet my friends and we ski a lot! And my father doesn´t help me with my skis anymore! ♣
When I was younger, I remember that I was in Jaca Summer School (a group that does many activities like sports, excursions, etc.). We used to go to the swimming pool at the end of every morning and almost always I would go swimming. Nowadays, I don’t go to the Summer School anymore because it is only for children. ◊
When I was five, I used to go to the park on Fridays, in the evening. After that, my grandfather would buy some chips for me. ♦
When I was 10, I used to go to the park with my parents, in the evenings. Then, they would buy some pop-corn for me and my friends. On winter evenings, I used to go to my grandmother´s home and we would see a film together with my cousins and my grandmother used to make some hot-chocolate for us….it was delicious! ♥
… But I have the best memories of all about my grandfather’s dogs; we used to give them their special food and my grandpa wouldn’t let us give them any other kind of food that wasn’t special for dogs: he looks after his dogs as if they were his own sons!
Afterwards, we used to take them for a little walk. However, it would take us a long time because those dogs used to run very quickly so we had to go panting behind them if we didn’t want to let them leave our land and cross the fence of our neighbours.
Growing up
When I was child I used to go to my village every Saturday with my family. There, we would have lunch with my grandparents. I liked it because my grandmother used to cook delicious food!
After having lunch, I used to play with my cousin: we would pretend to be a teacher or a hairdresser. We also used to draw pictures, we wouldn’t draw very well but we didn´t care!
Now my cousin and I prefer staying in Jaca on Saturday afternoons and going out with our friends.
Picking and Collecting
When I was only a child, some five or six years old…I recall that in autumn, I used to go for a walk with my father and my two brothers to look for some mushrooms and /or chestnuts because my father loves picking mushrooms.
My brothers and I used to compete for who would pick more chestnuts while my father would pick mushrooms because he knew which were poisonous and which not. We would only pick these ones!
After that, my mum would cook them for dinner and when the food was prepared, we all would sit together at the table. I remember that the chestnuts used to be very hot and I always got burnt!
And now, when I smell of a chestnut stall, it always reminds me of when I was six.
Ψ
When I was a child, I used to collect lots of things, but specially, I recall I used to keep leaves and flowers from all seasons: autumn, winter, spring and summer.
Then, I would order and glue them in a red notebook (it was my favourite notebook!). However, I didn’t use to show it to anybody, because it was my “secret”: I used to hide it in a little box in my bedroom. I used to love it!
ω
When I was younger, I used to play in the park with my friends and I would collect flowers and after that, in my house I would put them it in a beautiful box. When the flowers were dry I did a drawing of them. It´s very entertaining and it´s a nice form to decorate the walls.
∞
What about you? Did you use to collect something?
Recollections by Javier, Laura, Raul, Lucía, Cesar, Sofía, Raúl, Carlota, Laura, Laura, Lara, Noemí, Elena, Lydia, Alejandro, Marina, Eugenia, Johan…
Thank-you and congratulations!
My bright idea: Learn to want less
Following the frugal example set by our hunter gatherer forebears is the best way to combat today’s environmental challenges, says explorer Spencer Wells, explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.
Spencer Wells has a job that most people would kill for.
He is explorer-in-residence for National Geographic and his work has taken him to every corner of the globe. His particular interests have nothing to do with wild places, however. His fascination lies with the people who inhabit these remote corners: how did they get there and what are their biological relations with other inhabitants of the planet?
Wells is a geneticist and leader of the Genographic project, funded by National Geographic, which has traced the movements of human populations since we first emerged from our sub-Saharan homeland 100,000 years ago and colonised the planet. In the process of this work, Wells noted that a swath of genetic changes occurred to our species around 12,000 years ago.
This was a crucial period for humanity as it was around this time that agriculture began its inexorable spread across Europe and Asia, changing Homo sapiens from hunter-gatherers to farming folk. The consequences were profound and not always beneficial. They also point to future problems for our species, as Wells argues in his latest book, Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization (Allen Lane).
Why did humanity turn to agriculture 12,000 years ago?
We were backed into a corner. Conditions changed at the end of the ice age 17,000 years ago and, as the climate got warmer, populations began to expand.
Then, there was a sudden reversal to ice age conditions during the Younger Dryas period 12,500 years ago. The land could no longer support that growing population and we had to innovate – by developing farming. It made sense in the short term, but there were consequences, both pleasant and unpleasant.
Give us some examples.
Before agriculture, humans were living on diets that included more than 150 plant species. Then, we started farming and that figure went down to around eight. In fact, most calories came from wheat and barley, which are full of carbohydrates but have little protein. Human health declined sharply. We got shorter and life expectancy plunged. In many parts of the world, it has yet to recover.
You argue that there were other consequences for society.
Yes. When we were hunter-gatherers, we were relatively egalitarian.
Then, the population expanded and the first towns appeared. We had to find a way of ruling those people. So governments came into play. In addition, most hunter-gatherer societies today have a panoply of deities. Gods are everywhere. But as we started to control nature, we saw ourselves above nature. Gods start to take on a human form, so monotheism appears around this time.
Then there is the issue of sexual relationships, which were probably egalitarian, as they are among hunter-gatherers today. However, as we built more cities and, ultimately, empires, military might was needed and being physically strong and having military prowess became important. Men, being stronger than women, probably developed a higher social standing this way.
What about the future?
It is difficult to say what life is going to be like in 100 years, but certain things have clearly been set in motion, among them climate change. That is why I have developed the concept of transgenerational power – the idea that we are making decisions locally, in the here and now, though these will take generations to play out. We need more energy, so we pump the stuff out of the ground, but have only now realised, generations down the road, that there are unanticipated consequences.
Similarly, we are developing the ability to chose the genes we want for our offspring and, therefore, for our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren and so on.
Are we going to make the right decisions for the next century or the next millennium? We have not adapted psychologically to the notion of long-term consequences.
Can Homo sapiens do that?
We have to become capable of it. At the dawn of agriculture, there were around 5 million people on the planet. There are 6.8 billion today and this figure is expected to peak at around 9.5 billion by 2050. For the first time in 70,000 years, for lots of reasons, human numbers will have reached a steady state.
At that time, there will be more people moving into the retirement category and fewer people in the young worker category. There will be more people over 60 than under 15 for the first time in history – all over the world, not just in the developed world.
Will we be able to cope by 2050?
It is a question of utilising resources in a more intelligent way. I have a phrase for it: want less. I think that is the lesson we can take from current hunter-gatherer groups, people who still live in a way that our ancestors did. They live within constraints. We have got used to expansion and dominance. Learning to recognise that we have limitations is going to be important.
Are you hopeful?
I am because I think humans have the ability to innovate. The issue is seeing the consequences, realising that there is a cost to what we are doing and recognising that now. We are not adapted to think in those terms. But if we can see that there are tangible consequences to what we are doing in the here and now, then I think we will be spurred into action.
In the first of a series of articles about writers and landscapes, Robert Macfarlane argues that we must pay more careful attention to nature
While he was writing Tarka the Otter, Henry Williamson went feral. Daily, for months, he walked out alone into the great wedge of moor that is held between the rivers Taw and Torridge, where they tumble, divergent, off the north-west slope of Dartmoor.
During those seasons of river haunting, Williamson lived through the moor’s different weathers. Big scapular-shaped rain clouds, light trimming the wet rocks, coffee-coloured spate-water. At other times, sunlight, softness, wild swans beating through blue sky.
Sometimes he slept out overnight, in the lee of a bank or in a stand of trees. He would wake starred with frost, or hung with dew.
In the course of that strange and restless time, Williamson became, by his own reckoning, an otter-man. He rarely saw other people. Those he did, he sought to avoid. His affinity was with the moor’s creatures, and with its earth and water.
His ferality was, in part, an escape: the first world war had left Williamson deeply damaged, and the moor offered space and solace. But he was also in pursuit of a literary ideal. Williamson wanted to write about the Devon landscape he had come to love; to press the wildness of the river and the moor into words. And for that, the long months of fieldwork were necessary.
Williamson’s research was obsessive-compulsive – writing as method acting. He returned repeatedly to the scenes of Tarka’s story as it developed. He crawled on hands and knees, squinting out sightlines, peering at close-up textures, working out what an otter’s-eye view of Weest Gully or Dark Hams Wood or Horsey Marsh would be. So it is that the landscape in Tarka is always seen from a few inches’ height: water bubbles “as large as apples”, the spines of “blackened thistles”, reeds in ice like wire in clear flex. The prose of the book has little interest in panoramas – in the sweeps and long horizons which are given to eyes carried at five feet.
by Margaret Atwood
1. In the first age, we created gods. We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from shining metals and painted them on temple walls. They were gods of many kinds, and goddesses as well. Sometimes they were cruel and drank our blood, but also they gave us rain and sunshine, favourable winds, good harvests, fertile animals, many children. A million birds flew over us then, a million fish swam in our seas.
Our gods had horns on their heads, or moons, or sealy fins, or the beaks of eagles. We called them All-Knowing, we called them Shining One. We knew we were not orphans. We smelled the earth and rolled in it; its juices ran down our chins.
2. In the second age we created money. This money was also made of shining metals. It had two faces: on one side was a severed head, that of a king or some other noteworthy person, on the other face was something else, something that would give us comfort: a bird, a fish, a fur-bearing animal. This was all that remained of our former gods. The money was small in size, and each of us would carry some of it with him every day, as close to the skin as possible. We could not eat this money, wear it or burn it for warmth; but as if by magic it could be changed into such things. The money was mysterious, and we were in awe of it. If you had enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.
3. In the third age, money became a god. It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy, lamentations. It created greed and hunger, which were its two faces. Towers of glass rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again. It began to eat things. It ate whole forests, croplands and the lives of children. It ate armies, ships and cities. No one could stop it. To have it was a sign of grace.
4. In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.
Some of our wise men turned to the contemplation of deserts. A stone in the sand in the setting sun could be very beautiful, they said. Deserts were tidy, because there were no weeds in them, nothing that crawled. Stay in the desert long enough, and you could apprehend the absolute. The number zero was holy.
5. You who have come here from some distant world, to this dry lakeshore and this cairn, and to this cylinder of brass, in which on the last day of all our recorded days I place our final words: Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could fly.
Filed under: Students´Own
MY FAVOURITE PLACE
I think that the ideal place doesn´t exist.
But there is a place where I really like staying. And fortunately, I can be there everyday: it is my bedroom.
There, I can read and dream, I listen to my favourite music and practise my hobbies. In it, I rest when I am tired, I learn when I study and I spent some hours sleeping everyday.
So, good night, my bed is waiting for me!
MY FAVOURITE NATURAL PLACE
My favourite natural place is a valley that is between Jaca and Navarra.
The village in this valley is Ansó.
We often go there because my mother spent her childhood there; so we know a lot of people.
When we go there, we visit some friends, we eat “migas” in a typical “borda” and walk in the valleys of Zuriza and Linza.
When my sister and I were children, we played with the stones in the river and we flew a kite.
Nowadays, we also walk with rackets in the snow in winter.
It is a quiet and wonderful place with a lot of possibilities. I love going there!
Sofía Lacasta Millera, 3º ESO
