The world around us – maturitná otázka

The world around us

Introduction

Our world is very nice but also horrible. There are a lot of beautiful places here which fascinates us. Take Niagara falls the nature in than Alps for example. We can stay also in our republic. Boubín forest, Česká tabule, Moravský Kras... A lot of machines help us, scientists develop still new technologies which makes life easier, the standard of living increases in majority of countries, the most of illnesses are curable, the lengths of life also increases but this all brings some negative facts.

People live very spoilt life. Many people suffer from workholism, they have no time for their private life, the relationships make worse, each person lives only for himself, some people prophesies that it will be even worse in the era of computers. On the other side a lot of people are unemployed, big factories go bankrupt. People suffer from psychic diseases, stress...

Environment

Environment is a big problem. We need it but we are destroying it. The Earth bears (trpět) to the prejudice of (na úkor) our comfort. We need electricity so we have power stations which burn million and million coal and make pollution which I am not able to explain. We don’t know what to do with radioactive waste, even today we can see results of Chernobyl. The alternative power supplies (zdroje energie) are too expensive for our governments. We use cars which make also pollution, in big cities it’s sometimes very big problem.

There is also “too much people” in the world. It is sad that there will be not enough land and food for people. The capacity of Earth will be over and people will starve. The access of people to the environment is also nor very good. Just look around. You will see rubbish everywhere, papers. The worst of all is that we nearly have no place for waste. Green house effect is a problem too.

Drugs - a problem especially with young, it usually starts as fun or a new experience but sometimes it finishes as horror. Drugs are very expensive and the “victims” have no money so they have to steal, women have to cruise (šlapat chodník). It ‘s very tough to stop it. Most of them are not able to do it. We can meet it also in small towns.

Gambling – doesn’t look as a problem but we can develop dependency (závislost). It could be also a drug, we can’t get out of it. It is forbidden in some countries but there are a lot of illegal gambling houses all over the world. Some of them they are just for rich people, you can see it in stupid American series. The companies earn a lot of money.

Unemployment – factories go bankrupt and people have no work – it’s very popular in our country. Employers don’t want to give work young men because of army, women because of children or people over 40 years because they are too old, so it’s hard to find the job. After Velvet revlution people built small private shpos and companies and they are going bankrupt because of big supermarkets and hypermarkets like Makro, Tesco, Kaufland... Some people don’t look for a job because they can live from buroo (podpora v nezaměstnanosti). There is a problem with gypsies. They usually don’t want to work and when someone has anything against they throw in on racism. But I know some of them (not personally) which really work but the majority of them are different.

Homeless – they have no home, family, money, they live in a street, a lot of them are able to find the job but they don’t want. They are used to their life and they don’t want to change it. I’ve heart about homeless near F-M which dig holes in the land and build their own house with pipes with gas as the heater. Some of them play music in the street to earn money.

Famine – problem especially in Africa or Asia, the relief in unpleasant they cannot grow enough food. They have nowhere to store food so in one period they have too much food and in another period they starve. One family has a lot of children. {see Population Fears}

Racism – problem also in our country, usually white people thing their race is better, gypsies – problem in our country, racism used to be a big problem in the time of Hitler – Jewry (židé) were killed because they were “low-class race” (podřadná rasa). In America problems with black. I thing it going better now. My opinion is that some people take advantage of it like gypsies in our country.

Religion – it used to be a problem and it will be a problem, there can be some problems in countries where are two religions - with some extreme groups, which fight for freedom or for their religion – this is in Ireland or in West Asia. Islam is very problematic because they are allowed to expand Islam using all methods so Muslims are very aggressive. There used to be a lot of wars because of religion. Problems are also with denominations (sekty). They force people to give them all their money and then escape.

Political problem – it’s normal that two states want one land or country, it can develop in a war sometimes in a another case for example one part of the state want to be independent, they can solve (vyřešit) it quiet but there can be also some big accidents – this was case of Kuvajt. Sometimes governments have big conflicts inside. Parties want the best place for them, don’t care about people and do nothing for state.

Anything optimistic

Health care is still getting better, new medicaments are produced, new technologies are used - laser, ultra sonic tech. People are more and more educated, people can travel where they want, travel is faster and faster, world seems to be smaller, the care about environment is better now, there are some limits of pollution and companies are fined when they are over limits, hard work is done by machines... Various governments plan that there will be car free places in big towns, there will be only public transport and the centers will be redesign as pedestrian areas (Venezia, Amsterdam)

Population fears

We could be alarmed. In 1950 the world’s population was 2.5 billion people in 1992 it was 5.4 billion. Scientists predict it will be 8.5 billion by the year 2025 and it will reached 10 billion in 2050. Will we run out of land energy or minerals? Optimists will say that world food will production has kept well ahead of population Growth, exploration and new technologies will save minerals and fossil fuels. But if we go on using our natural resources at today rates we will have no copper, natural gas and oil by the ear 2054. Problems are also with the waste. It includes all solids, liquids and gasses we emit and we destroy all the forests in the process of living. Special programs can cut down two billion off the 10 billion expected in 2050. If women have fewer than 2 children each the world population will decline after 2050.

Street violence

You can come in touch with street violence everyday. It is said that it is dangerous to go through Přívoz at night. I don’t want to propagate racism but gypsies constitute one of the biggest dangers. I don’t know it from my experience but a friend of my father had been onslaught there. A few gypsies surrounded him, sloshed him with a big chain and stole him a new jacket and a wallet. But you can meet with street violence also in villages. Usually after parties or discos. Drunken teenagers (fucking discofils) destroy fences, road signs, letterboxes or they just want to fight with someone. People usually don’t do anything.

They just shout and make complaints and say: ”When we were younger we had better world. Today’s children are horrible. They destroy everything.” Fortunately I don’t have bad experience with street violence. When I was in Ostrava last month I meet a group of skinheads. It was late in Sunday afternoon and there was no one around us. I was afraid of them when they come more closely. But they have just asked whether I had some money or anything to eat and when I said that I was coming back from a holiday with no money and also hungry and that there were only dirty clothes in my bag they did nothing. We have been chatting for a while and than they went out. I was very surprised and I realized that people could look strange but don’t have to be as bad as the most of people think.

Virtual reality

We are in the period of computers and virtual reality is normal part of someone’s lives. A lot of children use it just for fun, for playing games. But there are some other places where VR is very useful. It is used as flight simulator that is used to train pilots. Instead of looking on two-dimensional screen the person in surrounded by a 3-D computer generated representation and it’s able to move around in a simulated world, seeing it from different angles.

You have to wear some special equipment. Shutter glasses – you sit with them if front of the screen of the computer. Head mounted displays which are rather expensive, but the quality of view is very high, you can use data gloves - you can pick thinks or touch something, the best is data suit, which is very expensive, you have it all over your body.

VR is used in medicine to improve X-rays, you see a 3 dimensional view of body. It’s used in surgery. Suggeon wear a helmet and whole operation is done by computer. It’s also used in police training schools or in army to train in special situations. You can also learn to drive with VR set. There are some dangers as well. It could be used to for pornography. It could also raise some psychic diseases.

Environmental disasters

The biggest disaster was Černobyl I thing – the explosion of nuclear power station cause problems all over the world not only in Ukraine. The wind blew radioactive waste in Europe as well as in Asia. A lot of people died and many of them are handicapped and have handicapped children. A lot of animals died and the nature was spoiled for many years. It the time of Chernobyl people cannot eat fresh vegetables or fruit, the water was spoiled too. Another problem are oil sticks. Time to time tankers can come into collision and effects are horrible. Oil sticks can be 40 miles large and sea streams can carry it away. See is spoilt and all animals are dead. It costs a lot to clean the sea but no one will liven up (oživit) dead animals. The companies are fined but they usually have a lot of money so it doesn’t matter to them.

Endangered species (animals in need)

Everyone now “Red Book of Endangered species”. There used to be a lot of different kind of animals few centuries ago. Indians hunted bison for food but when white men came they hunted it for fun. People hunt whales of dolphins for money. There used to be a lot of elephants in Africa but Humans nearly extirpate (vyhubit) them. But it’s better now than few years ago. Special organizations care about endangered species and they helped them. They try to save what they can. Poachers (pytlák) are punished (potrestáni) but sometimes it’s not enough.

How to be green?

• we could buy recharging batteries – they are maybe more expensive but they will last longer
• we throw away millions of tonnes of rubbish every year. Half of it is paper, which we can recycle. If we recycle paper we will save trees.
• we can cycle to school or work if it is possible and not so far. Or we can use public transport – one bus (or train) is more environmentally friendly than 20 cars (it uses less petrol).
• we can buy thing (e.g. shampoo) and when we use everything, we’ll go to the shop and they will fill it again for us.
• or we can give back bottles from beer or milk – they will use them again
• don’t leave water running
• we could care more about the environment, we could use environmentally friendly products, we could call attention on thinks which are wrong, we could use unleaded petrol or travel more by bike not just by car, we could give some money to charity...