By Scott Thomas Eastham,Apology To The Future,主讲教师：绍兴文理学院外语学院 陈金中,1. Topic of the Text 2. Structural Analysis of the Text 3. Detailed Study of the Text 4. Word Study 5. Key to the Exercises on the textbook 6. Relevant websites 7. Homework,The protection of the environment against damage from human activities. It emphasizes the improve- ment of human relations not just with our natural surroundings, but also with one another, in order to prevent our living environment from further worsening.,The Topic of This Article,Key Words : damage environment relation protection improvement,III.conclusion concludes the article with good wishes. (para16-17),Structural Analysis Of The Text,I.The introductory first paragraph foretells the reader of the coming of two subtopics. ( paragraph 1 ),My dear unborn grandchild:,Foam containers threaten the environment,Instances of our wrongdoing to the environment The chemical wastes we have been dumping heedlessly for years. The wrong way to dispose of or isolate the mountains of nuclear waste. Our societal addiction to fossil fuels. Species are going extinct at the incredible rate.,Solution: to collaborate with the Earth, to become responsible partners with all the rhythms and dynamisms of the living Cosmos.,The victim of the war,Palestinians clean up a bombed area,Israeli soldiers are launched to fight Palestinian protesters,Salvaging the remains of the collapsed World Trade Center,A Yugoslav soldier prepares to enter a radioactive-contaminated area,A. Instead of offering real help to the starving millions, the super- powers sell them weapons-meanwhile spending about a billion dollars a day on their own suicidal arms race. B. The threat of nuclear wars-The Big Finale. C. The wrongdoing of the government.,Solutions: we would have to find alternatives to head-on conflict. Creative , constructive , dialogical ways,Instances of our wrongdoing to each other,Apology to the Future By Scott Thomas Eastham,My Dear Unborn Grandchild: By the time you read this, I shall be dead - and probably not from old age. You have grown to maturity now, and by rights expect very little from your forebears. This is as it should be. Nevertheless, I feel I owe you at least two things - an apology and an explanation.,The apology takes precedence. I can guess that you are living on a devastated Earth, the ruin of a garden planet, an Earth rendered well-nigh uninhabitable by forces set in motion by my generation and those that preceded us. I apologize for all of us who may be responsible. I am especially sorry because all the portents foretelling the kind of world you will inhabit are already present today. I wish I could say we dont know any better, but we do.,We know that the chemical wastes we have been dumping heedlessly for decades have probably caused irreversible damage to the human gene pool. There is undoubtedly more congenital suffering in your time, more weakness of limb and of brain, more people born then than now who might prefer to be dead. We know further that there is no safe way to dispose of or isolate the mountains of nuclear waste we are accumulating; by your day, the damage will be done. We know also that our societal addiction to fossil fuels is releasing far too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.,We have even predicted the catastrophic results of this “greenhouse effect“ an inevitable warming and shift in the Earths climatic regions, melting of the polar ice caps, and thus floods, mass migrations, famines, etc. Nevertheless we scoff at alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear energy. They are costly and unrealistic, we say, and so we gouge ever more deeply into the flesh of the Earth to find and burn up more of the same.,In a single century, we have turned the Earth into a sick old lady. Species are going extinct at the incredible rate of one every other day. Some of that is natural selection, of course, but the lions share of the damage is mans doing. The food chain is going to collapse out from under us one day, but thats a problem for the future to solve, or so we say. Oh yes, we can see all around us the grim beginnings of your world.,Its not just what were doing to the environment that speaks of the world we are creating for you, but just as evidently what human beings are doing to one another. At the latest estimate, some 50,000 people die of starvation every day -thats one death every other second. Instead of offering real help to these starving millions, the superpowers sell them weapons - meanwhile spending about a billion dollars a day on their own suicidal arms race.,Most people are afraid of World War III, but dont realize that the “Third World War“ is already well underway; more people have died in the approximately 160 wars since World War II than perished in that great conflagration. Even as I write you, there are about 40 shooting wars being fought in and between so called Third World nati