Green Lessons

I’ve been thinking about the environment a lot recently, what with concern for global warming publicly becoming a prerogative for many countries.

The United Nations have pointed out the need to assist developing countries to invest in environmental protection in order to avoid the negative repercussions of economic growth. Japan is in a unique position after her rapid post world war 2 industrialization, and the resulting environmental pollution and ecological repercussions. By utilizing her knowledge and experience concerning the environment, production methods and controls, as well as energy conservation, can assist developing countries in these same areas. Many initiatives have already been undertaken, for example, in Thailand and Indonesia Japan’s “Pollution Control Manager System” has been introduced through JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization).
I like to talk to some of my higher level students about global issues such as this, because not only is it an area of challenging English for them, but I’m also genuinely interested in their view, and often learn something new myself.

In a lesson today, for example, I learned from a student who works for a mobile phone company, that old mobile phones are sold to recycling companies, and broken down into their component parts of gold, metal and plastic. The metal is apparently mostly being sold to China for the construction of facilities related to the Olympic Games. If you want to recycle your mobile phone you can take it back to the shop you bought it from, or you can take it to a variety of other organizations, including OXFAM.

I always enjoy talking about we can do to ourselves to help prevent environmental problems. Not only because it is something that is fun to talk about and helps student’s communicative confidence, but it is also something positive to do. It has a positive effect on our actions, too. The more we talk about what we can do, the more we are likely to do!

So, what green tips do you have??