Unit Five For Want of a Drink

Period 3-4: Background information

1. The Green Revolution 绿色革命(para. 3)

It is a term to describe the effort to increase and diversify crop yields in agriculturally less advanced regions of the world.

The Green Revolution refers to the large increase in food production around the world because of better farming technology: 1) intensive use of land — mass production; 2) useof chemical fertilizer; 3) irrigation; 4) use of insecticides.

定义1：20世纪中期，一些国家利用“矮化基因”和生物技术，开展培育和推广高产粮食作物品种为主要内容的生产技术改革活动。

定义2：20世纪60年代起，国际农业发展组织将高产谷物品种和与之配套的施肥、灌溉等技术推广到亚洲、非洲、南美洲的部分地区，促使其粮食增产的一项技术改革活动。

 由于气候变化，环境污染，水资源下降，全球粮食产量增长速度还将放慢，而人口到2025年将达到85亿，要生产比现在多50%的粮食才能解决仅人口增长一项导致的食物需求问题。尽管第一次绿色革命的成功实施，使中国、墨西哥、印度等主要发展中国家的粮食产量上升了70%，但大多数发展中国家仍然面临着贫困和食品短缺的威胁。

第一次绿色革命也存在着一些障碍和负面影响。瘠薄土壤的广大干旱和半干旱地区无法应用第一次绿色革命成果。由于自然条件所限，以及第一次绿色革命的种子对水，化肥，农药的依赖，粮食产量在国家间、地区间、高中低产田间仍存在较大差异。由于高产产品对化肥、农药、灌溉依赖过度，导致土壤、水系污染、病虫害的抗性增强、土壤次生盐渍化等生态和环境问题，以及生产成本上升的问题。农村出现新的两极分化，贫困和妇女作用问题日渐突出。第一次绿色革命成功地跨越了农民文化素质低，市场不发达和缺乏社会化服务体系等障碍，但这些问题都成为现在农业和粮食生产发展中不可回避的障碍。

 Agroecology（第二次绿色革命） is a field of ideas about how to farm productively while also protecting natural resources. It is seen in many ways as an answer to the Green Revolution（第一次绿色革命）that has given us modern farming methods.

Agroecology and the Green Revolution both want to increase productivity, but they work toward this common goal in different ways. Many agroecologists question how long modern farming (the Green Revolution）methods can continue.

Modern farming uses land intensively. Often the same crop is grown on the same land year after year. Soil breaks down and washes away. Also, fewer varieties of the same plant are grown. This can limit the number of varieties that may have useful genetic qualities.

Another issue is fertilizer. Agroecologists say they would use organic materials and compost in place of chemicals. The Green Revolution has shown that chemical fertilizer can greatly increase crop productivity, but it can also pollute water supplies.

To water crops, agroecologists say they would use methods that reduce the need for irrigation. Irrigation is an ancient idea. Water is drawn up from the ground or brought from another place. Irrigated crops are highly productive: 16 percent of all farmland in the world is irrigated, but this 16 percent of the farmland produces 40 percent of all food. Yet irrigation systems can use up ground water faster than nature can replace it. And there are costs to taking water from other areas.

To control pests, agroecologists say they would use helpful insects to kill harmful ones. In the last 50 years, however, farmers have increased the use of insecticides. These chemical poisons do destroy harmful insects, but they also kill helpful ones, and can cause pollution and health problems. Also, pests can develop the ability to resist chemicals.

 2. Noah's Ark (para. 6)

Noah's Ark is the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis) by which the Patriarch Noah saves himself, his family, and a remnant of all the world's animals when God decides to destroy the world because of humanity's evil deeds.

There are several themes in the story of Noah and the ark. 

      God communicates with man. - God told Noah about thecoming judgment and the way of salvation. 

      God is loving and merciful - God waited formankind to repent; God saved Noah and his family. 

      God is holy and righteous and demands death as thepayment for sin - God judges the sin of mankind. 

    Man is a sinner.He needs God and is helpless to save himself - the way to be saved fromthe flood (God's judgment) was provided by God. 

      Man must have faith to please God - by faith Noahbuilt the ark. 

      The way of salvation is determined by God - Noahwas saved the way God said.

3. the law of conservation of mass (para. 6)

— In 1772, British physician Daniel Rutherford isolated nitrogen from air and discovered that objects would not burn in it. Four years later British chemist Joseph Priestley discovered that objects burned more brightly and rapidly in oxygen, another component of air. Based on Priestley's discoveries, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier postulated that air was a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and that only one-fifth of air was oxygen. He proposed that oxygen was the part of air that combined chemically with burning or rusting materials. Lavoisier also consolidated discoveries made in connection with gases into the law of conservation of mass.

The law of conservation of mass states that, in a chemical reaction, the total amount of matter remains constant. The law of conservation of mass served as the cornerstone of 19th-century chemistry. Nature recycles water all the time. Water in oceans, lakes, and rivers evaporates, or turns into a gas and rises into the air. The water vapor eventually turns back into a liquid and falls as rain. The watercycle keeps the total amount of water on Earth the same.

  4. Port-au-Prince (para. 17)

Port-au-Princeis the capital and largest city of the Caribbean country of Haiti. The city's population was 897,859 as of the 2009 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 942,194 in 2012.

The city of Port-au-Prince is on the Gulf of Gonâve: the bay on which the city lies, which acts as a natural harbor, has sustained economic activity since the civilizations of the Arawaks. It was first incorporated under the colonial rule of the French, in 1749, and has been Haiti's largest city since then.

Port-au-Princewas catastrophically affected by an earthquake on January 12, 2010, with large numbers of structures damaged or destroyed. Haiti's government has estimated the death toll at 230,000 and says more bodies remain uncounted.

4. the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (para. 18)

Justinian I (c. 482 – 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the historical Roman Empire. More important was his collection and codification of imperial edicts and common law into four works which together became known as“Justinian’s Code.”

5. Osiris (para. 19)

Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was also a culture god who gave the Egyptians their laws, knowledge of agriculture and religious rituals.

6. The Ganges恒河 (para. 19)

The Ganges is a trans-boundary river of India and Bangladesh. The 2,525 km river rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. It is the third largest river in the World by discharge.

The Ganges is the most sacred river to Hindus and is also a lifeline to millions of Indians who live along its course and depend on it for their daily needs. It is worshipped as the goddess Ganga in Hinduism. It has also been important historically: many former provincial or imperial capitals have been located on its banks.