A WRITE-UP on green life was published in a local English-language daily on June 9. The write-up was fairly ‘red’ for me! By ‘red’ I mean that various expressions and sentences in the write-up could not be easily comprehended and it made me pause. My brain revved up to understand, while I was held up at the ‘red light’ of a fairly difficult and verbose highway.
The UNEP definition provided in the write-up, too, had many red stop signs en route. ‘Environmental risks and ecological scarcities’ were a few samples. It was all rather Greek to me. Some were obviously Latin, a language I hated in school.
I believe many readers may have found similar problems, in coming to terms with many ‘green’ expressions. ‘A green economy is one “whose growth” in income and employment is driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emission and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services’ was literally a bridge too far for me. It could well be a piece for explanation at a university graduate level examination in English language.
If going green is so difficult to express; one wonders how it will be in reality. Simply stated for high school students in science level it is: do not burn anything to produce carbon dioxide, be it for power generation, transportation or a meal at home or in a restaurant.
It seemed all strange and only when we will be living every day in an atomic age where even lighting a match-stick will not be needed; then, it may be the reality.
SA Mansoor
Dhaka