NCERT Textbook - The Ailing Planet: the Green Movements Role

 Page 1


4.  The Ailing Planet: the Green
  
Movement’s Role
Nani Palkhivala
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? a holistic and ecological view ?? inter alia
?? sustainable development ?? decimated
?? languish ?? catastrophic depletion
?? ignominious darkness ?? transcending concern
The following article was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in 
The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised 
regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
One cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped 
the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly 
as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. 
In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New 
Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic 
view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human 
perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who 
taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other 
planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, 
there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living 
Chap 4.indd   35 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 2


4.  The Ailing Planet: the Green
  
Movement’s Role
Nani Palkhivala
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? a holistic and ecological view ?? inter alia
?? sustainable development ?? decimated
?? languish ?? catastrophic depletion
?? ignominious darkness ?? transcending concern
The following article was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in 
The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised 
regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
One cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped 
the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly 
as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. 
In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New 
Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic 
view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human 
perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who 
taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other 
planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, 
there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living 
Chap 4.indd   35 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
36 HOrnbill organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own 
metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and 
preserved.
The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health. We 
have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of 
the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations.
The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 
1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 
its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of 
the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to 
meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources 
future generations would need.
In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice 
reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is 
no animal but a mirror where you see yourself. Thanks to the efforts 
of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has 
now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has 
realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to 
one based on partnership.
Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with 
which mankind shares the earth. Estimates vary widely as regards the 
still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three 
to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in 
ignominious darkness.
One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter 
alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt 
Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members 
— Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are 
we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, 
impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”
Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic 
Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are 
four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they 
form the foundation of the global economic system. In addition 
to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all 
the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-
derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on 
these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where 
their productivity is being impaired. When this happens, fisheries 
collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren 
Chap 4.indd   36 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 3


4.  The Ailing Planet: the Green
  
Movement’s Role
Nani Palkhivala
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? a holistic and ecological view ?? inter alia
?? sustainable development ?? decimated
?? languish ?? catastrophic depletion
?? ignominious darkness ?? transcending concern
The following article was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in 
The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised 
regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
One cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped 
the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly 
as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. 
In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New 
Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic 
view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human 
perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who 
taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other 
planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, 
there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living 
Chap 4.indd   35 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
36 HOrnbill organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own 
metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and 
preserved.
The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health. We 
have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of 
the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations.
The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 
1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 
its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of 
the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to 
meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources 
future generations would need.
In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice 
reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is 
no animal but a mirror where you see yourself. Thanks to the efforts 
of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has 
now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has 
realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to 
one based on partnership.
Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with 
which mankind shares the earth. Estimates vary widely as regards the 
still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three 
to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in 
ignominious darkness.
One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter 
alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt 
Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members 
— Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are 
we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, 
impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”
Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic 
Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are 
four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they 
form the foundation of the global economic system. In addition 
to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all 
the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-
derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on 
these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where 
their productivity is being impaired. When this happens, fisheries 
collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren 
Chap 4.indd   36 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
THe Ailing Pl Ane T: THe g reen MOve Men T’s r Ole 37
wastelands, and croplands deteriorate. In a protein-conscious and 
protein-hungry world, over-fishing is common every day. In poor 
countries, local forests are being decimated in order to procure 
firewood for cooking. In some places, firewood has become so expensive 
that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it”. 
Since the tropical forest is, in the words of Dr Myers, “the powerhouse 
of evolution”, several species of life face extinction as a result of its 
destruction. 
It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow. 
The world’s ancient patrimony of tropical forests is now eroding at the 
rate of forty to fifty million acres a year, and the growing use of dung for 
burning deprives the soil of an important natural fertiliser. The World 
Bank estimates that a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting is 
needed to cope with the expected fuelwood demand in the year 2000.
James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, said 
the other day, “We were saying that we are losing the forests at an acre 
a second, but it is much closer to an acre-and-a-half to a second”.
Article 48A of the Constitution of India provides that “the State shall 
endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the 
forests and wildlife of the country”. But what causes endless anguish 
is the fact that laws are never respected nor enforced in India. (For 
instance, the Constitution says that casteism, untouchability and 
bonded labour shall be abolished, but they flourish shamelessly even 
after forty-four years of the operation of the Constitution.) A recent 
report of our Parliament’s Estimates Committee has highlighted the 
near catastrophic depletion of India’s forests over the last four 
decades. India, according to reliable data, is losing its forests at the 
rate of 3.7 million acres a year. Large areas, officially designated as 
forest land, “are already virtually treeless”. The actual loss of forests 
is estimated to be about eight times the rate indicated by government 
statistics.
A three-year study using satellites and aerial photography 
conducted by the United Nations, warns that the environment has 
deteriorated so badly that it is ‘critical’ in many of the eighty-eight 
countries investigated.
There can be no doubt that the growth of world population is one 
of the strongest factors distorting the future of human society. It took 
mankind more than a million years to reach the first billion. That 
was the world population around the year 1800. By the year 1900, a 
second billion was added, and the twentieth century has added another 
Chap 4.indd   37 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 4


4.  The Ailing Planet: the Green
  
Movement’s Role
Nani Palkhivala
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? a holistic and ecological view ?? inter alia
?? sustainable development ?? decimated
?? languish ?? catastrophic depletion
?? ignominious darkness ?? transcending concern
The following article was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in 
The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised 
regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
One cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped 
the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly 
as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. 
In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New 
Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic 
view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human 
perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who 
taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other 
planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, 
there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living 
Chap 4.indd   35 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
36 HOrnbill organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own 
metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and 
preserved.
The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health. We 
have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of 
the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations.
The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 
1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 
its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of 
the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to 
meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources 
future generations would need.
In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice 
reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is 
no animal but a mirror where you see yourself. Thanks to the efforts 
of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has 
now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has 
realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to 
one based on partnership.
Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with 
which mankind shares the earth. Estimates vary widely as regards the 
still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three 
to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in 
ignominious darkness.
One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter 
alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt 
Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members 
— Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are 
we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, 
impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”
Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic 
Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are 
four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they 
form the foundation of the global economic system. In addition 
to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all 
the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-
derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on 
these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where 
their productivity is being impaired. When this happens, fisheries 
collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren 
Chap 4.indd   36 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
THe Ailing Pl Ane T: THe g reen MOve Men T’s r Ole 37
wastelands, and croplands deteriorate. In a protein-conscious and 
protein-hungry world, over-fishing is common every day. In poor 
countries, local forests are being decimated in order to procure 
firewood for cooking. In some places, firewood has become so expensive 
that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it”. 
Since the tropical forest is, in the words of Dr Myers, “the powerhouse 
of evolution”, several species of life face extinction as a result of its 
destruction. 
It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow. 
The world’s ancient patrimony of tropical forests is now eroding at the 
rate of forty to fifty million acres a year, and the growing use of dung for 
burning deprives the soil of an important natural fertiliser. The World 
Bank estimates that a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting is 
needed to cope with the expected fuelwood demand in the year 2000.
James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, said 
the other day, “We were saying that we are losing the forests at an acre 
a second, but it is much closer to an acre-and-a-half to a second”.
Article 48A of the Constitution of India provides that “the State shall 
endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the 
forests and wildlife of the country”. But what causes endless anguish 
is the fact that laws are never respected nor enforced in India. (For 
instance, the Constitution says that casteism, untouchability and 
bonded labour shall be abolished, but they flourish shamelessly even 
after forty-four years of the operation of the Constitution.) A recent 
report of our Parliament’s Estimates Committee has highlighted the 
near catastrophic depletion of India’s forests over the last four 
decades. India, according to reliable data, is losing its forests at the 
rate of 3.7 million acres a year. Large areas, officially designated as 
forest land, “are already virtually treeless”. The actual loss of forests 
is estimated to be about eight times the rate indicated by government 
statistics.
A three-year study using satellites and aerial photography 
conducted by the United Nations, warns that the environment has 
deteriorated so badly that it is ‘critical’ in many of the eighty-eight 
countries investigated.
There can be no doubt that the growth of world population is one 
of the strongest factors distorting the future of human society. It took 
mankind more than a million years to reach the first billion. That 
was the world population around the year 1800. By the year 1900, a 
second billion was added, and the twentieth century has added another 
Chap 4.indd   37 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
38 HOrnbill 3.7 billion. The present world population is estimated at 5.7 billion. 
Every four days the world population increases by one million.
Fertility falls as incomes rise, education spreads, and health 
improves. Thus development is the best contraceptive. But development 
itself may not be possible if the present increase in numbers continues.
The rich get richer, and the poor beget children which condemns 
them to remain poor. More children does not mean more workers, 
merely more people without work. It is not suggested that human 
beings be treated like cattle and compulsorily sterilised. But there 
is no alternative to voluntary family planning without introducing 
an element of coercion. The choice is really between control of 
population and perpetuation of poverty.
The population of India is estimated to be 920 million today — 
more than the entire populations of Africa and South America put 
together. No one familiar with the conditions in India would doubt 
that the hope of the people would die in their hungry hutments 
unless population control is given topmost priority.
For the first time in human history we see a transcending 
concern — the survival not just of the people but of the planet. We 
have begun to take a holistic view of the very basis of our existence. 
The environmental problem does not necessarily signal our demise, 
it is our passport for the future. The emerging new world vision has 
ushered in the Era of Responsibility. It is a holistic view, an ecological 
view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated 
collection of parts.
Industry has a most crucial role to play in this new Era of 
Responsibility. What a transformation would be effected if more 
businessmen shared the view of the Chairman of Du Pont, Mr Edgar 
S. Woolard who, five years ago, declared himself to be the Company’s 
“Chief Environmental Officer”. He said, “Our continued existence 
as a leading manufacturer requires that we excel in environmental 
performance.”
Of all the statements made by Margaret Thatcher during the 
years of her Prime Ministership, none has passed so decisively into the 
current coin of English usage as her felicitous words: “No generation 
has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a 
full repairing lease”. In the words of Mr Lester Brown, “We have not 
inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from 
our children.”
Chap 4.indd   38 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 5


4.  The Ailing Planet: the Green
  
Movement’s Role
Nani Palkhivala
Notice these expressions in the text.
Infer their meaning from the context.
?? a holistic and ecological view ?? inter alia
?? sustainable development ?? decimated
?? languish ?? catastrophic depletion
?? ignominious darkness ?? transcending concern
The following article was written by Nani Palkhivala and published in 
The Indian Express on 24 November 1994. The issues that he raised 
regarding the declining health of the earth continue to have relevance.
One cannot recall any movement in world history which has gripped 
the imagination of the entire human race so completely and so rapidly 
as the Green Movement which started nearly twenty-five years ago. 
In 1972 the world’s first nationwide Green party was founded in New 
Zealand. Since then, the movement has not looked back.
We have shifted — one hopes, irrevocably — from the mechanistic 
view to a holistic and ecological view of the world. It is a shift in human 
perceptions as revolutionary as that introduced by Copernicus who 
taught mankind in the sixteenth century that the earth and the other 
planets revolved round the sun. For the first time in human history, 
there is a growing worldwide consciousness that the earth itself is a living 
Chap 4.indd   35 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
36 HOrnbill organism — an enormous being of which we are parts. It has its own 
metabolic needs and vital processes which need to be respected and 
preserved.
The earth’s vital signs reveal a patient in declining health. We 
have begun to realise our ethical obligations to be good stewards of 
the planet and responsible trustees of the legacy to future generations.
The concept of sustainable development was popularised in 
1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development. In 
its report it defined the idea as “Development that meets the needs of 
the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to 
meet their needs”, i.e., without stripping the natural world of resources 
future generations would need.
In the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, there is a cage where the notice 
reads, ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’. Inside the cage there is 
no animal but a mirror where you see yourself. Thanks to the efforts 
of a number of agencies in different countries, a new awareness has 
now dawned upon the most dangerous animal in the world. He has 
realised the wisdom of shifting from a system based on domination to 
one based on partnership.
Scientists have catalogued about 1.4 million living species with 
which mankind shares the earth. Estimates vary widely as regards the 
still-uncatalogued living species — biologists reckon that about three 
to a hundred million other living species still languish unnamed in 
ignominious darkness.
One of the early international commissions which dealt, inter 
alia, with the question of ecology and environment was the Brandt 
Commission which had a distinguished Indian as one of its members 
— Mr L.K. Jha. The First Brandt Report raised the question — “Are 
we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, 
impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”
Mr Lester R. Brown in his thoughtful book, The Global Economic 
Prospect, points out that the earth’s principal biological systems are 
four — fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands — and they 
form the foundation of the global economic system. In addition 
to supplying our food, these four systems provide virtually all 
the raw materials for industry except minerals and petroleum-
derived synthetics. In large areas of the world, human claims on 
these systems are reaching an unsustainable level, a point where 
their productivity is being impaired. When this happens, fisheries 
collapse, forests disappear, grasslands are converted into barren 
Chap 4.indd   36 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
THe Ailing Pl Ane T: THe g reen MOve Men T’s r Ole 37
wastelands, and croplands deteriorate. In a protein-conscious and 
protein-hungry world, over-fishing is common every day. In poor 
countries, local forests are being decimated in order to procure 
firewood for cooking. In some places, firewood has become so expensive 
that “what goes under the pot now costs more than what goes inside it”. 
Since the tropical forest is, in the words of Dr Myers, “the powerhouse 
of evolution”, several species of life face extinction as a result of its 
destruction. 
It has been well said that forests precede mankind; deserts follow. 
The world’s ancient patrimony of tropical forests is now eroding at the 
rate of forty to fifty million acres a year, and the growing use of dung for 
burning deprives the soil of an important natural fertiliser. The World 
Bank estimates that a five-fold increase in the rate of forest planting is 
needed to cope with the expected fuelwood demand in the year 2000.
James Speth, the President of the World Resources Institute, said 
the other day, “We were saying that we are losing the forests at an acre 
a second, but it is much closer to an acre-and-a-half to a second”.
Article 48A of the Constitution of India provides that “the State shall 
endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the 
forests and wildlife of the country”. But what causes endless anguish 
is the fact that laws are never respected nor enforced in India. (For 
instance, the Constitution says that casteism, untouchability and 
bonded labour shall be abolished, but they flourish shamelessly even 
after forty-four years of the operation of the Constitution.) A recent 
report of our Parliament’s Estimates Committee has highlighted the 
near catastrophic depletion of India’s forests over the last four 
decades. India, according to reliable data, is losing its forests at the 
rate of 3.7 million acres a year. Large areas, officially designated as 
forest land, “are already virtually treeless”. The actual loss of forests 
is estimated to be about eight times the rate indicated by government 
statistics.
A three-year study using satellites and aerial photography 
conducted by the United Nations, warns that the environment has 
deteriorated so badly that it is ‘critical’ in many of the eighty-eight 
countries investigated.
There can be no doubt that the growth of world population is one 
of the strongest factors distorting the future of human society. It took 
mankind more than a million years to reach the first billion. That 
was the world population around the year 1800. By the year 1900, a 
second billion was added, and the twentieth century has added another 
Chap 4.indd   37 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
38 HOrnbill 3.7 billion. The present world population is estimated at 5.7 billion. 
Every four days the world population increases by one million.
Fertility falls as incomes rise, education spreads, and health 
improves. Thus development is the best contraceptive. But development 
itself may not be possible if the present increase in numbers continues.
The rich get richer, and the poor beget children which condemns 
them to remain poor. More children does not mean more workers, 
merely more people without work. It is not suggested that human 
beings be treated like cattle and compulsorily sterilised. But there 
is no alternative to voluntary family planning without introducing 
an element of coercion. The choice is really between control of 
population and perpetuation of poverty.
The population of India is estimated to be 920 million today — 
more than the entire populations of Africa and South America put 
together. No one familiar with the conditions in India would doubt 
that the hope of the people would die in their hungry hutments 
unless population control is given topmost priority.
For the first time in human history we see a transcending 
concern — the survival not just of the people but of the planet. We 
have begun to take a holistic view of the very basis of our existence. 
The environmental problem does not necessarily signal our demise, 
it is our passport for the future. The emerging new world vision has 
ushered in the Era of Responsibility. It is a holistic view, an ecological 
view, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated 
collection of parts.
Industry has a most crucial role to play in this new Era of 
Responsibility. What a transformation would be effected if more 
businessmen shared the view of the Chairman of Du Pont, Mr Edgar 
S. Woolard who, five years ago, declared himself to be the Company’s 
“Chief Environmental Officer”. He said, “Our continued existence 
as a leading manufacturer requires that we excel in environmental 
performance.”
Of all the statements made by Margaret Thatcher during the 
years of her Prime Ministership, none has passed so decisively into the 
current coin of English usage as her felicitous words: “No generation 
has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a 
full repairing lease”. In the words of Mr Lester Brown, “We have not 
inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from 
our children.”
Chap 4.indd   38 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26
THe Ailing Pl Ane T: THe g reen MOve Men T’s r Ole 39
Understanding the text
1. Locate the lines in the text that support the title ‘The Ailing Planet’.
2. What does the notice ‘The world’s most dangerous animal’ at a cage in 
the zoo at Lusaka, Zambia, signify?
3. How are the earth’s principal biological systems being depleted?
4. Why does the author aver that the growth of world population is one of 
the strongest factors distorting the future of human society?
Talking about the text
Discuss in groups of four.
1. Laws are never respected nor enforced in India.
2. “Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet of advancing deserts, 
impoverished landscapes and an ailing environment?”
3. “We have not inherited this earth from our forefathers; we have 
borrowed it from our children”.
4. The problems of overpopulation that directly affect our everyday life.
Thinking about language
The phrase ‘inter alia’ meaning ‘among other things’ is one of the many 
Latin expressions commonly used in English.
Find out what these Latin phrases mean.
1. prima facie
2. ad hoc
3. in camera
4. ad infinitum
5. mutatis mutandis
6. caveat
7. tabula rasa
Chap 4.indd   39 12/6/2024   11:38:43 AM
Reprint 2025-26