Smoking: Environmental and Social Impacts
by Warren McLaren, Bundanoon, Australia
02.27.07
1.
LD
[1,385 words]
It is a common belief among cigarette smokers that they are only hurting
themselves. In fact they are not only hurting themselves, but also the people who
love them and the environment. These days everyone knows what smoking
cigarettes does to our bodies, but the knowledge of what smoking does to the Earth
is not as common. There are some things that every smoker who has any concern
for environmental issues should know. It is fairly obvious that smoking pollutes the
air and quite often the ground. However, it is not always obvious how or how much
smoking pollutes.
2.
Global cigarette production in 2004 was 5.5 trillion units, or 868 cigarettes per
every man, woman and child on the planet. There are around 1.2 billion smokers in
the world (about one-third of the global population aged 15 and over). Nearly forty
per cent (39.4%) of Europeans smoke (up from 1995, when a figure of 33.9% was
recorded.)
3.
China, United States, Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia are the five countries that
produce the most raw tobacco leaves and manufactured cigarettes. Malawi, Korea,
Macedonia, Moldova, and Lebanon devote more than 1% of their agricultural land to
tobacco leaf production.
4.
In Africa, around 5% of all deforestation is caused by tobacco. In Malawi,
where the ancient dry forests of the Miombo Highlands are particularly under threat,
tobacco accounts for 20% of deforestation. Each year nearly 600 million trees are
destroyed to provide fuel to dry tobacco. Put in another way, one tree is destroyed
for every 300 cigarettes. Modern cigarette manufacturing machines use more than
six kilometers of paper per hour. And globally, tobacco curing requires 11.4 million
tons of solid wood annually.
QUESTIONS
1.
Paragraph 1: "but the knowledge of what smoking does to the Earth is not as
common" means that
a. people do not commonly respond to the knowledge about air and ground
pollution.
b. there is no common awareness about the damage to the environment
caused by smoking.
c. smokers have common knowledge of what smoking does to our bodies
and to the environment.
d. knowing what smoking does to the environment is not easy.
2.
What do the statistics in paragraphs 2-4 illustrate? (complete the following
sentence):
They support the idea that ___________________________ (two words).
_________________________________________________________________
5.
Tobacco is a sensitive plant prone to many diseases. It therefore requires
huge chemical inputs: up to 16 applications of pesticide are recommended during
one three-month growing period. Aldrin and Dieldrin, and DDT are among the
chemicals used. Methyl bromide, widely used as a fumigant in developing countries,
contributes significantly to ozone depletion.
6.
The pollution caused by cigarettes does not stop in our bodies or the air; it
also affects the land we live on and the water that we drink. Millions of cigarette butts
are discarded onto the ground every day. Every year in California the state has a
statewide cleanup and cigarette butts account for almost half of the waste that is
collected. These are only the ones that are picked up in one state and millions more
are never picked up. They end up in the rivers and lakes where fish and animals eat
them by mistake and quite often die from it. The rest are left on the ground to
decompose which will take an average of 25 years while all of the chemicals and
additives leach into the ground and pollute the soil and the plants. If you are going to
smoke, please consider this information before your throw your cigarette butts on the
ground. It looks unattractive, it is a major fire hazard in dry weather, and it is
extremely harmful to the environment.
7.
As well as being hazardous to users, chemicals may run off into water
courses, contaminating local water supplies. There are also concerns about high
levels of pesticide use leading to the development of resistance in mosquitoes and
flies, making the control of diseases such as malaria more difficult.
QUESTIONS
3.
What is the relationship between paragraphs 5 and 6?
a.
paragraph 6 contrasts the ideas presented in paragraph 5.
b. paragraph 6 adds information to the facts presented in paragraph 5.
c. paragraph 6 illustrates the idea presented in paragraph 5.
d. paragraph 6 provides the consequences of the situation presented in
paragraph 5.
4.
5.
Why are smokers urged not to throw cigarette butts on the ground? Give 3
reasons (write short answers, without details).
a.
___________________________________________________
b.
___________________________________________________
c.
___________________________________________________
(paragraph 7) Complete the following cause-effect chain:
_______________________ leads to higher level of resistance in insects,
which
in
turn
leads
to
difficulties
in
______________________
______________________.
___________________________________________________________________
8.
Tobacco is particularly potassium-hungry, absorbing up to six times as much
as other crops, leaving soil in poor condition for essential food and cash crops.
9.
In 1995 worldwide tobacco manufacturing produced 2.26 billion kilograms of
solid waste and 209 million kilograms of chemical waste. At least 4.5 trillion [nonbiodegradable] filter-tipped cigarettes are deposited annually somewhere in the
world.
10.
Cigarettes contain over 4000 chemicals which are exhaled and released into
the air and the atmosphere. Releases to the environment of Toxics Release
Inventory chemicals by the tobacco manufacturing industry in the United States
recorded for 1996 included (but weren’t limited to) :
11.
1)
Ammonia 946,155 kg
2)
Hydrochloric acid 407,371 kg
3)
Methyl ethyl ketone 340,821 kg
4)
Nicotine and nicotine salts 900,377 kg
5)
Sulphuric acid 67,228 kg
6)
Toluene 349,622 kg
Probably the most impacting aspect of cigarettes is actually producing them.
There is the land used to grow the crops all over the world that could be put to better
use by planting more trees or food for starving children in third world countries.
These crops are also often sprayed with a lot of harmful pesticides and chemicals
because tobacco is a very fragile plant and is likely to pick up disease. It also takes a
lot of trees to produce and package cigarettes. Cigarette manufacturing uses four
miles of paper an hour just for rolling and packaging cigarettes. One tree is wasted
for every three hundred cigarettes produced. Those trees could be filtering out the
pollutants already in the air instead of being chopped down for the cause of adding
new ones. There is still the energy and water wasted in manufacturing cigarettes
that needs to be considered and with soil depletion and chemical wastage added on
top of that it becomes clear that manufacturing cigarettes has an enormous strain on
the environment. An Appalachian tobacco farmer reports, "I used to get sicker than
a dog, with fever, burning skin, and nausea, if I wasn’t real careful with the chemicals
I sprayed on tobacco.” The chemicals may have affected the environment, as well.
“You don’t hear bullfrogs or toads anymore, because we’ve poisoned the streams
and creeks with our chemicals,” he speculates. He also describes the symptoms of
nicotine poisoning from handling the ripe tobacco plant: sudden nausea, dizziness,
and headaches.
QUESTIONS
6.
Paragraphs 4-10 discuss the harm caused by cigarette production. Tick (√)
THREE correct statements:
____ Numerous trees are cut down.
____ The tobacco plant cures many diseases.
____ Pesticides required for tobacco growth pollute the environment.
____ All cigarette butts thrown on the ground are later picked up on a
statewide cleaning day.
____ Pesticides make people more resistant to diseases such as malaria.
____ Tobacco deprives soil of potassium essential for growing food.
____ The list of the Toxics Release Inventory chemicals recorded in 1996
included only six chemicals.
7.
List three pieces of evidence for the statement that "Probably the most
impacting aspect of cigarettes is actually producing them" (paragraph 11). (provide
general answers, without details and explanations):
8.
a.
___________________________________________________
b.
___________________________________________________
c.
___________________________________________________
Is the Appalachian tobacco farmer sure about the following facts?
a) The pesticides used on the tobacco plants cause physical illness when
handled by humans.
YES / NO
b) These pesticides have polluted the streams and rivers. YES / NO
c) People can get nicotine poisoning by handling ripe tobacco plants.
YES / NO
___________________________________________________________________
12.
In 1999, tobacco-related medical expenditures and productivity losses cost
the United States more than $150 billion—almost 1.5 times the revenue of the five
largest multinational tobacco companies that year. Tobacco is the second major
cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten
adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns
continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people
that smoke today — about 650 million people — will eventually be killed by tobacco.
Cigarette smoke contains polonium 210, a radioactive element. One study shows
that a person who smokes 20 cigarettes a day receives a dose of radiation each
year equivalent to about 200 chest x-rays.
13.
A Finnish study of consumer reaction to a possible ‘eco-cigarette’, found that
dispensing with the external plastic wrapping, aluminum foil liner, and use of
unbleached or oxygen bleached paper for the box and/or cigarette instead of the
usual chlorine bleaching would likely be acceptable to smokers.
14.
Tobacco and poverty are inextricably linked. Many studies have shown that in
the poorest households in some low-income countries as much as 10% of total
household expenditure is on tobacco. This means that these families have less
money to spend on basic items such as food, education and health care.
QUESTIONS
9.
a.
Circle the correct answer:
The profits of the five largest multinational tobacco manufacturers were
higher / lower than medical and productivity costs caused by tobacco use in
the USA in 1999.
b.
Which words in the text helped you choose the correct answer? (quote
no more than five words)
______________________________________________
10. What is the relationship between tobacco and poverty?
Families who spend more/less money on cigarettes, have more/less money left
over to pay for more/less important things.
___________________________________________________________________
15.
And here comes the good news. An Appalachian tobacco farmer who is
transitioning his land to organic vegetable production says that whereas he netted
about $2,500 from his best acre of tobacco this past season, he cleared roughly
$20,000 from a nearby acre of organic grape tomatoes.
16.
The tobacco industry is quite unwilling to use better technology to reduce the
impact they are having on the environment because it would take up too much of
their billions of dollars in profit every year. They are often trying to have more trees
planted, but since they use trees to dry the tobacco and for rolling and packaging it
is probably not concern for the environment, but concern for losing their wood
sources that encourage them to do this. They do not care about polluting our bodies
so it seems unlikely that they would think twice about polluting our environment. The
only way to stop them from harming the environment is to stop buying their products.
Quitting smoking is hard, but it can be done and it’s not only about the harm
smokers are doing to their own bodies, it’s also about the harm they are doing to the
earth and the pain that they are causing their friends and families.
QUESTIONS
11.
What is the true cause of the tobacco industry's willingness to plant more
trees?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
12.
According to the writer, it is important to quit smoking because of the harm
caused to the smokers' ______________________ (two words), as well as
to
__________________________
(two
words),
and
_____________________________________ (three-four words).
13.
What is the main purpose of this article?
a.
To convince smokers that smoking is bad for their health.
b.
To show the benefits of growing organic food instead of tobacco.
c.
To convince tobacco manufacturers to plant more trees.
d.
To show the extent of pollution caused by smoking.
to