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How to pronounce unploughed in English?

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hello and welcome to the conversation
weekly this week a year since civil war
broke out in the tigre region of
ethiopia we talked to experts about the
worsening humanitarian situation there
we have
virtually
every need you can think of severe
malnutrition rates most health centers
have been thrashed
and i speak with a researcher who found
that reusable food containers aren't
always better for the environment than
disposable ones for climate change just
cleaning the reusable container has more
impact
i'm dan marino in san francisco and i'm
gemmaware in london you're listening to
the conversation weekly the world
explained by experts
[Music]
the past few weeks have seen a serious
escalation of the ongoing civil war in
ethiopia government forces have launched
new air strikes on the capital of the
tigrai region what began a year ago as a
conflict in the tigre region of northern
ethiopia has now spread to the
neighbouring regions of amhara and afar
the tigray war began on the night of
november 4th 2020. that was when the
tigran people's liberation front the
tplf launched an attack on the northern
command of the ethiopian army in
mckelley the capital of tigre in
ethiopia prime minister abi ahmad has
ordered a military offensive against the
regional degree government in response
to the attack on an army base this was
in part a response to a decision by the
ethiopian prime minister abby ahmed to
politically exclude to grains from the
leading coalition this angered the
degrading leadership who dominated
ethiopian politics for almost three
decades the tegran rebellion against the
federal government which followed was
met with brutal force by the ethiopian
army in late june ethiopian forces
announced a unilateral ceasefire but it
didn't hold tegran forces remained in
control of the region and attempts to
mediate have thus far proved
unsuccessful
the year-long conflict has involved a
number of other armed groups including
forces from neighbouring eritrea
fighting on the side of the ethiopian
government this week a joint
investigation by the ethiopian human
rights commission and the u.n human
rights office said that all sides had
violated human rights in the war and
that war crimes may have been committed
in recent days terrain forces have made
further territorial gains valius tigray
and forces say they have seized the
strategic town of desi in ethiopia's
amahara region where thousands of ethnic
omahas have sought refuge from
escalating violence on november the 2nd
the ethiopian government declared a
state of emergency amid reports that
terrain forces may consider marching on
the capital addis ababa prime minister
abe ahmed has asked all ethiopians to
mobilize and fight back against the
rebels degray is under an ongoing
blockade and communications blackout aid
deliveries are struggling to get through
and the food situation is critical
[Music]
in this episode we've collaborated with
our colleagues at the conversation in
africa who make the pasha podcast one of
pasha's hosts godfrey baufo who's based
in necra in ghana called up a researcher
who's been studying the food situation
into grey
before we begin emnet please can you
introduce yourself to our listeners my
name is amnet nagash i'm currently a phd
student at ghent university here in
belgium
and i am also an assistant professor at
makala university integrai and before
then i have been working for degray
bureau of agriculture and rural
development
and my research interest is basically on
the climate hydrology and the farming
systems and i'm currently also involved
in monitoring the the humanitarian
catastrophes integra together with my
colleagues here at gent university and
back home at morale university as well
and you're originally from chicago yes i
am originally from tegra and i left dry
in
october 2020 that's a month before the
war started can you describe the
landscaping to guide to a person who has
never been there to gray is a
mountainous area located in the northern
ethiopia that's quite close to the red
sea we have a lot of ups and downs and
the land is fragmented with a land
holding size of not more than one
hectare per household and nowadays it
would even go be less than that the
topographic variability allows the
farmers to grow diversified crops
including uh
maize tave barley wheat millet and
several other crops and very much
diversified
farming systems which is basically
subsistence in the highland areas with
cash crop in the western and north
western part and you have
commercial farming
and is it very dry there well i would
call it an arid and semi-arid
environment it's a bit dry and
but then the farmers know how to manage
their lands and how to survive they have
this indigenous knowledge they have been
practicing this subsistence agriculture
for the last
3 000
years
so what was the situation for farmers
like before the war began
before the war began um
there have been semi-blockade kind of
thing from the ethiopian government side
so ethiopia is in a federal government
set up and the regions they receive
rations of budget from the federal
government and ziggura as a region was
denied
the budget for last year
and that was already a blockade and
there were
restrictions in travel for investment
and all that that was a semi-blockade
and then
there was the desert locusts ethiopia
has been tackling its invasion of
locusts for months now the united
nations says the problem has got so bad
it's the worst it's been here for 25
years which later destroyed about 25 to
30 percent of the crop production from
last year
we needed chemicals instruments to to
fight against this this locust
infestation and these instruments and
the chemicals were prevented from
entering to grind
okay so tell us what research you and
your colleagues have been doing since
the conflict in tigris started a year
ago so the team of us here at ghent
university we are trying to monitor the
humanitarian situation into grey since
the war started and uh so far we have
about four and five publications uh
including
to cry atlas of the humanitarian
situation where we have about
25 maps showing different circumstances
into grey from the farming systems the
landscape itself the civilian atrocities
the territorial control and in and then
the aid blockade and we also have
separate papers covering on how the war
affected the farming systems and what
are some of the findings of your
research so
normally on average we have 100 days of
growing period extending from june to
september and
but the world has delayed the start of
the growing period and farmers were not
able to plow their lands before june and
they only started at the end of june and
starting off delay and they were not
able to plant crops that were supposed
to be planted before then which includes
maize which is a lean season crop that
matures early and they would eat early
in september we could see that it was
largely delayed and that farmers were
prevented from accessing their farmlands
we could see that from satellite image
and
but we could also verify that uh based
on telephone interviews with key
informants from several parts of degree
we also looked into how the land is
prepared and how the crops are
progressing later in august and our
finding is that about 20 to 30 percent
of the land was left fallow which is
literally means the land remains uh
unploughed
and if you compare it to previous years
the fallow size was only limited to only
five percent
so the farmers are not able to plow
their lands mainly because
they were either
denied access to their land
or maybe that their farm equipments and
their oxens were either killed or looted
or maybe the farmer himself has been
killed
and the other frightening finding we
have is that
only
20 to 50 percent of the land is expected
to produce reasonable yields which
literally means 50 to 80 percent of the
land is
not producing
almost anything which is quite
frightening
what other challenges do farmers have to
get enough food to eat this year is not
only that the water has affected the
farming systems and they were prevented
access to their farm lines but then
again we have this desert locust coming
up and we are expecting only 20 to 50
percent of the land to produce
reasonable crops and this 20 to 50
percent is again being treated by the
desert uh
swarms that are already in the ground
and also expected to increase in their
infestation in the coming days and
months
and we also have the blockade again
about 100 tracks of food aid was
expected to reach to dry but then this
is not happening
eminent let me just ask this with the
situation that you've described
for us how difficult is it to find out
what's really going on it's difficult to
discover what is happening there what we
have documented so far is uh a tip of
the iceberg the blockade is not only the
humanitarian blockade but also
interruption of
public services there is no media there
is no telephone there is no internet
there is no electricity and
transportation is also not possible we
don't even know if our families are
alive
from where you sit with the limited
information can you say whether they are
experiencing famine
the u.n and also the usaid has already
estimated that uh
about 400 000 up to 900 000 people are
already experiencing famine which
literally means about
425 and 1200
people are already estimated to be dying
from starvation but if you look from the
ground we hear again reports of 150 and
200 people dying
in each locality farming is does not
only directly kill you but
it also increases the chance of people
dying from simple
sickness and
you can imagine the number of children
mainly
dying from
diseases like the area
the health care facilities has been
largely destroyed and people are easily
exposed to die from simple sickness and
this uh increased the day's tools in
addition to the to the farming as well
[Music]
what do you think may happen next then
unless this blockade is ended the
farmers has been trying their best to
manage their land
and so far with the ongoing farming
situation
they have been eating any leaves
possible they have the indigenous
knowledge to identify which leaves can
be eaten and cannot be but now the rainy
season has ended and as the dry season
has started already integrating
and that i am afraid there will not be
any possible leaves remaining for the
farmers or for the people to eat and
that's really frightening and this what
i'm mentioning is about the rural
population and if you come to the urban
areas where we have the population
basically relent on non-farming
activities and people have not been
receiving salaries since the war started
for some cases and if they even have had
savings and the banks are closed and
they don't
access their money in the bank
and so people are without salaries and
they cannot pay their house rents and
they cannot buy food
so you can imagine life of these people
unless this blockade is ended in one or
another way this farming is going to be
in another level and
there are not going to be any leaves to
be eaten available anymore in the future
thank you so much for your time today
and for sharing your thoughts on the
situation in tigrai thank you very much
it's my pleasure to share my thoughts
the work that emnet and his colleagues
are doing to track the food situation in
tigre paints a deeply worrying picture
of what's to come in a region where
famine is already killing people
so how is the rest of the world reacting
to the unfolding catastrophe in northern
ethiopia to find out and to understand
more about the challenges to achieving
peace i called up a veteran humanitarian
expert
[Music]
i'm mukesh kapila i'm the professor
emeritus of global health and
humanitarian affairs at the university
of
manchester
but
more significantly i have worked for
many years in senior positions in the
united nations
and in the international red cross i'm
very experienced in african matters i
was the head of the u.n in sudan and
worked in many other situations of
conflict and crisis and humanitarian
catastrophe could you paint us a picture
of what the humanitarian situation
is like today not just in tigre but in
the neighboring provinces of amhara and
afar as well in my 30 years of
experience in complex emergency settings
this is one of the most vicious
conflicts that i have come across
and the humanitarian situation as
prevailing in ethiopia including degree
and surrounding regions
is
a reflection of that
so we have somewhere in the region of
about 7 million people
in need
at least five billion integrity and
at least a couple of million in the
neighboring regions of omara and afar
we have
refugees in neighboring sudan
approaching a hundred 000
and with integrate
we have
virtually
every need you can think of aid agencies
are raising concerns that civilians are
dying from a lack of health care
services while survivors face food and
water shortages severe malnutrition
rates are extremely high at over two
percent
most health centers have been thrashed
and the supply of essential medicines
has gone down to zero there are no
immunization
programs taking place so never mind
kovid 19
even basic conditions like polio and so
on the vaccination rates have really
plunged
thereby sowing in the seeds of a future
public health
crisis
at the same time
we
also have had huge amounts of sexual
violence committed as part of the war
there are disturbing reports about war
crimes and other atrocities happening in
tigre the u.n says women have been the
target of systematic rape and sexual
violence from all warring parties
especially in the first six months or so
and that has meant that tens of
thousands
of women have been
brutally raped
and have not received assistance that
they should
and the legacy of that in terms of both
physical and mental health impacts of
course is going to go on for
generations
we have a degradation of the water and
sanitation system
and this has not been helped by the fact
that every single form of humanitarian
obstruction you can think of and that i
have seen in places around the world
only
in phases
is now prevalent on a systematic basis
uh throughout
tigre
for the last several months
thus
united nations agencies and other
humanitarian organizations are unable to
get in
once they get in it's not a problem
because humanitarian access is available
within the great region now
now that the integrity defense forces
are essentially in control that security
situation
but
their ability to actually take in
essential fuel for example for
generators for hospitals or
for the distribution logistics in terms
of getting food and
nutrition supplies out to the scattered
infrastructure of this difficult to
reach terrain in the best of
circumstances has been severely
compromised
with humanitarian workers themselves
also being attacked
and expelled the capacity of the system
has been degraded considerably in the
past weeks
and is the main
underlying cause of that blockade on
humanitarian aid getting into tigre
yes i think
humanitarian access is always a problem
in all conflicts i've seen it
in many many situations
but what
is unique about the tigre ethiopia
situation
is that all the tactics
which underlie violations of
international humanitarian
law
are being violated
so for example by systematically
embargoing the transport of food
and essential medical supplies
into the territory
have meant that there is a
sort of
blanket punishment of the population
and that is a flagrant violation because
whatever the disputes between the tigre
authorities and the other authorities
wars have their limits
and there are certain rules of war that
outlaw
deliberate targeting of vulnerable
civilians
and such like and those have been
violated
[Music]
outside of the tigray region they've
also been reports of ethnic to grounds
being forcibly detained
disappeared and actually displaced as
well across
ethiopia put in camps for example um
what do you make of those reports
considering your own experience
elsewhere in fact
the war is not just being conducted in
tigre
the war is being conducted all over
ethiopia
in terms of the targeting
of people according to their ethnicity
in this case tigranes what that means is
there are many credible reports
of disappearances of tigranes
as well as summary executions for
example of the grain
prisons of war
and
of removing tigranes from
positions in the ethiopian society
thus
degrading the means of livelihood
and indeed thousands of the grains have
disappeared it took places that we don't
know much about human rights watch has
issued a report saying that ethiopian
authorities since late june 2021 have
arbitrarily detained forcibly
disappeared and committed other abuses
against ethnic tigrans in ethiopia's
capital now my experience of other cases
is that this happens when the side
committing the primary aggression is
feeling that the direct military
approach with soldiers going against
the opposition are not working then
collateral techniques are employed forms
of terror i think ethiopians must
realize
that this is a war
not just
on the grey of tigre and
and about tigre
it is a conflict that is enveloping
everyone in the country and everyone
unfortunately will have to pay the price
or is paying the price of
this
extraordinary decisions by the
government in others to implode
its own country
[Music]
in the last few weeks the fighting has
escalated even further the un actually
had to have bought a humanitarian aid
flight ethiopian government launched an
air strike on the capital of the
northern tigray region strikes forced a
united nations humanitarian flight to
abandon its landing in the capital so
can you tell us how difficult it's been
for the un
um to continue its operations
uh well it's a complex situation for the
u.n undoubtedly
but
several of the problems
that the un is facing it has brought
on
itself
its in-country leadership has been
extremely
poor
and
it has been accused of taking signs the
standard accusation from
the government in addis is that the
humanitarian agencies are partisan that
their aid is there to help the tplf and
that
therefore they have to impose
restrictions and control what goes into
tigre i'm sure
much of those accusations by the
government in idis
is politically motivated to undermine
the u.n but the fact that the officials
of the u.n sitting in addis
have got themselves into a position
where they've been kicked around
like like a football and kicked out is a
reflection of the poor quality of the
leadership both in addis of the u.n
system as well as of the ultimate u.n
leadership of antonio guterres in new
york
so while
i'm a great supporter and i'm a former
u.n
resident and humanitarian coordinator in
neighboring sudan which is going through
huge problems at the present time i have
very little sympathy with the situation
that u.n has got themselves into what
needs to happen i think is much stronger
leadership from
new york
plus possibly the appointment of a
special representative with the
secretary general at a higher level to
try and bring order within the un's u.n
system
and this is not helped by the african
union where as you know
basically
what is coming out of the african union
is nothing
and because it is one of the
the mechanisms of the way the
international community work that
we turn to regional organizations to
very often take the lead first in
solving problems in their own area
so the u.n has been hiding behind the au
and the au of course has been hiding
behind the government in addis well it
doesn't help that the african union is
headquarters are actually located in
addis where to all intents and purposes
they are a hostage what about other
humanitarian agencies other than the un
as far as other humanitarian agencies
are concerned we don't have enough
transparency so if you look for example
at the social media outputs of some
humanitarian organizations they talk
about relief to northern ethiopia now
northern ethiopia which is a loaded term
at the best of circumstances upskills
therefore
whether or not the assistance is taking
place in tigre
or in afar or in namara or in other
parts of the country
and i think this is possibly because the
humanitarian organizations are on
tenterhooks they don't want to say
anything that will displace the addis
government which will uh perhaps mean
that they might get kicked out you see
you've described a very dangerous deadly
very difficult political situation
where do you think the solution lies
the
solution to this crisis is not going to
come from outside
because the outside is paralyzed for
both regional reasons
the position of ethiopia in east africa
the position of ethiopia within regional
institutions such as
the african union and it's not going to
have any solutions from the
international side because of
geopolitical factors china india and so
on and the sooner that is realized and
the sooner ethiopians of all
distinctions
and all sides including tigrans and
afars and amaras and others realize that
the solution only lies in their own
hands the better it will be
i think here where some experience of
history comes in
unfortunately conflicts never end
until one side or other has one or
they're mutually paralyzed themselves
and therefore what we're seeing on the
ground is trying
to change facts on the ground
one way or the other which might lead to
a situation where the two sides will
have to negotiate
at the moment there are no incentives to
negotiate in fact there are counter
incentives in terms of rhetoric being
used especially from the government side
in terms of the
all-out war that is being waged
when you wage a total war
you're waging a war of annihilation
that's why many people including myself
call the conflict a genocidal conflict
and
my determination being a veteran of
genocides such as in darfur in sri
benitsa in rwanda in cambodia and i've
been to all those places directly
experienced them
one thing is clear that when you have a
genocidal situation and a genocidal war
of attrition being fought
then there is no peaceful resolution to
a genocide a genocide is only resolved
to the use of force
the use of force can come from outside
or it can come from inside the use of
force from outside as for example when
nato intervened in
in bosnia
or we had un peacekeepers in darfur
that's not going to happen
and therefore the only thing that's left
then is internal use of force and this
is what we're seeing at the moment to
see which side is going to win
[Music]
when you say internal force what do you
mean by that in the context of tigre in
ethiopia so when the
war started a year ago
it rapidly got more and more inhumane
so as happened in the darfur genocide
the worst of the degree genocide
happened in the first three four months
and then the tigran
defense forces
came back
to protect their people so the the grain
military created essentially a safe
haven in their own geographical area
so what's going on in integrity now
is still genocidal violence
but
the whole action of genocide which
marked the first few months of the
crisis that's been halted
because of the tigran forces my
prediction is that because success in a
war is determined
not just by your military might but also
the motivation
of the cause that powers
the dispute ethiopia is going to have
huge problems imposing a military
solution on tigre this is just not going
to happen
partly because of the physical terrain
partly because ethiopia's military
capabilities are not that good and
thirdly i think
the tigran people who are confronting an
existentialist threat and therefore
they've got nothing to lose other than
to fight back with everything at their
disposal
what other options do you think that the
government had it was the tplf who first
attacked the northern command at the
beginning of november 2020. yes the
tigrans may have attacked the ethiopian
army and
it was perfectly legitimate for the
ethiopian armed forces in the government
to
strike back
i am not against the war and i am not
saying that the war is never uh
justified
but i am saying is that in the way the
ethiopian government responded to the
war they just added fuel to fire instead
of the legitimate military action they
could have taken to control uh
what at that time was considered a rebel
activity from the degree inside
now the international response at the
moment from the west from the u.s from
the eu is to threaten sanctions
against both sides so i wonder what do
you think about that approach yes
sanctions are something that can
should happen against the addis
and
very definitely they should be imposed
sooner or later because in the end all
wars are fought with dollars
and sooner or later when the dollars run
out the war making capacity deteriorates
now if you're saying should sanctions be
also imposed on the tplf
then
i would say that i suppose you could do
that as part of a strategy which is to
try and reduce the war making machinery
on all sides but the impact of the
sanctions are going to be
disproportionate
because the ethiopian side meaning the
other side has got more resilience and
capacity in any case the sanctions that
western powers imposed like the u.s
important as they will be fundamentally
will be undone by the support that the
government of aby ahmed is receiving
from its allies for example
china well i don't think that's going to
happen much of that on the case of the
other side so yes if the governments of
the liberal democrats around the west
wish to help
ethiopia and the government in addis
complete the job of genocide integra
yes they can impose sanctions on all
sides
thereby
relatively empowering
the other side to finish his job
thank you so much for your time mukesh
it's been a pleasure talking with you
and we appreciate your expertise so
thank you thank you i hope our
conversation helps you enlighten people
around the world
you can read more analysis of the
situation in ethiopia marking a year
since the degree war begun on the
conversation we'll put some links to
that in our show notes and you can hear
more from godfred and his colleagues by
searching for pasha wherever you get
your podcasts
for our second story this week we're
talking to a researcher who studies the
environmental impact of plastic food
containers like tupperware yes
tupperware is definitely part of it but
more specifically for this study he
looked at the differences between
reusable or use take out food containers
he's been analyzing how many times you
actually have to reuse a container for
it to be more eco-friendly than a single
use container like styrofoam and the
results are actually kind of surprising
i'm doctor alejandro gallegos mead i'm a
senior lecturer in circular economy and
life cycle sustainability assessment at
the tindall center which is part of the
university of manchester in the uk can
you describe why
any container is bad for the environment
what are the kind of like costs that go
into producing one or getting rid of one
or you know
we have to be aware that everything that
we do have an environmental impact it's
not about if a product is intrinsically
bad or not is the way that we use them
you know and that applies in general to
plastics plastic is
a wonderful material the problem is when
we don't use it correctly
that's all well and good but certainly a
lot of this stuff gets used incorrectly
and part of your research is trying out
to figure out how to solve this problem
so what is the basic question you wanted
to answer with your recent paper first
of all we analyzed the three most common
single use
containers that are used in take away
restaurants the first one is the
polyesteren which people normally call
it's incorrect but people call it
sterophone the other one is uh
polypropylene with this the typical this
is transparent okay a plastic one that
also we get with some some food
and the other one is aluminum that is
normally used for for example for rice
in chinese restaurants okay so we select
those ones because
those are the ones that are most
commonly used and just to to put it into
context there are between 500 and
850 million of these single-use
containers are used only in the european
union every year so we wanted to know
which of these ones was the best from
the environmental perspective and the
other big questions that we want to
answer
we saw for example in the internet that
there was a lot of people saying bring
your own tupperware so the other big
question that we want to answer was
how many times do you have to reuse that
container to counteract the impact of
the single used containers
what aspects of an object's life cycle
did you consider so we consider all the
stages of the life cycle of the product
for example if we are talking about
plastic plastic comes from oil okay so
we are considering for example
extraction of that oil and all the
impacts associated to that okay
once that we have the raw materials we
have also the transformation of those
raw materials how from that oil we
obtain the plastics how we give to the
plastic the shape that we want and for
that you are consuming energy you are
consuming electricity and heat then once
that you have your single-use container
for example you have to transport it
okay so you have for example the use of
tracks to transport that to the place
where you buy it okay
then we have the the use stage which in
the case of the reusable container you
have to use consider the cleaning of the
reusable container and
uh finally the last part is the end of
life okay so again we have a transport
from where you deposit your
single use or reusable container where
it goes to a place where it's treated
and we consider different percentage
of incineration landfilling and
recycling
[Music]
so
what did you find what was the worst
what was the best and how many times do
we got to reuse my tupperware until i'm
saving the planet
first of all we compare the three
single use containers the stereo foam
you know the the polyester end was the
best in all the impact categories and
that's not something that normally
happened you know because normally there
is one that is better for one impact
category but is not very common that is
the best in all the impact categories
why is the reason for that first of all
a polystyrene is not very heavy you know
we are using only seven grams of
material per container
in the case of the polypropylene
is much heavier you need
more energy more materials to produce a
container and that affects the total
impacts
and if we compare the polystyrene with
the aluminium aluminium is quite light
as well we are talking about a similar
mass but to produce aluminium you need
much more energy and that penalized the
aluminum container and what about
reusing tupperware containers what did
you find there
when we compare the tapper well style
container how many times do we have to
use it
we compare it with the with the steel
foam which was the best one from the
single-use containers
so we
saw that the impact category that you
have to reuse less times to counteract
was air pollution okay you have to use
it 16 times
for climate change you have to reduce
your container 18 times
for the consumption of resources which
is very important for circular economy
you have to use it 208 times
and there were actually one impact
category that you can never contract
with was
terrestrial ecotoxicity so it's the
contamination of the soils the reason
for that is because just cleaning the
reusable has more impact for terrestrial
ecotoxicity that produce using a single
use a container of styrofoam or
polystyrene
16 uses i can do that 208 maybe if it's
a container i use every day but
essentially what you're saying is that
no matter how many times you reuse your
container you'll always be releasing
some kinds of toxins into the
environment just by washing it so what
do you think the answer is here i think
we have to go
for options that make life easier for
the user there are schemes that are
starting to be developed you know where
a lot of restaurants are involved that
are using reusables and you can't return
your container not only in the place
where you got it but in any restaurant
that is part of the the scheme these
kind of things and in this case probably
that reusable container is going to be
used more than 200 times 300 times or
400 times
but i think it's only when we go for
this type of extremes where a lot of
restaurants are involved what is easier
for the user to return that reusable
container is when things are really
really working we have to start to think
if we want to solve all this problem
with plastics we have to design things
for the user in order that is easier for
the user to
like participate i normally think that
people have good intentions and if you
put things easy to them they are going
to do the right thing yeah yeah yeah it
sounds like if i'm going to make a
choice given the world that exists i
have to ask myself am i really going to
use that reusable container that i'm
about to buy for ten dollars
because if not it's worth the
environment it might feel good at the
time but it might not be or if i am
going to put it to use then go for it is
that kind of the first part is like
double check yourself
yeah and i think then that in this case
if you're gonna use a uh buy a reusable
container to take your lunch
for for work you know i think it makes
totally sense and i do it myself i i
have a reusable container i don't think
that it makes sense to go with a steel
foam every day
with a single one to take your food for
lunch okay
in take away restaurants it's much more
complicated you're just gonna go to grab
a burger and
maybe you are not taking your own
reducable container with you everywhere
yeah and that perfectly leads to the
next point in where i think i want to
end this conversation is you talked
about how we need to make it easier for
the consumer and in the environmental
circles and a lot of people talk about
how
the responsibility is placed on you and
me making the right choice versus the
system changing to make it easier for us
to make the right choice and is that
kind of where this research led you to
finish up like is that kind of the big
takeaway really at the end here
i think the the big takeaway is that if
companies put plastic in the market you
know they have to take the
responsibility that that plastic is
recycled and if we are talking about
developing countries they have to help
to develop
the waste treatment facilities that are
necessary at the end of life
if you don't have
in your municipalities an industrial
composting facility that container is
going to end in a landfill and it's not
going to be biodegradable you know it's
not going to disappear okay so it's also
responsibility of politicians and
companies to develop this industrial
composting facilities in order to
properly treat that plastic that is
coming from biological sources we have
to put things easy to the final consumer
the consumer doesn't have to know about
the materials you know it doesn't have
to be an expert municipalities have to
take care of that and tell you know to
the consumer if you are using this
product just put it in here because we
are gonna take care of it
alejandro uh that's a fantastic place to
end thank you so much for taking the
time to speak with me today thank you
then
[Music]
that is alejandro gallegos schmidt there
we'll post a link to the story he wrote
about his work in the show notes
sticking with the environment theme to
end this week's episode we've got some
recommended reading from nicole hasham
environment and energy editor at the
conversation in australia
hi this is nicole hashim i'm the
environment and energy editor for the
conversation based in canberra australia
as the cop 26 negotiations gear up the
stories i'm recommending are perhaps
unsurprisingly both related to climate
change one in the australian context and
one very much global
the first focus was on the announcement
by australian prime minister scott
morrison of our new pledge to reach net
zero emissions by 2050 it's written by
frank yatso from the australian national
university
so at the last minute just days before
cop 26
morrison finally announced australia
would adopt the 2050 target but as he
also tells us morrison gave very little
detail on how his government would meet
the pledge
and australia is still refusing to
increase its 2030 target
that would really spur emission cuts
over the next decade
so at cop26
we can expect other nations will quite
rightly argue that australia is still
not doing enough on climate change
my second recommendation looks at some
really alarming news on the global
carbon budget
new analysis by a consortium of
scientists from around the world
shows that global emissions from the
burning of fossil fuels are set to
approach pre-pandemic levels by the end
of this year
the piece is by pep cannondale from
australia's national science agency the
csiro
he tells us that while covert 19 caused
an unprecedented drop in emissions
levels in china and india are already
higher than they were before the
pandemic
and the rest of the world is catching up
pretty fast
most concerningly is that global
emissions are still not tracking towards
net zero by 2050
so there's some pretty clear evidence
there that we need a really strong
outcome at cop 26 if we want to keep
global warming in check
that's all from me thanks for listening
[Music]
nicole hosham there in canberra
that's it for this week thank you to all
the academics who've spoken to us for
this episode and thanks to the
conversation editors ozil patel moyna
spooner julius miner imogen malpass and
stephen khan and to alice mason for our
social media promotions you can find us
on twitter at tc underscore audio
instagram at theconversation.com or
email us podcast at theconversation.com
and don't forget sign up for our free
daily email just click the link in the
show notes if you're enjoying the
conversation weekly please leave a
rating or review wherever podcast apps
allow you to and tell your friends and
family about the show as well
the conversation weekly is co-produced
by mend marijuana and me gemmaware with
sound design by eloise stevens our theme
music is by neetusol i'm dan marino
thanks for listening
you

hello and welcome to the conversation

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unploughed::adjective | Spocien Dictionary

unploughed

adjective

/ən'plæʊd/

(of farmland) not plowed

Type	Words
Synonyms	unbroken, unplowed

How to pronounce unploughed in English?

unploughed::adjective | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

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