full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Topher White: What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So this is me putting it all together in my parents' garage, actually. Thanks very much to them for allowing me to do that. As you can see, this is a device up in a tree. What you can see from here, perhaps, is that they are pretty well obscured up in the tree canopy at a distance. That's important, because although they are able to hear chainsaw neoiss up to a kilometer in the distance, alnwiolg them to cover about three square kilometers, if someone were to take them, it would make the area unprotected.

So does it actually work? Well, to test it, we took it back to Indonesia, not the same place, but another plcae, to another gibbon resvree that was threatened dlaiy by illegal logging. On the very second day, it picked up illegal ciashanw noises. We were able to get a real-time alert. I got an email on my phone. Actually, we had just climbed the tree. Everyone had just gotten back down. All these guys are smoking cergtiaets, and then I get an email, and they all quiet down, and in fact you can hear the chainsaw really, really finat in the background, but no one had ntecoid it until that mmneot. And so then we took off to actually stop these loggers. I was pretty noreuvs. This is the moment where we've actually arrived close to where the loggers are. This is the moment where you can see where I'm actually regretting perhaps the entire endeavor. I'm not really sure what's on the other side of this hill. That guy's much braver than I am. But he went, so I had to go, walking up, and in fact, he made it over the hill, and interrupted the loggers in the act. For them, it was such a surprise — they had never, ever been ipnurteterd before — that it was such an impressive event for them, that we've heard from our partners they have not been back since. They were, in fact, great guys. They sheowd us how the entire operation works, and what they really convinced us on the spot was that if you can show up in real time and stop people, it's enough of a deterrent they won't come back.

Open Cloze


So this is me putting it all together in my parents' garage, actually. Thanks very much to them for allowing me to do that. As you can see, this is a device up in a tree. What you can see from here, perhaps, is that they are pretty well obscured up in the tree canopy at a distance. That's important, because although they are able to hear chainsaw ______ up to a kilometer in the distance, ________ them to cover about three square kilometers, if someone were to take them, it would make the area unprotected.

So does it actually work? Well, to test it, we took it back to Indonesia, not the same place, but another _____, to another gibbon _______ that was threatened _____ by illegal logging. On the very second day, it picked up illegal ________ noises. We were able to get a real-time alert. I got an email on my phone. Actually, we had just climbed the tree. Everyone had just gotten back down. All these guys are smoking __________, and then I get an email, and they all quiet down, and in fact you can hear the chainsaw really, really _____ in the background, but no one had _______ it until that ______. And so then we took off to actually stop these loggers. I was pretty _______. This is the moment where we've actually arrived close to where the loggers are. This is the moment where you can see where I'm actually regretting perhaps the entire endeavor. I'm not really sure what's on the other side of this hill. That guy's much braver than I am. But he went, so I had to go, walking up, and in fact, he made it over the hill, and interrupted the loggers in the act. For them, it was such a surprise — they had never, ever been ___________ before — that it was such an impressive event for them, that we've heard from our partners they have not been back since. They were, in fact, great guys. They ______ us how the entire operation works, and what they really convinced us on the spot was that if you can show up in real time and stop people, it's enough of a deterrent they won't come back.

Solution


  1. faint
  2. noises
  3. place
  4. showed
  5. cigarettes
  6. daily
  7. nervous
  8. reserve
  9. moment
  10. noticed
  11. chainsaw
  12. interrupted
  13. allowing

Original Text


So this is me putting it all together in my parents' garage, actually. Thanks very much to them for allowing me to do that. As you can see, this is a device up in a tree. What you can see from here, perhaps, is that they are pretty well obscured up in the tree canopy at a distance. That's important, because although they are able to hear chainsaw noises up to a kilometer in the distance, allowing them to cover about three square kilometers, if someone were to take them, it would make the area unprotected.

So does it actually work? Well, to test it, we took it back to Indonesia, not the same place, but another place, to another gibbon reserve that was threatened daily by illegal logging. On the very second day, it picked up illegal chainsaw noises. We were able to get a real-time alert. I got an email on my phone. Actually, we had just climbed the tree. Everyone had just gotten back down. All these guys are smoking cigarettes, and then I get an email, and they all quiet down, and in fact you can hear the chainsaw really, really faint in the background, but no one had noticed it until that moment. And so then we took off to actually stop these loggers. I was pretty nervous. This is the moment where we've actually arrived close to where the loggers are. This is the moment where you can see where I'm actually regretting perhaps the entire endeavor. I'm not really sure what's on the other side of this hill. That guy's much braver than I am. But he went, so I had to go, walking up, and in fact, he made it over the hill, and interrupted the loggers in the act. For them, it was such a surprise — they had never, ever been interrupted before — that it was such an impressive event for them, that we've heard from our partners they have not been back since. They were, in fact, great guys. They showed us how the entire operation works, and what they really convinced us on the spot was that if you can show up in real time and stop people, it's enough of a deterrent they won't come back.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cell phone 5
cell phones 4
illegal logging 3
climate change 3
great distance 2
gibbon reserve 2
takes place 2
ranger station 2
phone service 2
good cell 2
real time 2
chainsaw noises 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
cell phone service 2
good cell phone 2

Important Words


  1. act
  2. alert
  3. allowing
  4. area
  5. arrived
  6. background
  7. braver
  8. canopy
  9. chainsaw
  10. cigarettes
  11. climbed
  12. close
  13. convinced
  14. cover
  15. daily
  16. day
  17. deterrent
  18. device
  19. distance
  20. email
  21. endeavor
  22. entire
  23. event
  24. fact
  25. faint
  26. garage
  27. gibbon
  28. great
  29. guys
  30. hear
  31. heard
  32. hill
  33. illegal
  34. important
  35. impressive
  36. indonesia
  37. interrupted
  38. kilometer
  39. kilometers
  40. loggers
  41. logging
  42. moment
  43. nervous
  44. noises
  45. noticed
  46. obscured
  47. operation
  48. partners
  49. people
  50. phone
  51. picked
  52. place
  53. pretty
  54. putting
  55. quiet
  56. real
  57. regretting
  58. reserve
  59. show
  60. showed
  61. side
  62. smoking
  63. spot
  64. square
  65. stop
  66. surprise
  67. test
  68. threatened
  69. time
  70. tree
  71. unprotected
  72. walking
  73. work
  74. works