full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jared Diamond: Why do societies collapse?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


What's going to be the outcome today? Well, all of us know the dozen sotrs of tkciing time bbmos going on in the modern world, time bombs that have fuses of a few decades to — all of them, not more than 50 years, and any one of which can do us in; the time bombs of wtear, of soil, of climate change, invasive species, the photosynthetic ceiling, population prmlboes, toxics, etc., etc. — listing about 12 of them. And while these time bombs — none of them has a fuse beyond 50 years, and most of them have fuses of a few dceeads — some of them, in some places, have much shorter fseus. At the rate at which we're going now, the Philippines will lose all its accessible loggable feorst within five years. And the Solomon Islands are only one year away from lnsoig their loggable forest, which is their mjaor eroxpt. And that's going to be spectacular for the economy of the Solomons. People often ask me, Jared, what's the most important thing that we need to do about the world's environmental problems? And my answer is, the most important thing we need to do is to forget about there being any silgne thing that is the most important thing we need to do. Instead, there are a dozen things, any one of which could do us in. And we've got to get them all right, because if we solve 11, we fail to solve the 12th — we're in trouble. For example, if we solve our problems of water and soil and population, but don't solve our problems of toxics, then we are in trouble.

Open Cloze


What's going to be the outcome today? Well, all of us know the dozen _____ of _______ time _____ going on in the modern world, time bombs that have fuses of a few decades to — all of them, not more than 50 years, and any one of which can do us in; the time bombs of _____, of soil, of climate change, invasive species, the photosynthetic ceiling, population ________, toxics, etc., etc. — listing about 12 of them. And while these time bombs — none of them has a fuse beyond 50 years, and most of them have fuses of a few _______ — some of them, in some places, have much shorter _____. At the rate at which we're going now, the Philippines will lose all its accessible loggable ______ within five years. And the Solomon Islands are only one year away from ______ their loggable forest, which is their _____ ______. And that's going to be spectacular for the economy of the Solomons. People often ask me, Jared, what's the most important thing that we need to do about the world's environmental problems? And my answer is, the most important thing we need to do is to forget about there being any ______ thing that is the most important thing we need to do. Instead, there are a dozen things, any one of which could do us in. And we've got to get them all right, because if we solve 11, we fail to solve the 12th — we're in trouble. For example, if we solve our problems of water and soil and population, but don't solve our problems of toxics, then we are in trouble.

Solution


  1. bombs
  2. major
  3. sorts
  4. problems
  5. fuses
  6. decades
  7. export
  8. forest
  9. losing
  10. ticking
  11. water
  12. single

Original Text


What's going to be the outcome today? Well, all of us know the dozen sorts of ticking time bombs going on in the modern world, time bombs that have fuses of a few decades to — all of them, not more than 50 years, and any one of which can do us in; the time bombs of water, of soil, of climate change, invasive species, the photosynthetic ceiling, population problems, toxics, etc., etc. — listing about 12 of them. And while these time bombs — none of them has a fuse beyond 50 years, and most of them have fuses of a few decades — some of them, in some places, have much shorter fuses. At the rate at which we're going now, the Philippines will lose all its accessible loggable forest within five years. And the Solomon Islands are only one year away from losing their loggable forest, which is their major export. And that's going to be spectacular for the economy of the Solomons. People often ask me, Jared, what's the most important thing that we need to do about the world's environmental problems? And my answer is, the most important thing we need to do is to forget about there being any single thing that is the most important thing we need to do. Instead, there are a dozen things, any one of which could do us in. And we've got to get them all right, because if we solve 11, we fail to solve the 12th — we're in trouble. For example, if we solve our problems of water and soil and population, but don't solve our problems of toxics, then we are in trouble.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
greenland norse 4
united states 4
time bombs 4
petri dish 3
environmental problems 2
societies today 2
climate change 2
cultural factors 2
soviet union 2
general theme 2
subtle environmental 2
environmental factors 2
long run 2
strong social 2
social cohesion 2
british identity 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
strong social cohesion 2

Important Words


  1. accessible
  2. answer
  3. bombs
  4. ceiling
  5. change
  6. climate
  7. decades
  8. dozen
  9. economy
  10. environmental
  11. export
  12. fail
  13. forest
  14. forget
  15. fuse
  16. fuses
  17. important
  18. invasive
  19. islands
  20. jared
  21. listing
  22. loggable
  23. lose
  24. losing
  25. major
  26. modern
  27. outcome
  28. people
  29. philippines
  30. photosynthetic
  31. places
  32. population
  33. problems
  34. rate
  35. shorter
  36. single
  37. soil
  38. solomon
  39. solomons
  40. solve
  41. sorts
  42. species
  43. spectacular
  44. ticking
  45. time
  46. today
  47. toxics
  48. trouble
  49. water
  50. world
  51. year
  52. years