Post by Admin on Oct 31, 2015 20:03:20 GMT
This is an essay which appeared in the exam today (31 October 2015) in Switzerland.
Some people think that economic growth is important to help poverty in the world, while others think that growth should be stopped to prevent damage to the environment. Discuss both and give your opinion.
This was a very difficult essay, even for IELTS, because it is not exactly asking for two sides of an argument. That would be economic growth = less poverty and economic stagnation = more poverty, but the question doesn’t ask that. It requires you to discuss
a) whether stopping economic growth would prevent environmental damage and
b) whether economic growth is important in reducing poverty.
It also requires you to give your opinion – which may be the ecological one, the economic one, or somewhere in between.
Here is one possible answer:
Some people believe that growing economies are necessary to help the poorest sections of society. Others believe that they cause environmental damage and should be halted. I believe that a balance needs to be struck between protecting the planet and the economic development necessary to provide a fair income to everyone.
Economic growth often means increasing industrialisation. In America, there are more mines producing chemical waste to contaminate rivers. In Japan, there are more factories using fossil fuels which pollute the air. The result is global warming, damage to plant life and toxins in the food chain. In addition, as factories and mines, and the shops and services that support them, need workers, cities spread out, trees are cut down and more land is covered in concrete. If left unchecked, there would be nothing natural left in the world and eventually the planet would be unable to sustain life.
Yet countries experiencing economic expansion, like China and India, have reduced the number of people who are destitute. Others, like many in Eastern Europe, whose economies have declined, have seen an increase in the number of poor. Economic growth means governments can invest in the health of children, ensuring a workforce for the future. It means more people in work with money to spend, more for charities and education, and more hope for the future. Yet economic growth alone does not ensure that there are no poor. It is often big corporations and the top echelons of society who gain. According to the OECD 47% of the USA’s income growth goes to just 1% of earners, so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Redistribution of wealth would require a change in thinking away from consumerism. If people at the top chose not to buy a second car and a big house in the suburbs, but instead reduced their working hours, more people could work and share in the wealth of the existing economy.
In short, while economic growth undoubtedly contributes to ecological deterioration, without it there would be little opportunity for the poorest people to ever rise above the breadline. Maintaining economies while changing attitudes towards materialism could be the true way to reduce poverty.
[This is a K3 essay, with some ‘less common’ vocabulary: contaminate, deterioration, ecological, fossil (K4), toxins (K6), destitute (K9) echelons (K10) and breadline (K19)]
Some people think that economic growth is important to help poverty in the world, while others think that growth should be stopped to prevent damage to the environment. Discuss both and give your opinion.
This was a very difficult essay, even for IELTS, because it is not exactly asking for two sides of an argument. That would be economic growth = less poverty and economic stagnation = more poverty, but the question doesn’t ask that. It requires you to discuss
a) whether stopping economic growth would prevent environmental damage and
b) whether economic growth is important in reducing poverty.
It also requires you to give your opinion – which may be the ecological one, the economic one, or somewhere in between.
Here is one possible answer:
Some people believe that growing economies are necessary to help the poorest sections of society. Others believe that they cause environmental damage and should be halted. I believe that a balance needs to be struck between protecting the planet and the economic development necessary to provide a fair income to everyone.
Economic growth often means increasing industrialisation. In America, there are more mines producing chemical waste to contaminate rivers. In Japan, there are more factories using fossil fuels which pollute the air. The result is global warming, damage to plant life and toxins in the food chain. In addition, as factories and mines, and the shops and services that support them, need workers, cities spread out, trees are cut down and more land is covered in concrete. If left unchecked, there would be nothing natural left in the world and eventually the planet would be unable to sustain life.
Yet countries experiencing economic expansion, like China and India, have reduced the number of people who are destitute. Others, like many in Eastern Europe, whose economies have declined, have seen an increase in the number of poor. Economic growth means governments can invest in the health of children, ensuring a workforce for the future. It means more people in work with money to spend, more for charities and education, and more hope for the future. Yet economic growth alone does not ensure that there are no poor. It is often big corporations and the top echelons of society who gain. According to the OECD 47% of the USA’s income growth goes to just 1% of earners, so the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Redistribution of wealth would require a change in thinking away from consumerism. If people at the top chose not to buy a second car and a big house in the suburbs, but instead reduced their working hours, more people could work and share in the wealth of the existing economy.
In short, while economic growth undoubtedly contributes to ecological deterioration, without it there would be little opportunity for the poorest people to ever rise above the breadline. Maintaining economies while changing attitudes towards materialism could be the true way to reduce poverty.
[This is a K3 essay, with some ‘less common’ vocabulary: contaminate, deterioration, ecological, fossil (K4), toxins (K6), destitute (K9) echelons (K10) and breadline (K19)]