full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now you're told over and over, repeatedly, that desertification is only occurring in arid and semi-arid areas of the world, and that tall grasslands like this one in high rainfall are of no consequence. But if you do not look at gssarldnas but look down into them, you find that most of the soil in that gaarlsnsd that you've just seen is bare and covered with a crust of algae, ldenaig to increased runoff and evaporation. That is the cnaecr of desertification that we do not recognize till its terminal form.

Open Cloze

Now you're told over and over, repeatedly, that desertification is only occurring in arid and semi-arid areas of the world, and that tall grasslands like this one in high rainfall are of no consequence. But if you do not look at __________ but look down into them, you find that most of the soil in that _________ that you've just seen is bare and covered with a crust of algae, _______ to increased runoff and evaporation. That is the ______ of desertification that we do not recognize till its terminal form.

Solution

  1. grasslands
  2. grassland
  3. leading
  4. cancer

Original Text

Now you're told over and over, repeatedly, that desertification is only occurring in arid and semi-arid areas of the world, and that tall grasslands like this one in high rainfall are of no consequence. But if you do not look at grasslands but look down into them, you find that most of the soil in that grassland that you've just seen is bare and covered with a crust of algae, leading to increased runoff and evaporation. That is the cancer of desertification that we do not recognize till its terminal form.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
climate change 7
mimic nature 5
perfect storm 3
fossil fuels 3
bare ground 3
dry season 3
causing climate 2
land looked 2
national parks 2
long dry 2
causing desertification 2
feed people 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
causing climate change 2
long dry season 2

Important Words

  1. algae
  2. areas
  3. arid
  4. bare
  5. cancer
  6. consequence
  7. covered
  8. crust
  9. desertification
  10. evaporation
  11. find
  12. form
  13. grassland
  14. grasslands
  15. high
  16. increased
  17. leading
  18. occurring
  19. rainfall
  20. recognize
  21. repeatedly
  22. runoff
  23. soil
  24. tall
  25. terminal
  26. told
  27. world