full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Pavan Sukhdev: Put a value on nature!

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And the Chinese government responded sensibly and placed a ban on flelnig. A rsrtoceetvipe on 40 years shows that if we had accounted for these costs — the cost of loss of tsipool, the cost of loss of waterways, the lost ptctroduiviy, the loss to local communities as a result of all these factors, desertification and so on — those costs are almost twice as much as the market price of tbeimr. So in fact, the price of timber in the Beijing marketplace ought to have been three-times what it was had it reflected the true pain and the costs to the siectoy within China. Of course, after the event one can be wise.

Open Cloze

And the Chinese government responded sensibly and placed a ban on _______. A _____________ on 40 years shows that if we had accounted for these costs — the cost of loss of _______, the cost of loss of waterways, the lost ____________, the loss to local communities as a result of all these factors, desertification and so on — those costs are almost twice as much as the market price of ______. So in fact, the price of timber in the Beijing marketplace ought to have been three-times what it was had it reflected the true pain and the costs to the _______ within China. Of course, after the event one can be wise.

Solution

  1. society
  2. retrospective
  3. productivity
  4. felling
  5. timber
  6. topsoil

Original Text

And the Chinese government responded sensibly and placed a ban on felling. A retrospective on 40 years shows that if we had accounted for these costs — the cost of loss of topsoil, the cost of loss of waterways, the lost productivity, the loss to local communities as a result of all these factors, desertification and so on — those costs are almost twice as much as the market price of timber. So in fact, the price of timber in the Beijing marketplace ought to have been three-times what it was had it reflected the true pain and the costs to the society within China. Of course, after the event one can be wise.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
natural capital 4
ecosystem services 4
economic invisibility 3
billion people 3
million dollars 3
coral reefs 3
project called 2
lord stern 2
northeastern trade 2
water vapor 2
ecosystem level 2
people depend 2
ecological infrastructure 2
public wealth 2
teeb project 2
billion dollars 2
green carbon 2
carbon markets 2
ethical choice 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
billion people depend 2
green carbon markets 2

Important Words

  1. accounted
  2. ban
  3. beijing
  4. china
  5. chinese
  6. communities
  7. cost
  8. costs
  9. desertification
  10. event
  11. fact
  12. factors
  13. felling
  14. government
  15. local
  16. loss
  17. lost
  18. market
  19. marketplace
  20. pain
  21. price
  22. productivity
  23. reflected
  24. responded
  25. result
  26. retrospective
  27. sensibly
  28. shows
  29. society
  30. timber
  31. topsoil
  32. true
  33. waterways
  34. wise
  35. years