Verbs nouns

1. offer a. the cost

2. pull b. a contract

3. solve c. strings

4. bear d. point

5. secure e. a problem

6. take f. a blind eye to

7. turn g.aneed

8. put h. pressure on

9. meet i. a bribe

10. make j. steps to

Now choose four of the above phrases and make your own sentences to show their meaning.

e. g. The government turned a blind eye to the pollution of the river caused by the factory.

b) Complete the following sentences with suitable prepositions.

1. The company were accused (1)... polluting the environment and were criticised (2).... doing so. Naturally, they were upset (3)... the charge and denied responsibility.

2. The government has brought (4) a new law to protect minority groups. The aim of the law is to prevent employers (5) ... discriminating (6) such groups.

3. We are engaged (7) ... many programmes which help the community. For example, schoolchildren benefit (8)... the training programmes we run, and from the equipment we have provided them (9).

4. Our management is strongly opposed (10)... expenditure on social programmes and objects (11).... people putting pressure (12)... the company to contribute more (13) society.

5. We pay lip service to the ideaof social responsibility but really we are only interested (14)... making a profit. Nothing must distract us (15) ... that purpose.

c) Idiomatic uses of run (in the long run):

Rewrite the following sentences without changing their meaning. Replace the words in italics with verbs from the list and make any other necessary changes.

run up run up against run down run through

run out of run out

1. We won't meet that urgent order unless we speed up production. We have little time left.

2. Can we review the plan for the sales campaign, please?

3. We won't be able to launch the product in February. The Design Department have met some technical problems.

4 Our firm is gradually reducing its marketing operation in the Far East.

5. This contract comes to an end next month, then we'll have to renew it.

6. They have incurred so many debts that they'll have to close down.

Is Big Business Antagonistic to Nature? (Environmental Ethics)

Can Business be Green? And how important is the role of business in protecting or destroying the environment? Does the international business community really have a responsibility to sustain the natural resources it commercially exploits? Or is that a matter for the world's politicians to sort out?

Nowadays, most of us are more or less aware of what we call environmental issues. How many of us conscientiously deposit our empty bottles at the bottle bank, save electricity by switching off lights, or make a big thing of using recycled paper — all in the belief that we are 'doing our bit' for the environment? But what impression are we actually making on the environment by doing so?

Tragically, the answer is almost none. For even if every household in the world recycled practically everything it used, solid waste would be reduced by a mere 2 %. In global terms, that would make absolutely no difference whatsoever, because the real problem lies, not with the private individual, but with big business and the $ 21 trillion world economy.

No Solutions Yet

Business, just like everything else, depends upon the survival of the eco-system, and you would think it would be in the interests of commerce and industry to learn how to manage Corporation Earth. Yet the fact is that though business is the only mechanism powerful enough to reverse the current global trend towards ecological disaster, it has yet to come up with a practical plan to halt the destruction of the planet.

Poor Track Record

The track record of the world's companies is poor. Whereas the Chernobyl disaster can perhaps be attributed to lack of funds and the antiquated technology of a crumbling Soviet regime, no such excuse can be offered in the case of Union Carbide. When the full horror of the chemical accident at Bhopal in India became apparent, the company, quite legally, liquidated a large portion of its assets in the form of shareholders' dividends, thereby reducing the company's compensatory liability to its 200,000 victims. And when the Exxon Valdez tanker ran around, tne Exxon company seemed more concerned to reassure the stock markets that its financial strength was undiminished than to console the Alaskans, whose livelihoods were wrecked by the catastrophic oil spill.

Large Scale Pollution

General Electric has taken what some people call 'corporate crime' to even greater extremes. So much so, that it actually had its contracts suspended by the Pentagon. It stood accused, amongst other things, of bribery and insider trading, and of being one of America's greatest toxic polluters. And one of its nuclear operations in Washington State alone has created sufficient radioactive pollution to charge 50 atom bombs of the kind dropped on Nagasaki during World War II (Two)

Making Conservation Profitable

The situation seems hopeless. But, as ecological expert, Paul Hawken, points out, if business is not only about making money, but also about sustaining life, then perhaps it really can make conservation profitable, productive and possible. And some say that, if they wanted to, the commercial powers could actually halt environmental degradation within as little as 20 years. For why must what is good for business always be bad for nature?

Short-Term Goals

The simple answer to that is that big business is, by definition, antagonistic to nature. Business is designed to break through limits, not respect them. It is about exploring, discovering, mining, extracting, and exploiting. It is quite definitely not about putting things back. Although, in the long term, a living rain forest is more profitable than a dead one, the goals of big business are notoriously short-term. And, contrary to popular belief, big business is not in decline. The largest one thousand companies in the United States still account for over 60 % of GNP, with modern telecommunications their global reach is almost complete. And what can the environmentalists do when our planet's greatest enemy turns out to be the only force strong enough to save it?