Protect the Environment

British MP David Miliband talking about one of his constituents.

(Intermediate level vocabulary exercise)

I first met Kirstie in February. I’d come to South Shields for a constituency day and saw in my diary “5:15 Kirstie Hart. She wants to talk about the environment.” It was supposed to be a 15-minute appointment. She stayed quite a lot longer than that and I knew that it wasn’t going to be an ordinary   –  meeting conference get-together reunion  when she said ‘You look tired!’ I was in the middle of a bird ‘flu   –  critics crisis disaster concern  so I wasn’t surprised. Her opening gambit was “I’m very worried about the environment. I want to become a politician and do something to save the planet.” Then she told me that she was a single mum and worked for a printing company where she made them   –  recover replenish recycle redo  everything and only use environmentally   –  friend friendship friendliness friendly  chemicals and ink. She said, “I’ve been following the environmental   –  debate talk contest questioning  and it is absolutely clear to me that unless we get the Americans to change their   –  attitude mood feeling belief  we will never be able to   –  insist demand enable persuade  other nations to change.” The most important thing in politics is that you have to have passion and belief and an interest in making the world a better   –  place country position situation  and Kirstie has a lot of this. She doesn’t have a lot of qualifications but she has a probing intellect and a lot of energy.

(Adapted from an article in the Guardian newspaper.)