Roundtable discussion preparation

In order to prepare for our roundtable discussion next week, I read two articles from TIME (OCTOBER 29, 2007). One is Tulsi Tanti by Aryn Baker and another one is Shi Zhengrong byMartin Green.


In the first article, the author tells the Tulsi Tanti's successful story about wind power. He at first ran a textile company. However, due to the rising cost of electricity, his company started to suffer from a lost. Finally, he decided to generate electricity his own by using wind turbines, devices which are able to convert wind power into electricity. Wind power actually saved his first factory. After that, Tanti sold off all his textile manufacturing and start a new business on wind-turbine generators. Wind power has made him a billionaire and now he want to save the world by promoting this environment-friendly energy.


The second article is roughly another version of the story mentioned above. However, this time the leading actor, Mr. Zhang benefited from sunshine instead of wind. He started as a scholar who did solar-cell research. Then he launched his own solar-cell company. In the end he has become one of the Australia's richest citizens.


Our coming roundtable discussion is basically about alternative energy. Therefore, these two articles are indeed relevant and useful for us. Wind power and solar energy are two kinds of alternative energy which are very commonly mentioned. In today's world, policy makers tend to put environment problems aside because of economic pressure. In other words, most of environment-friendly methods are non-profitable if not, hardly profitable. Therefore, they do not deserve a large amount of investments in most of policy makers' opinions. However, Zhang and Tanti's successful stories are very convincing examples to show that making use of alternative energy is manageable, and profitable.

Furthermore, Zhang and Tanti are both so called environment heroes. They did remarkable contribution in saving our earth by promoting green energy. However, they actually are private entrepreneurs. Besides, they both started as small companies and achieved significant success in the end. Their stories show that promoting clean energy is not only government's concern. Individuals do have the ability of contributing to it and doing it well.Therefore, people should not only rely on the government to save the environment but start to make actions themselves instead.

Vacabulary
fledgling ---young, new, or inexperienced.
preach ---to give earnest advice.
lush ---characterized by luxuriant vegetation.
forsake ---to give up; abandon.
unrelenting ---maintaining speed, effort, vigor, intensity, rate of advance.
trailblaze ---to be a pioneer in.