A SPECIAL ESSAY CONTEST ORGANIZED TOGETHER WITH THE US EMBASSY IN VILNIUS 🙂

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We are very proud to announce the winners:

1st place Vakarė Kuklytė 7C

https://thevoice.space/2016/04/animals-matter-do-we-care-by-vakare-kuklyte/

2ndplace Emilija Jokūbauskaite 7B

3rd place Audrė Baublytė 7D

https://thevoice.space/2016/04/what-it-feels-to-be-a-bear-these-days-by-audre-baublyte/

Winners: in the category- students of the LEU

1st and 2nd place Ineta Januševskaja and Viltė Baronaitė

https://thevoice.space/2016/04/what-can-be-done-to-stop-environmental-issues-by-ineta-janusevskaja-and-vilte-baronaite/

3rd place Edvinas Matonis

We would like to express our gratitude for the great team of the US Embassy in Vilnius for the cooperation and for such a warm welcome 😳

The original contest’s announcement:

Our newspaper’s writers or their English studying friends, who don’t necessarily write everyday, make an article about the climate change and environmental protection, dedicated to the Earth Day, April 22. People who decide to contribute to this project should link\make a reference of some kind to Lithuania. The U.S. Embassy will read the articles, select three best ones, which they would also publish on their social media!!!

Summed up, on or around April 22, all the writers from The VOICE, as well other students who write from J. Basanavičius (max 30 people) will be invited to visit the Embassy, where the authors of three best articles shall be awarded with books and special Embassy prizes.

Let US know what you think of the project, as well as if you’re going to enter the contest!

Good luck ;-)

Currently world population has reached 7 billion. Even though there are a lot of people living on Earth, not everybody knows that on April 22 it is going to be Earth’s Day. Earth Day is an annual event on which a lot of events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. There are a lot of environmental problems around us, even though we do not always see them. Probably the worst environmental problems are pollution
and global warming.

One of the most serious environmental issues in Lithuania are air and water pollution. The increasing air pollution in Lithuanian cities during the last years had an impact on health of people. The main air pollution sources are automobiles and factories. However, people can’t simply stop using cars or close all the factories. Can they?

Another environmental issue is water pollution. Water pollution is one of Lithuania’s most serious problems.
Lithuanian surface waters are slightly polluted with heavy metals, oil products and phenol.There a few ways to reduce the water pollution, such as to never throw garbage, chemicals, or paints into the water, also for the
government to buy water cleaning equipment.

ONE MORE really important issue disturbing our life is global warming. There are a lot of possible causes of global warming, such as deforestation, pollution, wildfires, and many more. However, even though it does not seem like a thing that we could see at the moment, but it is evident to see as the time passes. Melting of the ice caps, rising sea level, lakes warming rapidly, animals changing migration patterns, plants changing the dates of activity, and many other things are considered to be the effects of global warming.

Environmental problems may not seem like a huge thing for us now, but what will happen to the Earth in the future, if none of us will care or do anything about it? Who knows. A few things we can do save our planet, or at least not to worsen the current situation, are to reduce the pollution, stop wasting electricity, water, and gas, and to encourage others to do the same.

All in all, the first step to change the world is to change our daily life habits. 😉

Climate change is a change of weather. Unfortunately, it is already happening, it’s not just a fear. It’s hard to deny that today climate change or in other words – global warming is a serious reason for concern. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other meteorological institutions prove that average yearly temperature has been steadily increasing during the last decades. The Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by 0.76° C since 1850. Most of the warming that has occurred over the last 50 years is very likely to have been caused by human activities. Over 95% of scientists agree that these changes are caused by the Greenhouse Effect. The statistic represents that carbon dioxide emissions increased by around nine billion metric tons over the past decade. Burning large amounts of fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas is the root cause of global warming. The burning releases heat – trapping gases in the atmosphere. So all these statistics represent that our world is getting warmer.

Climate change has a lot of negative factors. First of all, the sea levels have been rising, the number of floods in different parts of the world has increased dramatically. It is bad because salt water destroys the crops. Also seawater is contaminating rivers when it mixes with fresh water and the rivers are becoming polluted. That’s why many people are undernourished. Secondly, glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere have started to melt.  Millions of people depend on fresh water supply each year by natural spring melt. And thirdly, it’s ocean acidification. This process is caused by CO2 in the water, and may have negative effects on the entire oceanic food – chain. So climate change has terrible effects.It is important to recognize that we should do something that could stop global warming. One of alternative ways would be to reduce CO2 emissions. The government should restrict traffic in the city center or allow Eco-friendly cars only. Also in my opinion countries should invest into renewable energy this way burning of fossil fuels could be reduced. In my view these solutions are the best way to prevent climate change.

To my mind, everybody could promote stopping global warming. I am worried about climate change, so I could motivate my parents and friends to limit car driving and using public transport instead. Also I could become a part of various events or organizations which invite people to adopt a ‘greener’ lifestyles. So there are a lot of ways how to reduce climate change. The most important thing is the desire to save our nature!