Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright born in 1854 in Dublin. He attended Trinity College Dublin and Oxford University, where he excelled academically but also began exploring his bisexuality. Wilde published his first collection of poems in 1881 and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, in 1891. He was one of the most popular playwrights in London in the 1890s with plays like The Importance of Being Earnest. However, in 1895 he was tried and convicted of gross indecency for his homosexual acts and relationships. He was sentenced to two years in prison, which had a profound effect on him. After his release, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol

1. Pollution is one of the main causes of the deteriora-
tion of our environment. Pollution is nothing but the con-
tamination of our planet by harmful substances and wast-
ages or the unwanted things which is added to the natural
contents like air, water, etc. Some of the worst conse-
quences of the pollution are: the global warming,
the diminishing resources and weather instability which we
are experiencing today. Knowing where
pollution comes from can help us to avoid those activities
which increase the contamination of the planet.
AIR POLLUTION
Air is one of the essential elements in our life. It provides us
with oxygen, which allows us to breathe. The air can be both
our friend and enemy. With the numerous chemicals like car-
bon dioxide, methane, and harmful compounds, a polluted air is
a source of various sicknesses.
70% of air pollution in cities of Vietnam is caused by vehicles.
Dust pollution in big cities exceeds standards from 5-7 times.
In Hanoi, a decade ago, bicycles and three-wheeled pedal
taxis rode quietly down the tree-lined streets of Vietnam's
capital. Today, more than 2 millions motorcycles and scooters
buzz through Hanoi in a confused and unrelieved cacophony.
As its economy surges forward, motorcycles have become the
symbol of economic freedom in Vietnam.
Motorbikes are now the most popular vehicles in Vietnam,
accounting for 95 percent of the total vehicles in the country.
Vietnam has around 3 millions new motorbikes and 150,000
cars registered annually. Notably, motorbikes are not con-
trolled for exhaust fume.
By the end of 2010, there were 33 million motorbikes and
cars in Vietnam, including 1.4 million cars

2. WATER POLLUTION
Like air, water is a source of life. Humans will not be able to function well without adequate
intake of water. This nourishes our body, and helps remove the wastes and toxins inside it. Aside
from human beings, plants and animals need water in order to survive.
"The river used to be clean and full of fish," said Tran Bach, 67, who has lived for his entire life
in Long Tho, a village on the bank of the Thi Vai river. Fifteen years ago, he says, he could catch
about 50 kg of fish per day, enough to support his family of five. "With too many factories built
along the bank, the river is now so dirty and polluted that we can no longer drink its water or
catch any fish from it," he complained. "Now, the riverbed is full of waste and it has become
narrower and shallower." Bach’s neighbour, Le Bich Son, added that respiratory diseases and
intestinal sicknesses are also increasingly common among local people; this is linked to the
pollution in the river.
Viet Nam’s freshwater and marine
biodiversity is relatively high but
threatened by domestic and indus-
trial water pollution, dam and road
construction, dredging, over-fishing
and destructive fishing techniques,
as well as intensive aquaculture.
The geography and topography of
Viet Nam makes the country
extremely vulnerable to natural
hazards. Heavily populated areas
such as the Delta Regions of the
Red River and the Mekong River
along with the Central Coastal Regions are especially vulnerable to natural disasters which have
extreme effects on people, their livelihood, their agricultural lands, their livestock, and their
infrastructure.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION
Vietnam has been growing at a phenomenal rate
since the adoption, in the late 1980s, of reforms
that have stimulated its economy. The industrial
sector, which is growing by 15 percent per year, is
the principal driving force behind the country's
development. It is also the principal polluter: air
pollutants, contaminants dumped into waterways,
and hazardous wastes cause serious environmental
damage.

3. DEFORESTATION
Illegal logging is escalating in the country's northern and central provinces, wreaking havoc on
the environment and threatening to worsen floods in the area. Forests in mountainous areas are
being chopped down for logs while coastal mangrove forests are being cleared for fish farms.
Professor Phan Nguyen Hong, who has been researching mangrove forests for 40 years, said
Vietnams swamplands have been cleared by locals wanting to make quick profits by selling
firewood and breeding fish.
"We have just over 150,000 hectares of mangrove
forests left, just one third of the original area", he
said. "Tens of thousands of hectares have been
cleared every year to raise shrimp. The deforestation
has damaged the coastal ecosystem and environmental
impacts will gradually cause disease for the shrimp",
Hong added.
Mangrove forests also help prevent soil erosion
thanks to their thick tree roots and by slowing down
river currents.
There are a lot of environmental hazards that comes with the impact of pollution. The vast,
humid expanse of the Mekong delta is home to more than 17 million people, who have relied for
generations on its thousands of river arteries. But rising sea water caused by global warming is
now increasing the salt content of the river water and threatening the livelihoods of millions of
poor farmers and fishermen.
Vietnam is listed by the World Bank among the countries most threatened by rising waters
brought about by higher global temperatures. Such a rise could leave a third of the Mekong
Delta underwater and lead to mass internal migration and devastation in a region that produces
nearly half of Vietnam's rice.
For more about pollution http://facingthefuture.org/
If you want to learn more about pollution
Come at the RISS library and check out
one of these books

4. Birthday Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was born on 16th This experience deeply shocked and
affected him. During this time, he
October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.
He was a brilliant scholar but also wrote De Profundis. Upon his
increasingly rebellious. He was release in 1897, he wrote The
awarded a scholarship to Dublin
Ballad of Reading Gaol,
college, then to Oxford University.
revealing his concern for inhumane
He enjoyed his time in Oxford and Stop by the
prison conditions.
was able to develop his poetic He left for Paris where he lived in
RISS Library
sensibilities and love of literature. comparative anonymity. and
He also became more conscious of The life of Wilde was turbulent and check one of his
his bisexual nature. volatile. Never short books out !!!
He moved to London where he was of incident. It reflected his own
able to skillfully enter into high
inner paradoxes and
society, soon becoming well known
revolutionary views. In some ways
as a playwright and noted wit. he was both a saint and sinner at
In 1881, he published his first the same time. Wilde was not an
overtly political commentator but
collection of poetry Poems.
through his plays there is an
In 1884 he married Constance
underlying critique of social
Lloyd, and they had two sons, Cyril
and Vyvyan. norms that are illumined for
The
His first and only novel, their absurdities.
He died of cerebral meningitis on
Picture of Dorian Gray,
was published in 1891. November 30, 1900, penniless, in
a cheap Paris hotel.
His dress was a target for
satire in the cartoons, but Wilde
didn’t seem to mind. In fact he
“I am so clever that
learnt the art of self-publicity and
seemed to revel in it, at least up sometimes I don’t
until his trial in 1898 for his understand a single word
“crime” of homosexual acts. of what I am saying.”
He was found guilty, and sentenced
Oscar Wilde
to prison for two years.