Экологические проблемы

Vocabulary:

ancient — древний
harmony — гармония
environment — окружающая среда
riches — богатства
unlimited — неограниченный
to interfere — вмешиваться
to increase — увеличиваться, возрастать
smoky — дымный
enterprises — предприятия
by-product — побочный продукт
activity — деятельность
to pollute — загрязнять
substances — вещества
oxigen — кислород
rare — редкий
destruction — разрушение
ozone — озон
layer — слой
interaction — взаимодействие
horrible — ужасный
disaster — катастрофа
to befall — пасть (на что-то)

Ecology problems

Since ancient times Nature has served man, being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with environment and it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. But with the development of civilization man’s interference in nature began to increase.

Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with about 1000 million tons of dust and other things. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever. Many cities suffer from smog.

Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises appear all over the world today. The by-products of their activity pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we grow vegetables.

The pollution of air and the world’s ocean, destruction of the ozone layer is the result of man’s careless interaction with nature. Environmental protection is of a universal concern. That is why serious measures to create a system of ecological security should be taken.

Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries — members of the UNO — have set up environmental protection agencies. Numerous conferences have been held by these agencies to discuss problems facing ecologically poor regions including the Aral Sea, the South Urals, Kuzbass, Donbass, Semipalatinsk and Chernobyl. An international environmental research centre has been set up on Lake Baikal. The international organization Greenpeace is also doing much to preserve the environment.

But these are only the initial steps and they must be carried onward to protect nature, to save life on the planet not only for the present but also for the future generations.

Ecology and man

The ecology of our planet has long been under threat. Unfortunately, it is the human factor that primarily has a negative impact on the environment. But this environment is the habitat for both people and other living organisms. Man was created by nature in order to protect the planet for future generations. At present, mankind is committed not to think about the negative effects of its activities on the environment. In turn, environmentalists are sounding the alarm and predicting a large-scale environmental catastrophe that threatens to exterminate all life on the planet. It is worth emphasizing that a person pollutes the environment, first of all makes himself worse. Toxins and harmful chemicals that are the result of human activity have long poisoned most of the drinking water and food.

Practically all types of transport bring enormous harm to the environment, as their exhaust gases from burned fuel pollute the air. Most of the enterprises and factories are not equipped with treatment facilities, and all industrial waste goes to the atmosphere or rivers. To improve the quality of the crop, special fertilizers are produced, which pose a serious danger to all living things. Lawless testing of nuclear and chemical weapons completely destroy the ecosystem.

Such negligent behavior of people leads to environmental disasters, such as acid precipitation, intensive melting of glaciers. There are new diseases and viruses that mutate and are not amenable to treatment. Mortality is increasing across the planet. Nature cannot self-purify, so people must understand the seriousness of the problem and avoid catastrophic situations.

The word “Ecol­o­gy” comes from the Greek lan­guage and means “the study of the the place we live in”. So, there is no per­son on Earth who is not affect­ed by eco­log­i­cal prob­lems. For exam­ple, air pol­lut­ed by plants will trav­el for a long dis­tance with wind, the heavy par­ti­cles will get into rivers and seas.

Pol­lu­tion of the sea is the most dan­ger­ous. The regions that are most loaded with sea traf­fic are very dirty. For exam­ple, the Baltic sea is the dirt­i­est zone on the plan­et. The radioac­tive leak at Fukushi­ma, Japan has led to the death of many fish­es and oth­er aquat­ic beings.

The cutout of forests, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the seas and intense burn­ing of coal has shift­ed the bal­ance of the oxy­gen, ozone and car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere, mak­ing the ozone “shield” of the plan­et thin­ner. It results in glob­al cli­mate changes. Debates are still being held whether the “Glob­al warm­ing” is real, but every year there comes anoth­er evi­dence of the warm­ing — the ice mounts melt at the poles, rais­ing the glob­al sea level.

You, of course, may say that you can’t affect the pro­duc­tion of plants and fac­to­ries much. But there is also the ecol­o­gy of your home and your work­place. You shouldn’t pour dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals to the ground — it will “die”, become infer­tile. Do not throw away bat­ter­ies — send them to the recy­cling cen­ter. There are often spe­cial con­tain­ers for bat­ter­ies in major malls. Gen­er­al­ly, do not waste resources — like take a show­er, not a bath, turn down the water when you brush your teeth. Turn off elec­tric devices that you do not use. Take care of the health of your environment.

Our envi­ron­ment is con­stant­ly chang­ing. This is the fact we can­not deny. The way tech­no­log­i­cal progress influ­ences the envi­ron­ment is not the most favourable.

Today human­i­ty is fac­ing numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems. If we do not pay atten­tion to these prob­lems right now, we may face even big­ger nat­ur­al dis­as­ters in the future.

Pol­lu­tion is one of the biggest prob­lems. Plants and motor vehi­cles are num­ber one pol­lu­tants. Their harm­ful emis­sions pol­lute the envi­ron­ment. Oil spills and acid rains make the World Ocean dirty.

Glob­al warm­ing is the result of human activ­i­ty. It is char­ac­ter­ized by ris­ing tem­per­a­tures of the oceans and earth’s sur­face caus­ing rise in sea lev­els and melt­ing of polar ice cov­er. Apart from that, floods, deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and exces­sive snow are also signs of glob­al warming.

Glob­al warm­ing caus­es the rise of anoth­er seri­ous prob­lem, known as cli­mate change. Cli­mate change can lead to the devel­op­ment of oth­er harm­ful effects in our life, such as occur­rence of new dis­eases and change in seasons.

Today forests cov­er about 30% of land. Every year this fig­ure decreas­es more and more. Peo­ple clear new ter­ri­to­ries for res­i­den­tial build­ings, new plants and fac­to­ries. We must real­ize that defor­esta­tion caus­es the extinc­tion of ani­mals and plants.

Ozone lay­er pro­tects our plan­et from the sun’s harm­ful rays. Due to atmos­pher­ic emis­sions of the so-called CFC’s, the ozone lay­er depletes. This results in occur­rence of the holes in the ozone layer.

Today CFC’s are banned in many indus­tries. How­ev­er, we must remem­ber that if this prob­lem is not tak­en under con­trol, harm­ful rays of the sun will eas­i­ly pen­e­trate the atmos­phere. The biggest hole in the ozone lay­er is locat­ed above the Antarctic.