3. Read and translate the text using a dictionary. Environmental problems

Nowadays human activities are known to have a negative influence on the environment and deteriorate environmental conditions. The aim of everything done by the human is the satisfaction of needs in food, clothes, comfortable dwelling, medical aid, medicines, transport service, information, in cultural-aesthetic sphere. It is always connected with the exchange between nature and technogenic surroundings in substance, energy, information, during which they create complicated systems. At this point, every enterprise involves raw materials and natural resources in the production process and returns waste to the environment. Final products are, in their turn, waste as well, but only delayed in time. The products are made, chemicals are synthesized – everything made by a human, including art masterpieces and historical monuments, early or lately is worn out, breaks, destroys and disperses in the environment and, consequently, pollutes it.

The present ecological situation is the result of human activities accompanied by the destruction of ecosystems, irrational use of natural resources, accumulation of waste products and environmental contamination.

On the whole, the ecological situation all over the world cannot be considered as favorable. In some territories (large cities, areas of intensive hunting, industrial-territorial complexes, etc.) it is regarded as critical. As a result, many territories are called now regions of ecological disaster with concomitant problems of man’s health.

Today pollution has become a universal problem. Both the atmosphere of the Earth and the depths of the oceans are poisoned with toxic wastes created by the humans. Millions of species – animals, birds, fish have already disappeared from our planet; thousands of others will become extinct tomorrow. Natural resources are exhausted; the ecology of the planet is disbalanced. The survival of our civilization depends on the ability of mankind to find a way out. The task of protecting the nature is of primary importance now.

Big cities face the environmental catastrophe now. Concentration of millions of people on a tiny area causes numerous problems. Some of them can be solved only at the expense of creating new ones. For example, air pollution is caused by the increasing number of automobiles that help to cope with the transportation problem. The need for energy generates pollution on a large scale. Energy that derives from fossil fuels contaminates the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants threaten air, water and land. The necessity to employ all the inhabitants of the city leads to the creation of new factories that produce not only consumer goods, but wastes and smog as well. Constant carbon dioxide emission is a characteristic feature of big cities. Pollution of water by both industrial and domestic users creates a problem of water deficit. One form of pollution that is characteristic of large urban cities is noise that has destructive influence on a person’s mind. Litter is another issue that people face in big cities. As a result of it industrial centres today look more like garbage dumps. It would be naive to think that the environmental problems are limited to big cities only. Our Earth is a living entity; land, air and water are inseparable. Water contaminated in big cities runs to the major rivers then flow into oceans and seas, thus affecting places far from the point of origin. The atmosphere is in constant movement; the air polluted in one country can travel the next day to another country poisoning its people.

The main thing that people must realize today is that humanity is a part of the biosphere and that people depend completely on the environment.