Green consumers

People who regularly engage in pro-environmental consumer behaviour are an elite group, with higher-than-average levels of educational attainment and household income. On the other hand, people who are least likely to be environmentally involved are among the least prosperous Americans.

In the study, the greenest consumers – the True-Blues and the Greenbacks – have a median house­hold income of almost $ 32,000 or 40 % higher than the average household income of an environmentally "indifferent" person. Solid majorities of the nest environmentally active Americans have been to college, while majorities of the least active groups have not.

A final demographic predictor is gender: women are more environmentally active than men. This gender gap is particularly important because women still do most of the household shopping. Their dominance in supermarket aisles and at retail counters might make the positioning and eventual success of certain "green" products easier to achieve.

Although Grousers and Basic Browns make up the majority of U.S. households, that doesn't mean that the environmental market is a myth. Vast majorities of Americans are worried about our environmental future. So far, only a majority have adopted more environmentally responsible lifestyles. But attitudinal changes generally precede behavioral ones.

The first stage – deep public concern about environmental problems - has certainly been reached. So far, voters have been largely unwilling to take the next step and approve sweeping changes. But the important attitudinal shifts of the 1980s should gradually change environmental behaviour la the 1990s.

The stage, it seems, is finally set for the "greening of America".

Exercises

1. Practice reading the words from the article. Learn their Russian equivalents:

aisle, attainment, attitudinal, demographic, detergent, elite, executive, liberal, to precede, to perceive, segment, technique, unique, to vary.

2. Find in the article and learn the English equivalents of the following word-combinations:

1) компенсировать/покрывать разрыв в идеологии; 2) делать изменения в своем образе жизни; 3) многоразовая упаковка; 4) фактическое отсутствие; 5) самый высокий процент ч-л; 6) изменения в отношении к-л к ч-л/к-л; 7) превалирующее/характерное для большинства отношение; 8) доход выше среднего; 9) избегать покупки аэрозолей; 10) консервативный/либеральный курс; 11) требовать индивидуального участия/усилия.

Make up 1 sentence for oral translation with any of the items.

3. VOCABULARY (define the lexical items, say in what context each of them was employed and exemplify their use with your own sentences/situations):

1) to engage in sth/doing sth;

2) to rationalise sth;

3) to compare with (Cf.: to compare to);

4) to cut back on sth;

5) to stem from sth;

6) to be inclined to do sth;

7) (to be) confronted with;

8) trade-off.

4. Explain what is meant by:

1) environmentally irresponsible (companies); 2) to engage in environmentally-friendly practices; 3) environmentally safe products; 4) refillable container; 5) green consumer, green consuming; 6) environmentally irresponsible lifestyles; 7) an environmentally indifferent person; 8) environmentally active.

5. Rephrase or interpret the following sentences:

1. They’re the least likely to consider themselves “middle-of-the-road” on political and social issues. 2. They’re also less certain about which side to take when confronted with the trade-off between protecting the environment and encouraging economic development. 3. People who regularly engage in pro-environmental consumer behaviour are an elite group…

6. Suggest Russian equivalents for the names of environmental types.

7. Say to which environmental type(s) you could refer yourself.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

~ 1 ~

Natural hazards

1. wildfire

2. tornado

3. tsunami

4. hail

5. volcano eruption

6. flood

7. drought

8. hurricane

9. earthquake

10. thunderstorm

Hail - a form of precipitation consisting of roughly spherical pellets of ice and snow usually combined in alternating layers. True hailstones occur only at the beginning of thunderstorms and never when the ground temperature is below freezing. Raindrops or snow pellets formed in cumulonimbus clouds are swept vertically in the turbulent air currents characteristic of thunderstorms. The hailstone grows by the repeated collisions of these particles with supercooled water, that is, water that is colder than its freezing point yet remains in liquid form. This water is suspended in the cloud through which the particle is traveling. When the particles of hail become too heavy to be supported by the air currents, they fall to earth. Hailstones range in diameter from 2 mm to 13 cm; the larger ones are sometimes very destructive. Often several hailstones freeze together into a large, shapeless, heavy mass of ice and snow.

A Guide to Storms

By Jack Williams

All storms have two things in common: low atmospheric pressure at the storm’s center, and winds that are created by the flow of air from higher pressure outside the storm toward the low pressure at the center. Wind, in other words, is air that’s being pushed by high pressure toward low pressure.

Areas of low air pressure occur because the Sun heats the Earth unequally. The Sun shines down almost directly on Earth’s tropical regions near the equator, heating this region more than the polar regions around the North and South poles and the middle latitudes between the poles and the tropics. Storms, along with ocean currents, redistribute heat from the tropics to the middle latitudes and the poles. Without storms and ocean currents, the tropics would grow hotter and hotter until the oceans boiled.

Air pouring into an area of low pressure from all sides rises because it doesn’t have any place else to go. As air rises, it cools, and if it cools enough the water vapor in the air begins to condense. This condensation creates the tiny drops of water or tiny ice crystals that make up clouds. Under the right conditions, the tiny water drops or ice crystals merge to fall from the cloud as larger water drops of rain or ice crystals of snow. This is why storms bring clouds and usually bring rain, snow, or other kinds of ice.

Over the years, gigantic storms that originate in the tropics have killed more people around the world than any other single kind of storm. These storms are known by different terms in different regions. They are called hurricanes when they form over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, or the eastern Pacific Ocean north of the equator. The same storms are called typhoons when they form over the western Pacific and tropical cyclones when they occur over the southern Pacific or the Indian Ocean. They all produce sustained winds of 120 km/h and faster. In their earlier stages, when their winds range in speed from 63 to 119 km/h, they are generally called tropical storms.

Hurricanes occur over oceans with water that is 27°C or warmer in areas where there is also a layer of humid air that’s a few thousand feet thick. These storms draw their energy from the warm water and humid air. During their lives, these storms flow along the paths of the Earth’s large-scale winds, much like twigs floating with the current of a river. When the storm moves over land or cold water it begins to die, but a storm can stay over a warm ocean for a week or two, sometimes even longer, growing stronger or at least not losing much strength. A hurricane consists of lines of thunderstorms that spiral into the storm’s calm center, which is called the eye. Winds grow stronger as you approach the eye, and the very strongest winds occur in the wall of thunderstorms around the eye, called the eye wall.

As a hurricane’s winds blow hour after hour, sometimes faster than 160 km/h, water piles up on the ocean surface near the hurricane’s center. If the storm hits land it brings with it this mound of water, called a storm surge, which can be up to 6 m.

Tornado - violently rotating column of air extending from within a thundercloud down to ground level. The strongest tornadoes may sweep houses from their foundations, destroy brick buildings, toss cars and school buses through the air, and even lift railroad cars from their tracks. Tornadoes vary in diameter from tens of meters to nearly 2 km, with an average diameter of about 50 m. Most tornadoes in the northern hemisphere create winds that blow counterclockwise around a center of extremely low atmospheric pressure. In the southern hemisphere the winds generally blow clockwise. Peak wind speeds can range from near 120 km/h to almost 500 km/h. The forward motion of a tornado can range from a near standstill to almost 110 km/h.

A tornado becomes visible when a condensation funnel made of water vapor (a funnel cloud) forms in extreme low pressures, or when the tornado lofts dust, dirt, and debris upward from the ground. Some tornadoes resemble a swaying elephant's trunk. Others, especially very violent ones, may break into several intense suction vortices—intense swirling masses of air – each of which rotates near the parent tornado. A suction vortex may be only a few meters in diameter, and thus can destroy one house while leaving a neighboring house relatively unscathed.

Many tornadoes, including the strongest ones, develop from a special type of thunderstorm known as a supercell. A supercell is a long-lived, rotating thunderstorm 10 to 16 km in diameter that may last several hours, travel hundreds of miles, and produce several tornadoes. Supercell tornadoes are often produced in sequence, so that what appears to be a very long damage path from one tornado may actually be the result of a new tornado that forms in the area where the previous tornado died. Sometimes, tornado outbreaks occur, and swarms of supercell storms may occur. Each supercell may spawn a tornado or a sequence of tornadoes.

The same condensation process that creates tornadoes makes visible the generally weaker sea-going tornadoes, called waterspouts. Waterspouts occur most frequently in tropical waters.

Cyclone, in strict meteorological terminology, an area of low atmospheric pressure surrounded by a wind system blowing, in the northern hemisphere, in a counterclockwise direction. A corresponding high-pressure area with clockwise winds is known as an anticyclone. In the southern hemisphere these wind directions are reversed. Cyclones are commonly called lows and anticyclones highs. The term cyclone has often been more loosely applied to a storm and disturbance attending such pressure systems, particularly the violent tropical hurricane and the typhoon, which center on areas of unusually low pressure.

EXERCISES

1. Read the information on the natural hazards.

2. Learn the Russian equivalents of the following words and word-combinations used in the article:

cumulonimbus clouds, repeated collisions of these particles, air currents, hailstones, to redistribute heat from the tropics to the middle latitudes and the poles, funnel, vortex/vortices

3. True or false?

1) Wind is air that’s being pushed by low pressure toward high pressure.

2) High temperatures and humidity create favourable conditions for forming hurricanes.

3) Tornadoes in the northern hemisphere create winds that blow clockwise around a center of extremely high atmospheric pressure.

4. Answer the questions:

1. What is hail? 2. Why don’t hailstones occur in winter on a frosty day? 3. How does the hailstone grow? 4. When do hailstones fall to the ground? 5. How can hail be dangerous? 6. What do all storms have in common? 7. Why are there areas of low atmospheric pressure on the planet? 8. How do storms and ocean currents help control the climate on Earth? 9. Why do storms bring clouds and usually bring rain, snow, or other kinds of ice? 10. What’s the difference between hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms? 11. Are hurricanes short-lived? 12. What’s the eye of the hurricane? 13. What’s the eye wall? 14. What is a storm surge? 15. What’s a tornado? 16. What causes tornadoes? 17. Why are tornadoes dangerous? 18. What’s a waterspout? 19. What’s a cyclone/anticyclone?

~ 2 ~

Earthquake - a sudden shaking of the earth's surface that often causes a lot of damage. Earthquakes occur when energy stored within the Earth, usually in the form of strain in rocks, suddenly releases. This energy is transmitted to the surface of the Earth by earthquake waves.

Most earthquakes are caused by the sudden slip along geologic faults. The faults slip because of movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. The rocky tectonic plates move very slowly, floating on top of a weaker rocky layer. As the plates collide with each other or slide past each other, pressure builds up within the rocky crust. Earthquakes occur when pressure within the crust increases slowly over hundreds of years and finally exceeds the strength of the rocks. Earthquakes also occur when human activities, such as the filling of reservoirs, increase stress in the Earth’s crust. These are tectonic earthquakes. Volcanic earthquakes occur near active volcanoes but have the same fault slip mechanism as tectonic earthquakes. Volcanic earthquakes are caused by the upward movement of magma under the volcano, which strains the rock locally and leads to an earthquake.

Ground shaking leads to landslides and other soil movement. These are the main damage-causing events that occur during an earthquake. Primary effects that can accompany an earthquake include property damage, loss of lives, fire (through damage to natural gas mains), tsunami waves and disease (damage to water supply lines, sewage lines, and hospital facilities as well as lack of housing may lead to conditions that contribute to the spread of contagious diseases, such as the flu and other viral infection). Secondary effects, such as economic loss, disease, and lack of food and clean water, also occur after a large earthquake.

Volcano - a mountain with a large hole at the top, through which hot rocks, lava, and ash sometimes rise into the air from inside the earth. Eruptions pose direct and indirect volcano hazards to people and property, both on the ground and in the air. Direct hazards are pyroclastic flows, lava flows, falling ash, and debris flows. Pyroclastic flows are mixtures of hot ash, rock fragments, and gas. They are especially deadly because of their high temperatures of 850° C or higher and fast speeds of 250 km/h or greater. Lava flows, which move much more slowly than pyroclastic flows, are rarely life threatening but can produce massive property damage and economic loss. Heavy accumulations of volcanic ash, especially if they become wet from rainfall, can collapse roofs and damage crops. Debris flows are composed of wet concretelike mixtures of volcanic debris and water from melted snow or ice or heavy rainfall. They can travel quickly through valleys, destroying everything in their paths. Pyroclastic and volcanic debris flows have caused the most eruption-related deaths in the 20th century. Indirect hazards are usually nonvolcanic effects that accompany or follow eruptions. Examples are earthquakes, tsunamis, rainfall-caused debris flow, and posteruption disease and famine. Tsunamis are large seismic sea waves generated by sudden movement of the seafloor. This sudden seafloor movement can be caused by a large earthquake or by the collapse of an island volcano during or after an eruption. Tsunamis can devastate low-lying coastal areas and can be deadly if people living in such areas are not evacuated. Indirect hazards also include volcanic deposits from large eruptions. These deposits can blanket farm fields and grazing lands, leading to the loss of crops and livestock and ultimately to the starvation of people dependent on them for life. During the period from the 17th century to the 19th century, tsunamis and posteruption starvation and disease caused most eruption-related deaths.

Tsunami – Japanese word, meaning “harbor wave” and used as the scientific term for seismic sea wave generated by an undersea earthquake or possibly an undersea landslide or volcanic eruption. When the ocean floor is tilted or offset during an earthquake, a set of waves is created similar to the concentric waves generated by an object dropped into the water. Most tsunamis originate along the Ring of Fire, a zone of volcanoes and seismic activity that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

A tsunami can have wavelengths, or widths, of 100 to 200 km, and may travel hundreds of kilometers across the deep ocean, reaching speeds of about 725 to 800 km/h. Upon entering shallow coastal waters, the wave, which may have been only about half a meter high out at sea, suddenly grows rapidly. When the wave reaches the shore, it may be 15 m high or more. Tsunamis have tremendous energy because of the great volume of water affected. They are capable of obliterating coastal settlements.

Flood – very large amount of water that covers an area that is usually dry. Floods occur when soil and vegetation cannot absorb all the water; water then runs off the land in quantities that cannot be carried in stream channels or retained in natural ponds and constructed reservoirs. Floods not only damage property and endanger the lives of humans and animals, but have other effects as well. Rapid runoff causes soil erosion as well as sediment deposition problems downstream. Spawning grounds for fish and other wildlife habitat are often destroyed. High-velocity currents increase flood damage; prolonged high floods delay traffic and interfere with drainage and economic use of lands. Bridge abutments, bank lines, sewer outfalls, and other structures within floodways are damaged, and navigation and hydroelectric power are often impaired. Financial losses due to floods are commonly millions of dollars each year.