UNIT 1 Environment and Ecology: Losing the Battle against Catastrophic Climate Change

Part I. The Rainforests Project

I. Comment on the statements about the environment.

1. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” ― Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India.

2. “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (1933-1945).

3. “Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.” — Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States (1977-1981).

II. Explain the following concepts in English. Consult the dictionary. Pay special attention to the pronunciation of the words.

• climate change [ˈklaɪmət tʃeɪndʒ]

• rainforest [ˈreɪnfɒrɪst]

• deforestation [ˌdiːˌfɒrɪˈsteɪʃn]

• biodiversity [ˌbaɪəʊdaɪˈvɜːsəti]

• carbon dioxide / CO₂ [ˌkɑːbən daɪˈɒksaɪd / ˌsiː ˈəʊ tuː]

III. Provide brief information on the following points.

1. The effect of climate change on our life.

2. Rainforest nations.

3. The consequences of deforestation.

4. The interconnection between climate change and biodiversity.

5. The United Nations Climate Change Conference.

6. The Prince’s Rainforests Project set up by Prince Charles.

IV. Read part of Prince Charles’s speech on rainforests (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQbXfVQYOTg) and translate it into Russian.

May I just start by thanking you for taking the time to watch this webcast.

One of the Internet strengths is that it can enable diverse communities to come together to ensure that everybody’s view and actions can really be made to count. It provides the potential to create global determination for change on a vitally important issue. In this regard your collective support is needed now in the urgent fight against climate change, and more specifically, in saving one of the Earth’s most precious and important resources — the tropical rainforests.

Now, you may wonder how climate change and the rainforests are connected. In essence, rainforests help keep our climate cool and absorb nearly sixth of our CO₂ emissions. Yet they are being destroyed at the rate of a football pitch every 4 seconds. And to make matters worse in addition to removing the trees’ absorption capability this destruction releases hundreds of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere, and is a key contributor to climate change.

Carbon emissions from deforestation are actually greater than all emissions from worldwide transport, in other words, cars, aircraft, and ships put together. Most critically, the rainforests also help provide the oxygen that we breathe and the vital rainfall that waters our crops to feed the whole world.

Why are they cut down? Often because rainforest nations, quite understandably, need to exploit their economic value to sell the high-quality timber and to farm on the fertile land where the trees once stood. But this has an increasingly devastating effect on the stability of the world’s climate, let alone on the biodiversity that is essential to human existence on this planet.

So two years ago I established my rainforest project in order to try and find ways to ensure the trees become more valuable alive than dead, so that there is no incentive to cut them down. You are about to see if you wish the first ever broadcast of our short sign-up campaign video. It features a number of supporters and our aim, with your help, is to build an online community to call from the bottom up for urgent action to protect the rainforests, by the time the world’s leaders gather in Copenhagen for crucially important international climate discussions at the end of this year.

Unless, unless we protect the rainforests we will most certainly lose the battle against catastrophic climate change.