II. Questions for discussion:

1. What is environmental pollution?

2. What causes most air pollution?

3. What does water pollution reduce?

4. May pesticides harm helpful organisms in the soil?

5. What are solid wastes?

6. How do plastics contribute to more than one kind of pollution?

7. What is recycling?

8. How can we reduce pollution?

9. What approaches can be used to control pollution?

10. What kinds of wastes can be recycled?

III. Use the words in the box once each to complete the paragraph below. Notice that the stressed syllable changes in this group of words.

Verb	Nouns	Adjectives
e'conomize	e'conomy eco'nomics e'conomists	eco'nomic eco'nomical uneco'nomical

Most people today agree that we ought to be as (1) ………………as possible in our use of natural resources, particularly energy, and to limit pollution to a minimum. Ecologists sometimes argue that manufacturers should either clean up their production processes, i.e. limit the amount of waste and emissions they produce, or be forced to close down. Manufacturers often reply that it is frequently (2)……………………to clean up, and impossible if their competitors do not face the same constraints. Furthermore, if all polluting industries were closed down, the (3) ……………………would quite simply collapse. They suggest that many ecologists are simply ignorant or naive when it comes to (4)…………………Some (5)……………………suggest applying market solutions, i.e. finding a way to give financial rewards to producers who (6) …………………… in the use of energy, and who pollute less, and to penalize polluters, but without the use of taxes. Many ecologists disagree, as they see pollution as a moral issue rather than an (7) ……………….. one.

IV. Learn the new words. Read and translate the text.

high seas – открытое море

transboundary (trans-border) – международный; спец. трансграничный (о загрязнении среды обитания)

to affect – влиять существенно

global warming – глобальное потепление

greenhouse effect – парниковый эффект

carbon dioxide – углекислый газ

emission – эмиссия, выброс

awareness – осведомленность

shared responsi­bility – коллективная ответственность

to be entitled – иметь право

seal – тюлень, морской котик

halting herd decline – прекращение уменьшения популяции

summit – конференция

to have impact on… – иметь влияние на…

to have public backing – иметь общественную поддержку

International environmental problems

Global warming, acid rain, the thinning of the ozone layer, and the pollution of the high seas: all these are international environmental problems (IEPs). In other words, they are problems which are caused by people and affect population of different countries. For this reason they are sometimes called transboundary environmental problems.

Take global warming and the greenhouse effect, for example. The atmosphere is a 'transboundary system' because it crosses the borders of all the 160 or more countries in the world. Consequently, when people in those different countries release a green­house gas like carbon dioxide into the atmos­phere — through burning wood or coal for example — these local emissions turn into a global problem.

International organisations, such as the United Nations, are now trying very hard to get countries to cooperate in tackling these transboundary environmental problems. The first Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, focused world attention on the growing number of these problems. In the years since the summit, a host of new inter­national environmental action plans has been put into place, indicating a growing intergovernmental awareness of shared responsi­bility for managing the Earth's resources.

However, a number of serious obstacles lie in the way of tackling IEPs. In gen­eral, the fewer the countries involved the easier it is to reach an agreement over how to solve the problem in question. For instance, one of the earliest IEPs involved just four countries — Canada, Japan, the USA and Russia — each of which, from the 1870s , had been killing North Pacific fur seals for their pelts. Because the seals swam through the high seas of the Pacific, each country was entitled to kill them in the water using seal schooners. With only four countries involved it was relatively easy to achieve cooperation in halting herd decline. The result was the 1910 North Pacific Fur Seal Convention, in which the four countries agreed to stop all sealing for 10 years. An IEP cannot be solved unless all the rele­vant countries agree that there is a problem in the first place. Global warming is a good example. Scientists can certainly measure the rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. But they find it much more difficult to measure the effects of this increase upon global temperatures.

Governments can find it very hard to cooperate over an IEP when there are serious political differences between them.

For governments to tackle an IЕР it is usually important to have public backing. However, not all IEPs have the same impact on the general public.