1012

all countries in the world. But one should remember that the world's ecological balance depends on every person particularly. Each of us must take a greater responsibility for our environment.

Notes:

Exercises:

I.Read the following words:

II.Complete the sentences:

1)Millions of tons of smoke… 2) One of the most significant changes in the atmosphere is… 3) … lead to the greenhouse effect. 4) Acid rains affect… 5) Because of extensive extraction of oil… 6) … has gone to 20 hectares per minute. 7) … influence the pollution of air, water and soils. 8) … are the main ways of solving ecological problems.

III.Find equivalents for the following word-combinations and use them in the sentences of your own:

регулировать взаимоотношения, последствия, экономить время, истощать ресурсы, выбрасывать в атмосферу, потепление климата, загрязнение воды, понижаться до 1/3, быть в опасности, здоровье человека, быть против, защита окружающей среды.

IV. Read the following passages and formulate their main ideas:

1.The term ecology was coined in 1866 by the German biologist Ernst

72

Haeckel from two ancient Greek words: óikos (house, dwelling) and logos (science). Today, the term has been extended to denote a complex of science dealing above all with the interrelations between man and nature. Early in the beginning of the 20th century, Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) pioneered work on the problems of optimizing relations between society and nature. It was largely to his work that the concept of man’s absolute domination of nature has given way to that of relations between equal partners.

2.One of the most famous lakes in Russia is Lake Baikal. It's the world's deepest freshwater lake. The volume of its water body is about 23,000 cubic kilometres. Lake Baikal is approximately 25 million years old. It is entered by 336 rivers. The wildlife of Lake Baikal is diverse – there are over 1,200 animal and 600 plant species in the area. That's why in '80s the whole country became involved in the debates on the future of Lake Baikal. There was a need for a compromise between the economic and the environmental interests. So, the territory surrounding the lake was given the status of reserve. From 1988 on, no commercial tree-felling has been permitted there. The timber-producing industries in the area have been reorganized to maintain and reproduce stock.

3.The Caspian Sea is unique in its natural features and commercial importance. It yields 90 per cent of the world's catch of sturgeon. But the water reserves of the Caspian Sea are being overused. The indiscriminate industrial utilization of the rivers run-off and extensive irrigation programmes have reached a critical point. The sea is reported to "selfcure", but there occurred a natural rise of the water level only to 27.9 m below ocean level – still, to preserve the unique stock of sturgeon fish, the Caspian Sea level should not be below 28.5m.

4.Four-fifths of Russia's forest reserves are in Siberia and the Far East. The fact that the Siberian forests are not inexhaustible has not been fully realized. The best forest lands located in the southern parts of the region and adjacent to the Trans-Siberian railway have been substantially cleared. In the past 40 years these forests have lost nearly 40 per cent of pine stock and most of their cedar.

5.There is a great diversity of wildlife in Russia. The country has about 100,000 species of plants and up to 130,000 species of animals. Human interference has had a considerable impact upon the abundance and

73

composition of wildlife: some species became extinct, or decreased in number. Information on the rare species can be found in the Red Data Book.

V.Answer the questions using the information from the previous exercises:

1) What does the term ecology mean?

3)What is Lake Baikal famous for?

3)What do you know about the problems concerning the Caspian Sea?

4)What is the Red Data Book necessary for?

5)Why is the problem of forest protection important nowadays?

VI. Translate and render the article (magazine “The Economist”, May 30, 1992).

Nature is no respecter of national boundaries. Across those dotted lines on the globe, winds blow, rivers flow and migrating species walk or fly. The dotted lines may carve up the earth, but the sea and the atmosphere remain open to all, to cherish or plunder. When people in one country harm that bit of the environment they assume to be theirs, many others may suffer, too.

Such problems pose new issues for diplomats and economists. Reaching agreement often means resolving conflicting goals and priorities. Even among countries of similar wealth, environmental goals may differ: think of the rows with Iceland and Japan over whaling, or the reluctance of Britain to curb sulphur dioxide from power stations.

International agreement is the best way to solve environmental problems that transcend national borders. These are of three main kinds. First, neighbouring countries may share part of the environment: a river such as the Rhine or the Jordan, a stretch of water such as the Mediterranean or the Great Lakes. Regional problems – acid rain is one example – fall into this category. Second, some environmental resources, such as the atmosphere, the oceans and Antarctica, are shared by the whole planet. The build-up of climate-changing greenhouse gases, the thinning of the ozone layer and the killing of whales fall into this group. Lastly, some environmental assets clearly belong to individual countries, but their future may affect others, in either material or (more often) spiritual and emotional ways. The disappearance of coral reefs or elephants may not show up as more than a microscopic blip on gross world product, but it gives people in many countries a sense of loss.

The best way to protect wildlife is by international agreement. Wildlife protection was, indeed, the goals of some of the earliest environmental treaties. Under a treaty of 1911, Japan and Britain (on behalf of Canada) agreed to stop pelagic sealing. In exchange, they were guaranteed a share of the seals killed by

74

the other two countries at their island breeding-grounds. The arrangement was a success. Having fallen to about 300,000 in 1911, seal numbers recovered to over 2m by the 1950s.

b) Look at more vocabulary from the text in the box below. Ask other people in your class for the meanings of the words you don’t know. Then look up the words in a dictionary. How do you pronounce the words? Which words have more than one meaning?

c) Read the beginning and the end of a story entitled The Great Whale’s Mistake. In groups, invent a possible storyline.

A mother whale and a father whale were swimming along the coast with their adolescent son whale when the mother saw a school of people on the beach…

…The young whale was so excited by this news that he spouted, and the people on the shore saw it and cried, ‘Whales!’ and somebody threw a beer bottle at them. The whales made for the deep distant water and later that night as they drifted off the Gulf Stream admiring the stars a large ship passed by and spilled oil over them, but they remained at peace with the world as it was, and afterwards dreamed of the unfortunate people far behind them making rubbish through the sweet summer night.

d) Read the whole story once quickly and try to summarize it in one sentence.

The Great Whale’s Mistake

A mother whale and a father whale were swimming along the coast with their adolescent son whale when the mother saw a school of people on the beach.

‘What’s that?’ asked the son whale, who had never seen a school of people before, or even a person on his own.

‘People, son,’ said the father whale. ‘You see them all up and down this coast at this time of year. They cover themselves with oil and lie up there on the sand and boil themselves until they sizzle.’

‘But they’re such little things,’ said the son whale. I’ll bet I could swallow one whole and have him live in my stomach’.

75

His mother said she would not want her stomach filled with anything that had been boiled in oil and had sand all over it. As well as that, she said, it would be very unhealthy because they were filled with smoke and hot dogs.

‘What do people do?’ asked they young whale.

‘They sit on the beach and stare at the ocean,’ the father whale said. ‘And they eat hot dogs.’

The mother whale said that they also walked in the ocean now and again for a short time and splashed around in such a clumsy manner that the fish had to get out of their way.

‘They seem to be useless,’ said the son whale. ‘Why did the Great Whale make people anyway?’

‘Son,’ said me father whale, ‘no creature in the Great Whale’s universe exists without a purpose. If the Great Whale made people it was for a good reason.’

‘Maybe people are the Great Whale’s way of keeping down the hot dog population,’ the young whale suggested.

‘There are some things,’ said the mother whale, ‘that even whales can’t understand. We must accept the world as it is and live at peace with it.’

The father whale drew their attention to a small group of people who had moved away from the school and were getting into a metal box on wheels. When they were all inside the metal box moved along the beach, throwing up a great cloud of sand and destroying vegetation and birds’ nests.

‘What are they doing now?’ asked the son whale.

‘Making rubbish,’ said the father whale. ‘People make almost all the rubbish in the world and they use those little moving boxes to do it.’

He showed his son the dark gases which came out of the box.

‘And inside the box,’ he said, ‘they are also preparing more rubbish.’

At that moment six beer cans came flying out of the box, followed by a bag containing a half-eaten hot dog, a mustard jar, some banana peel and an empty plastic body-oil container.

‘Maybe that’s the reason the Great Whale made people,’ said the young whale. ‘To make rubbish.’

‘The world doesn’t need rubbish,’ growled the father whale.

‘Now, now,’ said the mother whale, who was always uneasy when religion was mentioned, ‘we must accept the world as it is and learn to live at peace with it.’

‘Sometimes,’ said the father whale, ‘I think the Great Whale doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

‘Your father has been very sensitive about rubbish,’ the mother whale explained, ‘ever since he dived into 800 tons of fresh sludge which had been dumped off the coast. He smelled disgusting for weeks.’

The young whale was so excited by this news that he spouted, and the

76

people on the shore saw it and cried, ‘Whales!’ and somebody threw a beer bottle at them. The whales made for the deep distant water and later that night as they drifted off the Gulf Stream admiring the stars a large ship passed by and spilled oil over them, but they remained at peace with the world as it was, and afterwards dreamed of the unfortunate people far behind them making rubbish through the sweet summer night.

(The Great Whale’s Mistake by Russell Baker)

e)Look at the definitions below and match them to words from the last two paragraphs of the story.

i)n a measurement of weight equal in Britain to 2,240 pounds.

ii)n 1 thick mud. 2 the product of waste (sewage) treatment.

iii)v to drop or unload (something) in a heap or carelessly.

iv)v to throw or come out in a forceful stream.

f)Read the story more carefully and answer the following questions.

1)Why do you think the whales refer to a ‘school’ of people?

2)Why are people useless, according to the young whale?

3)Why do people exist, according to the young whale?

4)What do you think the ‘Great Whale’ is?

5)What is the mother’s view of the world?

6)What do you think the ‘metal box on wheels’ is?

g)Discuss the following.

1)What is the ‘Great Whale’s Mistake’?

2)How does the writer make us feel sympathetic to the whales?

3)How would you respond to the whales’ criticism of the people?

4)Find any examples of humour in the text.

VIII. Imagine you are a “Green Peace” member. Study carefully the following real “Green Peace” member letter and some statistics, prepare three TV presentations and act them before your group mates:

a) In defence of world forests.

February 28, 2001

Dear Friends:

The Brazilian congress is now voting on a project that will reduce the Amazon

77

-One hectare of forests generates enough oxygen for 200 people to breathe.

-It has been calculated that a quarter of the world population breathes the oxygen generated by Russian forests.

-The world softwood reserves are 100 billion m3, while the total timber reserves are estimated at 300 billion m3.

-Every person utilizes an average of 100 m3 of wood during a life-span.

b)Against car expansion.

Your car is killing the Earth:

The car is an ecological disaster. It is now the world’s number one polluter. From the beginning to the end of its life, one car produces an enormous quantity of pollution.

The production of one car results in 1,500 kilos of waste, and 75 million m3 of polluted air.

During its life one car produces: 44.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide; 325 kg of carbon monoxide; 4.8 kg of sulphur dioxide;

36 kg of hydrocarbons;

46.8 kg of nitrogen dioxide;

29 kg of various chemicals from the tyres and brakes

(an average car over a period of ten years).

When you throw the car away, many dangerous metals (like cadmium) and other chemicals pollute the earth.

The building of roads, motorways and car parks produces a large quantity of pollution. It is impossible to estimate how much.

The statistics above are for one car. There are now approximately 500 million cars on Earth. So multiply all these numbers by 500 million. That gi

79

Содержание

80