Perevod_textov_ekologicheskoy_napravlennosti

Ф едерал ьное агент с т во по образованию

Е.А .К няжева

Перевод т екс т ов экол огичес койнаправл еннос т и Учебное пос обие дл я вузов

Воронеж 2006

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Ут верждено Н аучно-мет одичес ким с овет ом факул ьт ет аРГФ , прот окол № 6

от 27.06.2006

Н аучныйредакт ор доцент С.В.Н икит ина Рецензент канд.фил ол . наукН .М .Ш ишкина

Учебное пос обие подгот овл ено накафедре т еории переводаи межкул ьт урной коммуникации факул ьт ет аромано-германс койфил ол огии Воронежс кого гос ударс т венного универс ит ет а.

Рекомендовано дл я практ ичес ких занят ийс о с т удент ами IV курс а д/о и М курс ав/о факул ьт ет аромано-германс койфил ол огии по курс у пис ьменного перевода.

Д л я с пециал ьнос т и: 031202 (022900) - П еревод и переводоведение

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UNIT 1

1. Brainstorming.

What do you know about environmental pollution? Make a list of ecological problems and name them both in English and in Russian.

2. Reading and discussion.

Read the text and discuss the ecological problems outlined by the author. Which of them are NOT on your list?

Environmental Impacts of Urbanization

The growth of cities can have significant impact on the environment. Temperature. Due to several factors, including the paving over of formerly

vegetated land and the high concentration of heat sources, cities tend to be warmer than surrounding countryside, sometimes by a difference as large as 10 Celsius. Large cities become ‘regional heat islands’, which can alter local weather patterns.

Air pollution. One of the most obvious differences between an urban and a rural area is the air quality. Due to heavy motor vehicle traffic, and also to energy production, clouds of smog hang over many cities causing threat to public health.

Water issues. When an area is urbanized, the water cycle changes dramatically. First of all, cities have more precipitation than surrounding areas, with pollutants and convection currents serving as magnets for raindrop formation. Once the water falls, instead of being absorbed by the soil, it is channeled into run-off systems, picking up ground pollutants along the way. Water pollution is aggravated by industrial waste and sewage disposal, which is often untreated.

Destruction of habitat. The conversion of a natural area to an urban area means the destruction of whatever was there previously. When wetlands, for example, are paved over, an ecosystem is lost, and species dependent on that ecosystem die out in the area. A less drastic example is that of erosion: fertile topsoil tends to get washed away if the valley is urbanized.

Urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is a later stage of urbanization. After a city has grown vertically and filled to a certain density, it begins to grow horizontally, spilling out of its previous borders in typically low density, low efficiency developments which can eventually extend over a sizeable area around the original city. Since urban sprawl is low-density, it quickly occupies a lot of space that previously might have been used for agriculture, or has just been some natural habitat.

The future. There is no question that urbanization is here to stay. In 1985, 43% of the world population lived in urban areas. Population experts estimate that by the year 2025, over 60% of humans will be city-dwellers. Will these billions of people live in clean, efficient, modern cities, or will they inhabit endless slums?

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3. Matching.

Match these lexical units to their definitions and give their Russian equivalents.

1.urbanization

2.convection currents

3.sewage

4.disposal

5.urban sprawl

6.pollutant

7.recycling

8.slum(s)

9.pollution

10.habitat

11.species

12.precipitation

a.the process of making an area more like a town, with more buildings, industries, businesses;

b.currents by which heat travels through air, water and other gases and liquids;

c.an irregular spreading of city buildings in an unpleasant and unattractive way;

d.a city area of poor living conditions and old unrepaired buildings, especially in the centre;

e.the act of getting rid of something;

f.the process of treating things so that they can be used again;

g.damage caused to water, air, etc. by harmful substances or waste;

h.the natural home of a plant or animal;

i.a group of animals or plants which are all similar and can breed together to produce young animals or plants of the same kind as them;

j.contaminated liquid carried off in an underground channel for treatment or to a natural waterway;

k.a substance that makes air, water, soil, etc. dangerously dirty, and is caused by cars, factories, etc.

l.rain, snow, etc. that falls on the ground, or the amount of rain, snow, etc. that falls

4. Vocabulary input.

Study the terms below and give their Russian equivalents. Translate the sentences.

Nature

We have upset the balance of nature, destroyed plant life, banished wild creatures from their habitats, disrupted normal growth cycles, all the while forgetting that every intricate part of nature depends on all the other parts for continuance and growth.

The environment

The reason why urbanization is likely to harm the local environment is simply that people are much more densely crowded together.

Environmental

It moved people to a new level of environmental awareness and activism.

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Environmentalist

Environmentalists are struggling to lessen the impact of human activity on the natural world.

Environmentalism

Environmentalism is the study of the environment in order to protect it from damage by human activities.

Ecology

The science of ecology is the study of the interactions that determine the abundance and distribution of organisms.

Ecologist

Ecologists have discovered that all species in an ecosystem interact with one another, either directly or indirectly.

To conserve

We must conserve our woodlands for future generations. The building is expressly designed to conserve energy.

Conservation/conservancy

Over the years conservation has acquired many connotations: to some it has meant the protection of wild nature, to others the sustained production of useful materials from the resources of the Earth.

Conservation strategies have to become more widely accepted, and people must learn that energy use can be dramatically diminished without sacrificing comfort.

To preserve

These traditions should be preserved for coming generations.

Preservation

The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.

To protect

The document requires countries to develop plans to protect endangered species and habitats

Protection

This includes such activities as the protection and restoration of endangered species, the careful use or recycling of scarce mineral resources.

5. Gap-filling. Fill in the gaps and translate the text.

Natural balance, substances, reactions, at the same rate, polar regions, affected area, oxygen, atmosphere, natural processes

Up in the stratosphere, small amounts of ozone are constantly being made by the action of sunlight on (… ). At the same time, ozone is being broken down by (… ). The total amount of ozone usually stays constant because its formation and destruction occur at about (… ). Human activity has recently changed that (… ). Certain manufactured (… ) (such as chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons) can destroy stratospheric ozone much faster than it is formed.

The ozone-destroying (… ) take place most rapidly only under certain conditions in the stratosphere. These conditions – extreme cold, darkness and spring sun appears. Antarctica is the worst (… ), probably because the air above it is most

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isolated from the rest of the atmosphere. Scientists often refer to the part of the (… ) where ozone is most depleted as the ‘ozone hole’, but it is not really a hole – just a vast region of the upper atmosphere where there is less ozone than elsewhere.

6. Hot verbs. Study these verbs and use them in the sentences of your own.

To pollute – to make air, water, soil, etc. dangerously dirty and not suitable for people to use;

eg Raw sewage, garbage, and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted.

З а грязн ят ь (во зд у х, во д у , о кру ж а ю щ у ю сред у )

To contaminate – to make a substance or place dirty and dangerous by adding something to it, for example, chemicals or poison;

eg There were fears that dumped waste might contaminate water supplies.

З а грязн ят ь, за ра ж а т ь

To poison – to make land, rivers, air, etc. dirty and dangerous, especially by the use of harmful chemicals;

eg The chemical waste poisoned the water supply.

О т ра влят ь, за ра ж а т ь

To despoil – to make a place much less attractive by removing or damaging things; eg The sandy beaches are being despoiled by an oil spill.

О т ра влят ь; за ра ж а т ь; лиш а т ь (чего -либо )

To foul (up) – to make something very dirty, especially with waste; eg We are fouling the seas with chemicals and oil.

З а грязн ят ь, за со рят ь; о т ра влят ь

To defile – to make dirty, foul, filthy or impure; to pollute; eg Rivers are being defiled with sewage

З а грязн ят ь, по рт ит ь.

7. Translation.

Technology and Environmentalism

If one were choreographing the dance between technology and environment, it would be a strange one indeed. Contrary to today’s ahistorical postmodernism, it has existed since early humans began driving megafauna extinct in Australia, or smelting metal in China, Greece or Rome, or deforestring Europe and North Africa.

Nor are end-of-pipe command-and-control regulations a modern invention: as early as 1306, London adopted ordinances limiting the burning of coal for air quality reasons (which did not prevent “killer smogs” in 1873, 1880, 1891, and 1952, the latter leading to new clean air legislation in 1956). Another example is the English Alkali Act of 1863, passed to control emissions of gaseous hydrochloric acid

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resulting from the LeBlanc method of producing sodium carbonate. This act imposed a form of “best available control technology”, or BACT, in the form of acid absorption towers designed by William Gossage.

Such examples, and their modern analogs, illustrate the continuing dialogue between environmentalism and technology. Environmentalism is a powerful movement for addressing simple and easily observed problems, clean air and water, waste site cleanup, preservation of valued landscapes, protecting endangered species, and even bans on materials whose problematic environmental impacts can be easily demonstrated (for example, lead in gasoline). The successes achieved by environmentalism in these cases are real and important.

Potential dangers arise when the tools and mental models appropriate to simple solutions are applied to complex ones where they are disfunctional. From a political perspective, surveys continually demonstrate strong support for environmentalism, but this primarily extends to easily seen problems – one of the reasons that much activism focuses on manufacturing, where it is perceived environmental issues are both easily detected and relatively easily fixed.

When issues involve complex systems with time cycles measured in decades or centuries rather than months, and where scientific uncertainty is relatively high, public support falls off rapidly. This explains to some extent why Americans strongly support environmentalism generally but are deeply split over the Kyoto process. This is an obvious complexity when attempting to craft long-term policies to address these fundamental environmental perturbations.

A more basic problem arises from the evolution of environmentalism, which has generally positioned environmental issues as “overhead” – that is, something to be taken care of only after primary missions are accomplished. In firms, this is represented by end-of pipe technologies such as scrubbers or water treatment plants, which are relatively independent of product or process design. The mental model behind this approach, however, encourages simplistic, often ideological approaches to complex problems and is problematic when applied to complex, real world systems.

8. Translation practice A.

1.Conservation strategies that would not alter lifestyles but would greatly lessen environmental impact are essential in the developed world.

2.The grassland is an important habitat for many wild flowers.

3.The leading cause of extinction is habitat destruction, particularly of the world’s richest ecosystems – tropical rainforests and coral reefs.

4.As fossil fuels are burnt, chemicals and particulate matter are released into the atmosphere.

5.Raw sewage, garbage and oil spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most coastal waters are now polluted.

6.The accident at the Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant in 1986 scattered radioactive contamination over a large part of Europe.

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7.For the first time, an international pact was signed that set specific targets for reducing emissions of chemicals responsible for the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer.

8.It is difficult to estimate the rate at which humans are driving species extinct.

9.Environmentalists would like to see fossil fuels replaced by renewable energy sources.

10.On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, approximately 20 million Americans gathered at various sites across the country to protest corporate and governmental abuse of the environment.

9. Translation practice B.

1.Защ ит ники окружаю щ ей с реды ведут борьбу зауменьшение от рицат ел ьного воздейс т вия чел овечес койдеят ел ьнос т и наокружаю щ ую с реду.

2.М ы дол жны с пас т и от вымирания живущ ие у нас виды живот ных и защ ит ит ь их ес т ес т венную с реду обит ания.

3.Ученые ус т ановил и, чт о вс е биол огичес кие виды в рамках от дел ьно взят ой экос ис т емы прямо ил и опос редованно взаимодейс т вую т друг с другом.

8. Разл ив нефт и окол о берегов А л яс ки грозит экол огичес койкат ас т рофой.

10. Supplementary reading and summarizing. Making a presentation on hot environmental issues.

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UNIT 2

1. Brainstorming.

In what ways ecological problems are being sorted out?

2. Reading and discussion.

Read the text and speak about the outlined problems and solutions.

Why We Must Fight the Destruction?

When rainforests are cleared and burned millions of tones of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere affecting climatic conditions and threatening us all with severe flooding, drought and crop failure.

The rainforests contain at least half of the Earth’s species. At the current rate of devastation an estimated 50 species worldwide become extinct every day.

One in four purchases from your chemist is derived from the rainforests. Scientists are currently caught in a race against time to find rainforest treatments for cancer, AIDS and heart disease – before they are lost forever.

Tribal people in the rainforests have been shot, poisoned and infected with disease to which they have no resistance – to make room for logging, mining and dams.

If this destruction continues only nine of the 33 countries currently exporting rainforest timber will have any left by the end of the decade.

Almost everyone will have part of the rainforests in their home, as DIY stores still supply and the construction industry still uses tropical hardwoods for doors, window frames and even toilet seats.

What Friends of the Earth Has Done?

Friends of the Earth’s Tropical Rainforest Campaign has been fighting to save the rainforests for ten years. In that time, we’ve achieved a great deal.

-We’ve forced the British Government – and even timber trade organizations themselves – to acknowledge just how short-sighted the devastation is.

-We have persuaded major international companies to stop industrial activities that harm the rainforests.

-And by mobilizing consumer pressure, we have helped reduce imports of tropical timber into the UK by nearly a third.

Please help us save the tropical rainforests now, before it’s too late. There’s still a lot more to do. With your help, we can build on our success.

3. Matching.

Match these words to their definitions and give their Russian equivalents.

1.rainforests

2.deforestration

3.flood

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4.drought

5.devastation

6.extinction

7.logging

8.dam

9.timber

10.hardwoods

a.a situation in which a particular kind of animal, plant, etc. no longer exists;

b.a tropical forest of tall trees that are very close together, growing in an area where it rains a lot;

c.a special wall built across a river, stream, etc. to stop the water flowing, especially to make a lake or produce electricity;

d.the cutting or burning down of all the trees in the area;

e.a continuous period of dry weather during which no rain falls;

f.work of cutting down forest trees for timber;

g.ruining, making or being made desolate;

h.great quantity of water in a place that is usually dry;

i.very strong and hard like oak, mahogany, teak;

j.wood that is used for building houses and making furniture;

4. Gap filling.

Fill in the gaps and translate the text.

The Industrial revolution; degradation; non-forest; resource; grassland; destruction; regeneration; agriculture; wildlife habitat; forest; removal; climate and geography; biodiversity;

Deforestration is the conversion of forested areas to (… ). Historically, this meant conversion to (… ) or to its artificial counterpart, grainfields; however, the (… ) added urbanization and technological uses. Generally this removal or (… ) of significant areas of forest cover has resulted in a simplified (or degraded) environment with reduced (… ). In developing countries, massive deforestration is a leading cause of environmental (… ). The forest is an enormously valuable (… ) and the loss, or degradation of the forest can cause severe damage to (… ), and to other economic and ecological services the forest provides. Historically deforestration has accompanied mankind’s progress since the Neolithic, and has shaped (… ).

Deforestration (whether deliberate or unintended) is the result of (… ) of trees without sufficient reforestration. There are many causes, ranging from extremely slow (… ) degradation to sudden and catastrophic wildfires. Deforestration can be the result of the deliberate removal of forest cover for (… ) or urban development, or it can be an unintentional consequence of uncontrolled grazing (which can prevent the natural (… ) of young trees).