2. Find in the text the equivalents to the following word combinations:

среднестатистический взрослый человек; в день; на открытом воздухе; более восприимчивы; болезни сердца и лёгких; привычки потребителя; энергосберегающие лампы; еда в небольших количествах; алюминиевые банки; содержать в хорошем состоянии; отправить послание; используемые вторично; вредные химические вещества; некоторые предложения; дружелюбный по отношению к окружающей среде

3. Select the statement that best expresses the main idea of the text.

1. Air pollution is a problem for all of us.

2. Although much of the pollution in our air comes from power plants, industrial sources and motor vehicles, the choices you, as an individual, make every day can increase or decrease air pollution and can protect or threaten your health.

3. The choices you make at home affect the amount of pollution outside your home as well as inside.

4. When, where, how, why and what you drive all play an important role in affecting air pollution.

4. Is it true or false? Correct the wrong statements.

1. Children are more sensitive to air pollution because they often have heart or lung disease.

2. Much of the pollution in our air comes from power plants, industrial sources and motor vehicles.

3. The choices everybody makes every day can increase or decrease air pollution and can protect or threaten your health.

4. We should plant trees in locations around our homes to provide shade in the winter.

5. To conserve energy and reduce production emissions, we should recycle paper, plastic, glass bottles, and aluminum cans.

6. Everything you eat has an effect on the environment.

7. When you buy products that consume less energy and last longer than others, you pollute the air.

8. Driving has no effects on the environment.

5. Retell the text.

6. Find on the Internet the information about the air pollution in Russia and in your region. Retell it.

Reading for Translating

Air Pollution

Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution—some visible, some invisible—that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere and that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollutant.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

Other greenhouse gases include methane—which comes from such sources as swamps and livestock—and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth's ozone layer.

Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released into the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years. In fact, volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide.

Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people's health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat.

Most people agree that to curb global warming, a variety of measures need to be taken. On a personal level, driving and flying less, recycling, and conservation reduce a person’s "carbon footprint"—the amount of carbon dioxide a person is responsible for putting into the atmosphere.

On a larger scale, governments are taking measures to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One way is through the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement between countries that they will cut back on carbon dioxide emissions. Another method is to put taxes on carbon emissions or higher taxes on gasoline, so that people and companies will have greater incentives to conserve energy and pollute less.

Speaking

Read the conversation between Alun Anderson and Laura Sevier. Discuss the problem of Arctic area.

22nd February, 2010

Laura Sevier: In the Arctic temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on the planet. Arctic sea ice has been retreating over the past 30 years. What are the implications of this?

Alun Anderson: It's an absolute catastrophe for all the creatures that depend on ice that live up there. Once you have really ice free summers it's very difficult to see how some of them can survive. The worst affected of all of course will be the polar bear because it is so dependent on using ice to go out and hunt the seals.

As sea ice melts and the water warms, much warmer air will flow over the surrounding Arctic lands and the Greenland ice cap will melt faster. As it melts faster, glaciers are speeding up and flowing into the sea faster, so we are looking at certainly a metre's rise this century if you take the Antarctic and the global expansion of the oceans into account too. So that's a lot.

LS: You say in your book that it's too late to stop the warming dead in its tracks by cutting our greenhouse gas emissions. Have we reached a tipping point with the arctic ice?

AA: I believe we have reached a tipping point with the arctic ice. However, we can still reduce the warming on the wider arctic - the arctic lands - so that we have a chance to stop the emissions of methane or at least to slow it down and make it happen over thousands of years instead of hundreds.

But on the arctic ice it's too late. I haven't met a single scientist who thinks there's anything we can do now that can save the sea ice in total. We might get some of it left in the corners of the Canadian islands which will be a very important refuge for the polar bear and other creatures.

LS: What's the impact of air pollution on the Arctic?

AA: I think this is very important and often missed out. Large parts of the melting ice - we don't know how much but it could be as much as a third - is being caused by air pollution. Hazes of air pollution are travelling up from the south into the Arctic. They hang in the air and absorb sunlight and warm the air; they fall onto the ice and make the ice slightly darker, and then the ice absorbs more heat because it's slightly black rather than white and it melts faster.

This air pollution is coming from the burning of agricultural fields, right across Europe - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, across China and partly in Canada and the central part of the US - in North and South Dakota - that's all travelling up into the Arctic and along with that are fine particulates from diesel fumes. Wiping out this air pollution would be a great benefit to the Arctic.

Unit 4

Acid Rain

"Although some sensitive ecosystems continue to be harmed by acidic pollution,

the widespread phenomenon of acid rain is today on its way

to the history books, at least in Western Europe.

That didn't happen by chance, we

environmentalists made it happen."

~ Tony Juniper

Warm up

Almost everybody has heard about acid rain and knows that it is something bad. But what exactly is it? What are its effects on plants, animals, human beings, and what can be done to solve this problem?

The term acid rain does not convey the true nature of the problem and therefore scientists use the term "acid depositions". This is because the acid which has formed due to pollution may return to the earth as a solid or a gas and not just as rain. Depending upon the climatic conditions it could also come down as rain, fog, or snow, and in the wet form it is known as "acid precipitation".