The Environmental Crisis – Number One International Problem

e are in an environmental crisis because human beings have broken out of the circle of life and are destroying the environment. To survive, we must learn how to restore the wealth we have borrowed from nature.

A. What does the environmental crisis mean? To understand this we must begin at the source of life itself: the earth's thin skin of air, water and soil, bathed by the radiant solar fire. Life appeared here several billion years ago and was nour­ished by the earth's matter. Living things formed a global network of various habi­tats, where everything is directly or indi­rectly dependent on everything. This is the ecosphere (biosphere), the home that life has built for itself on the planet.

B. In nature all processes are in con­stant balanced interaction. There is no waste in nature. Nothing is created, nothing is lost. Everything is recycled endlessly. The environmental crisis means that this perfect and delicate balance has begun to break down, and the relationship between life and its earthly surroundings have begun to collapse.

C. The environmental degradation continues to accelerate. The ozone layer, vital for survival, is thinning. Acid rain is destroying huge areas of forest and tens of thousands of lakes. We pollute our rivers, lakes and oceans, and the sky, forgetting that we need water and air to live and breathe. We destroy rainforests, picturesque landscapes, and slaughter the world's most beautiful animals.

As a result of our new technologies of land use we lose soil, which is the basis of civili­zation. And, worst of all, the earth is steadily warming with potentially dangerous effects. That is why the environmentalists of the world call for fundamental changes NOW!

Task 6.1. Decide where these sentences go in the text.

1. In the ecosphere everything goes on in cycles: an animal’s waste becomes food for soil bacteria; bacteria’s waste nourishes plants; animals eat plants.

2. Deserts are expanding so rapidly that they threaten to cover one third of the earth.

3. Man is a newcomer: homo sapient probably appeared first about four million years ago.

4. Man has converted ecological cycles of life into man-made linear events, and at the end of the line there is smog, toxic chemicals, mountains of rubbish.

5. One of the effects of the ozone layer thinning may be genetic mutation.

Task 6.2. Pick out from the text the word which suits the definition:

1. place from which something comes or is got;

2. natural home (soil type and climate) of animal or plant;

3. upper layer of earth in which plants grow;

4. the envelope surrounding the planet from the subsoil to the stratosphere, occupied by living organisms;

5. gradual loss or decrease as a result of use;

6. physical breakdown;

7. results or consequences of action;

8. physical substance in general as distinct from mind and spirit.

Task 6.3. Answer the following questions and give your reasons:

1. Why is the environmental crisis the international problem?

2. How can people slow down environmental degradation?

3. Is the energy crisis one of the effects of the environmental crisis?

4. Why is the present ecological situation threatening the survival of life itself?

Task 7. Study the following text and do the given tasks.