5. Environmental Protection

Ecological problems are among the greatest facing the world today. Ways of resolving them are sought by many countries and by the world community as a whole.

Nowadays numerous sciences join together to regulate the interrelations between man and nature. Man uses natural resour­ces as the material for his creative work, and nature itself as his workshop. But he will cease to be HOMO SAPIENS if he doesn't think about the consequences that may be brought by his trans­forming activities.

While creating machines and technologies, which save time and effort, people “consume” mountains and forests, overuse water resources, let myriads of factory stacks contaminate the atmosphere. Technological progress can often overstep the line when it becomes an enemy of the natural resources.

Billions of tons of raw materials are processed by the world’s industries every year. Millions of tons of smoke and dust are discharged every year into the atmosphere. One of the most significant changes in the earth’s atmosphere is that, which began with the industrial revolution in the last century. Industry demanded coal and oil, and we began to burn lots of it, so raising the level of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the air. Today the concentration of CO₂ is increasing rapidly each year. The scien­tists state that high levels of CO₂ will lead to the greenhouse effect slowly warming the earth’s climate.

Air pollution has been going at a fast rate. The smokes dis­charged by factories are carried by winds hundreds and thou­sands of km. away from industrial areas. On contacting atmosphe­ric moisture, compounds of sulphur and nitrogen turn into acid. Acid rains affect open-air plants, small animals, the amount of fish, the quality of forests, etc.

The heaviest impact has been on the world ocean and inland water bodies, such as lakes and rivers. Water pollution is a se­rious problem at the present time, as fast-growing cities dis­charge increasing amount of factory effluents into rivers. Be­cause of extensive extraction of oil, the world ocean is getting heavily polluted.

The world’s forests, which maintain the air and water balance on the planet, are also at risk. Tropical forests, account for 60 per cent of the world forests. The rate of the tropical timber production has already gone to 20 hectares per minute. At such speed vast territories of forests may even disappear soon.

Industrial waste gets into the soil of underneath large cities.

All these factors affect human health. A rapid spreading of diseases and growing number of cancer deaths are the consequences of environment pollution.

The rapid growth of towns, traffic and population also influence the pollution of air, water, soils and vegetation. These impacts are felt at a distance some 40-50 times greater than the city radius. The usage of motorcars is also harmful from the point of view of air pollution.

Among numerous ways of solving the ecological problems are the purification of industrial effluents and the development of low-waste, waste-free and resource-saving technologies.

Nuclear power can be an alternative to solid fuels, but lots of people are against the nuclear power engineering, especially after the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

Nowadays motor vehicles are being equipped with special devices to neutralize engine fumes. Industrial enterprises undergo ecolo­gical inspection. Trees are being planted in the cities.

Environmental protection is an important question in the state policies of 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:

homo sapiens (лат.)		человек разумный
carbon dioxide	['kRbqn daI'OksaId]	углекислый газ
greenhouse effect	['grJnhaus]	парниковый эффект
sulphur	['sAlfq]	сера
nitrogen	['naItrqGqn]	азот
acid	['xsId]	кислота
waste	[weIst]	отходы
device	[dI'vaIs]	механизм, устройство
waste-free	['weIst frJ]	безотходный