NATURE & ECOLOGY

I

Global Problems: Environment

You don’t have to act on a grand scale to make a difference. Turn off your faucet while you’re brushing your teeth or recycle your newspaper. Little things can have an impact on a global scale.

A. Warm-up activities

Discuss the following questions:

1. Does the environment belong principally to humans?

2. Do your consumption habits destroy the habitats of other species?

3. Do you think that developers should be permitted to build big hotels and tourist complexes in the most beautiful places in your country?

4. Should the private motorist be made to pay more heavily through higher road tax, petrol prices, parking fees and motorway tolls?

5. Should cars be banned from city, town and village centres?

6. Are you for or against nuclear power?

7. Does your country need stricter laws to punish noisy neighbours or discos which play loud music late at night?

8. Are your country’s seas, rivers and / or lakes clean to swim in?

9. What government and private campaigns are there in your country to protect and improve the environment? Are these campaigns motivated by concern for the lives and habitats of species other than our own?

B. Brush up your vocabulary

Exercise 1. Match the vocabulary words on the left with the definitions on the right

Exercise 2. Match the definitions given below with the words from the box.

      1. The protection of the biosphere from destruction –  ___________________________.

2. A species which is in danger of becoming extinct –   ___________________________.

3. The very slow process by which living creatures change and become increasingly suited to the place where they live – ______________________.

4. No longer in existence anywhere on the Earth – ___________________________.

5. The process by which the Earth is heated when the atmosphere traps heat from the Sun – _____________.

6. The place where a plant or animal naturally lives and grows – _________________.

7. A chemical which is used by people to kill insects – _____________________.

8. An area of open land set aside by a government specially for the conservation of wildlife – _____________.

9. A mixture of gases in car exhausts which contribute to pollution and acid rain – ________________.

10. An electricity-generating station which uses radioactive fuel to drive the generators – ______________.

11. A gas in the Earth’s atmosphere produced in small quantities near the ground when sunlight shines on polluted air. It is more common very high up in the atmosphere – _________________.

12. A person who kills wildlife illegally to make money – _________________.

13. The contamination of the environment by substances harmful to living creatures ________________.

14. A rich woodland habitat which occurs in regions of warm climate and high rainfall ________________.

15. An area of land in which wildlife is protected from hunting and collecting ________________.

16. Part of a dead animal used for decoration or exhibition ________________.

17. Polluted air consisting of a mixture of fog, smoke and sulphur dioxide _______________.

18. The part of the Earth which contains all the living creatures ________________.

19. The mixture of gases which surrounds a planet or a star _________________.

20. Rain made acid by falling in polluted air ___________ _________________.

Exercise 3. Find the “odd one out”. There may be more than one answer. Give your reasons.

Today the population of developing countries faces many global environmental problems. Can you name some of them?

Fill in this word web:

Now read these small texts, check if your ideas were right and say what, according to your opinion, can be done to solve these problems.

C. Reading

Now scan the headings of the texts and say: Which one of these problems seems to you to be of a great importance?

Water

The greatest environment disaster afflicting the planet is not GM (Genetically modified) foods or crops, the felling of tropical rainforests, proliferation of dangerous chemicals, or even global warming, but the scourge of dirty drinking water. It kills 2.2 million a year in developing countries. Most victims are children.
Forty per cent of people live in countries where water is scarce: by 2025 this is expected to rise to 66 per cent. About 1.2 billion people do not have safe, clean water to drink. Twice as many do not have adequate sanitation. Hundreds of millions suffer repeated, enervating bouts of diarrhoea and other diseases – sapping their ability to work and grow food.

Agriculture

Every year more than 20 billion tons of precious topsoil is blown or washed off the land. Seventy per cent of the drylands used for agriculture – nearly a third of the world’s land area – is threatened by being turned into desert. More than 110 countries are affected. Most are poor, but about a third of the US and one-fifth of Spain are also at risk.
Desertification, as the process is called, costs the world $42bln a year. By 2020, 60 million people are expected to have left Africa’s Sahelian region for north Africa and Europe. The amount of agricultural land available for each person in developing countries has declined from 0.79 acres in the early 1960s to 0.51 acres and is expected to reach 0.39 acres by 2030.

Over-consumption

We are already consuming 20 per cent more natural resources than the planet can produce each year. Most of the consumption is in the richest countries. The 15 per cent of the world’s people who live in them are responsible for 56 per cent of its consumption; the 40 per cent who live in the poorest ones account for 11 per cent. The world’s economic output grew by more than a third, from $31,000bln to $42,000bln, in the 1990s; but per capita incomes dropped in 80 countries. The average African now consumes 20 per cent less than 25 years ago. The US is by far the most enthusiastic devourer of resources; it has 5 per cent of the global population by accounts for nearly a quarter of global consumption.

Energy

About 2.5 billion people cannot get any form of modern energy, but rely on burning wood, crop wastes and animal dung for heat and cooking. This is the second-biggest killer after dirty water. The smoke from their fires contains a cocktail of poisonous chemicals, which swirls around their homes, killing more than two million people a year – half of them children under five. Taking the wood and wastes from the land reduces its fertility and increases erosion, but the practice is steadily increasing because a growing population has no other option. In rural India, for example, only a third of all households have access to electricity. The rest depend chiefly on wood, but deforestation and development are rapidly depleting supplies.
Meanwhile, 80 per cent of all the energy used comes from oil, gas and coal. This emits pollution that causes lung disease and acid rain, and is the force behind global warming. The world’s energy consumption is expected to double by 2035 and treble by 2055.

Wildlife

The world is heading for the biggest extinction since the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Mammal and bird species are disappearing at 100 times the natural rate. In some ecosystems – such as coral reefs, wetlands and tropical rainforests – the rate is estimated to be up to 10,000 times greater. The golden lion tamarin is one of many species endangered by the destruction of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, which now covers only 7 per cent of its original one million square kilometers. Conservation projects have brought the tamarin’s numbers up from the near-oblivion of 200 in 1970 to about 1,000 now.
It is too late for a fifth of the world’s freshwater fish species, which have vanished for ever. And about three-quarters of the wild relatives of crops, which are vital for preserving and increasing food supplies through interbreeding, have been lost over the past century.

D. After-reading activities

Points for discussion:

After reading the texts have you changed your opinion about the rating of these problems?
The problems listed above concern mostly developing countries, so should we bother ourselves with these problems? Why? Why not?
What can you personally do to improve the situation on our planet? Work in groups and brainstorm the ideas. Are you ideas realistic? Can they be achieved in an every day life?

E. Here are 10 tips for rescuing the planet.

1. Walk, don’t drive. Vehicles are among the worst sources of air pollution. Walk short distances, ride a bicycle, or use public transport if it is available. Failing that, try to share a car.

2. Turn down the heating. Just by lowering the temperature in your house by 2C you can save a lot of energy. Switch off light bulbs when you are not in the room, and computers, TVs and stereos when you leave them overnight.

3. Use less water. Water the garden at night so most of your spray does not evaporate in the sun. Don’t leave the tap running when you brush your teeth. Take showers, not baths. Wash the dishes by hand. Dry your clothes on a line, not in a machine that burns fuel.

4. Shop smart. Avoid products that are dangerous to the ozone layer. Look for ozone-friendly sprays and keep away from genetically modified foods. Buy from businesses that take an effort to protect the climate; boycott ones that don’t, and let them know about it.

5. Recycle waste. Buy recycled paper. Recycle newspapers, cardboard, aluminium cans, glass jars and plastics.

6. Avoid packaging. There is a market in Switzerland where you can buy toothpaste not in a tube. You may not want to go this far, but it’s not difficult to avoid products with unnecessary packaging. Take your own shopping bag to the supermarket, rather than using up countless flimsy plastic ones, or use boxes.

7. Initiate a climate-friendly workplace. Up to 80 per cent of all our waste is generated in the workplace. Set up a “green group” to monitor your company’s approach to waste and recycling.

8. Vote for change. Use your vote to encourage green policies. Write to your elected representatives and ask them what they are doing to support the environment. Pressure for change can start in your street. Urge local politicians to clean up their act and make recycling centers more accessible.

9. Plant a tree. Trees are a great source of oxygen. Plant a tree in your garden. Failing that, avoid products made from new teak or mahogany. Carefully check the suppliers of garden furniture, and if you are not sure where they come from, don’t buy anything.

10. Join the movement. Sign up with your favourite environmental group and send money or, even better, volunteer to help to clear up beaches and wasteland. Above all, do something.

Points for discussion:

• Were your suggestions the same?

• What won’t work in our country?

• What does already work?

• What is the most useful tip?

• Which of these tips do you already follow?

• Are you going to follow them? Why? Why not?

Keys:

Ex. 1. 1. j; 2. c; 3. a; 4. e; 5. i; 6. m; 7. d; 8. f; 9. b; 10. g; 11. h; 12. l; 13. k

Ex. 2. 1. conservation; 2. endangered species; 3. evolution; 4. extinct; 5. the greenhouse effect; 6. habitat; 7. insecticide; 8. national park; 9. nitrogen oxiden; 10. nuclear power station; 11. ozone; 12. poacher; 13. pollution; 14. rainforest; 15. reserve; 16. trophy; 17. smog; 18. biosphere; 19. atmosphere; 20. acid rain

By Natalya Plyugina,
School No. 44, Kaliningrad