Texts for sight translation Text 1

Is climate change really inevitable?

Climate change is the most talked about ecological issue in the last decade. Many scientists agree that climate change is inevitable, and that we are no longer able to stop global warming. The only thing we could do is to adapt, and to make sure we do not make things even worse. The future outlook doesn't look good, and scientists predict floods, droughts, rising sea levels, and extinction of many animals as the worst climate change consequences.

Many scientists also agree that our only chance to prevent the worst possible climate change scenario is to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions on global level. This will however be very hard to achieve because neither Kyoto nor Copenhagen were able to unite global political will in form of legally binding international climate deal. Our industries and economies are based on fossil fuels, and fossil fuel burning is the main source of carbon emissions on our planet. In order to cut our dependence on fossil fuels we would need a quick development of clean, renewable energy sources but this sadly doesn't look like happening any time soon.

Will climate change leave us enough time for transition to renewable energy? Difficult to tell, but if temperatures continue current warming trend at one time we will pass the point of no return, and we will not be able to prevent the worst of climate change. Many scientists are convinced that if we fail to significantly reduce emissions in the next few decades, we will see this point of no return very soon, even before the end of this century. World leaders still fail to find a mutual language when discussing climate change issue, and each country wants to promote its own interests before and against the global interests. In such atmosphere new climate change deal is impossible and this was clearly shown last year in Copenhagen.

The stakes are really high, and yet the politicians continue to gamble with our planet's health like this is some stock on the market. This needs to change very soon. Or else...

Text 2 Ecological problems - True crisis of humanity

If we consider Earth as our only home then we must acknowledge the great irony of the modern world, irony that reveals itself in vast number of ecological problems. Every way you look, starting from your own town you live in, and all the way to the ice sheets of Antarctica and vast deserts in Africa you can see one pattern that is repeating itself-ecological problems. Ecology is something that always ends up second best, always behind economy and our need for money and power.

We don't appreciate our planet, and Earth doesn't really revolve around the sun, it revolves around money. Ecology is always secondary, and can only survive once and when economy says so, and this happens very rarely.

So far we only followed industrialization and other similar ways on how to strengthen our economies and ecology has simply vanished out of our sight. But now ecology is keep coming back, only this time showing much scarier face, face with so many scars from so many different ecological problems.

We live in the time of the worst crisis in the history of humanity. So many people in this world live in hunger and poverty, but we try not to look at them and their problems. As long as we have enough for ourselves, we are not worried with other people problems, and though we have enough, we are always hungry for more. This uncontrolled hunger for more is the main reason why the word ecology is today used only in negative context. Our greedy nature of always wanting more has put aside ecology and environment in the name of progress and almighty dollar.

Situation is so out of the control that major ecological problems like global warming are still not taken seriously, and on the other hand there is complete chaos because of skyrocketing oil price. It is the sad ecological reality we are living in. We know that we are doing so much harm to our planet, and yet that doesn't seem to be bothering us too much. List of ecological problems gets bigger by the day, and the impact of leading ecological problems (climate change and global warming, pollution, endangered animals) is only getting stronger and stronger. To really make difference you need to have politics on your side, and politicians are only mentioning the word ecology before their election when they are in need of votes, while after all gets forgotten. Our countries need more fuel, more energy, more resources, but apparently no environment protection. In 1990 for World peace day, Pope John Paul II said in his message: "The gravity of the ecological situation reveals how deep is the human moral crisis". And this was almost 20 years ago.