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Ex. 6 Place the appropriate word from the list in each of the blanks below. Do not use word more than once.

Earth.

3.An ... in the green house effect may cause the ice at the North Pole and South Pole to melt and sea levels to rise, leading to serious ... in many parts of the world.

4.In other places, temperature will ... and there will be less rain, turning more of the land in to desert.

Using the Net

Ex. 7 In the Net find the information and make the report about Kyoto protocol. (What is it about? What countries signed it? Did our country join them? What is the upper side of Kyoto protocol for our country? What are the main arguments of its opponents? )

Focus Grammar

We often use passive verb forms to say what happens to things or people or what was done to them.

Example: The sun's rays in the stratosphere generate ozone. (Active)

Ozone is generated by the sun's rays in the stratosphere. (Passive)

Form

+ It's done. It's being done. It was done. It has been done. It will be done.

- It's not done. It's not being done. It wasn't done. It hasn't been done. It won't be

done.

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? Is it done? Is it being done? Was it done? Has it been done? Will it be done?

Passives can also be formed with modal verbs.

Can it be done? It can't be done. It should be done. It must be done. It might be done.

Ex. 8 Find in the texts A and B different cases of the Passive Voice and translate

them.

Ex. 9 Change the following sentences into the Active Voice.

1.A new study of climate change was led by British University.

2.Some powerful greenhouse gases are released by agriculture.

3.Now, in Central Russia, drought is being observed.

4.Many heavily populated regions will be flooded by the World Ocean.

5.The increase in the average temperature is being produced by global warming.

6.We are protected from different damaging effects by the ozone layer.

Ex. 10 Change the following sentences into the Passive Voice.

1.Ecosystem will transform and possibly decline.

2.Most Arctic ice has already floated in the ocean.

3.Some gases transmit short-wave radiation.

4.The general warming is pushing up humidity levels.

5.All fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide. Development includes technological, social and economic changes.

6.Governments in developed countries should prohibit the export of toxic substances.

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Round Table

Learning strategy

Role-play helps you prepare for a real-world experience.

Ex. 12 Discuss pros and cons of Kyoto protocol.

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Supplementary Material

Read and translate the texts

Text I

Some problems of the environment are easy to see. The Earth’s biggest problem today is energy. We normally use four things to make electricity: oil, coal, gas or nuclear power. All of these produce terrible pollution problems.

Nuclear power leaves dangerous radioactive waste. The others all produce gases, and these gases cause acid rain and the greenhouse effect. Acid rain comes from industrial countries. But the wind carries it and a lot of it falls on their neighbours. For example, Canada gets acid rain from the USA. The Scandinavian countries get it from Britain.

Industry, power stations and cars burn oil and coal. Oil and coal contain sulphur and nitrogen. They react with oxygen in the air and produce sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen and they react with water and produce sulphuric acid, nitric acid, and other acids. Rain containing such chemicals, which pollute the environment is called acid rain.

Industrial countries also cause “greenhouse effect” . Industry, power stations and cars produce carbon dioxide. This gas works like the glass walls of a greenhouse. It lets in the sun, but it doesn’t let out the heat. So, the earth gets hotter and hotter.

The car is an ecological disaster. It is now the world’s number one polluter. From the beginning to the end of its life, one car produces an enormous quantity of pollution. The production of one car results in 1500 kilos of waste and 75 million metres of polluted air. When you throw the car away, many dangerous metals (like cadmium) and other chemicals pollute the earth. The building of roads, motorways and car parks produces a large quantity of pollution. It is impossible to estimate how much.

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Text II

The poisoning of the world’s land, air, and water is the fastest-spreading disease of civilization. It probably produces fewer headlines than wars, earthquakes and floods, but it is potentially one of history’s greatest dangers to human life on earth. If present trends continue for the next several decades, our planet will become uninhabitable.

Overpopulation, pollution and energy consumption have created such planet-wide problems as massive deforestation, ozone depletion, acid rains and the global warming that is believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect.

The seas are in danger. They are filled with poison: industrial and nuclear waste, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Mediterranean is already nearly dead; the North Sea is following. The Aral Sea is on the brink of extinction. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in the seas.

Every ten minutes one kind of animal, plant or insect dies out forever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today will have become extinct twenty years from now.

Air pollution is a very serious problem. In Cairo just breathing the air is life threatening - equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The same holds true for Mexico City and 600 cities of the former Soviet Union.

Industrial enterprises emit tons of harmful substances. These emissions have disastrous consequences for our planet. They are the main reason for the greenhouse effect and acid rains.

An even greater environmental threat are nuclear power stations. We all know how tragic the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are. People are beginning to realize that environmental problems are not somebody else’s . They join and support various international organizations and green parties. If governments wake up to what is happening - perhaps we’ll be able to avoid the disaster that threatens the natural world and all of us with it.

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Text III

One of the most serious ecological problems that we face nowadays is pollution. Pollution is the contamination of the environment, including air, water and land. This problem is extremely topical for heavily industrialized cities and towns where metallurgical plants, steel mills, mines, chemical plants are situated. Uncontrolled emissions of harmful substances and dust pollute everything around us - earth, water, air - all that gives us life.

Very often they are the reason of acid rains. Acid rains happen when gases and chemicals mix with water in the air. The mixture travels for hundreds of miles and finally falls back to earth. As acid rains contain a lot of chemicals, they poison earth and water, kill fish, destroy forests, damage plants, animals, and buildings.

It is worth mentioning that one third of all emissions into the atmosphere originates from automobile and water transport. That means that air pollution is not only the problem of big cities.

Thermal power plants are also a great source of pollution. During some period of time it was considered that nuclear power stations were safe. In 1986 Chernobyl disaster showed that nuclear energy can be extremely dangerous. Research data show that significant areas of agricultural and forest lands of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia will remain unsafe for a man for eight thousand years.

Another problem of big cities is wastes. The wastes from plants and factories contaminate water and soil. It has become dangerous to drink unboiled water or eat vegetables and fruit. Another reason of soil poisoning is the use of fertilizers which help agricultural products to grow fast and big but very often these products are harmful for a man.

These are the main sources of air, water and land pollution. But is it only factories, big ships and cars that pollute?

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Text IV

About two hundred years ago man lived in harmony with nature, because industry was not much developed. Today, however, the contradictions between man and nature are dramatic. Every year world industry throws out into atmosphere about 1000 million tons of dust and other harmful substances. People of many cities suffer from smog. Forests are disappearing. The pollution of the air, oceans, seas, rivers and lakes and destruction of the ozone layer could lead our planet to a global catastrophe. The Earth is our home that is why we must take care of it for ourselves and for the next generations. We must keep our environment clean.

More than 20 years ago a pulp-and-paper factory was built on the shore of Lake Baikal. As a result, because of the water pollution more than 50% of the world’s purest water has been ruined. The whole ecological system of the lake has changed greatly. Some organisms that can be found only in Lake Baikal have disappeared. Sientists put the problem of the lake sharply in the press, among public bodies and in the government. Lake Baikal and its shores have been declared a specially protected zone of the country.

More than 30 years ago the Aral was a bright blue sea with a lot of fish. The rivers Amudarya and Syrdarya supplied it with water. But then the water of the rivers was diverted to cotton plantations. As a result, the Aral now is in a very dangerous position. If no immediate measures are taken, the Aral Sea will disappear by the year 2010. There are many other places on our planet that need immediate help.

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Interesting to know

Sewage and Storm Water

Sewage is defined as the liquid waste of a community. It consists of wastes from residences, institutions and business buildings; wastes from various types of manufacturing or industrial plants, and the run-off from the streets and other surfaces that results from storms or street-flushing operations.

In general sewage is essentially water that carries a small percentage of solid material in solution, in suspention or floating on the surface.

Sewage may be classified according to its source as follows: that from residences, institutions and business buildings is called domestic sewage, sanitary sewage or house sewage; that from manufacturing or industrial processes is known as industrial waste or trade waste; and that from run-off during or immediately after storms is called storm water or storm sewage. A combination of domestic sewage, industrial waste and storm water is called combined sewage.

The removal of all kinds of sewage is ordinarily accomplished by means of underground conduits called sewers and various appurtenances. The general process of removing sewage is called sewerage, and an entire system of sewers and appurtenances which may include a sewage treatment plant is known as a sewerage system.

House sewage is highly objectionable and dangerous to health, since it may contain disease germs. The contents of industrial waste vary for different processes of manufacture and may be either objectionable or just discoloured water. Rain or storm water may be very turbid or dirty and may contain leaves, sticks, paper, sand and other solid matters.

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Climatic effects of polluted air

Less obvious than local concentrations of pollution but potentially more important are the climatic effects of air pollutants. Thus, as a result of the growing worldwide consumption of fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased steadily since 1900, and the rate of increase is accelerating. The output of carbon dioxide is believed by some to have reached a point such that it may exceed both the capacity of plant life to remove it from the atmosphere and the rate at which it goes into solution in the oceans. In the atmosphere carbon dioxide creates a “greenhouse effect”. Like glass in a greenhouse, it allows ligh t rays from the Sun to pass through, but it does not allow the escape of the heat rays generated when sunlight is absorbed by the surface of the ground. An increase in carbon dioxide, therefore, can cause an increase in the temperature of the lower atmosphere. If allowed to continue, this could cause melting of the polar ice caps, raising of the sea level, and flooding of the coastal areas of the world. There is every reason to fear that such a climatic change may take place. Counterbalancing the effect of carbon dioxide is the increase of particulate matter in the air, a result of the output of smoke, dust, and other solids associated with human activity. Such an increase might, in turn, increase the reflectance, or albedo, of the atmosphere, causing a higher percentage of solar radiation to be reflected back into space. This, in time, could cause a lowering of the Earth’s surface temperature and, potentially, a new ice age. At present, however, the greater danger appears to lie in the steady increase in carbon dioxide, with its associated atmospheric warming. Scientists also fear that the ozonosphere is being depleted by the chemical action of chlorofluorocarbons emitted from aerosol cans and refrigerators and by pollutants from rockets and supersonic aircraft. Depletion of the ozone layer, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, would have serious effects on living organisms on the Earth’s surface, including increasing frequency of skin cancer among humans.

Another climatic effect of pollution is acid rain. The phenomenon occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the burning of fossil fuels combine with water

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vapour in the atmosphere. The resulting precipitation is damaging to water, forest, and soil resources. It is blamed for the disappearance of fish from many lakes in the Adirondacks, for the widespread death of forests in European mountains, and for damaging tree growth in the United States and Canada. Reports also indicate that it can corrode buildings and be hazardous to human health. Because the contaminants are carried long distances, the sources of acid rain are difficult to pinpoint and hence difficult to control. Acid rain has been reported in areas as far apart as Sweden and Canada, and in parts of the United States from New England to Texas. The drifting of pollutants causing acid rain across international boundaries has created disagreements between Canada and the United States and among European countries over the causes and solutions of the precipitation. The international scope of the problem has led to the signing of international agreements on the limitation of sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions.

Environmental Protection in Great Britain

For more than a century Britain has been developing policies to conserve the nature and build heritage and protect the environment against pollution from industry and other sources.

The Environment White Paper “This common Inheritanc e”, published in 1990, was the first comprehensive statement by the Government on environmental policy. Two further update reports have been published.

In June 1992 Britain participated fully in the “Ear th Summit” in Rio de Janeiro and signed the conventions negotiated there to protect biological diversity and to guard against global climate change through the “greenhou se effect”. The conference also adopted Agenda 21, a statement of principles designed to promote environmentally sustainable development, and a declaration on forestry.