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Now add up your total score out of 50. Compare your results with your partner.

Читайте также:
  1. A) DISCUSS WITH THE PARTNER.
  2. Add Up Your Score
  3. Adscore
  4. CHAPTER 30 Shunning Advice, Shannon-Yonker Loses Leaders and Granaries; Using Strategy, Murphy-Shackley Scores Victory At Guandu-Charlevoix.
  5. CHAPTER 71 At The Capture Of Opposite Hill, Sheffield-Maddox Scores A Success; On The River Han, Gilbert-Rocher Conquers A Host.
  6. Characterize the main political parties in the U.K. (Labour, Conservative and Liberal-Democratic). Comment on the results of the elections of May 2005
  7. Compare answers and decide which description fits him best.
  8. Compare schooling in Great Britain with the school education in Belarus.
  9. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of three of the following as media for communicating information. State which you consider to be the most effective.
  10. Compare the houses in the picture. Find at least 5 differences.

A score 45-50 suggests you worry too much.

30-45 suggests you won’t die of worry, but you’re certainly not indifferent.

15-30 suggests either that you don’t read the papers or don’t believe a word they say.

0-15 suggest s you live on some idealistic island

 

 

Environmental protection

 

Ex. 1. Read the text and do the exercises below:

If you believe all you heave on television and read in newspapers, you may be thinking we’ll soon run out of energy, have an epidemic of cancer because of Uv rays reaching earth through holes in the ozone layer and drown in a sea of melting polar ice as a result of the greenhouse effect. That’s if we manage to avoid being poisoned by toxic waste and polluted rivers.

How accurate is this picture and how much Man’s activities been to blame? Is the environment really in that much of a mess?

Although scientists may argue about the time scale, most agree that, if present trends continue, the future for Britain – and many other countries – gives cause for concern. They say that there could be dramatic change in the climate of many countries.

There is concern about nitrate in drinking water, lead in the air, industrial effluents and poorly-treated sewage dumped into rivers and seas. Then there’s concern about pesticides and dwindling energy reserves.

Of all these issues, many experts agree that the most pressing problem facing all of us is that of the gradual warming of the earth’s atmosphere caused mainly by the build up of carbon dioxide and CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) producing what has become known as the greenhouse effect.

It may be hard to believe, but informed opinion is that the atmosphere is getting warmer. In the past 80 years the average temperature has increased by half of one degree Celsius.

Hardly the making of a heatwave, but the consequences are likely to be significant. Weather experts maintain that the rate of increase in the warming process is accelerating. Some predict that, by 2090, the temperature in southern Britain on a typical summer day could be 26-30C/79-86F. (In 1988 the highest temperature recorded was 24C/75F). Good news, you may think, but there’d be a price to pay.

Even a small rise in temperature could, scientists say, have a dramatic effect on ice in the polar regions. Pieces would break off, float away and melt. Sea levels would rise and Britain’s coastal region would be flooded unless sea defenses were built.

But the effect of higher temperatures on other countries could be even more severe.

Hot countries which are already suffering from droughts could get even hotter and drier, and more arid.

What Man has done to produce this warmer climate is to burn fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil and wood), cut down trees faster than they are replaced, use aerosol sprays and food packaged in rigidfoam containers.

He has also used refrigerators and freezer with CFC coolants.

Burning fossil fuels uses oxygen and produces carbon dioxide. Trees that are growing use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. So that could be a healthy balance. But since the industrial revolution – about 150 years ago – that balance has been upset as more fossil fuels have been burned and forests cut down and burned at an unprecedented rate. Both processes produce carbon dioxide (CO2). The result is that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 24% over the past 150 years. Some CO2 is essential to life – to help plants grow and to retain some heat. But the very large amount now present are, in part, responsible for trapping even more heat in the earth’s atmosphere – the so-called “greenhouse effect”.

Other important “greenhouse gases” are CFCs, especially the types which have been used in aerosols, some food trays, domestic freezers and refrigerators, supermarket refrigeration system and most air conditioning systems. Some CFCs are at least 10000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere.

 

Ex. 2. Find words or phrases which have a similar meaning to the following:

1) a layer of gases that prevent harmful radiation from the sun from reaching the earth;

2) products from industry that are harmful to people, animals or the environment;

3) a chemical substance used to kill insects and small animals that destroy crops;

4) to gradually become less and less or smaller and smaller;

5) a long period of dry weather when there is not enough water for plants and animals to live;

6) the gradual warming of the air surrounding the Earth as a result of heat being trapped by pollution;

7) a fuel that is produced by the very gradual decaying of animals or plants over millions of years.

 

Ex. 3. Answer the following questions:

1). What major environmental problems is mankind facing today? 2). What brought to life the main environmental problems? 3) Weather experts predict significant consequences of the environmental problems, don’t they? 4)What effect can a small rise in temperature have? 5) What steps can be taken to ease the problems? 6) What is your personal opinion about the real state of the environment? 7) At what level should the problems be solved? 8)Can individuals influence the situation? 9) What is the major environmental problem in Belarus? 10)What is done in our country to improve the situation?

 

Ex. 4. Make up dialogues according to the following situations:

1. Student A: you’ve just watched a TV programme with your friend. The TV programme is about environmental changes caused by man’s activities. You are a realist and you understand all the danger of environmental problems. You want to explain it to your friend.

Student B: you’ve just watched a TV programme with your friend. The TV programme is about environmental changes caused by man’s activities. You are an optimist and you are sure that all the danger of environmental problems is exaggerated to make people think about nature.

2. Student A: you are writing a report on the problem of “greenhouse gases”. You’ve got a lot of information and you need to ask your course-mate for help as he/she has experience in making report on environmental problems in his/her own group.

Student B: your course-mate asks you for help in writing a report on the topic “greenhouse gases” and you have already made a report on environmental problems in your group. Warn your friend about possible questions afterwards.

 

Pollution

 

Ex. 1. Study the vocabulary before reading the article:

Emissions gases, smoke, etc.

EEC European Economic Community

Loch lake (in Scotland)

To leach to allow to pass through

Drought long period of rain

Pest insect or small animal

Forestry commission body responsible for planting and protecting British forests

Drastic violent, dramatic

Foam (foamed plastic) light plastic filled with air

Estuary place where a river flows into the sea

Sewage human body waste

Outright completely

Mercy river, which flows through Liverpool

Effluent liquid, which flows out of sewage works

Sludge thick, heavy mud

Toxic poisonous

Prosecution complaint in a court of low

Silo tall metal tank for silage

Biodegradable which breaks up or dissolves naturally into soil, water

Miscellaneous general, mixed

Disposal getting rid of smth

To decay (here) to become less radioactive

Shallow not deep

 

Ex. 2. Read the article; use your dictionary for unknown words:




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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES | Atmosphere tsunami estuary pesticide auspices | Acid rains | The environmental cost of cars | Wilderness Around the World | Ecosystems | The answers | Ex.2 Read the text. | Conversation | Ex.2. Write a short summary of the text. |


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