These are just superficial questions about environment before us. By all our actions, we are destroying Earth. We have to help ourselves to prevent dreaded problems such as industrial pollution, shrinking rain forests, ever expanding deserts, ozone holes, over-population, acid rain, river and ocean pollution and many more.
How do we do this? People concerned the world over have been thinking on these lines for well over 40 years. Later, well-meaning people from all round the globe came together to celebrate the "International Earth Day" on April 22 each year. And last year, people from over 134 countries participated in these celebrations. Many more countries participated this year.
The aim of "Earth Day" is to create an awareness among people to save the environment.
June 5 is World Environment Day. It marks the anniversary of the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment held in Sweden in 1972. At this historic conference, nations of the world gathered to share their concern over human progress at the expense of the environment. The meeting called upon the world community to work towards "development without destruction".
Two decades later the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development began in Brazil on Environment Day. As governments around the world are discussing regional and global environmental issues, it is a good time to educate and inform ourselves about our immediate environment and work towards improving it.
• Get to know your own neighbourhood better.
• Bring the residents together to share their concerns about local environmental problems and identify the most pressing ones.
• Organise a neighbourhood environment squad to tackle the problems. No one is too old or too young to pitch in.
On this day let us solemnly reaffirm our commitment to the Stockholm Declaration to ensure, collectively and individually, that our small planet is passed over to future generations in a condition which guarantees a life with human dignity for all.
You can make a difference too, no matter how small your contribution may seem. Add these to your New Year resolutions:
• I will switch off the lights when I am last person to leave a room.
• I will walk or cycle whenever I can, rather than use a fuelconsuming vehicle.
• I will tightly close any tap I see dripping.
• I will not litter.
These resolutions are not at all difficult to keep, but they will make a difference — not just to you, but to the earth we all share
Ex. 2. Arrange in pairs of antonyms.
healthy, polluted, destroy, global, expanding, living, deep, enrich, dangerous, shrinking, clean, sale, extinct, save, exhaust, superficial, harmful, region
Ex. 3. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Discuss and give your reasons. Use the following expressions of agreement and disagreement; I couldn't agree more. Absolutely. Exactly. Well, actually, I'm not sure I agree with that. I disagree entirely. Rubbish.
1. Doctors may list thousands of causes for different diseases but if you look deep into the problem, in the long run they all result from the severely polluted environment.
2. The costs of growth and development are already too high and the future is bleak.
3. Providing that development is controlled, it can do no harm.
4. We need to rethink our whole way of life and live in small communities which only produce the food and goods they need.
5. It's ridiculous to expect people to give up the benefits of civilisation and go back to the Dark Ages even if at the expense of the environment.
Ex. 4. Answer these questions (Use vocabulary from the text).
1. Which environmental problems does your town, village or city suffer from? Which are the most serious?
2. Do you think the situation in your country is better or worse than in other countries?
3. What can you do to help your local environment?
4. Can anything be done about global environmental problems? Can the world community solve them and on what conditions?
5. If you had a chance to go on a nature study holiday anywhere in the world, would you go? Or would you be bored? Where would you go?
Words and phrases to remember.
environment: to destroy/to save/to improve ...; at the expense of ...; immediate ...; environmental (issues); to (severely) pollute; pollution: industrial .... ocean/air ...;
waste(s): bio-degradable ..., nuclear ...;
to become extinct; to exhaust (resources);
to tackle a problem; to go deep into a problem; to work towards; world-community; well-meaning people;
to bring smb together; to share (smb's) concern over; to call upon smb to+V
Vocabulary to the text " THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS "
| Interaction | Взаимодействие |
| Relationships | (взаимо)отношения |
| Acid | Кислота, кислый. Кислотный |
| Rainforests | Тропические леса |
| waste (n) | 1) .растрачивание, потери, ущерб: 2).отходы, отбросы (организма в том числе) |
| Deterioration | Ухудшение, порча |
| Destroy | Разрушать, уничтожать |
| Destruction | Разрушение, уничтожение |
| Nourish | Питать, кормить, вскармливать |
| Nourishing | Питательный, сытный |
| Nourishment | Питание, еда, пища |
| Create | Создавать, творить |
| Mean | Означать, значить |
| Pollute | Загрязнять |
| Pollution | Загрязнение |
| Survive | Выживать |
| Survival | Выживание |
| Restore | Возвращать, отдавать обратно, восстанавливать |
| Borrow | Брать взаймы |
| Conserve | Сохранять, охранять |
| Preserve | Поддерживать, оберегать |
Text 2. THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
We are in an environmental crisis because human beings have broken out of the circle of life and are destroying the environment. To survive, we must learn how to restore the wealth we have borrowed from nature.
A. What does the environmental crisis mean? To understand this we must begin at the source of life itself: the earth's thin skin of air, water and soil, bathed by the radiant solar fire. Life appeared here several billion years ago and was nourished by the earth's matter. Living things formed a global network of various habitats, where everything is directly or indirectly dependent on everything. This is the ecosphere (biosphere), the home that life has built for itself on the planet.
B. In nature all processes are in constant balanced interaction. There is no waste in nature. Nothing is created, nothing is lost. Everything is recycled endlessly. The environmental crisis means that this perfect and delicate balance has begun to break down, and the relationship between life and its earthly surroundings have begun to collapse.
C. The environmental degradation continues to accelerate. The ozone layer, vital for survival, is thinning. Acid rain is destroying huge areas of forest and tens of thousands of lakes. We pollute our rivers, lakes and oceans, and the sky, forgetting that we need water and air to live and breathe. We destroy rainforests, picturesque landscapes, and slaughter the world's most beautiful animals.
As a result of our new technologies of land use we lose soil, which is the basis of civilization. And, worst of all, the earth is steadily warming with potentially dangerous effects.
That is why the environmentalists of the world call for fundamental changes NOW!
Ex. V. Entitle all passages of the text " THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS "
Ex. VI. Decide where these sentences go in the text.
1. In the ecosphere everything goes on in cycles: an animal's waste becomes food for soil bacteria; bacteria's waste nourishes plants; animals eat plants.
2. Deserts are expanding so rapidly that they threaten to cover one third of the earth.
3. Man is a newcomer: homo sapient probably appeared first about four million years ago.
4. Man has converted ecological cycles of life into man-made linear events, and at the end of the line there is smog, toxic chemicals, mountains of rubbish.
5. One of the effects of the ozone layer thinning may be genetic mutation.
Ex. VII. How do we say the following in Russian?
Everything is dependent on everything; the earth's thin skin; nourished by the earth's matter; perfect and delicate balance; the relationships between life and its earthly surroundings; vital for survival; as a result of new technologies; dangerous effects; fundamental changes; circle of life.
Ex. VIII Find in the text the word which means:
1. place from which something comes or is got;
2. natural home (soil type and climate) of animal or plant;
3. upper layer of earth in which plants grow;
4. the envelope surrounding the planet from the subsoil to the stratosphere, occupied by living organisms;
5. gradual loss or decrease as a result of use;
6. physical breakdown;
7. results or consequences of action;
8. physical substance in general as distinct from mind and spirit.
Ex.IX. Translate into English.
1. Без воды, воздуха и почвы жизнь не может продолжаться на Земле.
2. В естественной среде обитания все процессы находятся в сбалансированном взаимодействии. ...................................................................
3. Взаимоотношения между живыми организмами и окружающими земными условиями образуют круговорот жизни...............
4.Природа бесконечно перерабатывает свои ресурсы..................................
5. Современное производство нарушает хрупкое равновесие природных циклов…………………………………………………….
6. Загрязнение окружающей среды ведет к (result in) уничтожению самих источников жизни. ..............................................................................................
7. Для того чтобы выжить на земле, человек должен изменить технологии производства коренным образом........................................................................
8.Мы не должны превращать (turn … into) богатство Земли в опасные для
самой жизни отходы...................................
Ex. X. Read Text 3 and fill the gaps, using the words before each paragraph.
Text 3 "OUR PLANET IS IN DANGER!"
I.
Interconnected, сhopped, burn, enough, garbage, breathe, a mess, atmosphere, exhaust, far away from.
Save our planet before it's too late! Humans have been living on this planet for two million years, and in the last two hundred years humans have made …of the planet:… trees, killed animals, polluted air, land, water, etc. Because of that we now have a lot of problems. I'll name just a few of them: 1) the greenhouse effect; 2) killing forests and animals; 3) water, air and land pollution; 4) rubbish problems;
5) nuclear power, etc.
It's easy for us to see what we are doing to the air we breathe, water we drink, we ….throw out! What about the habitat we don't see? E. g., rainforests, deserts, grasslands, oceans. etc.? We don't see them, they are …..us. What does it have to do with us? It is difficult to understand, but everything on the planet is …..and when something goes wrong in some part of the world, everybody loses.
The earth has been getting hotter because we are producing too many greenhouse gases. These gases hold heat. Trees and plants help to take gases, such as carbon dioxide from the…..but we have now destroyed too many trees. There aren't …. trees and plants to do this job. We make carbon dioxide when we …. wood or drive cars. CFCs (other dangerous gases) are in refrigerators and spray cans. They are known for the damage they are doing to the ozone layer. .
Polluting gases fall as acid rains. Large forests and a lot of lakes have been ruined already. Smoking chimneys and car …..pipes are pumping tons of rubbish into the air all the time, and we ….it in. The air in big cities is very much polluted. People feel it without any test. Doctors say that only 2—3 per cent of healthy babies are born in big cities.
II
Acid, melting, protects, the warmest, a layer, since.
There is.... of gas called ozone. It covers the earth. It ....us from the dangerous rays of the sun. But if ozone comes close to earth, in ....rains, for example, it is also very dangerous itself and causes diseases. There are now holes in the ozone layer because there are too many "greenhouse" gases. Scientists say they are over the South Pole and over New York.
Because the Earth is getting hotter, the ice is..... Because the ice has been melting, the level of the sea is slowly rising. Scientists say that in the year 2050 some parts of Great Britain will be under the sea.
Other examples:
In 1972 Finland and Russia had the hottest heatwave for over 100 years.
In 1976 Europe had the worst drought for 100 years.
In 1989 Britain had the longest and the hottest summer ....people started to keep information about the weather.
In 1990 Sweden had ....February for 300 years.
A giant iceberg, the size of Hong Kong, is slowly melting. It is the world's largest iceberg., It broke away from Antarctic. It was 152 km long and 35 km wide. Now it is 10 km shorter because it is melting.
Ill
Rhinoceroses, alarming, disappearing, periwinkle, species, tusks extinction.
Since the last Dodo bird died in about 1681, thousands of other ....of animals and plants have become extinct or endangered.
The Blue Whale, the Panda, the California Big Tree are on the verge of ....now. Gone forever are dinosaurs, passenger pigeons, California grizzly bears. Elephants, jungle-cats and Asian... are being killed off for - their ivory ...., furs, or horns. Many animals have gone forever, as their habitats have been destroyed at an ... rate: 340 miles a day! These are the rainforests which are in Central and South America, Africa, Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, India and Madagaskar.
While rain forests are ...., so are animals and plants which live there. That means we are losing medicines which people can get from these plants and animals. For example, thanks to a little rosy .... found in Madagaskar, nearly all children recover from the blood disease, leukamea.
Make up and tell your own topic " THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS " on the basis of the previous texts : " LET EARTH BE SAVED, " THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS ", "OUR PLANET IS IN DANGER!".
LESSON 11 Modern Architecture
Ex. l. Work with the vocabulary and find Russian equivalents to the words marked оut in the text "MODERN ARCHITECTURE"
Text A. Modern Architecture
Modern architecture is the term universally applied to the style of building, which evolved in a number of countries after the First World War as the International Style, or Functionalism, and which has culminated in the current designs of glass, concrete and steel based on module construction presently being erected all over the world.
In the early 20th century an instinctive desire of architects to break away from the confusions and contrivances of the 19th century, and their efforts to introduce a style which responded to new social needs and exploited new materials led to the changed appearance of buildings; simple rectangular outlines; avoidance of symmetry as a result of the insistence of a building's function determining its form rather than some picture in the architect's mind; absence of applied ornament; flat roofs and white walls, resulting from the use of reinforced concrete, now the favourite material; large windows, which new structural techniques permitted, but which were encouraged too by the spirit of the times, which believed in opening up the interiors of buildings to light and air.