Exercise 5. Fill in the blanks with the words and combinations.

concern	discharge	surface runoff	untreated sewage
man-made waste	developing countries	littering	contaminated
toxic waste	release of chemicals and particles	polluted spots	liquid spills
deadly effect	pollutants	contaminants	put a limit on
rashes	oil spills	spill (v)	contamination
depletion of the ozone layer	excessive noise	contaminate	pollute

1. Herbicides and pesticides are the most well-known (1) ______. If they (2) ______ on the ground soil becomes (3) ______.

2. (4) ______ is the greatest cause of air, land and water (5) ______. It leads to (6) ______ which can have a (7) ______ on humans and ecosystem.

3. Skin problems and (8) ______occur due to (9) ______; (10) ______contaminates the drinking water; (11) ______can cause hearing loss.

4. (12) ______ is waste material, which (13) ______the environment and (14) ______ groundwater. Air pollution is caused by the (15) ______ into the atmosphere. Water pollution is a consequence of (16) ______, leakage into groundwater, (17) ______, wastewater (18) ______ and (19) ______.

5. The US Environmental Protection Agency was established to (20) ______ the amount of (21) ______ in the air. Pollution is a bigger (22) ______ for the whole world, especially for the (23) ______ and China, India, Peru and Russia which are the most (24) ______ in the world.

Exercise 6. Prepare a talk beginning with the words

“The main things to be done for protection of the environment are…”

Exercise 7. Listen to your group-mates’ ideas, take notes of the information not mentioned in the text, discuss the controversial ones and unite your efforts in creating the final solution of the problem.

TEXT 2

Environmental protection is one of the main problems of today. Industrial civilization is characterized by numerous factories and power stations, automobiles and airplanes. Technological progress improves people's lives, but at the same time it causes numerous problems that were unimaginable in the past centuries. Through their daily activities people pollute and contaminate land, water and air. Today pollution has become a universal problem. Both the atmosphere of the Earth and the depths of the oceans are poisoned with toxic wastes created by the humans. Millions of species – animals, birds, fish – have already disappeared from our planet; thousands of others will be gone tomorrow. Natural resources are exhausted; the ecology of the planet is disbalanced. The survival of our civilization depends on the ability of mankind to find a way out. The task of protecting the nature is of primary importance now.

The need for energy generates pollution on a large scale. Energy that derives from fossil fuels contaminates the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants threaten air, water and land. The necessity to employ all the inhabitants of the city leads to the creation of new factories that produce not only consumer goods, but wastes and smog as well.

Another source of global danger is acid rain. It is a relatively new kind of pollution. Acid rains appeared as a reaction of the atmosphere to the air contamination. Acid rains cause the disappearance of fish from many lakes; bring death to the forests and woods in Europe and America. One more danger comes from the depletion of the ozone layer, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. If it continues it will damage all living organisms on our planet.

The only thing that people fail to realize is that humanity is also part of the biosphere and that people depend completely on the environment. The war on nature that mankind is waging today is a kind of collective suicide. People pollute the air that they breathe, poison the water that they drink. If we don’t change anything which planet we’ll get in years?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30