The Damaged Environment – How Long Will It Last?

Man has influenced the environment in three very different ways: a dramatic reshaping of the landscape to create effecient agriculture ad urban life: a major interference in the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and metals changing the physics and chemistry of the environment throigh increased nutrients flows, acidification, global warming, and increased UV radiation; thousands of chemicals, foreign to the planet and its life forms, have been used extensively in the environment, some of them deliberately to poison life.

The pollution chain is the way that pollutants take from production into the environment over air and water. Some chemicals are easily taken up by life forms, they are bio-available, they may accumulate in organs and tissues, stay in the food chains as they migrate form prey to predatorm even form the mother to the child. Many of them also ens up in man.

Chemicals have special effects in ecosystems. An ecosystem might be completely disrupted if one key species is badly damaged, and prey-predator relationships are changed. Typically ecosystems hit by pollution lose diversity and biomass. At the same time environments that are less diverse, both as landscapes and as ecosystems, are more vulnerable to environemntal impacts.

Compared to the 1059’s and 1960’s, when the threat form chemical pollution was first grasped seriously, much has happened. Many chemicals have been banned and new chemicals have been designed so they do not accumulate in ecosystems. But old chemicals still leak from the society in to the environment, and new threats are comtunuously discovered. Lately pollutants that influence the sexual defferentiation in animals, the so called endocrine disruptors, have been creating a new scene, a chemical panorama that seems more threatening than before. It is discussed whether endocrine disruptors, also called hormon-mimetic pollutants, can reach man and threaten his reproduction.

Environmental impacts interacts in several ways, either to reinforce one another or sometimes dampen each other. Landscape changes make the environment more or less susceptible fro eutrophication and acidification. For example, a modernised monotonous productionlandscape enhances eutrophication since the factors that reduce nitrogen and phosphorus flows are ansent. In the same time an ecosystem that has relatively few species is less able to withstand the impact of pollution and changes in general, e.g. the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Th environment is more or less robust, that is more or less able to withstans impact. An environment that has changed but is able to go back to its original status after an impact has ceased, is called resilient.

Some of the impacts that man has had on the environment ill last very long. Changes in infrastructure, roads, buildings etc., will last perhaps to the next ise age, that is many tens of thousands of years. Also landscapes changes, e.g. deforestation and drainage, may be very long lasting. Forests will take hundreds of years to be more natural and a “virgin” forest will take a thousand years to establish itself. A chemical impact will only last as long as the chemical survives. However changes in the biochemical cycles will take hundreds or thousands of years for global impacts to adjust even if mechanisms are available.

Finally some changes are irreversible. To this categiry belongs for example the extinction of biological species. Even if we will in the long run be able to manage the environment to stop the continued degradation, it is already clear that our children will live in an environment that is a little less rich and a little less diverse than ours.

 

 

 

2. GRAMMAR WORK.

CHOOSE THE CORRECT PREPOSITION:

1. Many of chemicals end (in, up, on) in man.
2. Many heavy metals are toxic (to, for, at) animals and plants.
3. Several environment pollutants act mostly (on, at, in) a local level.
4. The stratospheric ozone layer protects the Earth (out of, with, from) ultraviolet radiation.
5. Acidification of lakes will, (on, at, in) the end, kill all higher forms of life.

 

3. GRAMMAR WORK. ADJECTIVES. ADVERBS.

A. Turn the following adjectives into adverbs:	B. Turn the following adverbs into adjectives:
1. easy;	1. extensively;
2. bad;	2. seriously;
3. late;	3. finally;
4. natural;	4. probably;
5. local;	5. importantly;

 

4. A. REWRITE THE FOLLOWING SENTENSES CHANGING THEM INTO THE CONSTRUCTIONS WITH MODAL WORDS:

1. The problem of a reduced efficiency of the photosynthetic process must be submitted to the Conference.
2. An ecosystem might be completely disrupted.
3. Some chemicals may accumulate in organs and tissues.
4. It is discussed whether endocrine disruptors can reach man and threaten his reproduction.
5. We should urgently take into consideration the problem of hormone-mimetic pollutants.

B. REWRITE THE FOLLOWING SENTENSES CHANGING THEM INTO THE CONSTRUCTIONS WITH MODAL VERBS:

1. Changes in infrastructure, roads, buildings etc., will last perhaps to the next ice age.
2. A “virgin” forest will probably take a thousand years to establish itself.
3. Our children will surely live in an environment that is a little less rich and a little less diverse than ours.
4. It is necessary for all environmentally concerned people to have a sound knowledge of the most prominent threats facing the global ecosystem, including humans.
5. Is it possible to stop acidification of lakes?

 

5. A. MATCH SYNONYMS:

1. extinction; 2. robust; 3. to withstand; 4. diversity; 5. contaminant;

a. vigorous; b. variety; c. pollutant; d. disappearance; e. to resist.

B. MATCH THE WORDS WITH THEIR DEFINITIONS:

1. a tissue;   2. irreversible;     3. resilient;   4. eutrophication; 5. ecosystem;

a. excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life; b. the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functions as an ecological unit; c. any of the distinct types of material of which animals or plants are made, consisting of specialized cells and their products; d. not able to be undone or altered; e. able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

 

6. A. CHOOSE THE BEST VARIANT TO COMPLETE THE SENTENCES:

1. Environmental impacts interact in several ways, either (to reinforce, to strengthen, to intensify) one another or sometimes dampen each other.

2. An environment that has changed but is able to go back to its original status after an impact has ceased, is called (elastic, supple, resilient).

3. Some chemicals may (accumulate, gather, hoard) in organs and tissues.

4. Many heavy metals are (poisonous, toxic, venomous) to animals and plants.

5. In the 1970’s and 1980’s it was discovered that the stratospheric ozone layer is being continually (exhausted, depleted, impoverished).

B. MARK THE STATEMENTS AS TRUE (T) OR FALSE (F). CORRECT THE FALSE STATESMENTS:

6. Chemicals have no effects on ecosystem.

7. All man-made changes to the environment are irreversible.

8. A chemical impact will only last as long as the chemical survives.

9. The ozone depletion substances and greenhouse gases distribute themselves over the entire earth and thereby establish a global environmental impact.

10. Landscape changes make the environment not susceptible for eutrophication and acidification.

 

7. A. TRANSLATE FROM ENGLISH INTO RUSSIAN:

1. The pollution chain is the way that pollutants take from production into the environment over air and water.

2. An ecosystem might be completely disrupted if one key species is badly damaged, and prey-predator relationships are changed.

3. An ecosystem that has relatively few species is less able to withstand the impact of pollution and changes in general, e.g. the Baltic Sea ecosystem.

4. Landscape changes, e.g. deforestation and drainage, may be very long lasting.

5. Changes it the biogeochemical cycles will take hundreds or thousands of years for global impacts to adjust even if mechanisms are available.

B. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

6. When was the threat from chemical pollution grasped seriously?

7. What are the ways people influence the environment?

8. What are the most hazardous side-effects of improvement of the environment?

9. Why are the processes of eutrophication, acidification and dispersion of exogenous substances so dangerous?

10. Describe the main threats facing the global ecosystem.

 

 

VARIANT 3