AIR POLLUTION

AIR POLLUTION

When the Americans decided to clean up the Statue of Liberty in 1986, the first thing they had to do was to make a hole in her nose and take away the acid rain that had collected inside. The polluted air of New York had mixed with the rain and damaged the Statue badly. And you certainly know that most of the pollution in big cities comes from cars and buses. More and more often people are told not to be in direct sunlight, because ultraviolet radiation from the sun can cause skin cancer. Normally the ozone layer in the atmosphere protects us from such radiation, but if there are holes in the ozone layer, ultraviolet radiation can get to the earth. Many scientists think that these holes are the result of air pollution.

Nuclear power stations can go wrong and cause nuclear pollution. This happened in Windscale in Britain, in Three Mile Island in the USA and Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. Nuclear pollution cannot be seen but its effects can be terrible. To make air clean again we need good filters at nuclear power stations, at factories and plants and also in cars and buses.

Both clean air and clean water are necessary for our health. If people want to survive, they must solve these problems quickly. Man is beginning to understand that his environment is not just his own town or country, but the whole earth. That’s why people all over the world think and speak so much about ecology.

Task 2. Find in the text English equivalents of these words and words combinations (найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующим словосочетаниям):

1) решать проблемы окружающей среды

2) угрожать жизни людей, подвергать жизнь людей опасности

3) загрязнение водной среды

4) загрязнение воздуха

5) разрушение, уничтожение живой природы

6) нехватка природных ресурсов

7) использоваться в качестве мусорной свалки

8) проводить испытания ядерного оружия

9) промышленные и ядерные отходы

10) рыба, подвергшаяся радиационному заражению

11) покидать места своего обитания

12) сливать отходы в близлежащие реки

13) атомные электростанции

Task 3. Answer these questions on the text (ответить на вопросы письменно):

1. What does the word environment mean?

2. What are the most serious environmental problems? Which of them are described in the text?

3. What makes the sea waters dangerous nowadays?

4. Why is it dangerous to dump industrial waste in the sea?

5. Why was the Statue of Liberty in New York damaged?

6. Where does air pollution in the cities mostly come from?

7. Why is it not safe to be in direct sunlight in certain places?

8. Why are nuclear power stations dangerous?

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