The Drowned world

Soon it would be too hot. Looking out from the hotel balcony shortly after eight o'clock, Kerans watched the sun rise behind the dense groves of giant gymnosperms crowding over the roofs of the abandoned department stores four hundred yards away on the east side of the lagoon. Even through the massive olive-green fronds the relentless power of the sun was plainly tangible. The blunt refracted rays drummed against his bare chest and shoulders, drawing out the first sweat, and he put on a pair of heavy sunglasses to protect his eyes. The solar disc was no longer a well-defined sphere, but a wide expanding ellipse that fanned out across the eastern horizon like a colossal fire-ball, its reflection turning the dead leaden surface of the lagoon into a brilliant copper shield. By noon, less than four hours away, the water would seem to burn. Usually Kerans woke at five, and reached the biological testing station in time to do at least four or five hours' work before the heat became intolerable, but this morning he found himself reluctant to leave the cool, air-curtained haven of the hotel suite. He had spent a couple of hours over breakfast alone, and then completed a sixpage entry in his diary, deliberately delaying his departure until Colonel Riggs passed the hotel in his patrol boat, knowing that by then it would be too late to go to the station. The Colonel was always eager for an hour of conversation, particularly when sustained by a few rounds of aperitif, and it would be at least eleven-thirty before he left, his thoughts solely upon lunch at the base. Leaning on the balcony rail, the slack water ten storeys below reflecting his thin angular shoulders and gaunt profile, Kerans watched one of the countless thermal storms rip through a dump of huge horse-tails lining the creek which led out of the lagoon. Trapped by the surrounding buildings and the inversion layers a hundred feet	above the water, pockets of air would heat rapidly, then explode upwards like escaping balloons, leaving behind them a sudden detonating vacuum. For a few seconds the steam clouds hanging over the creek dispersed, and a vicious miniature tornado lashed across the 6o-feet-high plants, toppling them like matchsticks. Then, as abruptly, the storm vanished and the great columnar trunks subsided among one another in the water like sluggish alligators. Rationalising, Kerans told himself that he had been wise to remain in the hotel – the storms were erupting more and more frequently as the temperature rose – but he knew that his real motive was his acceptance that little now remained to be done. The biological mapping had become a pointless game, the new flora following exactly the emergent lines anticipated twenty years earlier, and he was sure that no-one at Camp Byrd in Northern Greenland bothered to file his reports, let alone read them. In fact, old Dr. Bodkin, Kerans' assistant at the station, had slyly prepared what purported to be an eyewitness description by one of Colonel Riggs' sergeants of a large sail-backed lizard with a gigantic dorsal fin which had been seen cruising across one of the lagoons, in all respects indistinguishable from the Pelycosaur, an early Pennsylvanian reptile. Had the report been taken at its face value – heralding the momentous return of the age of the great reptiles – an army of ecologists would have descended on them immediately, backed by a tactical atomic weapons unit and orders to proceed south at a steady twenty knots. But apart from the routine acknowledgement signal nothing had been heard. Perhaps the specialists at Camp Byrd were too tired even to laugh. At the end of the month Colonel Riggs and his small holding unit would complete their survey of the city (had it once been Berlin, Paris or London?, Kerans asked himself) and set off
northward, towing the testing station with them. Kerans found it difficult to believe that he would ever leave the penthouse suite where he had lived for the past six months. The Ritz's reputation, he gladly agreed, was richly deserved. Too many of the other buildings around the lagoon had long since slipped and slid away below the silt, revealing their gimcrack origins, and the Ritz now stood in splendid isolation on the west shore, even rich blue moulds sprouting from the carpets in the dark corridors adding to its 19th century dignity. The suite had originally been designed for a Milanese financier, and was lavishly furnished and engineered. The heat curtains were still perfectly sealed, although the first six storeys of the hotel were below water level and the load walls were beginning to crack, and the 250-amp air-conditioning unit had worked without a halt. A giant Anopheles mosquito, the size of a dragon-fly, spat through the air past his face, then dived down towards the floating jetty where Kerans' catamaran was moored. The sun was still hidden behind the vegetation on the eastern side of the lagoon, but the mounting heat was bringing the huge vicious insects out of their lairs all over the moss-covered surface of the hotel. Kerans was reluctant to leave the balcony and retreat behind the wiremesh enclosure. In the early morning light a strange mournful beauty hung over the lagoon; the sombre green-black fronds of the gymnosperms, intruders from the Triassic past, and the half-submerged white-faced buildings of the 20th century still reflected together in the dark mirror of the water, the two interlocking worlds apparently suspended at some junction in time, the illusion momentarily broken when a giant water spider cleft the oily surface a hundred yards away. Although he was only forty, Kerans' beard had been turned white by the radio-fluorine in the water, but his bleached crew-cut hair and deep amber tan made him appear at least ten years younger. A chronic lack of appetite, and the new malarias, had shrunk the dry leathery skin under his cheekbones, emphasising the ascetic cast of his face. As the sun rose over the lagoon, driving clouds of steam into the great golden pall, Kerans felt the terrible stench of the water-line, the sweet compacted smells of dead vegetation and rotting animal carcases. Huge flies spun by, bouncing off the wire cage of the cutter, and giant bats raced	across the heating water towards their eyries in the ruined buildings. Beautiful and serene from his balcony a few minutes earlier, Kerans realised that the lagoon was nothing more than a garbage-filled swamp. Riggs peered sombrely through the cage. "Thank God for that signal from Byrd. We should have got out years ago. All this detailed mapping of harbours for use in some hypothetical future is absurd. Even if the solar flares subside it will be ten years before there's any serious attempt to re-occupy these cities. By then most of the bigger buildings will have been smothered under the silt. It'll take a couple of divisions to clear the jungle away from this lagoon alone. Bodkin was telling me this morning that already some of the canopies – of non- lignified plants, mark you--are over two hundred feet high. The whole place is nothing but a confounded zoo." Without the reptiles, the lagoons and the creeks of office blocks half-submerged in the immense heat would have had a strange dream-like beauty, but the iguanas and basilisks brought the fantasy down to earth. As their seats in the one-time boardrooms indicated, the reptiles had taken over the city. Once again they were the dominant form of life. Looking up at the ancient impassive faces, Kerans could understand the curious fear they roused rekindling archaic memories of the terrifying jungles of the Paleocene, when the reptiles had gone down before the emergent mammals, and sense the implacable hatred one zoological class feels towards another that usurps it. "Tell me, Robert, if you had to sum up the last three years' work in a single conclusion, how would you set about it?" Kerans hesitated, then gestured off-handedly. "It wouldn't be too difficult." He saw that Bodkin expected a serious answer, and composed his thoughts. 'Well, one could simply say that in response to the rises in temperature, humidity and radiation levels the flora and fauna of this planet are beginning to assume once again the forms they displayed the last time such conditions were present – roughly speaking, the Triassic." "Correct." Bodkin strolled off among the benches. "During the last three years, Robert, you and I have examined something like five thousand species in the animal kingdom, seen literally tens of thousands of new plant varieties.
Everywhere the same pattern has unfolded, countless mutations completely transforming the organisms to adapt them for survival in the new environment. Everywhere there's been the same avalanche backwards into the past – so much so that the few complex organisms which have managed to retain a foothold unchanged on the slope look distinctly anomalous – a handful of amphibians, the birds, and Man. It's a curious thing that although we've carefully catalogued the backward journeys of so many plants and animals, we've ignored the most important creature on this planet." Kerans laughed. "I'll willingly take a small bow there, Alan. But what are you suggesting – that Homo sapiens is about to transform himself into Cro-Magnon and Java Man, and ultimately into Sinanthropus? Unlikely, surely. Wouldn't that merely be Lamarkism in reverse?" "Agreed. I'm not suggesting that." Bodkin leaned against one of the benches, feeding a handful of peanuts to a small marmoset caged in a converted fume cupboard. "Though obviously after two or three hundred million years Homo sapiens might well die out and our little cousin here become the highest form of life on the planet. However, a biological process isn't completely reversible." He pulled the silk handkerchief out of his pocket and flicked it at the marmoset, which flinched away tremulously. "If we return to the jungle we'll dress for dinner." He went over to a window and gazed out through the mesh screen, the overhang of the deck above shutting out all but a narrow band of the intense sunlight. Steeped in the vast heat, the lagoon lay motionlessly, pails of steam humped over the water like elephantine spectres. "But I'm really thinking of something else. Is it only the external' landscape which is altering? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of deja vu, of having seen all this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well. However selective the conscious mind may be, most biological memories are unpleasant ones, echoes of danger and terror. Nothing endures for so long as fear. Everywhere in nature one sees evidence of innate releasing mechanisms literally millions of years old, which have lain dormant through thousands of generations but retained their power undiminished. The field-rat's inherited image of the hawk's silhouette is the classic example –	even a paper silhouette drawn across a cage sends it rushing frantically for cover. And how else can you explain the universal but completely groundless loathing of the spider, only one species of which has ever been known to sting? Or the equally surprising – in view of their comparative rarity – hatred of snakes and reptiles? Simply because we all carry within us a submerged memory of the time when the giant spiders were lethal, and when the reptiles were the planet's dominant life form." (Extract from “The Drowned World” by J.G. Ballar. Abridged) 2.4. Answer the questions to the text. 1. The world survives the catastrophe when a) water seems to burn. 2) the sun is very active. 3) giant plants conquer the world. 4) dinosaurs attacked the planet. 2. Kerans works at the biological testing station to: a) carry out tests over plants and animals. b) discover new species. c) catalogue all species. d) understand evolution process. 3. He lives in a hotel suite because: a) the room is not expensive. b) nobody wants to live there. c) he likes well-furnished room. d) all people live further in the north. 4. The prehistoric species of plants and animals appeared because: a) the evolution goes in reverse order. b) the planet started rotating differently. c) the climate change influenced evolution. d) biological revolution happened. 5. Kerrans maps the drowned cities to: a) have the plan for the time when water retreats. b) satisfy his curiosity. c) know more about underwater plants. d) remind people how they looked. 6. Flora and fauna display: a) strange forms. b) forms never seen before. c) advanced forms. d) forms of the times then reptiles flourished. 7. Which of these wasn’t mentioned: a) rise in temperature. b) rise in humidity. c) rise in radiation level. d) rise in population. 8. The least resistant to the climate change are: a) amphibians b) birds c) mammals d) people.

3. VOCABULARY & SPEAKING ________________________________________

3.1. Look at the highlighted words and try to explain them. Make up sentences with them. 3.2. In the text find synonymous words: inactive (x2) = __________________________ all the animal life (x2) = __________________ to plunge (x2) = ________________________ ghost = _______________________________ enmity (x2) = __________________________ indiscernible = _________________________ ruling = _______________________________ causing death = _________________________

3.3. Fill in the gaps with prepositions and translate the phrases into English. Make up sentences with these phrases.   to descend ___   ___ isolation   to take ___   to go ___   to sum ___   ___ response ___   rise ___   to adapt smb ___ smth   to lean ___   to die ___

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

3.4. Read the text again and make a list of words that show the following changes:

Climate changes	Fauna changes	Flora Changes	Natural phenomena
		giant gymnosperms

3.5. Look at covers designed for the p-book / e-book“The Drowned World” by J.G. Ballar. Choose the best cover and explain your choice. When reasoning, try to use active vocabulary.

3.6. Fill in the table with derivatives.	3.7. Fill in the gaps with the words from the box above. 1) The temperatures and humidity in this area are _________. 2) I can not too strongly urge futurists, planners, and all other _________ to learn, and effectively use, all the arts that we know as communication. 3) That's how I _________ responsibility as a husband and father. 4) Russia wanted to maintain its long-standing political and economic _________ of the Caspian region. 5) This is an exception. It's an ______. 6) It is possible for a flu virus to _________ or change and jump to another host.
#	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Noun (person)
	1) 2)	1) intolerable 2) 3)		–
	1)	1) anticipated 2) 3)	1)	1)
	1) 2) 3)	1) dominant 2) 3)	1) 2)	1)
	1)	1) 2) 3)	assume	–
	1) mutation 2) 3)	1) 2)	1)	–
	1) 2)	1) anomalous 2)	–	–
3.8. Translate the following sentences into English. 1. Це аніме покаже нам затоплений світ – людство, покаране за своє нерозумне ставлення до природних ресурсів. Але екологічна тема тут відіграє скоріше другорядну роль. І тема про хоробрих підводників, що захищають свій світ від підступних мутантів також не головна. «Блакитна №6» – це, у першу чергу, аніме про ненависть і прощення, про руйнівне начало як про невід'ємну рису усіх людей, але й про вміння відмовитися від помсти і побачити у заклятому ворогові не чудовисько, а таку саму людину. 2. Потужна повінь через проливні дощі спровокувала танення снігів у горах, унаслідок чого американський штат Огайо наполовину занурився під воду. 3. Велика кількість смертоносних павуків давно вимерла, проте наша спогади зберігаються у пам’яті і передаються від пращурів до нащадків, тому ми й відчуваємо страх і ненависть до цих істот. Це примара, яка тихенько спить у свідомості людства, проте може легко пробудити спогади тисячолітньої давнини. Це	таке собі «дежа вю», навіть якщо ви ніколи не бачили подібні створіння. 4. Для того щоб визнати, що проблема клімату існує, варто просто поспостерігати за постійно зростаючою температурою, на що звертають увагу сучасні екологи і прогнозисти.5. Різка зміна клімату і відчутна спека роблять цей регіон важким для життя людей і представників тваринного світу, лише деякі рептилії тут процвітають і домінують над іншими формами життя. 6. Це озеро було глибоким, а зараз воно просто засмічене болото. Багатьом видам рослин і тварин прийшлося пристосуватися до нових умов життя. 7. Чим вологіший і тепліший клімат, тим швидше там росте пліснява. 8. Один з найкрасивіших романів Джеймса Грема Болларда присвячено загибелі людської цивілізації. Глобальне потепління: волога тропічна спека, величезна багряне сонце, що зависає над горизонтом, і гігантські рептилії, що неквапливо пропливають по затоплених вулицях давно обезлюдити мегаполісів… Чи таке майбутнє на нас чекає, якщо не сповільнити глобальне потепління і не зменшити об’єм вихлопних газів?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

4. LISTENING &SPEAKING____________________________________________

4.1. Find out what these mean:

Copenhagen Climate Summit _________________________________________________________

Kyoto Protocol ____________________________________________________________________

Montreal Protocol __________________________________________________________________

Convention on Climate Change _______________________________________________________

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) _______________________________________

What other climate change conventions, protocols and conferences do you know? Do they help protect the environment? In what way?