Exercise 14. Answer the following question

1. What is the ecological problem closely linked to nowdays? 2. What is the meaning of the word "ecosystem"? 3. What have the pollution of the environment, the destruction of ecosystems reached now? 4. What may cause catastrophic results? 5. What threatens to undermine the self- regenerating capacities of the biosphere and of its individual components?

6. By what data is this illustrated? 7. What influences on the health of individuals, their labour productivity, and their creative activities? 8. What pollution produces, among other things, an increase in the mutagenic influence on individuals? 9. What impedes the vital activities and reproductive functions of individuals and causes their genetic degeneration? 10. How do the increases in natural background radiation affect on individuals?

Exercise 15. Retell the text "Ecology is a priority".

Exercise 16. Read and translate the article. What is the main idea of it? Give the title to the article.

Recently more and more attention has been focused on the problem of preserving the environment. Over the past thirty years or so the quality of many people's lives has deteriorated in some respects because of technological progress. Those people living near airports are constantly attacked by the noise of increasingly larger and more powerful jet aircraft taking off and landing. We have ugly buildings which have appeared in towns and cities. Some of these are blocks of flats-high-rise buildings built because of the high price of land.

The motor car has been responsible for many changes in the environment. On the one hand it has brought mobility to millions of people but on the other it has led to the construction of more and more noisy and dangerous roads and has polluted the atmosphere with exhaust fumes.

While towns and cities have become larger and uglier and more densely populated, the rural areas have lost most of their population owing to die need for fewer workers in agriculture. The countryside has also been affected by the large-scale use of insecticides. For one thing the killing of insects has resulted in a loss of balance in the ecology. Insects, although a nuisance to farmers, provide food for birds. Many people are afraid that fruit and vegetables sprayed with chemicals may have some poisonous effect upon the people who eat them.

Recently, however, certain counter measures against the destruction of the environment have been introduced. One of the first acts of Parliament to counter pollution was the Clean Air Act, which opened the way to smokeless zones in large towns and cities. This followed a very bad winter in which many people with bronchial complaints became very ill or died through the effects of a mixture of smoke, fog and fumes known as "smog". Rivers which are fouled up with industrial chemical waste are now being cleaned, and fish which could not live there a few years ago can be caught again.

Exercise 17. Give English equivalents from the article to the following words:

Суміш диму, туману та пару; инсектицид, погіршуватися, технічний прогрес, хімікати, промислові відходи, засмічувати, шум; комаха, охорона (збереження) довкілля, боротися із забрудненням, вихлопні гази, бездимна зона, порушення екологічної рівноваги, отруйний.