Find on the Internet the information about the air pollution in Russia and in your region. Retell it

Reading for Translating

Air Pollution

Smog hanging over cities is the most familiar and obvious form of air pollution. But there are different kinds of pollution—some visible, some invisible—that contribute to global warming. Generally any substance that people introduce into the atmosphere and that has damaging effects on living things and the environment is considered air pollutant.

Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is the main pollutant that is warming Earth. Though living things emit carbon dioxide when they breathe, carbon dioxide is widely considered to be a pollutant when associated with cars, planes, power plants, and other human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and natural gas. In the past 150 years, such activities have pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to raise its levels higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years.

Other greenhouse gases include methane—which comes from such sources as swamps and livestock—and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants until they were banned because of their deteriorating effect on Earth's ozone layer.

Another pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released into the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and causes Earth to cool. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years. In fact, volcanoes used to be the main source of atmospheric sulfur dioxide.

Industrialized countries have worked to reduce levels of sulfur dioxide, smog, and smoke in order to improve people's health. But a result, not predicted until recently, is that the lower sulfur dioxide levels may actually make global warming worse. Just as sulfur dioxide from volcanoes can cool the planet by blocking sunlight, cutting the amount of the compound in the atmosphere lets more sunlight through, warming the Earth. This effect is exaggerated when elevated levels of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the additional heat.

Most people agree that to curb global warming, a variety of measures need to be taken. On a personal level, driving and flying less, recycling, and conservation reduce a person’s "carbon footprint"—the amount of carbon dioxide a person is responsible for putting into the atmosphere.

On a larger scale, governments are taking measures to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. One way is through the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement between countries that they will cut back on carbon dioxide emissions. Another method is to put taxes on carbon emissions or higher taxes on gasoline, so that people and companies will have greater incentives to conserve energy and pollute less.

Speaking

Read the conversation between Alun Anderson and Laura Sevier. Discuss the problem of Arctic area.

22nd February, 2010

Laura Sevier: In the Arctic temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on the planet. Arctic sea ice has been retreating over the past 30 years. What are the implications of this?

Alun Anderson: It's an absolute catastrophe for all the creatures that depend on ice that live up there. Once you have really ice free summers it's very difficult to see how some of them can survive. The worst affected of all of course will be the polar bear because it is so dependent on using ice to go out and hunt the seals.

As sea ice melts and the water warms, much warmer air will flow over the surrounding Arctic lands and the Greenland ice cap will melt faster. As it melts faster, glaciers are speeding up and flowing into the sea faster, so we are looking at certainly a metre's rise this century if you take the Antarctic and the global expansion of the oceans into account too. So that's a lot.

LS: You say in your book that it's too late to stop the warming dead in its tracks by cutting our greenhouse gas emissions. Have we reached a tipping point with the arctic ice?

AA: I believe we have reached a tipping point with the arctic ice. However, we can still reduce the warming on the wider arctic - the arctic lands - so that we have a chance to stop the emissions of methane or at least to slow it down and make it happen over thousands of years instead of hundreds.

But on the arctic ice it's too late. I haven't met a single scientist who thinks there's anything we can do now that can save the sea ice in total. We might get some of it left in the corners of the Canadian islands which will be a very important refuge for the polar bear and other creatures.

LS: What's the impact of air pollution on the Arctic?

AA: I think this is very important and often missed out. Large parts of the melting ice - we don't know how much but it could be as much as a third - is being caused by air pollution. Hazes of air pollution are travelling up from the south into the Arctic. They hang in the air and absorb sunlight and warm the air; they fall onto the ice and make the ice slightly darker, and then the ice absorbs more heat because it's slightly black rather than white and it melts faster.

This air pollution is coming from the burning of agricultural fields, right across Europe - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, across China and partly in Canada and the central part of the US - in North and South Dakota - that's all travelling up into the Arctic and along with that are fine particulates from diesel fumes. Wiping out this air pollution would be a great benefit to the Arctic.

Unit 4

Acid Rain

"Although some sensitive ecosystems continue to be harmed by acidic pollution,

the widespread phenomenon of acid rain is today on its way

to the history books, at least in Western Europe.

That didn't happen by chance, we

environmentalists made it happen."

~ Tony Juniper

Warm up

Almost everybody has heard about acid rain and knows that it is something bad. But what exactly is it? What are its effects on plants, animals, human beings, and what can be done to solve this problem?

The term acid rain does not convey the true nature of the problem and therefore scientists use the term "acid depositions". This is because the acid which has formed due to pollution may return to the earth as a solid or a gas and not just as rain. Depending upon the climatic conditions it could also come down as rain, fog, or snow, and in the wet form it is known as "acid precipitation".

Vocabulary

1) acid кислота

2) ruthless безжалостный, жестокий

3) curse проклинать

4) contaminate загрязнять

5) harmful вредный, пагубный

6) side effect побочный эффект

7) sulphuric acid серная кислота

8) nitric acid азотная кислота

9) mist (лёгкий) туман, дымка

10) long-lasting долгосрочный

11) device средство, устройство

12) lime известь

13) issue проблема

14) chimney труба

15) blowing утечка (газа, пара)

16) call on призывать

17) boundary граница

18) drop падать

19) substantial существенный

20) move away удалять(ся), отодвигать

21) combat бороться, сражаться

22) despite несмотря на

23) concern беспокойство, интерес

24) legacy наследство, наследие

25) headache головная боль

26) fossil fuels природное топливо

Word Study

1. Give the Russian equivalents to the following words:

primary, distances, potential, extremely, extensive, agricultural, engineers, drainage, temporarily, neutralization, international, deposits, result, boom, convention, combination, utilization, spectre, politicians, contrast

2. Guess the meaning of the underlined words. Translate the sentences.

1) Acid rain can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and infrastructure. 2) Acid rain is caused by emissions of compounds of ammonium, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. 3) Governments have made efforts since the 1970s to reduce the production of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere with positiveresults. 4) "Acid rain" is a popular term referring to the deposition of wet (rain, snow, sleet, fog, cloud-water, and dew) and dry (acidifying particles and gases) acidic components. 5) Since the Industrial Revolution, emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides to the atmosphere have increased. 7) The gases can be carried hundreds of kilometers in the atmosphere before they are converted to acids and deposited.

3. Translate the following word combinations:

harmful and visible side-effect; at unsustainable levels; combustion process; obvious consequences; the acidity of the soil and water; long-lasting agricultural and ecological damage; the issue of acid rain; come to the attention; industrial boom; transboundary air pollution"; environmental concerns; to drop substantially; the installation of desulphurisation systems

4. Match the word from list A with its definition in list B.

A	B
1) acidity 2) contaminate 3) harmful   4) mist 5) issue 6) call on   7) boundary 8) concern 9) legacy	a) state or quality being acid b) sth handed down from ancestors or predecessors c) appeal to d) water vapour in the air, less thick than fog e) line that marks a limit; dividing line f) causing damage, injury g) question that arises for discussion h) sth in which one is interested or which is important to one i) make dirty, impure or diseased

5. Place the appropriate word from the list in each of the blanks below:

boundaries, lime, harmful, combustion, fossil fuels, mist, nitric and sulfuric acids

1) Acid rain has … impacts on forests, freshwaters and soils, killing insect and aquatic life-forms as well as causing damage to buildings and human health.

2) The effect of acid rain on food crops is minimized by the application of … and fertilizers to replace lost nutrients.

3) "Acid rain" is a term referring to a mixture of wet and dry deposition from the atmosphere containing higher than normal amounts of...

4) Acid rain results from both natural sources, such as volcanoes, and man-made sources, primarily emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) resulting from fossil fuel...

5) When sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released from power plants and other sources, winds blow these compounds across state and national …, sometimes over hundreds of miles.

6) If the acid chemicals in the air are blown into areas where the weather is wet, the acids can fall to the ground in the form of rain, snow, fog, or...

7) The source of the acids released to the atmosphere is largely the combustion of … that produce harmful gases such as oxides of sulfur and nitrogen.

Reading for Speaking and Discussing

Read the text and answer the question:

- What problem is a much bigger challenge nowadays than acid rain?

Acid Rain

When it rains, it is said that God is showering all his love on Mother Nature, but when it is acid rain, perhaps God is cursing the ruthless manner in which man is exploiting the nature.

What is acid rain?

Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic.

Acid rain is a harmful and visible side effect of air pollution caused by contaminating chemicals entering the environment at unsustainable levels.

A primary cause of acid rain is the burning of fossil fuels: the gases released during the combustion process (in particular nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide) can in high concentrations react with the water in clouds to form sulphuric and nitric acids. Acid rain can be carried long distances by the wind when in 'wet' form, but it has not always appeared only as rain: it can also take the form of snow, mist and dry dust.

Acid rain has the potential to be extremely harmful to both the natural and built environments. As well as the obvious consequences of killing plant life and damaging buildings, acid rain increases the acidity of the soil and water, causing extensive and long-lasting agricultural and ecological damage.

Scientists and engineers have developed ways to reduce the acidity of rain. For example, several kinds of devices remove sulfur and nitrogen compounds from fuels or industrial emissions before they reach the atmosphere. Adding lime to lakes and rivers and their drainage temporarily neutralize their acidity. But the neutralization may have harmful side effects.

The term 'acid rain' was used as long ago as 1858 to mean rain made more acidic by acid gas pollution.

However, the issue of acid rain first came to the attention of the international community in the late 1960s, having been identified in certain areas of southern Scandinavia, where it was damaging forests. The matter quickly became an international issue when it was discovered that the acid deposits in these areas were a result of heavy pollution in the UK and other parts of northern Europe.

Acid rain and air pollution emerged from the industrial boom of the early 1900s and the increasing levels of chemical production associated with these processes. The building of taller industrial chimneys from the 1960s was largely held to be responsible for pollutants generated in the UK blowing as far as Scandinavia.

The Convention on the Long Range Transport of Air Pollution was adopted in 1979. The Convention covers Europe and North America and calls on countries to "to limit and, as far as possible, gradually reduce and prevent air pollution, including long-range transboundary air pollution".

Emissions from industrial sources dropped substantially during the 1990s due to a combination of European Directives forcing the installation of desulphurisation systems and the move away from the utilization of fuels such as coal. The use of catalytic converters in cars has also helped to reduce nitrogen oxide levels, although there has been a continuing increase in traffic volumes.

Despite the steps taken to combat air pollution and the relative decline of the profile of this issue compared to other environmental concerns, acidification remains a major legacy problem for Europe.

In recent years acid rain has been replaced by a much bigger green spectre on the political stage: climate change. Concerns about the impact of CO2 emissions on the environment established themselves as a major headache for 21st century politicians. Acid rain, by contrast, appears to be a declining problem.

1. Grammar Revision. Find in the text and translate the sentences with:

Verbal Nouns

It is (Participle II) that …