Ecology is a priority. Nature and nuclear war. Rational use of natural resources

ECOLOGY IS A PRIORITY

The ecological problem, which is also very much a social one, is one of the pressing problems of our days. It is closely linked, through cause-and-effect relations, to the problems of- economic growth, progress in science and technology, natural resources, energy, and food supplies. In many cases the environmental problem has become a dominant one in relation to many others.

The pollution of the environment, the destruction of ecosystems, the destruction of many species of plants and animals have now reached threatening proportions. An increasing influence on nature and the application of new technological processes (whose consequences are increasingly dangerous for the environment) may cause catastrophic results. Negative anthropogenic influences threaten to disrupt nature's basic cycles and to undermine the self-regenerating capacities ' of the biosphere and of its individual components.

This is illustrated by the following data. By comparison with the beginning of the twentieth century the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as well as of aerosols, has increased dozens of times in many cities, and has increased globally by 20 per cent. As a result of the formation of a layer of carbon dioxide around the Earth which encloses it like a glass cover the threat of unfavourable changes in climate has arisen that may transform our blue planet into an enormous greenhouse during the next decades, with possibly catastrophic effects. Those include changes in its energy balance and a gradual increase in temperature that will transform fertile regions into arid ones, raise the level of water in the oceans (through the melting of polar and drifting ice) and produce a flooding of great numbers of coastal lands and cities. The threat of a disruption in the oxygen balance has arisen through the destruction of the ozone screen ^ in the lower stratosphere as a result of the flights of supersonic aircraft (its destruction by 50 per cent will increase ultraviolet radiation 10 times, with corresponding influences on the sight of animals and humans). Pollution of the ocean has increased at a rate that threatens to make it global (4.10^ tons of petroleum are channelled to the ocean, i. e., approximately O.I per cent of petroleum production on maritime shelves).

All this exerts a substantial adverse influence on the health of individuals, their labour productivity, and their creative activities and requires increasing capital investments in order to sustain the fertility of agricultural land and to purify water bodies, since their waters are becoming unsuitable both for general use and for use in the economy. The pollution of the environment through chemical, physical and biological agents (the development of micro-organisms and agricultural pests that are immune to drugs and poisons) together with increases in the volume and types of ionizing radiation, produce, among other things, an increase in their mutagenic^ influence on individuals, that is, in pathological changes in heredity, and a greater number of hereditary defects, diseases, genetically determined forms of vulnerability to serious and chronic_ diseases. These impede the vital activities and reproductive functions of individuals and cause their genetic degeneration. Calculations of researchers indicate that increases in natural background radiation * by only 10 rads ^ may lead to the birth of 6 million hereditarily defective persons in each generation. Already now, according to UN experts, 10.5 per cent of people are born with hereditary (genetic) defects. Data concerning deaths from cancer published by the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. indicate that 60 per cent or more of the cases (500,000 cases of cancer per year) are caused by various cancer-producing factors in the environment.

Пояснения к тексту

1. self-regenerating capacity—саморегуляция

2. ozone screen — озоновый слой, слой озона

3. mutagenic ^mjuta'dsinik] — мутагенный

4. natural background ['baekgraund] radiation — естественная фоновая радиация (излучение)

5. rad — яд. физ. рад (0,01 дж/кг)

7. Скажите, почему экологическая проблема — проблема социальная.

8. Объясните по-английски значение слова "есо-s у stem"

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а) накопления в атмосфере двуокиси углерода и аэрозолей; б) полета сверхзвуковых самолетов.

10. Расскажите, какую новую для вас информацию вы. получили, прочитав текст.

11.   Объясните, как вы понимаете название текста.

NATURE AND NUCLEAR WAR

Wars and preparations for them, such as tests of new types of armament, are having a tremendous destructive effect on the natural environment. New types of weaponry, including shells with great explosive force, chemical substances and incendiary agents, used in recent wars, have produced a destructive effect on the environment. In South Vietnam, herbicides completely destroyed 1,500 square kilometres of vegetation and caused damage to 15,000 square kilometres of land; at the same time, natural restoration of vegetation there is catastrophically slow. About 100 kilogrammes of dioxin was sprayed as an additive to one of those defoliants, and precisely dioxin is still regarded to be the cause of congenital ' defects in children, numerous miscarriages and liver cancer.

Millions of people in Southeast Asia were driven out of their homes and from the plots they tilled. " This resulted in a further worsening of the environment, including the growth of secondary vegetation and destruction of drainage systems. Decades will be needed to get rid of ^ the results of these numerous