IV. Read and translate the text. Consult the Vocabulary notes. Give the title to the text.

Our ancestors believed that the resources of the Earth were inexhaustible and eternal. The life of primitive societies was based on hunting and food gathering (berries, mushrooms, roots etc.). They began to disturb the balance of nature seriously only when they started to practice farming on a large scale¹ and keep large herds of grass-eating animals. We have no right to blame our ancestors for their ecological ignorance: they fought to live.

Even in the nineteenth century when the word ecology appeared people continued to use nature as consumers.

Later, in the twentieth century, with the advance of science and technology human achievements in conquering nature became greater. So, people’s economic activities began to produce an increasingly negative effect on the biosphere. The rise of chemicals, radioactivity and noise became the main factors of environmental pollution.

The growth of giant cities accompanied by industrial development on a huge scale began to produce enormous amounts of noxious wastes. Man is now regarded to be the lord of nature but not the child.

Man creates new compounds, new substances and pure chemical elements which are unknown to the biosphere. For instance, people produce fertilizers, pure iron and pure aluminium which never existed in nature before. Besides, the output of such synthetic compounds as polymers, resins, plastics, synthetic materials and pesticides has become enormous. They upset the balance of the natural circulation of matter because soil and water bacteria cannot decompose them.

So, economic growth associated with the technological progress causes the pollution of environment. By now the pollution and poisoning of soil, water and air have reached a critical level.

The discharge of dust and gas into the atmosphere returns to the Earth in the form of “acid rain”. The so-called acid rain results from the release of sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide into the atmosphere. The main sources of such emissions are plants generating electricity (power stations), industrial boilers, large smelters and automobiles. The gases react with droplets of water and form a diluted mixture of sulphuric acid and nitric acid. This mixture returns to the Earth in the form of acid rain, mist or snow. Wind currents may take away acid rainfalls to the places far from its point of origin. Acid rains exert harmful influence upon crop, the quality and condition of forests, the amount of fish.

Noxious industrial gases unknown to nature are able to trap the heat of the sun. So, the planet becomes covered by a layer of the gases which keep the heat from getting out. This dense layer of industrial gases produces the global warming. This is also called “the greenhouse effect”². Thus, pollution in the atmosphere does not enable heat of the sun to escape back into space. When the temperature of the atmosphere rises, the climatic conditions of different areas on Earth change.

Oil spills, effluent from factories and sewages add to pollution of rivers and seas.

The destruction of nature gradually led to the loss of the most essential element of existence – a healthy biological habitat. People suffer from their own activity but stay careless: they continue to demand more comfort and do everything possible to gain it. People forget that they are also a part of the world ecosystem. Environmental pollution increases the number and variety of diseases, causes the difficulties in diagnosing and defining the reasons of human illnesses, reduces the life-span³ of a man.

Economic, social, technological and biological processes have become extremely interdependent. Young men, future specialists, must consider various activities not only according to some personal interests or from the economic standpoint but from ecological one too. They must make efforts to search for the effective ways of environmental protection. Although the new problems of environment seem very specific, their solution depends on the integrated efforts of specialists in different scientific fields.

Vocabulary notes:

¹ on a large scale – в больших масштабах

² the greenhouse effect – тепличный (парниковый) эффект

³ the life-span – продолжительность жизни