ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Ecology is a science, which studies the relationship between all forms of life on our planet and our environment. The Earth is our common home and we must take care of it.

Since ancient times Nature has provided Man with everything he needed: food to eat, water to drink, wood for building and fuel for heating and cooking. For hundreds of years Man used Nature’s sources and it seemed to people that the resources of Nature had no end.

With the industrial revolution our negative influence on Nature began to increase. Big smoky cities with thousands of people, polluting plants and factories can be found nowadays all over the world.

Nowadays scientists from the different parts of the world try to solve ecological problems, but it isn’t enough to do our planet clean. We must protect our home all together, without any exceptions.

Air pollution is one of the main problems all over the world. Millions of chimneys, buses, cars, plants, factories and other industrial enterprises exhaust fumes and harmful substances into the atmosphere. Poisoned air is the main reason why it is hard to breath in large cities with big amount of plants and transport.

Every year the atmosphere is polluted by about one thousand tons of industrial dust. Among industries especially toxic wastes are made by enterprises of colour metallurgy, chemical, petrochemical, black metallurgy, woodworking, pulp paper industry etc. Big cities suffer from smog.

Various chemical elements are intensively absorbed by our organism during breathing, it is harmful for our health. Air pollution is especially harmful for quality of genofond.

Scientists say that air pollution is the cause of acid rains, global warming and of greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is unquestionably real; it is the essential for life on the Earth. It is the result of heat absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere (called greenhouse gases because they trap heat) and re-radiation downward of a part of that heat.

Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Scientists consider that the increasing of the concentration of greenhouse gases and chemicals in the atmosphere lead to the global warming.

Why do we call global warming an environmental problem? In general scientists believe that rising temperature will lead to increase evaporation and therefore to more precipitation. But while some regions will experience increased rainfall, others will become dryer. Another effect is the rise of the sea levels, which will result in flooding low-lying coastal areas.

This may also lead to increasing the salinity of the rivers and to decrease of water supplies. And finally climate changes may cause extinction of many species of birds, animals and plants. Even now a lot of species of animals, birds, fish and plants have either disappeared completely or on the verge of extinction.

Acid rain is caused by the release of the sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides. The main sources of sulphur dioxide are coal-fired power stations and metal working industries. The main sources of nitrous oxides emissions are vehicles and fuel combustion.

Measures of the atmosphere protection are subdivided into three large groups:

· First group: decrease measures of gross amount of contamination, thrown out into atmosphere. This is the improvement of the quality of fuel, using of special liquids in fuel etc. Same group of measures includes perfecting of technological processes including development of the closed cycle production without making of harmful substances into atmosphere.

· The second group includes measures of protection of atmosphere by dispersion, processing and neutralization of harmful wastes.

· The third group of measures assumes prevention of the air contamination by rational placing of the «dirty» enterprises - sources of harmful wastes with consideration of natural conditions and potential possibility of the air contamination.

· For realization of atmosphere protection measures the strict state control of air environment, economic and legal stimulation of measures for control of its pollution are also important.

Comprising over 70% of the Earth’s surface, water is undoubtedly the most precious natural resource that exists on our planet. Without the seemingly invaluable compound comprised of hydrogen and oxygen, life on Earth would be non-existent: it is essential for everything on our planet to grow and prosper.

There are many causes for water pollution but two general categories exist: direct and indirect contaminant sources.

Direct sources include effluent outfalls from factories, refineries, waste treatment plants etc. that emit fluids of varying quality directly into urban water supplies. In the United States and other countries, these practices are regulated, although this doesn't mean that pollutants can't be found in these waters.

Indirect sources include contaminants that enter the water supply from soils/groundwater systems and from the atmosphere via rainwater. Soils and ground waters contain the residue of human agricultural practices and improperly disposed of industrial wastes. Atmospheric contaminants are also derived from human practices (such as gaseous emissions from automobiles, factories and even bakeries).

The effects of water pollution are varied. They include poisonous drinking water, poisonous food animals (due to these organisms having bio accumulated toxins from the environment over their life spans), unbalanced river and lake ecosystems that can no longer support full biological diversity, deforestation from acid rain, and many other effects. These effects are, of course, specific to the various contaminants.

There are some reasons why does the tropical rainforest so important for people from all over the world:

· The tropical rainforest is natural recycle, provider and protector for our planet.

· The tropical rainforest supports the ecosystem in the world.

· The tropical rainforest provides us with oxygen we breathe.

The tropical rainforest is the richest biological incubator on the Earth. It supports millions of plant, animal and insect species - a virtual library of chemical invention.

Nuclear energy is often called the energy of the future because of a great amount of advantages, but millions of people are afraid of radiation. On the one hand using nuclear power gives us more variety in fuel sources. On the other hand is the remembrance about Chernobyl tragedy. Different countries use nuclear energy even now, but people from all over the world suppose that using nuclear energy is a big mistake.

There are some advantages of using nuclear:

· Nuclear is the cleanest and least damaging to our environment. Since the energy released from splitting the uranium atom is so much greater than the energy released from combustion, the amount of land, materials, and fuel used, and wastes produced, are very much smaller.

· Using nuclear power gives us more variety in fuel sources. It helps us avoid being dependent on other countries for only one or two types of fuels.

· Nuclear isn’t limited by location and natural conditions (for example, the need for regular winds or sunshine).

· Nuclear generation of electricity provides savings over coal generation because of lower fuel and transportation costs for nuclear.

· Nuclear energy is the cheapest kind of energy.

All mentioned above are «pluses» of nuclear energy. And now let’s talk about minuses, about radiation.

Radiation is a natural energy traveling in the form of waves or particles. Some everyday examples are: the microwaves we use to cook food, radio waves for radio and television, radar, X-rays used in medicine and dentistry, and sunlight. We also receive radiation as a result of the natural process of radioactivity. Materials that are radioactive are made up of atoms that contain excess energy. These radioactive materials give off their excess energy as radiation.

 

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Task 4