II. Reading. Since ancient times Nature has served Man, being the source of his life
Since ancient times Nature has served Man, being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with environment and it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. But with the deve-lopment of civilization man’s interference in nature began to increase. Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises appear all over the world today. The byproducts of their activity pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we grow grain and vegetables on. Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with about The acid falls to earth in form of rain or snow that can damage anything from the monuments to living organism. The increase in traffic is threatening another serious air pollution in our cities, because vehicles, not factories, produce most of toxic micro-particles, which do most harm. Toxic gases in the atmosphere in critical concentration could change the world’s climate. The most dangerous air pollution comes from the cigarette smoke, which pollutes public places. Water pollution is another important problem. In several years tourists will find fewer beaches where it’s safe to swim. Urgent measures must be taken if we don’t want to leave a dangerous planet to future generations. The pollution of air and the world's ocean, destruction of the ozone layer is the result of man's careless interaction with nature, a sign of the ecological crisis. The poisoning of the world's land, air, and water is the fastest-spreading disease of civilization. Also one of the most serious problems is green house effect. It works like this: sunlight gives us heat, some of the heat warms the atmosphere and some of the heat goes back into space. Nowadays the heat cannot go into space. That is why winter and summer temperatures in many places have become higher. If the temperature continues growing up the snow on the mountains and ice will melt, so the most of the earth will be under The most horrible ecological disaster befell Ukraine and its people after the Chernobyl tragedy in April 1986. About 18 percent of the territory of Belarus was also polluted with radioactive substances. A great damage has been done to the agriculture, forests and people's health. The consequences of this explosion at the atomic power-station are tragic for the Ukrainian, Belorussian and other nations. Environmental protection is of a universal concern. That is why serious measures to create a system of ecological security should be taken. Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries - members of the UNO - have set up environmental protection agencies. Numerous conferences have been held by these agencies to discuss problems facing ecologically poor regions including the Aral Sea, the South Urals, Kuzbass, Donbass, Semipalatinsk and Chernobyl. An international environmental research centre has been set up on Lake Baikal. The international organization Greenpeace is also doing much to preserve the environment. Russia is co-operating in the field of environmental protection with the United States, Canada, Norway, Finland and other countries. Russia and the United States are carrying out joint projects to study and protect the environmental systems of the Arctic and Subarctic regions, and also to study some of the natural processes in the permafrost zone. But these are only the initial steps and they must be carried onward to protect nature, to save life on the planet not only at the present but also for the future generations. It probably produces fewer headlines than wars, earthquakes and floods, but it is potentially one of history's greatest dangers to human life on earth. If present trends continue for the next several decades, our planet will become uninhabitable.
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