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Climate Change





ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

PRE-READING TASK

 

1. How do you understand the saying “Nowadays our Earth is crying”? Make a poster or a social advertisement piece to highlight certain aspects of the existing ecological problems of our planet. Exchange your works with your friends in the group and let them identify the issues shown in your pictures. Make preliminary conclusions and discuss possible solutions.

2. In what ways are plants and wild animals threatened by man?

3. What is greenhouse effect? How does it work?

4. What changes in the weather have you noticed in your lifetime? How can they be explained?

5. What are the most urgent environmental problems of your area/city/region? What do you think has caused such ecological situations and what consequences might there be?

 

TEXT A

 

TOP TEN ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

 

What are the top ten environmental problems facing the world today?

A recent scientific paper published in Nature attempted to answer this question, with a twist. The Earth has spent roughly the last 12,000 years in a period of unusual climate stability known as the Holocene era. To put this era in perspective, all major human civilizations have existed since the beginning of the Holocene. In fact, humans have only practiced agriculture for roughly the last 10,000 years. This all-important development, which allowed civilizations from the ancient Sumerians to our own to thrive, was made possible by the stable climate of the Holocene

Source: http://www.grist.org/article/2013-09-22-scientists-identify-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-nature

Unfortunately, this stable, pleasant period is currently coming to an end, and there is a strong reason to believe that this is not the result of a change in the natural cycles of the Earth, but rather that the change is caused by human activity.

The authors of the book «Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity», attempted to identify the most serious environmental threats the human race currently faces, and identify the potential "tipping points" beyond which the pleasant Holocene era would disappear and the Earth's natural resources would be seriously depleted.

The ten most serious environmental problems they identified are:

Climate Change

The most controversial of the planetary tipping points named by the Planetary Boundaries Report is climate change. Climatology is a complex science, and there are some who believe that the changes of the past few decades are nothing but natural variations. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists, however, believe that human activities are currently affecting the climate and, like many other scientists, the Planetary Boundaries team believes that the tipping point has already been passed.

In order to maintain the stable Holocene climate humans have enjoyed for the last 12,000 years of our existence, a majority of scientists now believe that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels must remain below 350 parts per million (ppm). (This level is still 75 ppm higher than pre-industrial levels of 275 ppm.) Beyond 350 ppm, we begin to risk catastrophic and effectively irreversible changes, such as the disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet, which is already melting at a rate of 48 cubic miles (200 cubic kilometers) per year. Currently, the atmospheric carbon dioxide level is 390 ppm and climbing by nearly 2 ppm every year.

Reducing atmospheric carbon levels is likely to be one of the most difficult challenges in a century of difficult challenges. It will require a worldwide improvement in energy efficiency and conservation, a massive push to more carbon neutral forms of energy generation, and a revolution in land use practices.

The good news is that climate change is intimately connected with each of the other environmental problems outlined here, so by solving climate change we can help to solve other environmental problems, and by solving other environmental problems, we can likewise help reduce the problem of climate change.

Date: 2015-09-20; view: 304; Нарушение авторских прав; Помощь в написании работы --> СЮДА...



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