Is global warming a blessing?

Although the talk about global warming has been going on for a very long time, the World Meteorological Organization withheld opinion until recently. It was not until 2000 that, having analyzed a vast amount of data, the WMO recognized not only the fact itself but also that human activity was one of the reasons.

To be more accurate, we should be talking not about warming but about a global climate change since rising temperature in near-earth layers of the atmosphere is just one of the aspects.

Most of the time the growing greenhouse effect is blamed solely on an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This concentration builds up, as is commonly believed, because of the burning of vast amounts of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal, wood, peat, etc.). This, however, is not the only cause of climate changes, nor even the only factor in the growing greenhouse effect.

The full truth is that humans have not only considerably stepped up the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but also destroyed much of the natural ecosystems that regulate concentration of these gases.

Thus, over the past millennium, man has destroyed at least 40 per-cent of the world’s forests. In addition, virtually all steppes have been plowed up and meadows ruined. All of this taken together brought about a change in moisture circulation and the reflecting capacity of the surface. Also, there is no doubt that the number of impacting factors is far greater; we are simply unaware of them as yet.

Let us start with global warming. By the end of the century, the mean near-earth temperature is expected to rise two to six degrees. Many think that if somewhere in central Russia temperatures range from 35 be-low zero to 35 above zero, a two-degree rise in the mean near-earth tem-perature will neatly bring up both the upper and the lower limits by the same amount.

No way. The warming effect will certainly not be even. Unbalanced, the climate system will see temperature disparity in various places. This means that, should average temperatures rise by two degrees, the fluctua-tion span will expand, say, from 40 degrees below zero to 45 degrees above.

PROTECTION OF WATER

The water and the air are the most important elements in physical and chemical processes on the surface of the earth. Resources of river, lake and underground fresh waters are distributed very unevenly on the continents.

Shortage of water in different areas of the world is due not only to uneven distribution of water resources but also to its more varied and in-tensive use.

The Law on Conservation of Nature of the Republic of Belarus states that all rivers, lakes and underground waters are to be protected from de-pletion and pollution as water supply resources, a source of energy and means of treatment. Rivers and lakes are also used as transport routes, fisheries, hunting areas and recreation sites.

It is obvious that the exploitation of water resources is extremely varied at the present time. It should be added that the scope of water re-source exploitation is growing rapidly due to population growth, fast de-velopment of industry and expansion of irrigated land area.

An enormous amount of water is used in industry. It has been esti-mated that industry consumes about 85 percent of the water in cities. This leaves about 15 percent for the daily needs of the people.

There are two ways to redistribute river water by means of reservoirs and through canals.

Reservoirs help irrigate agricultural land, improve water transport, supply large enterprises, cities and other populated areas with water fisher-ies and form the basis for recreation and tourist zones.

Canals are important not only for redistributing water but also as transport routes. As such they are artificial rivers built by mighty excavat-ing machines.

Supplies of underground waters are considerable, and, therefore, their rational use helps to compensate for moisture shortages.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

The poisoning of the world’s land, air, and water is the fastest-spreading disease of civilization. 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 sev-eral decades, our planet will become uninhabitable.

Overpopulation pollution and energy consumption have created such planet-wide problems as massive deforestation, ozone depletion, acid rains and the global warming that is believed to be caused by the greenhouse ef-fect.

The seas are in danger. They are filled with poison: industrial and nuclear waste, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Mediterranean is al-ready nearly dead; the North Sea is following. The Aral Sea is on the brink

of extinction. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in the seas.

Every ten minutes one kind of animal, plant or insect dies out for-ever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today will have become extinct twenty years from now.

Air pollution is a very serious problem. In Cairo just breathing the air is life threatening – equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The same holds true for Mexico City and 600 cities of the former So-viet Union.

Industrial enterprises emit tons of harmful substances. These emis-sions have disastrous consequences for our planet. They are the main rea-son for the greenhouse effect and acid rains.

An even greater environmental threat are nuclear power stations. We all know how tragic the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are.

People are beginning to realize that environmental problems are not somebody else’s. They join and support various international organizations and green parties. If governments wake up to what is happening – perhaps we’ll be able to avoid the disaster that threatens the natural world and all of us with it.

CONTENTS

UNIT I. MY HIGHER DEGREE COURSE.............................................................. 3

UNIT II. TEXTS............................................................................................................... 25

UNIT III. SUPPLEMENT TO UNIT II

(PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT)........................................................ 31

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