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DEFORESTATION Pre-Reading Activities Check the meaning and the pronunciation of the words in a dictionary: plague, deforestation, on a scale, damage, a swath, to vanish, a driver, a room, to plant, crops, to graze, livestock, to slash, a logger, sprawl, to survive, to remove, to perpetuate, barren, to deprive, a swing, a canopy, to occur, felled. Match the words and phrases with their Russian equivalents:
Reading Read the text: Deforestation Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year. The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families. The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Often many small farmers will each clear a few acres to feed their families by cutting down trees and burning them in a process known as “slash and burn” agriculture. Logging operations, which provide the world’s wood and paper products, also cut countless trees each year. Loggers, some of them acting illegally, also build roads to access more and more remote forests-which leads to further deforestation. Forests are also cut as a result of growing urban sprawl. Not all deforestation is intentional. Some is caused by a combination of human and natural factors like wildfires and subsequent overgrazing, which may prevent the growth of young trees. Deforestation has many negative effects on the environment. The most dramatic impact is a loss of habitat for millions of species. Seventy percent of Earth’s land animals and plants live in forests, and many cannot survive the deforestation that destroys their homes. Deforestation also drives climate change. Forest soils are moist, but without protection from sun-blocking tree cover they quickly dry out. Trees also help perpetuate the water cycle by returning water vapor back into the atmosphere. Without trees to fill these roles, many former forest lands can quickly become barren deserts. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals. Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests mean larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and increased speed and severity of global warming. The quickest solution to deforestation would be to simply stop cutting down trees. Though deforestation rates have slowed a bit in recent years, financial realities make this unlikely to occur. A more workable solution is to carefully manage forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to make sure that forest environments remain intact. The cutting that does occur should be balanced by the planting of enough young trees to replace the older ones felled in any given forest. The number of new tree plantations is growing each year, but their total still equals a tiny fraction of the Earth’s forested land. Post-Reading Activities Make up sentences using these words: area / cover / 30 % / land / forests / of the world’s. vanish / in a hundred years / rain forests / could / completely. cut / to provide / for planting crops / farmers /more room / forests. of human / is caused / a combination / and natural Factors / deforestation / by. deforestation / of species / habitat / destroys / for millions. former / deserts / can quickly / lands/become / forest/barren. gases /absorb / the greenhouse / trees. the number / tree / each year /of new / is growing / plantations. Look through the text “Deforestation” and find reasons for cutting down forests. Make a list of them. Find in the text “Deforestation” and write down the consequences of deforestation. Read the text “Deforestation” again and answer the questions: What is deforestation? What are the main causes of cutting down the trees? Why do farmers cut forests? Why is logging sometimes illegal? What natural factors can cause deforestation? How do animals and plants suffer from deforestation? What’s the role of the canopy trees in forests? How do trees help to minimize global warming effects? What solutions can be proposed to save forests for further generation? Does the title of the text truly refer to the contents of the text? Do you agree this is so? Provide some arguments. REDUCING YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT Pre-Reading Activities Check the meaning and pronunciation of the words in a dictionary: to reduce, consumerism, a packaging, to work out, a footprint, fossil fuel, to measure, to commute, a light bulb, to reach, to contribute, environmental, an electrical appliance. Reading Read the text: Reducing your carbon footprint What do you do, in your daily life, that's bad for the environment? What are your “environmentally unfriendly” actions? Do you drive a car? Are you a frequent flyer? Do you buy imported stuff you don't really need then throw away the packaging? In this age of consumerism, everyone does! But we do have a choice. One way to work out and then reduce the impact you personally have on the environment is to calculate your carbon footprint. Your carbon footprint is the total carbon sum of your actions, be it when you travel, when you shop, when you eat, when you bathe - any action that uses up fossil fuels such as oil, coal or gas. And just as we have two feet, we also have two carbon footprints - the primary and the secondary. Your primary carbon footprint measures your direct use of fossil fuels. That is, the amount of gas, oil or coal you use every day by commuting to work, cooking your dinner or watching TV. Think, for example, about where you live. How much electricity and gas do you use to keep your home warm in the winter or cool in the summer? Do you use low-energy light bulbs? How many electrical appliances do you have on at the same time when you're at home? Now, think about all these and write them down. Go on, it's important! Next, think about how you travel. Do you drive a car? Do you take the bus, subway or train to work? Or do you cycle or walk? How often do you fly? Now let's think about your secondary carbon footprint; that is, how you use up fossil fuels indirectly. Think about the difference between buying a shirt made locally, and a shirt imported from a faraway foreign country. Which one do you think uses up the most fossil fuels? That's right, the imported shirt; it has to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles on a ship or in an airplane to reach your local shop. And that uses up a lot of carbon. So, think about the things you buy. Do you buy locally grown vegetables or fancy foreign imported ones? What kind of clothes do you wear? Are they locally made? Do you like German cars, American computers and Japanese DVD players? Remember, everything you do and everything you buy contributes to your carbon footprint. Now, finally, do you recycle or reuse when you're finished with something, or do you just throw it away? Make a list. Make a list of all the environmentally friendly things you do, and all the unfriendly ones. Use this list to help you become more environmentally aware. Think of it this way: every day you can save the world, even if it's just a little bit. Doesn't that make you feel good? Post-Reading Activities What problems does the text deal with? Are they true in our country? Study the questions in the text “Reducing your carbon footprint”. Group them in four types: yes/no questions; Why-questions; negative questions; alternative questions. Study their structure carefully and give your own examples of four types. Translate the word combinations. Make up 10 sentences with them: environmentally unfriendly, to reduce the impact, to calculate your carbon footprint (углеродный след), tousle up fossil fuels, the amount of gas, oil or coal, commuting to work, to keep your home warm, low-energy light bulbs, electrical appliances, to reach your local shop, locally grown vegetables, to contribute to your carbon footprint, to become more environmentally aware. Look through the text “Reducing your carbon footprint”, find and name all unfriendly environmental actions and those ones you can do instead. Write them down. HOW WE WILL BE LIVING IN 20 YEARS` TIME Pre-Reading Activities Check the pronunciation and the meaning of the words in a dictionary. Make a list of their synonyms and study them: install, to recycle, a block of flats, a fine, waste (n), to ban, to cut down, a ski resort, to run out, to rise, an occurrence. Reading Read the text: How We Will Be Living in 20 years Time At home. Most people will have installed solar panels or wind turbines on their houses or blocks of flats to generate their electricity. People will be recycling nearly 100 % of their waste. Transport. Cars that use a lot of petrol (e.g. four-by-four cars) will have been banned and many people will be driving electric cars. Low-cost airlines will have disappeared and flights will be much more expensive. The environment. Paper books will no longer be produced to save trees from being cut down, and all books will be electronic. Fresh water will be running out in many parts of the world and we will be getting much of our water from the sea (through desalination plants). The weather. Temperatures worldwide will have risen even further. Many ski resorts will have closed because of a lack of winter snow and some beaches and holiday resorts will have disappeared completely. We will be having even more extreme weather, and heat waves, hurricanes, floods, etc. will be frequent occurrences. Post-Reading Activities Look at the italicized verbs in the predictions in the text “How We Will Be Living in 20 years Time”. Which ones refer to ...? a) an action or situation that will be finished in the future; b) an action or situation which will be in progress in the future. Answer the questions to the text “How we will be living in 20 years` time”: How will electricity be generated in 20 years? How will people travel? Why will all books be electronic? How will be sea water used? Will the weather change our holiday habits? Work in pairs. Prepare a two-minute talk on the problem and the ways we all can save the environment for us and the future generations. FINDHORN ECO-VILLAGE Pre-Reading Activities Work in pairs. Look through the text “Findhorn eco-village”. Make a list of 14 new words and expressions. Translate them and check their meaning with your partner. Reading Findhorn eco-village Imagine living in a place powered by the sun and wind, where your waste was recycled, and you lived in harmony with the natural world. This is the dream coming true at Findhorn eco-village. Among other things, the village has its own kind of green architecture, its own electric power grid, and even its own waste recycling plant. There are over forty-five eco-buildings in Findhorn. Many of the buildings are equipped with solar panels on the roofs to store the natural power of the sun. Four wind turbines located just outside the village provide the rest of the electricity. The villagers are constantly looking into other kinds of renewable or recycled resources to create power. In fact, Findhorn often creates more power than it actually needs to maintain the whole village. Whenever there's a surplus, the extra power is sold to the local government! The eco-houses employ a wide range of recycling and energy-saving techniques. Water from baths and showers is recycled and walls are insulated using old newspapers and sheep's wool. Even the sewage is recycled! The 'Living Machine'' is a natural machine, made from plants, animals and micro-organisms, that copies nature's own way of recycling its waste. Opened in 1995, the 'Living Machine'' is a 75-meter-long, 30-meter-wide greenhouse where all the sewage from all the houses in the village is cleaned and recycled. The sewage moves from one natural, non-chemical stage to the next, each time being 'treated', or cleaned, by natural algae, plants and microorganisms. This is exactly how Mother Nature has cleaned her waste for millions of years. Findhorn eco-village has been built specifically to produce as little waste and pollution as possible. Are there any other principles its citizens adhere to? The residents of Findhorn believe in respecting not just the environment, but everything living in it too. And that includes each other. Their harmony with nature is mirrored by the harmony of their small community, where people live and work peacefully together on all levels. The story of Findhorn eco-village shows you that, if you have a dream and follow it as positively and honestly as you can, you can change the world, even just a little bit, and make it a better place for our children. |