Environment

The living environment not only in towns and villages but also in open areas has been in danger for almost half a century. There are lot of human activities today, aimed at protection of enviroment. All over the world there are people polluting the land, the sea, and the air. The main reason for pollution is waste – something which is no longer needed. It can be yesterday’s newspaper, an old car, dirty bath water, smoke from a factory chimney. Some waste is dangerous because it contains poison. It is toxic waste. There are five billion people in the world. They all need to eat, dress and travel about. They buy new things and throw their old things away. Farms and factories, cars, trains, buses, planes produce the things and the waste too. Some poisonous gases go up to the air and make acid rain which kills treees and pollutes water and ground. Power stations produce smoke and toxic gases. There are technologies that can change waste into something different and useful. This is called recycling. For example old newspaper can be made into new paper. Recycling is more expensive than dumping. In Africa people wear shoes madd from old tyres or collect and dry cow dung and use it for heating. Recycling reduces pollution, conserves energy and materials and savec money. Plastic is longlasting material and its recycling is very difficult. Recycling at home is very important. Don’t waste food, water, energy, materials. We say that a person who cares about enviroment is green.

Hole in the sky
This satelline photograph shows the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The hole is pink and white on this computer photograph. The ozone layer stops some of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Ultraviolet radiation causes a suntan. Too much ultraviolet radiation causes sunburn and skin cancer. CFCs in the atmosphere have caused the hole. Scientists first discovered the hole in 1982, and it is getting bitter. Thirty per cent of CFCs come from aerosol cans, thirty per cent from fridges and air-conditioning, and thirty-four per cent from the manufacture of some plastic products. The greenhouse effect
1. sunlight gives us heat. Some of the heat warms the atmosphere, and some of the heat eseapes back into space.
2. During the last 100 years we have produced a huge amount of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere works like the glass in a greenhouse. It allows heat to get in but it doesn’t allow much heat to get out.

So the atmosphere becomes warmer because less heat can escape

Where does the carbon dioxide come from? People and animals breathe in oxygen, and breathe out carbon dioxide. Trees take carbon dioxide from the air, and produce oxygen. We produce carbon dioxide when we burn coal, oil, petrol, gas.. or wood. In the last few years, people have burned huge areas of rain forest. This mean there are fewer threes, and of course, more carbon dioxide. A hotter earther?
Some scientists think the greenhouse effect will make the world hotter. Areas near the coasts will be cloudier and wetter. There will be more storms. Inland areas will have a little more rain, but because the temperature will be higher, they will be drier. Sea levels will rise. They have already risen by 15 cm since 1880. Maybe they will rise another 30 cm before 2030. But clouds reflect sunlight back into space, and maybe more cluds will make the earth cooler again. Is the worlds climats changing? We don’t know. There are several groups in Britain which try to protect the enviroment. The most famous group is Greenpeace, which campaigns in many countries around the world. They have campaigned against hunting whales, pollution in the Norht Sea, nuclear power, testing nuclear weapons, and many other issues. Greenpeace supporters organize demonstrations and they also take direct action. For example, they block pipes that pour pollution into the sea. Another important enviromental group is Friends of the Earth. They have led campaigns against global warming, the destruction of the rain forest, and the hole in the ozone layer. There is also a Gree Party, which is a political party. It regularly fights elections and it has won seats in the European Parliament and on local councils. There are many other groups which are concerned with protecting the environment, for example, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which campaigns to protect birds against danger such as pesticides and hunting. Some enviromental groups are very old. The oldes is the National Trust which was set up in 1895 to protect parks, buildings and monuments in Britain. Destroyed forests
There are two reasons – land and wood. In many countries the trees have been cut down because the land was needed for animal or crops. In other parts of the world the trees are cut down because their wood is wanted. This wood is used for buildings or it is made info furniture. Unfortunately, in most places the trees won’t be replaced. The soil in the forests is very thin, but it is protected by the trees. When the trees are cut down, the soil is washed away by the rain or blown away by the wind.

Soon nothing can be grown on it. The forest becomes a desert. Then more land will be needed and more trees will be cut down. When the forest is destroyed, it isn’t only the trees that are lost, the homes of millions of animals and plants are destroyed too. The disasters are all of us. There are just too many people in the world. The world’s population is now over one billion people. .