PROSPECTS

The environmental outlook for the future is mixed. In spite of economic and political changes, interest in and concern about the environment remains high. Air quality has improved, but problems of acid deposition, chlorofluorocarbons and ozone depletion, and heavy air pollution in Eastern Europe still seek solutions and concerted action. Until acid deposition is diminished, loss of aquatic life in northern lakes and streams will continue, and forest growth may be affected. Water pollution will remain a growing problem as increasing human populations put additional stress on the environment. Infiltration of toxic wastes into underground aquifers and intrusion of saline waters into coastal freshwater aquifers have not been stopped.

Depletion of aquifers in many parts of the world and growing demand for water will bring agricultural, industrial, and urban use of water into conflict. This shortage will force water usage restrictions and will increase the cost of water consumption. Water could become the “energy crisis” of the early 2000s. Pollution of coastal and fresh water along with overharvesting has so depleted fishery resources that five to ten years of little or no fishing will be required for stocks to recover.

Without concerted efforts to save habitats and reduce poaching, and the illegal worldwide wildlife trade, many wildlife species will become extinct. In spite of our knowledge of how to reduce soil erosion, it continues to be a worldwide problem, largely because too many agriculturalists and developers show little interest in controlling it. Finally, the destruction of wild lands, in both temperate and tropical regions, could result in massive extinctions of animal and plant life.

To reduce environmental degradation and for humanity to save its habitats, societies must recognize that the environment is finite. Environmentalists believe that, as populations and their demands increase, the idea of continuous growth must give way to a more rational use of the environment, but that this can be accomplished only by a dramatic change in the attitude of the human species. The human attack on the environment has been compared to the dramatic upheavals of the earth in the geological past; whatever a society’s attitude may be towards continuous growth, humanity should recognize that this attack threatens human survival.

Questions:

1. What were the results of the first prehistoric agricultural revolution?
2. How did humans begin to change the earth’s face with the advances of the Industrial Revolution?
3. What causes an accelerating decline in the quality of the environment?
4. What has the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere been due to?
5. What is the so-called “greenhouse effect”?
6. What are the theories concerning global warming?
7. What is acid deposition caused by, and what does it result in?
8. How dangerous is acid rain for the environment?
9. What detrimental effect is being had upon the global ozone layer?What is the ozone layer depletion?
10. What environmental side effects has extensive use of synthetic pesticides derived from chlorinated hydrocarbons had?
11. Speak on the problem of loss of wild lands.
12. Why is the world experiencing a steady decline in air and water quality and availability?
13. What are the environmental prospects for the future?

Fill in each gap with only one word.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 1275