Is the Earth Getting Hotter?

A: Do you know anything about the “greenhouse” effect?

B: Certainly, I do. I’ve heard that it will soon begin altering the Earth’s climate.

A: Can you say what exactly the greenhouse effect means?

B: The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, it results in an elevation of the average surface temperature.

A: Oh, I see that it is like glass in a greenhouse. It forms a kind of “thermal blanket” around the planet.

B: Yes, that’s right. The thing is that the greenhouse effect will cause not only hotter summers and milder winters, but it may alter rainfall, affect crop yields and raise sea level.

Lesson 30. Other Ecological Problems

30.1. Усна тема.Інші екологічні проблеми

Прочитайте деякі факти про тварин, що знаходяться на межі вимирання.

Pandas. Fewer than 1,000 giant pandas remain in the wild in their home-land, Western China.

Black rhinoceros. Fewer than 2,000 of them remain in the wild. That’s a 95 percent decline since 1970. Most are killed for their horns, which are ground into powder for medical purposes in Asia.

Tigers. Only 67,000 wild tigers remain. Tigers are hunted and killed for their body parts, which are used in oriental medicines.

Chimpanzees. Chimps and other primates are on the verge of becoming extinct, primarily due to the destruction of tropical rain forests, which are home for 90 percent of all primates.

Elephants. In the last 20 years, half the African elephants have been killed off. The Asian elephant population has shrunk even more. Elephants are killed for their ivory tusks, most of which are used for making jewelry.

Визначте, чи є вірними такі висловлювання.

1. Pandas live in India. 2. Rhinoceros are killed for their skin. 3. The horns of rhinoceros are ground into powder for medical purposes. 4. The number of wild tigers is less than 30,000. 5. Tigers are hunted for their fur. 6. Chimpanzees live in rain forests. 7. The population of African and Asian elephants has increased in the last 20 years. 8. Ivory is a precious material for making jewelry.

30.2. Письмові завдання

Вправа 7. Заповніть пропуски словами, що підходять за змістом: man, months, discovered, wars, evolved, only, appear, information, riches, Earth, ago, known, extinction, huge, system.

Planet Earth Is 4,600 Million Years Old

If we pretend that our planet is like a person, we can compare the Earth with a man of 46 years of age. Nothing is ___ about the first 7 years of this person’s life, and very little ___ can be found about his youth. What we know for sure is that ___ at the age of 42 the Earth began to flower.

Dinosaurs and the great reptiles did not ___ until one year ago, when the planet was 45. Mammals arrived only eight ___ ago. In the middle of the last week man-like apes ___ into ape-like men. And only last weekend the ice age enveloped the ___.

Modern ___ has been around for only four hours. During the last hour Man ___ agriculture. The industrial revolution began only a minute ___. During those sixty seconds of biological time, Man has made ___ rubbish dump out of Paradise. Man has caused the ___ of 500 species of animals, robbed the planet of its mineral ___, and now stands at the brink of a war to end all ___ which will destroy this oasis of life in the solar ___.