Unit 2 air pollution

Pre-reading

Check the following words in your dictionary:

combustion

ambient

fossil

urban

airtight

furnace

lung

tightness

care

circumstances

growth

vehicle

exposure

severely

throat

cough

chest

to pose

fuel

airborne

approach

fortunately

emanate

harmful

significant

dirt

Text 1

Air is considered safe when it contains no harmful chemicals and only low levels of other chemicals that become harmful in higher concentrations to humans, other animals, plants, or their ecosystems.

Severe air pollution incidents in cities such as London have shown that breathing dirty air can be dangerous and, at times, deadly. In 1880, 2,200 Londoners died in one such incident when coal smoke from home heating and industry combined to form toxic smog of sulfur dioxide gas and airborne combustion particles

Many nations have adopted ambient air quality standards to safeguard the public against damaging pollutants. These include sulfur dioxide, suspended particulate matter, ground-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead all of which are tied directly or indirectly to the combustion of fossil fuels. Chemical factories cause the allergic diseases.

Meanwhile, urban air pollution has worsened in most large cities in the developing world, a situation driven by population growth, industrialisation, and increased vehicle use. Despite pollution control effects, air quality has approached the dangerous levels.

As dangerous as polluted outdoor air can be to health, indoor air pollution actually poses a greater health risk on a global level. Indoor air pollution is a concern in developed countries, where, for example, energy efficiency improvements sometimes make houses relatively airtight, reducing ventilation and raising indoor pollutant levels. In such circumstances, even small pollution sources – emanating from a furnace, a new carpet, or from naturally occurring radon gas – can lead to significant human exposures.

Text 2

Air pollution can irritate the eyes, throat and lungs. Burning eyes, cough and chest tightness are common with exposure to high levels of air pollution.

However, different people can react very differently to air pollution. Some people may notice chest tightness or cough, while others may not notice any effects. Because exercise requires faster, deeper breathing, it may increase the symptoms. People with heart disease, such as angina, or with lung disease, such as asthma or emphysema, may be very sensitive to exposure to air pollution and may notice symptoms when others do not.

Fortunately for most healthy people, the symptoms of air pollution exposure usually go away as soon as the air quality improves. However, certain groups of people are more sensitive to the effects of air pollution than others. Children probably feel the effects of pollution at lower levels than adults. They also experience more illness, such as bronchitis and earaches, in areas of high pollution than in areas with cleaner air.

People with heart or lung disease also react more severely to polluted air. During times of heavy pollution, their condition may worsen to the point that they must limit their activities or even seek additional medical care. In the past, a number of deaths have been associated with severely polluted conditions. Pollution this bad is rare today in the United States. The health effects of long-term exposure to low levels of air pollution are being studied.

А-GROUP EXERCISES

PREFIXES

1. Match the prefixes on the left with the meaning on the right. Then form new words by choosing a suitable word from the box to combine with each prefix.

multi-

semi-

anti-

pro-

ex-

post-

over-

under-

half

in favour of

former (not now)

not enough

many

against

after

too much

president, cooked, graduate, circle, war, racial, worked, democracy

Adjectives

2. Form adjectives with the help of suffixes -able, -al, -ful, -ible, -ive, -less, -ous, -y. Underline the suffixes. Translate the adjectives.

a)	beauty	beautiful – красивий
b)	nature
c)	wash
d)	flex
e)	act
f)	help
g)	adventure
h)	danger
i)	health
j)	addition
k)	harm
l)	globe

3. How much of the chart below can you complete? Suffixes are used, but not always!

Verb	Noun	Adjective
to irritate
to limit
to develop
to occur
to compose
to endanger
to feel
to experience
to control

4. Give the opposite of:

safe harmful low severe dirty dead heat urban worse develop growth increase outdoor efficient

tight fast sensitive certain fortunately heavy limited seek past death bad rare long-term

VERB FORMS

5. Write the verbs out of the text and define the tense. Write the infinitive of the verb.

Example:

is — Present Simple Active Voice, third person singular, to be;

6. Fill in the chart. Write the Past Simple and the Past Participle forms of the irregular verbs next to the infinitive.

Regular verbs	Irregular verbs
interfere	become – became – become

B-GROUP EXERCISES

Articles

1. Choose the article (a, the) or no article (-) that best completes

the sentence. Translate the sentences.

1. I must let ___fresh air in ___here.

2. In __ summer children should spend _ lot of __time in open air.

3. __traveling by __air is ____fastest way to travel.

4. One can't live on ___air.

5. Springs is in __air.

6. She works for BBC and is on __air twice __week.

7. Council is assisted by __Air Navigation Services and __Finance Committee.

8. I don't like him, he puts on __ airs.

9. He entered the room with ___air importance.

10. I don't believe you. That's all ___hot air.

11. Nobody can find him. He vanished into __thin air.

12. Oh, Billy, I'm so happy. I'm walking upon __air.

2. From the text, write out as many word combinations regarding air pollution as you can.

3. Put the words into the gaps.

(health, pollution, risk, developed, airtight, circumstances, gas, indoor)

As dangerous as polluted outdoor air can be to _____, indoor air _____actually poses a greater health _____on a global level. Indoor air pollution is a concern in_____ countries, where, for example, energy efficiency improvements sometimes make houses relatively _____, reducing ventilation and raising pollutant levels. In such _____, even small pollution sources – emanating from a furnace, a new carpet, or from naturally occurring radon _____ – can lead to significant human exposures.

WORDS THAT GO TOGETHER

Match a line in A with a line in B.

A	В
air airborne allergic burning chest coal damaging deep fossil harmful high low medical population quality severe sulfur toxic	Tightness Standard Smoke Smog Quality Pollution Pollutants Level Growth Fuel Eyes Diseases Dioxide Concentration Combustion Chemicals Care Breathing

C-GROUP EXERCISES

1. Put the verbs in brackets in the correct form (active or passive).

1. Billions of tons of solid waste (to throw) out annually.

2. The United States alone (to produce) about 200 million metric tons of municipal solid waste each year.

3. Pollution (to have) a dramatic effect on natural resources.

4. Major physical hazards (to include) traumatic injuries and noise.

5. Pollution (to exist) in many forms and affects many different aspects of the earth’s environment.

6. Until the Minimata Bay contamination (to discover) in Japan in the 1960s and 70s, most hazardous wastes legally (to dump) in solid waste landfills, buried, or dumped into lakes, rivers, and oceans.

7. Areas where wastes (to bury), called landfills, are the cheapest and most common disposal method for solid wastes worldwide.

8. Hazardous wastes of particular concern (to be) the radioactive wastes from the nuclear power and weapons industries.

9. Legal regulations now (to restrict) how such materials may (to use) or (to dispose), but such laws (to be) difficult to enforce and often contested by industry.

2. Give definitions to the terms below:

severe (adj) breath (n) breathe (v) smog (n) concern (v) relatively (adv) lung (n) ventilation (n) heavy (adj) allergic (adj) deadly (adv) gas (n)

3. Put as many questions to the sentences as you can.

1. Many nations have adopted ambient air quality standards to safeguard the public against damaging pollutants.

2. In 1880, 2,200 Londoners died in the incident.

3. Exhaust fumes are the main cause of bad air quality.

4. A brown layer of smoke hangs in the air.

5. Air is considered safe when it contains no harmful chemicals.

6. Air pollution can irritate the eyes, throat and lungs.

7. Certain groups of people are more sensitive to the effects of air pollution than others.

4. Match a line in A with a line in B to make a sentence.

A	B
Major sources of noise	is a problem for those trying to sleep.
There are two types of hearing loss:	can affect reading ability in school-age children.
Noise psychological effects	is based on the burning of fossil fuels.
Transportation	can damage human health.
Aircraft noise	that can damage human health.
Certain batteries contain heavy metals	can transport heavy metals to rivers and lakes.
Environmental noise	are undoubted.
Heavy metals	can be airplanes at takeoff and landing.
The water that soaks through the soil	Conductive and sensorineural.

D-GROUP EXERCISES

1 Put the verbs in brackets in the correct form (active or passive).

Air pollution (to be) the source of many materials that may (to enter) the human bloodstream through the nose, mouth, skin, and the digestive tract. Chemicals known to be harmful, such as benzene, lead and other heavy metals, carbon monoxide, volatile nitrites, pesticides, and herbicides. These substances (to show) to produce harmful effects on the blood, bone marrow, spleen, and lymph nodes. Blood cells (to be) constantly undergoing turnover, with new blood cells entering the circulation as mature cells are lost, making the blood system especially vulnerable to environmental poisoning. For example, lead (to interfere) with normal red blood cell formation by inhibiting important enzymes. In addition, lead (to damage) red blood cell membranes and (to interfere) with cell metabolism in a way that (to shorten) the survival of each individual cell. Each of these harmful effects can (to result) in clinical anemia.

2. Read the text. Fill in the gaps with one of the words from the box.

effective, solid, dangerous, volume, overfilled, processes, landfills, waste

Areas where wastes are buried, called _____, are the cheapest and most common disposal method for _____ wastes worldwide. But landfills quickly become _____ and may contaminate air, soil, and water. Incineration, or burning, of waste reduces the _____ of solid waste, but produces dense ashen wastes (some of which become airborne) that often contain _____ concentrations of hazardous materials such as heavy metals and toxic compounds. Composting, using natural biological _____ to speed the decomposition of organic wastes, is an _____ strategy for dealing with organic garbage and produces a material that can be used as a natural fertilizer. Recycling, extracting and reusing certain _____ materials, has become an important part of municipal solid waste strategies in developed countries.

3. Read the text.

The toxic chemicals in environmental air pollution stimulate the immune system to activate leukocytes and macrophages that can produce tissue damage, especially to the cells that line human blood vessels. Although the damage is initially slight and may not produce significant limitation to blood flow, repetitive exposure to toxic substances interferes with the ability of these lining cells to release a substance called endothelial-derived relaxing factor (EDRF). EDRF relaxes the smooth muscle in blood vessel walls, and blocking the release of EDRF leads to systemic hypertension. At the same time, leukocytes on the endothelium's surface appear to play a part in promoting the arterioscleroses disease process. The combined effect of these events is to accelerate the changes that eventually lead to hypertension and ischemic heart disease.

3.1 Put questions to the underlined words.

3.2 Translate the text in writing.

4. Speak on: ‘Air pollution’.

‘Health problems caused by air pollution’