Practise reading modern press. Станкова Т.Ю. - 26 стр.

ecosystem and the extinction of thousands of million-year-old species…
With the global population at more than 6 billion and on its way to
8 billion by midcentury, per capita fresh water and arable land are
descending to risky levels (1). The highest level of consumtion is in the
USA, and for every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels
of consumption, we would need at least four more planet Earths.
       The 5 billion people living in developing countries may never
wish to attain this level of profligacy (2). But in trying to achive at
least a decent standard of living, they have joined the developed
world in exploiting the last of the natural environments and reducing
to extinction a large part of the planet’s biodiversity. We have driven
atmospheric carbon dioxide to the highest levels, unbalanced the
nitrogen cycle, and contributed to a global warming that will ultimately
be bad news everywhere.
       We have entered the Age of Environment. Science and
technology, combined with a lack of selfunderstanding and paleolithic
obstinacy, have brought us to where we are. How science and
technology, with the wisdom and foresight of the man, must see us
through and out.
       There’s a hope, that the change is possible. Empirical knowledge
and technical ability are growing exponentially faster even than the
crises of population and resources. A detailed, sophisticated picture
of the global environment and global resources is emerging and the
technology is already available for raising per capita food production
while decreasing materials and energy consumption (3).
       All this information is coming online worldwide. It allows people
everywhere to see the planet as the astronouts see it: small, and too
fragile to bear much more careless tampering. A growing number of
leaders in business, governments, and religions are beginning to
think in this more farsignted way.


     Exercises to the text «The Age of Environment»

      I. Find the following words and phrases in the text, translate them and
learn them by heart:
      natural environment, resources, extinction, species, to wreck,
arable land, consumption, to reduce, carbon dioxide, nitrogen cycle,
to raise, to decrease.


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