B Mark statements true or false, correct the false ones

1. The problem of national utilization of natural resources is of the least importance.

2. All people are interested in nature preservation.

3. Practical measures on rational utilization are planned.

4. To solve the problem is enough to protect air and water from pollution.

5. When we use natural resources we should be careful to destroy the balance of biosphere.

C Translate from English into Russian in written form.

1. Air pollution is the result of man's use of lethal chemicals, and is a common hazard in both industrial and developing countries.

2. Acid rain results from the release into the atmosphere of sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide.

3. Electrical generating plants, industrial boilers, large smelters, and automobiles are among the chief sources of these emissions.

4. The gases react with water droplets, forming a diluted mixture of sulphuric acid and nitric acid, and it is this mixture that returns to the Earth in the form of acid rain, mist, or snow.

5. Acid rain has acidified lakes and streams, rendering them unable to support fish, wildlife, plants, or insects.

 

D. Read the text again and answer the following questions.

1. Is utilization of natural resources a local problem?

2. How many aspects are there in the mentioned problem?

3. What are people to do concerning utilization of natural resources?

4. How has air pollution influenced the yield of wheat?

5. What do we need the co-operation of specialists in different spheres of science and practical activities?
9 Вариант

 

STRATOSPHERIC OZONE

1. Read the text and translate the extract in italic in written form.

Ozone plays an important role in the high atmosphere in addition to screening out UV-B. By absorbing ultraviolet sunlight, ozone deposits the heat associated with this light into that level of the atmosphere, thus creating a layer much inner than those immediately below. The stable region is the stratosphere. It is in this stable layer that disturbing changes are occurring. As scientists' understanding of the chemical reactions that create and destroy ozone increased, it became clear that relatively small quantities of some substances could change these reactions and hence the amount of ozone in the stratosphere, provided those substances were placed in the high atmosphere. And chlorine, an effective chemical catalyst that can change ozone into normal oxygen, is appearing in rapidly increasing concentrations in the atmosphere.

 

Ordinarily there is very little chlorine in the stratosphere. Chlorine gas is sometimes spilled in industrial or shipping accidents, but this gas reacts strongly with almost any water drop or particle it touches and, as a result, is used up long before it can diffuse upward. Ocean waves throw up small droplets of salty water, some of which evaporate, leaving salt particles in the air. Although these particles contain chlorine, the chance that one of them will get as high in the atmosphere as the ozone layer is small, since salt is very soluble and these particles are readily washed out of the air by the rain. Some biological systems emit methyl chloride, a gas that contains chlorine. But this gas reacts fairly rapidly with other substances, and most of it disappears before it can diffuse to the stratosphere. Thus, strong barriers prevent chlorine from reaching high in the atmosphere, unless people contrive to put it there.

 

If we did wish, for some reason, for chlorine at the Earth's surface to move into the atmosphere, we would have to arrange for the emission at the surface of the Earth of a chlorine-containing gas. We would, in addition, have to find a chlorine-containing gas that did not react readily with anything, one that was not very soluble, and one that, upon reaching the stratosphere, could be broken down to release free chlorine only by the action of strong ultraviolet light. (If it were broken down too soon, by sunlight that penetrates low into the atmosphere, the free chlorine would react with something and be removed.) The properties I have just described would also make the gas extremely useful here at the surface of the Earth, and people have worked hard to create such a substance.

Laboratory scientists created such substances decades ago. They are called chlorofluorocarbons, indicating that they contain carbon, 'fluorine, chlorine, and sometimes hydrogen. The name is frequently abbreviated to CFC, and a numbering scheme is used to tell how much of each element is in the molecule of the particular CFC under discussion. CFC-12, for example, has one atom of carbon, no atoms of hydrogen, two atoms of fluorine (and, by implication, two atoms of chlorine) in each molecule.

Two of these substances, CFC-11 and CFC-12, have proved so valuable in a number of applications that more than 20 million tons have been manufactured worldwide. Most of these 20 million tons still exist and either escaped to the atmosphere or eventually will. Once in the air, these substances mix and diffuse, finally reaching all parts of the atmosphere. Those CFC molecules that find themselves in the stratosphere are subjected to intense ultraviolet radiation from the Sun; they split apart into smaller fragments, releasing chlorine. The chlorine then starts a new career as a catalyst in the reactions that destroy ozone.

Damage to the layer of ozone in the high atmosphere by human activity is complex, esoteric, and completely invisible to anyone but the scientists who are studying the issue. Yet, people who twenty years ago had never heard the word ozone are now worried about its disappearance.

Grammar work