What are countries doing to control air pollution.

 

Many countries have air-pollution control legislation. For example, the European Union has developed extensive legislation that includes health-based standards similar to the Clean Air Act’s NAAQS. Member countries in turn have national laws reflecting these standards and other features of EU air legislation. In Asia, with its many developing nations and its steep recent increase in overall emissions, air pollution control is a particularly pressing issue. India has had an air act since 1981. China in 2014 passed major amendments to its environmental protection law, in large part to address suffocating air pollution. The success of any environmental legislation, however, depends on actual implementation and enforcement, which is particularly challenging in the developing world. Increasingly, governments and nongovernmental organizations are providing readily available air-pollution databases. In the United States the national Air Quality Index maintained by the EPA is a good online place to look for information on particular US locations. A similar resource for several European locations is Air Quality Now. The World Air Quality Index provides global information.

 

Task 2. Match the following words from the text:

1.основные поправки	a. air pollution control legislation
2. показатель качества воздуха	b. health-based standards
3. законодательство о борьбе с загрязнением	c. overall emissions
4. общие выбросы	d. major amendments
5. санитарные стандарты	e. suffocating air pollution
6. удушающее загрязнение воздуха	f. air quality index

 

Task 3. Make up different types of questions to the text (10 questions).

Task 4. Single out the main idea of the text and make a message on the given theme.

 

Практическое занятие 12. Глобальное потепление.

Task 1. Read and translate the following text.

GLOBAL WARMING

 

Climate change means long-term changes in atmospheric conditions including temperature, wind patterns, and precipitation. Climate change, as the term is presently used, is anthropogenic: that is, caused by humans.

Climate change is complex. Among the many complexities we encounter when we study it is that the climate is influenced by unpredictable events, such as shifts in the world economy that change industrial production and hence greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, it is a planetary, not local, problem, and it requires a global, interdisciplinary, and intergovernmental commitment to find solutions, solutions that may upend traditional geopolitical relationships and customary day- to- day activities. One thing is certain, however: it is happening. No responsible expert denies its existence, its fundamental causes, and the great danger it poses if we act too casually to address it.

Global warming refers to the recent rise in the earth’s surface temperature associated with the increase in greenhouse gases. Climate change encompasses a larger spectrum of atmospheric conditions including changes in precipitation and wind patterns. Most scientists prefer “climate change.” But the public may relate better to the term “global warming” and the public has tended to use it more, at least until recently.

Reliable sources of data exist to measure climate, as do reliable mechanisms to predict climate trends into the future. In particular, thousands of temperature stations throughout the world record land and ocean temperatures regularly, and scientists combine these data to produce an average global temperature every month. Accuracy has increased over time, with the help of satellite measurements introduced in 1979. Scientists also observe physical evidence of warming: rising sea levels, receding glaciers, increased snowmelt, and more turbulent air. To discover likely trends over decades they employ sophisticated computer models that use historical data and future projections, such as the predicted presence of greenhouse gases. A particularly detailed analysis using all available temperature data was based on measurements from 36,866 stations going back to 1753.

 

Task 2. Match the italicized words with the following meanings:

to turn smth over so that it is upside down; to use a particular method, skill, etc in order to achieve smth; air or water that moves around a lot; jobs or activities that you do every day as a normal part of your life or job; to exist in a way that may cause a problem, danger, difficulty etc; changing a lot so that it is impossible to know what will happen; rain, snow etc that falls on the ground, or the amount of rain, snow etc that falls; continuing for a long period of time, or relating to what will happen in the distant future.