Ecological situation in Russia

The analysis of ecological situation in Russia show that the crisis tendencies which appeared in the latest 15 years don’t get over and in several aspects becomes deeper inspire of the taken measures.

Russia with its saved huge tracts of forest (almost 65% of the total area of the country) has a very important meaning for ecodynamics. Together with some adjacent areas this massif forms The North Eurasian center of environmental stabilization which is the largest in the world and which importance for biosphere’s reconstruction will increase.

However 15% of the territory of Russia on which the main part of the population and industry is concentrated has unsatisfactory ecological condition and ecological safety is not guaranteed here. At that the specific indexes of the negative effects on the environment on the expectation of one person and units of gross domestic product in Russia are one of the highest in the world.

The excess of the allowed concentrations of the detrimental impurities is in the atmospheric air of 185 cities and industrial centres with the population of more than 61 million people (40% of the whole population of the country). The main sources of air pollution are still enterprises of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemistry and petrochemical industry, construction industry, power engineering, pulp and paper industry and motor transport.

The most unfavorable situation is in Arkhangelsk, Lipetsk, Moscow, Norilsk, Bratsk, Ekaterinburg, Kamensk-Uralskii, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Tagil, Ufa, Sterlitomak, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk,
Novokuznetsk, Omsk, Cherepovets.

Subjective tests show that the percentage of the influence of the air pollution to the general children’s morbidity is 17%, grown up’s morbidity – 10% on average. Air pollution causes 41% of breathing organs illness, 16% of endocrine system illness, 2,5% of oncological illness.

Not only local sources of detrimental impurities influence greatly on forest on lake’s ecosystems and agroculture but remote sources including foreign ones also have strong influence on it. More than 1 mln. tones of oxygenated sulfur of transorganical origin fall to the European part of Russia every year which is more than from the Russian sources of pollution. Essential contribution into Russian’s environmental pollution by oxyge-nated sulfur and nitrogen make Ukraine, Poland and Germany.

The quality of water in the most Russian water objects doesn’t meet health and fishing requirements because almost 40% of jettisonable into them sewages are concidered to be polluted. Almost half of the population of the country has to use water that doesn’t correspond health requirements because of bad water treatment and unsatisfactory condition of utility. The quality of drinkable water hasn’t become better.

The execution of water-purifying measures is carried out in the inadequate way because of the unstable work of the majority of the enterprises, their hard financial condition, insufficiency of budgetary funds.

The ecological condition of the agrocultural lands remains also unsatisfactory, the tendency of the lands degradation still exists. 43% of arable land decreases in its containing of humus and in the Nechernozemnaya zona the area of such soils is about 45 %. The lands with radiation pollution do not shorten.

Great damage to the condition of the vegetation world is made by uncontrolled storing of berries, mushrooms, valuable species of medicinal plants. The damage made by forest’s vermines and sicknesses, fires and illegal cutting of the forests is also great. Every year more than 300 thousands of afforestation dies of these reasons.

However we can point to some positive tendencies in the changing of the quantity of hunting animals. The process of stabilization and the upgrowth of the mammals which are considered to be hunting objects such as elk, wild boar and roe can be explained by the effectiveness of the fight against poaching, improvement of the condition of forage reserve of the hunting animals. Though the prognosis of the quantity of the sturgeon is not favorable and strict measures should be applied to the poaching.

Still the problems of the industrial and common wastes recycling, chemical nuclear and biological weapon destruction are very actual. There is a threat of the import of dangerous wastes to Russia. The serious danger comes from physically and moral outdated depositories of liquid radiation wastes and worked-out nuclear fuel, revealed atomic submarines. The high scale of deterioration of technological equipment on the chemical, petrochemical and microbiological enterprises leads to man-caused damages with further chemical infection of the territory.

The ecological condition of the country is characterized in details in annual state reports on the environmental condition in Russian Federation which are issued and are available to the consumers.

To be read after Unit 12

How the globalization influences my life

Today’s world is changing rapidly because people want it to be better for them. At the same time the opinion of a single person does not play
a big role nowadays. Very often we have to accept different processes
which take place on the Earth even if we don’t like them because the
majority of people want them to be. There are not changes which are good
for everyone. One of the most arguable processes is globalization. At
a glance, the globalization can solve all our economic and social problems at a blow. As a matter of fact, globalization hurts some people. To avoid jumping in conclusions about globalization we should make out how it
influences the life of a single person, for example me. First, globalization
gives me an opportunity to be closer to my relatives and friends. In our big
country it is very important.

For instance, I can wish my friends happy new year using the internet, wherever they are. We can ask each other for help, cheer each other up if we have any problems. On the other hand, since I got the Internet I have had less communication personally with people. I have forgotten how to give a hearty welcome to my friends. Furthermore, it had been much easier for me to reach an understanding with any person before I got the computer than today. Second, globalization helps me in education at all points. I suppose I have never had such a good chance to be well-educated as in the era of globalization. If I lived thirty years ago I would not be able to participate in international education programs and competitions, to have practice in specialization abroad, to apply to my foreign colleague for advice through the Internet. All this things are so common today that I can’t imagine my life without them.

The Internet makes my studying at the University easier. But I have noticed that sometimes I forget the proverb «A cat in gloves catches no mice» and rely on the internet too much. But it’s not a big problem. We should just remember that if we wanted other people to make our work instead of us we would have no chance to achieve our aim. Third, globalization gives me freedom. I choose everything myself: my living place,
a place for holidays, and the country which produces the products I consume. This fact gives us more opportunities to develop ourselves in any direction we want. Using the experience of the specialists all over the world I can become a good professional. So, in the era of globalization I can make a very good career. But globalization means competition as well. There are a lot of people who want to achieve the same aims as I want. Unfortunately, the number of places under the sun is limited. This fact means that it may be difficult even for a good specialist to find the work he or she likes. So, globalization is very ambivalent process. If we rely on the advantages on globalization too much, there are several negative aspects of this process.

 

 

To be read after Unit 13