Environmental Problems

Environmental Problems.

What we refuse to recognize is that modern man has been altering his total environment so rapidly and suddenly that the whole "chain of life" on this planet is endangered. All of us live on a tiny space-ship which is hurtling through the universe at a speed 600 times faster that the fastest jet plane – carrying with it its own limited resources for supporting life. What we have now is all we ever have to keep us alive. Having already set foot on the lifeless moon, we shall presumably find that we are the only creatures in our solar system. As lonely astronauts on our own endless journey through space, what do we have as our basic equipment for survival? Above us a narrow band of usable atmosphere, no more than seven miles high, with no "new" air available to us. Below us a thin crust of land, with only one-eighth of the surface fit for human life. And around us a limited supply of "usable" water, that we must eternally cleanse and re-use.
These are the elements of man's physical environment. This is the "envelope" in which our planet is perpetually sealed. Together, and left alone, land, air, and water work well as an "ecosystem" to maintain the great chain of life, and to delicate balance of nature, from ocean depth to mountain top.
Bur man, since he first rose up on two legs, has been tampering with this system. He cannot help it. Everything we do alters our environment: the ways we grow food and build shelters and create what we call "culture" and "civilization".
Now, entering the 21^st century, we face the shocking realization that we have gone too far, too fast and to carelessly – and now we are forced to cope with some of the consequences of our "progress" as a species. For, increasingly, all over the world scientists, statesmen and specialists in every field are coming to agree on the paradoxes of our modern age:
– that, as societies grow richer, their environments grow poorer;
– that, as the number of objects expands, the energy of life declines;
– that, as we gain more leisure to enjoy our surroundings, we find less around us to enjoy.
It is nobody's fault, and it is everybody's fault. The real culprits are the three main currents of the 20^th century – population, industrialization, and urbanization. Together, these three rapid and mighty currents of history have acted to pollute the air, the land and the waters – and to accelerate our mounting loss of beauty and privacy, quiet and recreation.
World population is growing at a rate that will double by the year of 2000 – when nearly seven billion people will inhabit the earth. Already, the poverty-stricken countries of Asia, the Near East, Africa and Latin America contain 70 per cent of the whole world's adults and 80 per cent of its children. The most people are concentrated where the least food and goods are available.
Industrialization has added its own burden to the population pressure. The more we produce and consume, the more waste products we send into the air and water and land around us, where they do not "disappear" but last forever in one form or another.
Our natural resources – both renewable and non-renewable – are taxed to the utmost by industrialization. The volume of waste waters in our lakes, rivers and streams has risen 600 per cent so tar in this century. Less than one-tenth of one per cent of polluting materials can kill fish life by consuming oxygen in the waters. (The de-salting sea water for household and agricultural use on a large scale is a long way off.)
We now spew 150 million tons of pollutants into the atmosphere annually, and 90 per cent of this consists of largely invisible but potentially deadly gases. This may reduce solar radiation, and raise the temperature on the earth's surface. Some predict that this could conceivably melt the polar ice cap, thus flooding the coastal cities of the world.
From the plans in Russia to the mountains of Switzerland, from the blue waters of the Pacific to the factory chimneys of Chicago, the air is less clear, the smog is thicker, the sun dimmer. Throughout the world, the statistics are uniformly shocking – but the figures speak less vividly than the sad bewilderment of California school children who are now excused from outdoor games on those days when the atmosphere chokes their lungs. Industrialization plagues the land as well as the air and waters. Our rise in synthetic technology has given us innumerable conveniences – but the roadsides are strewn with cans, bottles, and cartons, the dumps overflow, and in some cities it costs three times more to get rid of a ton of junk than to ship in a ton of coal.
Urbanization is perhaps the most menacing of the three converging trends that threaten our planet today.
In the US, land is being urbanized at the rate of 3,000 acres a day. One million Americans a year leave the country for the cities. 70 per cent of all Americans now live on 10 per cent of land; by the year 2000, some 85 per cent will live in urban areas. And the same is happening all over the world. By the end of this century, most human beings – for the first time in history – will be born, live, reproduce and die within an urban setting. Each time we build a new highway, bulldoze a wood into a shopping center, or turn farmland into housing developments, we decrease the area that will grow food.
The world "ecology" was coined about a hundred years ago – in 1869 – to signify the study of the relationship between life systems and their environment. "Ecology" is what everybody on this planet must start thinking about – and quickly – if we are to avoid irreversible changes within the closed system of our space-ship.
Everything around us is tied together in a system of mutual interdependence. The plants help renew our air; the air helps purify our water; the water irrigates the plants. Man, as a part of a nature, cannot "master" it; he must learn to work with it – to ensure that we do not alter the environment so drastically that we perish before we can adjust to it.
Mankind as a species needs aesthetic as well as physical values – sweet rivers to walk by in solitude and serenity, and pleasant prospects even in the midst of industrial wealth. The constant noise of urban life attacks the ears relentlessly, and noise contributes its own ugly obbligato to the disharmony of our surrounding.
We have laid waste our powers for too long, not merely by ignoring the warning of dead lakes and poisonous air and ravaged countrysides, but also by periodically killing off our bravest and our best in senseless warfare. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their planet. We have the technical skill and resources. We have a common cause worth fighting for: a new kind of war to make the world safe for humanity against its own worst instincts.
Perhaps this mighty global struggle to restore the quality of our human environment may provide an effective and inspired substitute for national conflict and bloodshed.
Perhaps only a planetary view of man can guarantee our survival. We have the weapons that enable us to die together; can we not make the tools that enable us to live together?

to alter – to change
tiny – very small
to hurtle – to move at a very great speed
presumably – probably; as you would expect
supply – stock of sth which has been provided
eternally – for ever
to cleanse – to make very clean
perpetually – always
to seal – to prevent an envelop being opened
ecosystem – system formed by the interaction between organisms and their
environment – surroundings in which you live
to maintain – to keep, to state, to assert
to tamper with – to interfere with, to play about with
shelter – place where you can go for protection
species – group of living beings which are very similar and can be breed together
to expand – to increase in size, to become larger
culprit – person who has done something wrong
current – flow of water/air/electricity
mounting – rising
recreation – pleasant occupation for your spare time
poverty-stricken – affected by great poverty
burden – heavy load
to consume – to use up
waste – rubbish
to tax – (here) to demand a great deal from
utmost – greatest that can be; further
to spew – to spit out, to vomit
to reduce – to make smaller
to predict – to foretell; to tell in advance what will happen
conceivably – in an imaginable way
to flood – to cover with water
chimney – tall tube or brick column for taking smoke away from a fire
dim (dimmer, dimmest) – weak, light
bewilderment – puzzle, surprise
to choke – to do a blockage in the throat
to plague – to annoy, to bother
convenience – suitableness
to strew (strewn) – to scatter
dump – place where rubbish, waste are unloaded and left
menacing – threatening
to bulldoze – to knock down; to clear using a bulldozer
housing development – area where new houses are planned and bu
irreversible – which cannot be changed
to ensure – to make sure of
drastically – suddenly
to perish – to die
serenity – being calm, not worried
midst – middle
relentlessly – without pity
obbligato (in music) – important accompanying part played by a solo i
to ravage – to damage badly, to destroy
warfare –
to restore – to give back; to repair, to make sth new again
to provide – to supply; to take care of
to substitute – to put sth in the place of sth
bloodshed – killing
to enable – to make it possible for s.o. to do sth

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