Environment
global warming; What is global warming? Due to human actions we observe
the rise of average Earth temperatures. It may sound like a nice shift for
people living in Russia and Canada, but such climate change triggers some
serious negative consequences.
World leaders launch an initiative to accelerate work on global warming.
Global warming also has the potential to change rainfall
and snow patterns, increase droughts and severe storms.
Let’s additionally define droughts from this sentence.
Most people think it’s a period of hot and dry weather, but that is not
completely true. It is a state or condition when human demands for water
exceed its natural availability.
What consequences are we talking about? It’s very likely that you have heard
a lot about these issues Melting Glaciers – a process where the ice changes
from solid to liquid or water. The increase in mean temperatures has led to
melting of most of the world’s glaciers.
But what drives the increase in temperature? Greenhouse gases, including
carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxides (NOx), are a widely
discussed source. Some greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activity
leads to release of enormous extra amounts of greenhouse gases. Population
growth, deforestation, and factor farming are creating excess greenhouse
gasses in the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.
Deforestation is the clearing of trees without the intent of replanting them.
One of the consequences of deforestation is loss of
biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety of all living things on Earth which
include plants, animals, and microorganisms. Many species within a forest
ecosystem are endemic to that habitat. When their habitat is lost, it could
lead to their extinction.
Extinction - which means that certain species no longer exist on the planet.
habitat -means the natural environment of a plant, animal, or another
organism.
ecosystem -means any community of living and not living things that work
together.
There are over 1,300 species in the United States that are listed as threatened
or endangered. endangered species are those considered to be at risk of
extinction.
The ozone layer - a belt of naturally occurring ozone gas that sits above the
earth and serves as a shield from the harmful ultraviolet radiation. Unlike
pollution, which has many types and causes, the
ozone layer depletion (gradual thinning of Earth's ozone layer in the upper atmosphere)
has been considered as one major human activity.
Another popular word when we talk about environment is contamination.
Many people use it as a synonym of pollution, which is not completely
correct.
Contamination is the presence of unwanted or foreign substances.
Contamination may be natural whilst pollution is produced by the influence
or activities of people. Contamination of the fields could happen through
overuse or misuse of pesticides. Pesticides are chemicals that kill or manage
pests.
Landfill. Landfill is an area of land that is used to dispose of waste.
The purpose of a landfill is to bury the waste in a way that it will be isolated
from groundwater, kept dry, and out of contact with air. Each country has a
policy for landfills.
Wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy could be the fastest
growing power sources over the next few decades.
Tidal energy is a power produced by the surge of ocean waters during the
rise and fall of tides.
Wind turbines are an affordable, efficient, and abundant source of
electricity. Some companies have embraced solar panels to improve their
environmental profiles and to cut their operational costs.
But unfortunately fossil fuels still play a dominant role on the market. So
another new word here is fossil fuels. Basically they are sources of energy in
the form of remains of dead plants and animals. Sounds scary? Well, they
developed over millions of years and are now available as coal, oil, and
natural gas.
climate change - changes in the Earth's weather patterns;
acid rain - rain that contains dangerous chemicals because of smoke from
cars and factories;
industrial waste - damaged, defective, or superfluous material produced by
undustry;
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urbanization - the process by which towns and cities are formed and become
larger as more and
more people begin living and working in central areas;
environmentalist / environmental activist - a person who works to protect
the natural world from
pollution and other threats;
natural disaster - a sudden and terrible event in nature (such as a hurricane,
tornado, or flood) that usually results in serious damage and many deaths;
fertilizers - a substance that is added to soil to help the growth of plants;
rainforest - a tropical forest that receives a lot of rain and that has very tall
trees;
chemicals - substances obtained by a chemical process or producing a
chemical effect;
sustainable agriculture - is the act of farming based on an understanding of
ecosystem services, the
study of relationships between organisms and their environment; adverse
environmental effects - abnormal, harmful, or undesirable impact on
environment;
climate change mitigation - consists of actions to limit the magnitude or rate
of long-term climate change
emissions - substances discharged into the air (as by a smokestack or an
automobile engine)
exhaust fumes - gases ejected from an engine as waste products;
to conserve energy - use energy carefully in order to prevent loss or waste;
toxic – containing poisonous substances;
to recycle - to send (used newspapers, bottles, cans, etc.) to a place where
they are made into something new;
the 3 Rs concept: reducing, reusing, recycling
