1. What measures would you take on governmental level?
2. What acts would you take on the level of the Academy of Sciences?
3. What first steps would you take if you were the head of the scientific team dealing with the problem?
• Read the passage, think a little and answer the questions above.
PRESSING PROBLEMS
Atmospheric pollution raises problems of several types. First, there are local problems due to the production of smoke and offensive gases by factories. Secondly, there are regional problems created by industrial agglomerations which may spread the same harmful effects over whole areas. Thirdly, there are some types of pollution, such as those arising from nuclear explosives, which cover a considerable portion of the globe. And lastly, there appeared one more type of pollution which is threatening the globe as a whole.
Recent scientific research suggests that the protective layer of ozone around our planet is under severe attack. Alarm bells were sounded in 1982 when researchers in the Antarctic first identified a yawning (зияющий) hole over the Antarctic where the ozone layer is thinnest.
This was the first sign of a hole. Five years later it was reported that the hole had grown to an area the size of the United States.
The major cause of this weakening of the ozone layer is believed to be the increasing amount of harmful chemicals that arc being released into the atmosphere by humankind.
Environmentalists and scientists point out that a further one per cent drop in the overall ozone layer can cause an increase of skin cancer.
The fundamental importance of the ozone layer is that it acts as a filter intercepting most of the sun's radiation including potentially harmful Ultra Violet B-rays which can cause melanoma — skin cancer.
The appearance of the Antarctic hole has intensified the search for a cause. Strong evidence now suggests that it is the growing industrial use of chlorine compounds called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which is responsible.
CFC is a propellent (движущая сила) gas commonly used in aerosol sprays, air cooling systems in fridges (холодильник) and air-conditioning. Once released CFC can hang around in the atmosphere for 100 years. Some eventually reaches the upper atmosphere to be broken down by the sunlight. In the process chlorine is released which combines with oxygen atoms thus reducing the amount available for ozone production.
According to measurements recorded by the US Environmental Protection Agency one chlorine atom has enough kinetic energy to destroy 100,000 molecules of ozone. US space agency NASA has predicted that a rise of 2.5 percent in CFC emissions would cause an extra one million cancers over the lifetime of the present US population.
Researchers suggest that the level of CFCs in the atmosphere is actually increasing by 5 percent each year. Since 1969 the ozone level has fallen by 3 per cent over the densely populated cities of the US, Canada and Europe and by 4 percent over Australia and New Zealand.
In its "worst prediction scenario" NASA claims that an ever-thinning ozone layer could eventually allow a more harmful form of radiation, known as Ultra
Violet С, to hit the earth. Laboratory experiments have shown that Ultra Violet С can penetrate cells in the body and irreparably damage the nucleic acids and proteins which are the building blocks of life.
There is the need for an international agreement that would completely stop CFC production.
• Answer the following questions.
1. How many types of problems arise in the atmospheric pollution control?
2. Are all of the effects equally dangerous and harmful?
3. Which one is the most serious and why?
4. How do environmentalists explain the ozone layer thinning?