Part Three

PART THREE
Survive and Thrive
163
3.1 Anticipating the Issue
How do you understand the title?
What problems do you think will be raised in this unit?
Are you concerned about pollution and the environment? To
put it another way, how green are you?
3.2 Raise the Issue

What do you know about endangered species?
3.2 A Words in Context
1. Tick the word closest in meaning to that of the each

boldfaced word. Use the context of the sentences to help you
figure out each words meaning.
accelerate (v) The sun has an adverse effect on the skin. It

accelerates the aging of the skin, resulting in
more wrinkles at a younger age, and can also
cause skin cancer, which can be lethal.
Accelerate means a. slow down b. keep pace c. speed up
advent (n) The advent of Euro redefined Europe.

Advent means a. introduction b. end c. change
annihilation (n) Indiscriminate usage of non-renewable

resources is certain to cause annihilation of
mankind.
Annihilation means a. destruction b. progress c. status-quo
demise (n) Many scientists voice their anxiety about

irreparable damage of the economic progress
to the environment claiming that it entails
inevitable demise of various species.
Demise means a. proliferation b. death c. bringing-up
164
derive (v) We derive plastics from oil. As a result, when
prices go up, so do the prices of plastic
products.
Derive means a. recognize b. get c. want
doom (n) Biologists predict doom for the whole

mankind unless each of us cares more about
the survival of our planet.
Doom means a. revival b. beginning c. failure
extinct (adj) Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of
years.
Extinct means a. no longer existing b. unique c. strong
havoc (n) Winter storms continued to wreak havoc for

drivers.
Havoc means a. pleasure b. confusion c. idea
impending (adj) Just before the flood, I had a sense of

impending disaster; I could tell that
something bad was going to happen.
Impending means a. approaching b. important c. confusing
portend (v) There was a chain of strange events that

portended some great disaster.
Portend means a. prevent b. be a sign of c. appear
schizophrenic (adj) If you have a schizophrenic attitude toward a

problem, it means that you quickly change
opinions about it or attitudes to it.
Schizophrenic means a. confident b. stable c. changing
somber (adj) Scientists usually make somber predictions

about the future of the human race.
Somber means a. gloomy b. happy c. optimistic
165
2. Write the word next to its definition. The sentences in the
previous exercise will help you decide on the meaning of each
word.
. Receive from a source, get

. The end of smth that used to exist, death
. Complete and easy destruction
. Be a sign of
. The introduction of smth
. No longer in existence
. Dark in color, especially grey or black
. Speed up
. Frequently and suddenly changing opinions
and attitudes, unreasonable
. About to happen; imminent
. A bad event, which cannot be avoided
. A situation in which there is a lot of confusion
and damage
3. Using the answer line provided, complete each item below

with the correct word from the box. Use each word once.
Demise, somber, havoc, doom, portend, extinct, impending,

annihilation, accelerating, advent, derive, schizophrenic
Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, man's first

clash with nature may have begun. Historians and philosophers
agree that since the . of agriculture, human beings have
had an effect on the natural habitat of many plant and animal
species. As human populations have increased, so has the
of other living things: As many as 6,000 species are disappearing
each year from deforestation, a number 10,000 times greater than
before man appeared on the planet. In one day alone, say scientists,
166
some 45 kinds of plants and animals will die. One year alone brings
. of some 17,500 species.
In 1977, the United States Congress took an important step to
help the ever-increasing number of endangered species; it passed a
law known as the Endangered Species Act. Through this law, the
government officially recognizes the right of all species to share life
on the planet. The law mandates protection for "endangered
species," those that may become., and "threatened
species," those likely to become endangered in the near future. The
act has already helped to save the grey wolf, the bald eagle, and the
alligator from extinction. At the same time, the act has been
powerful in altering or stopping many plans for land construction
and development. For example, a highway-widening project in
Illinois was rerouted in order to protect a rare plant, the prairie bush
clover. The construction of a dam was stopped in Tennessee to
protect a tiny endangered snail.
With the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, some
species have gained more public recognition than others. Pressure
groups have pushed to protect those endangered animals that people
love and adore. Elephants, whooping cranes, whales, and the spotted
owl, for example, have received far more media attention than have
the smaller, less known, and less attractive species that are also
endangered. Of the 676 native American species that are threatened,
only 24 or so have received attention; yet, it is the tiny species, such
as bugs and bacteria, that keep the planet in balance, preventing the
possibility of... Scientists are becoming ever more concerned
with the fact that without equal concern for these species, the
planets biological diversity will be destroyed, leaving us with a loss
of potential new foods and drugs. Their forecast for the future of
this planet is a .one.
On the other hand, some scientists argue that the extinction
issue is being exaggerated, and that people are "crying wolf by
describing the loss of species as more alarming than it really is.
They .. their arguments from history, which proves that
every species will eventually become extinct. They argue that
conservationist-scientists may be overselling their case by creating
167
fears of... Evolution of species, they say, naturally involves
the extinction of species; man has no control.
In addition, many people point to the fact that the world is
already lacking in resources, food, and adequate health care.
Concerned more with economic survival, they ask whether it is, in
fact, realistic to make a fuss over saving the elephant or other
species that may become extinct many years from now, when people
have families to feed tomorrow. They say that saving endangered
species .. somewhat .. attitude to the problem
as it interferes with or contradicts human goals. These people
question a law that puts the continuance of lower forms of life
above mans own survival.
While the debate continues over how much effort should be
made to save species from extinction, the addition of more species
on the endangered species list at ever-. speed
is., and many loggers, real estate developers, ranchers, and
shrimpers find decreasing opportunities to make a living.
4. Summarize the issue presented in the text.
1. The issue (state in your own words):

2. Proponents' (of saving endangered species) arguments:
3. Opponents' (of saving endangered species) arguments:
3.2 B. Listening and Watching
Listen to Jim Trefils commentary.

1. Check the statement that summarizes the commentator's
viewpoint.
1. Because of man, many living things have become extinct.

2. The dangers of extinction may not be as serious as they are made
out to be.
3. The extinction rate today is much more serious than it was in the
past.
2. Read the following questions and answers. Listen to the
commentary again and circle the best answer.
168
1. What will be the consequence of a new dam in the
Amazon?
a. The Amazon will start to dry up.
b. Trees will die.
c. Endangered species will be saved.
2. Which of the following issues are Jim Trefils colleagues
concerned about?
a. Animals are being destroyed faster than plants.
b. Tropical rain forests cannot be reproduced.
c. Mankind contributes to the death of animals and plants.
3. How does Jim Trefil react to his colleagues' arguments?
a. With concern because of his family.
b. In two different ways.
c. He has started to cut more trees.
4. What conclusion does he reach about the dangers of
extinction?
a. He is disturbed by the exaggeration.
b. He worries that people are not concerned about them.
c. He is afraid that the situation is worse than it seems.
5. How does Trefil explain the death of species?
a. The death of species is no different than that of humans.
b. The death of species was rare 600 million years ago.
c. Governments haven't done enough to prevent the death of
species.
6. How does Trefil view the current rate of extinction?
a. It is impossible to compare it with the past.
b. He says no one thinks it is severe.
c. He is skeptical of the warnings about it.
7. What problem does Trefil have with the word "species"?
a. No spectacular species are considered endangered.
b. Most people are only interested in saving well-known
species.
c. All beetles are counted as one species.
8. Why might people stop listening to scientists?
a. They haven't been honest about the real extinction issue.
169
b. They are more concerned about the extinction of bugs than
the extinction of large animals.
c. They cannot make objective decisions about extinction.
3. For discussion
What is your reaction to the Endangered Species Act? Where do

you stand in the debate between saving species from extinction and
allowing man to develop?
Is there an issue of endangered species in Russia? What opinion
do you have toward the official policies, if there are any, on
endangered species?
3.2 C. Live and Let the Others Live

What is necessary for the survival of the humankind? Is it
possible without the survival of the other species on our planet?
1. Read the article
All Creatures Great and Dying
Based on the article by Jon Bowermaster1
Ever since man came busting out of the last Ice Age 11,000
years ago, armed with sharpened sticks, traps, and snares, he has
had a nasty habit of wreaking havoc on plants and animals.
Occasionally the annihilation was unintentional, as when
predators were introduced by early explorers to remote locales
such as the dodo on the island of Mauritius. More often, man was
merely making room for one thing: himself. The first time he swept
across North America, man wiped out saber-tooth cats, mastodons,
mammoths, huge ground sloths, short-faced bears, and dire wolves.
Centuries later, when the British colonists came ashore in South
Carolina, they found, according to one account, "endless Numbers
1
From Rolling Stone, May 3, 1990, By Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. 1992.
170
of Panthers, Tigers, Wolves, and other Beasts of Prey." Needless to
say, the newcomers wasted little time in wasting them, too. The
winning of the West that followed included the butchering of the
buffalo, along with varieties of grizzly bears, wolves, foxes, and
cougars.
By the late nineteenth century, with the advent of industrial
technology and modern farming, man's weapons of choice in his
continuing war against nature had become more sophisticated.
Today parking lots, pesticides, waste dumps, and industrial pollu-
tants of all stripes are the new spears, though the victims remain the
same plants, animals, and their homes. Grasslands and wetlands
are increasingly replaced by subdivisions and malls. Trees and lakes
are poisoned by acid rain. Tropical forests are slashed and burned at
the rate of 100 acres a minute. As population density soars from
South America to Southeast Asia, economic might continues to
overrule ecologic right. Since 1900, Africa's wildlife population has
declined by more than seventy percent as the human population has
grown six-fold.
The number of wildlife extinctions and endangered species is
mind-boggling. In the early twentieth century, the earth was losing
one species a year; today, it's one species a day400 times the
natural rate. By comparison, it's estimated that dinosaur species died
off at a rate of one every 1,000 years. By the middle of the next cen-
tury, according to the Nature Conservancy, one-half of all the earth's
present species may be lost, largely as a result of man's greed, cruel-
ty, and vanity.
In the United States alone, there are 565 animals on the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service's list of endangered species; outside the
U.S., the projected figure is 508. Calculating the number of
endangered plants and invertebrates is difficult. On one hectare of
any rain forest live countless species of plants and insects that exist
nowhere else; if that hectare of hardwood is razed whether to
make cardboard packing boxes for VCRs or disposable chopsticks
the species are gone forever. Some estimates of endangered plants
and invertebrates run as high as 40,000.
One school of biological theorists contends that extinction is
evolutionary, arguing that we all have to go sometime. But there's a
171
big difference between natural and unnatural death. Already the
Tasmanian wolf, the laughing owls of New Zealand, the Caribbean
monk seals, and many more are history. And while there are some
efforts underway to rescue a handful of speciesin the U.S., for ex-
ample, a number of zoos have had success breeding and bringing
back such species as condors, ferrets, and Siberian tigersthey
represent a drop in the bucket, particularly at a time when only
thirty Spanish lynxes and thirty Western swamp tortoises remain,
and when entire species of insects are vacated every day. While
much of the public handwringing over (and Hollywood fund-raisers
on behalf of) endangered species is done in the name of the
"glamour" animalslike blue whales and bald eagles (which are
actually staging a comeback of sorts, after a twenty-year, $35
million campaign)the unparalleled horror of today's carnage lies
more in the sheer number of plants that are disappearing.
When the dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago,
flowering plants survived. Today dozens are being eradicated
weekly, many before they can even be named or studied. The
tragedy in their extinction is that many hold potential cures for
everything from cancer to AIDS. Thirty-five percent of the
pharmaceuticals in use in America today contain ingredients
originally derived from wild plants. The Madagascar periwinkle, for
example, is a key ingredient in curing lymphatic leukemia, the
South American ipecac is used to treat amoebic dysentery; hormone
medicines like cortisone and diosgenin (the active ingredient in birth
control pills) were developed from wild yams; the heart medicine
strophanthin comes from a wild West African vine.
But aren't there plenty of shrubs and vines to go around?
Who's going to miss an odd thousand or so of the 30 million
different kinds of insects that crawl the face of the earth? Certainly
evolution will continue even as we pave and pollute the planet.
Unfortunately, as man's technology weeds out the survivors in the
plant and animal world, those that will thrive are hardly the most
biologically diverse, or necessarily the most beneficial. Cock-
roaches, rats, raccoons, bats, and weeds are far from endangered.
What is wrong with the current rate of extinction is its chilling
acceleration. According to the World Wildlife Fund, thousands of
172
existing species may be extinct by the end of this century. Such
extreme dying-off portends the disruption of widespread, complex
habitats, key players in the planet's ecological balance. With more
and more of those players missing in action, such essentials as clean
air and water, productive soil, and many harvestable products will
increasingly be things of the past. And extinction only breeds more,
and faster, extinction.
One especially frightening aspect of the endangerment to wild
plants and animals is not what we know for a certainty will happen
but what we cannot predict. Our knowledge of earth's biological
fabric and its mysteries is, at best, incomplete, uneven. Thus the
consequence of man's continued alteration of nature's diversity
cannot be forecast with any real degree of accuracy. It is the
unknown that has even the experts scared stiff.
2. Find the words meaning the same in text.
complete destruction, great power, causing damage, medicinal

drugs, thoughtless killing, worrying, complexes of stores, 10,000
square meters, insignificant amount, short woody stemmed trees,
eliminates, is a sign of, became extinct, grow strong and healthy,
cut, leveled to the ground, innumerable, removed, shocking,
destroyed, no longer in existence, capable of being cut and used,
hard to believe.
3. Match the words that collocate.
1. make your skin a. to the bone

2. wreak b. and mighty
3. high c. competition
4. stiff d. havoc
5. chilled e. crawl
4. In developing critical thinking skills, it is necessary to

distinguish facts from opinions. In Bowermaster's article, both
facts and opinions are used to support the author's main idea.
173
Read the following statements and decide whether they are facts
or opinions
1. Ever since man came busting out of the last ice age 11,000 years
ago, armed with sharpened sticks, traps, and snares, he has had a
nasty habit of wreaking havoc on plants and animals.
2. The first time he swept across North America, man wiped out
saber-toothed cats, mastodons, mammoths, huge ground sloths,
short-faced bears, and dire wolves.
3. Needless to say, the newcomers wasted little time in wasting
them, too.
4. The winning of the West that followed included the butchering of
the buffalo, along with varieties of bears, wolves, foxes, and
cougars.
5. Tropical forests are slashed and burned at the rate of 100 acres a
minute.
6. By the middle of the next century, according to the Nature
Conservancy, one-half of all the earth's present species may be lost,
largely as a result of mans greed, cruelty, and vanity.
7. On one hectare of any rain forest live countless species of plants
and insects that exist nowhere else.
8. But there's a big difference between natural and unnatural death.
9. Already the Tasmanian wolf, the laughing owls of New Zealand,
the Caribbean monk seals, and many more are history.
10. While much of the public handwringing over ... endangered
species is done in the name of the "glamour" animalslike blue
whales and bald eagles . . . the unparalleled horror of today's
carnage lies more in the sheer number of plants that are
disappearing.
11. When dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago, flowering
plants survived.
12. Unfortunately, as man's technology weeds out the survivors in
the plant and animal world, those that will thrive are hardly the most
biologically diverse, or necessarily the most beneficial.
13. What is wrong with the current rate of extinction is its chilling
acceleration.
174
4. Authors can have different viewpoints, but their opinions
can sometimes be similar. Read the statements below and say
whether Trefil and or Bowermaster would agree with them.
Mankind is primarily responsible for the destruction of other

living things.
It is best to examine the arguments of extinction like a scientist,
without feelings.
The death of a species is part of life.
Too much attention has been paid to the cute, attractive animals
that are endangered rather than the less attractive species that are
most endangered
The media needs to give more attention to the extinction of
species.
It's hard to be concerned about the extinction of species we've
never seen or never knew existed.
No one really knows how dangerous the situation for animals and
plants is.
Man's survival on this planet is of most importance in the
extinction question.
5. After you have distinguished the opinions of the

commentator and the author, express your own opinions on the
above statements.
3.2 D. Vocabulary in Focus

1. All Creatures Great and Dying is an allusion to Biblical
all creatures great and small.
Allusion is a figure of style indirectly referring to some famous

phenomenon, person, statement etc.
Study the following allusions.

Achilles heel vulnerable spot or weak point. (Thesis dipped her
son Achilles in the river Styx, making him invulnerable, except in
175
the heel by which she held on to him. That is the spot where he was
mortally wounded by an arrow.)
Armageddon - vast, decisive battle. The Bible prophesies that the
final battle between the forces of good and evil will take place
before the end of the world at a place called Armageddon.)
Catch-22 - a complex situation impossible to escape from as each
part of the problem should be dealt with first. (From the title of the
novel by the US writer Joseph Heller, first published in 1962. The
novel is about a group of people in the US air force who find
themselves in a number of funny situations caused by silly military
rules.)
Crocodile tears - false tears, insincere show of grief (It used to be
believed that crocodiles shed tears while devouring (to eat sth
quickly because you are very hungry) their victims.)
Cross Rubicon - take a decisive, irrevocable step. (In 49 B.C.,
Caesars enemies ordered him to return from his conquests without
his army. Caesar knew that to cross the Rubicon River with his army
would be to invade Roman soil and start a civil war a step from
which there was no going back, but he took that gamble.)
Cry wolf - give a false alarm. (This is an allusion to the fable in
which a shepherd boy cries the alarm wolf as a joke.)
Dog in the manger - a person, preventing others from using what he
doesnt need. (A dog in one of Aesops fables positioned himself in
a manger [feed box for cattle] and prevented an ox from eating hay.)
Freudian slip - slip of the tongue by which it is thought person
unintentionally reveals his true feelings
Manna from the heaven - sth you need very much and get very
unexpectedly. (According to the Bible, the food that god gave to the
Israelites in the desert after they had escaped from Egypt.)
Midas touch - talent for making money in any enterprise. ( Midas,
mythical king of Phrygia, had the power of turning everything he
touched into gold.)
Murphys law satirical maxim stating that if anything can go
wrong it will.
Pandoras box - source of extensive unforeseen troubles. (Beautiful
Pandora, the first mortal woman according to Greek mythology,
176
received a box she was forbidden to open, but she did, releasing all
the ills that have since plagued the world.)
Parkinsons law satirical maxim about the lack of productivity,
stating that work expands to fill the time available for its
completion; also that the number of subordinates increase regardless
of the amount of work produced.)
Pyrrhic victory - victory achieved at ruinous cost. (Pyrrhus, king of
Epirus, sustained unacceptably high losses in defeating the Romans
at Asculum in 279 B.C.)
Sour grapes - criticism of sth that you cant have, caused by
annoyance. (A fox in one Aesops fables, frustrated in his efforts to
reach some grapes, tried to save face by saying that they were sour.)
Voice in the wilderness - sb whose suggestions are ignored
2. Match the following allusions with their meaning.
Achilles heel sth you need very much and get very
unexpectedly
Armageddon sb whose suggestions are ignored
Catch-22 vulnerable spot or weak point
Crocodile tears talent for making money in any
enterprise
Cross Rubicon source of extensive unforeseen troubles
Cry wolf if anything can go wrong it will
Dog in the manger vast, decisive battle
Freudian slip false tears, insincere show of grief
Manna from the heaven a person, preventing others from using
what he doesnt need
Midas touch give a false alarm
Murphys law victory achieved at ruinous cost
Pandoras box criticism of sth that you cant have,
caused by annoyance
Parkinsons law slip of the tongue by which person
reveals his true feelings
Pyrrhic victory lack of productivity
Sour grapes take a decisive, irrevocable step
Voice in the wilderness a complex situation impossible to escape
177
from as each part of the problem should
be dealt with first
3. Replace the italicized words with one of the discussed

allusions.
1. I am not good at putting on a false show of grief.

2. The company was faced with two difficult alternatives, neither of
which they could avoid without subjecting themselves to the other.
3. Both companies suffered great losses in their vast, decisive battle
for the share of the market.
4. My colleague purposely extended his using of the phone directory
seeing that I was in desperate need of it. It is hard to work with a
person who prevents others from using what he doesnt need.
5. Whenever I invest, I lose. I dont have the talent for making
money.
6. Ecologists calls for the necessity of recycling seem to be
ignored.
4. Use allusions from the list above no more than once in

completing the sentences below.
1. The only field in which our company is vulnerable is developing

environmentally friendly technology. Its our ...
2. Most people hope that the demise of human species can be
averted, but some are sure .. is at hand.
3. The first fitting room was closed, so we went to the other, where a
sign said: Closed. Use the other fitting room. It was a
.. situation.
4. The experience of regret at the party for the retiring executive
were .. The staff was glad to be rid of him.
5. The company when they signed the
agreement on cooperation in environment protection with their
former rivals for the share in the market.
6. Those who .. about the extinction of the species such
as bacteria or bugs may find people will not be concerned when the
situation is truly serious.
178
7. Why not let one of the standees sit in the vacant seat next to you?
Surely you dont want to be a .
8. In accepting the Oscar, she made a .: instead of
saying I couldnt have done it all without you, she said I could
have done without all of you.
9. Few of my investments are doing well, but every one of hers
shows a handsome profit. She has the...
10. The mayors advisers opposed a public hearing, warning that it
could be a ., and the mayor later regretted that he
had not listened to them.
11. Despite .the clerical staff completed its work
by 3.30, though they easily could have stretched it out to 5 p.m.
12. We won the game but lost our star forward for the rest of the
season; it was a.
13. When she didnt get the promotion, she said it would really have
been a demotion for her. Is this the truth, or just?
14. The environmentalists constant warnings about the inevitability
of a doom unless we change out attitude to our habitat are mostly
ignored. They are just a .
15. My financial situation was really awful so unexpected proposal
of writing a new book with impressive royalty was akin
to.
5. Choose the word that best completes each of the

sentences.
1. Many species of animals and plants today are..

Dangerous endangered precarious risky under danger
2. The indiscriminate use of pesticides has many rare
species.
Abolished cancelled devastated postponed vanished wiped out
3. Modern farm animals and crops are the result of centuries of
selective.
Breeding cultivation education mating reproduction
4. It took a long time for the theory of evolution to be..
Absorbed acknowledged accepted tolerated
179
5. Much of our knowledge about evolution comes from the study of
.
Artefacts fossils relics ruins tracks
6. My friend is a keen amateur..
Natural historian naturalist naturist nationalist
7. One of the effects of acid rain as that it causes plants to ...
Contract flourish shrink thrive wither
8. Waste paper can be . instead of being burnt.
Decomposed incinerated recycled revamped
9. There are over 850 000 named .. of insects on this planet.
Colonies families species styles varieties
10. Squirrels and rabbits are . little creatures.
Amiable courteous delicious elegant endearing extravagant fierce
6. Explain the meaning of the following animal idioms and

use them in the sentences, change the form if necessary.
Like water off a ducks back

There is something fishy going on
A bee in the bonnet
Fight like cat and dog
Dark horse
1. He has got . about using only recycled

goods.
2. You should have been at the meeting yesterday. There was a
terrible fight between the proponents and opponents of the
Endangered Species Act. They ..
3. You have to get used to criticism in this job. It doesnt bother me
now. Its .
4. Nobody really knows much about a new secretary for the
environmental protection. He is a in the new
cabinet.
5. Why are they having all those secret meetings behind closed
doors? -
180
7. Sometimes words look very similar though they have little
if anything in common. Study the following pairs (groups) and
choose the word which best completes the sentences. Change the
form when necessary.
Avert / overt
a. The tragedy could have been _____ if the crew had followed
safety procedure.
b. Sometimes ______ racism is easier to deal with than the hidden
kind. You can better fight what is put in the open.
Pervasive/ perverse
a. Many people are exaggerating the ________ influence of
television.
b. He gets some kind of _______satisfaction from embarrassing
people.
Compliment/ complement
a. The white silk of her blouse ________her olive skin perfectly.
b. Bob _______ me on my new hairstyle.
Eminent/imminent
a. The company is now in __________ danger of collapse.
b. Consulting an _______ lawyer can be pricey but neglecting the
necessity of it can bring about a full-blown crisis.
Blend/ bland/ blunt

a. Mexicans, accustomed to hot and spicy foods, often find
American dishes _______ by comparison.
b. My best friend is so _______ that he never softens the truth. He
always states his opinion in a painfully straightforward way.
c. The aroma of woodsmoke _________with the smell of cooking.
181
3.2 E. Creative Consolidation
1. Make a synthetic review of Bowermasters article and Trefils

commentary, supporting it with the information derived from
other sources.
2. Write an essay Economic might vs. Ecologic right.
3.3 Raise the Issue
What is sustained development? What are its preconditions?
3.3 A. Sustainability
What can the results of the neglectful attitude to the

sustainability on the part of the society be?
1. Read the text paying special attention to the terms in bold

and explain them.
We are all in the same boat, so you shouldnt turn a blind eye
to the ecological problems in the most distant parts of the globe as
the fragile ecological balance could be disrupted and repercussions
could be far-reaching.
Sustainability is the idea that the economy should be organized
in ways that can be continued without causing irreversible damage
to the environment or depletion of natural resources, so that the
ability of the planet to reproduce and support life can be sustained.
Businesses should be run not for short-term profit, but in a
way that takes account of the long-term interests of the society and
the environment.
Developing countries are trying to attain living standards of
the industrialized world. Some scientists warn that the worlds
natural resources are not sufficient for it. Others argue that
renewable, non-polluting energy resources such as wind power
182
will allow further economic growth without causing damage to the
environment. Probably nuclear energy still has a role to play.
For any economy its essential to manage natural resources
efficiently. For example, deep-sea fishing has to be done in a way
that maintains fish stocks and avoids overfishing. Ideally, those
engaged in logging that causes deforestation should have an
incentive to maintain future timber stocks through reafforestation.
These industries should be run in ways that are sustainable in
ways that maintain resources that they rely on.
Today companies are more concerned with environmental or
green issues. Thats why some of them try to greenwash to give a
more favorable impression than is justified by the real facts.
2. Complete the sentences with the terms from the previous

exercise.
1. Illegal could accelerate degradation or even cause

, which has affected more than 9.8 million acres of
forest in the past 30 years.
2. Fishermen are being encouraged to catch alternative fish species
because has caused . of the stocks to near-
collapse.
3. The countrys society is maturing and adopting a model of
economic development that balances economic growth, social
justice and the use of .
4. They accuse multinational companies of . polishing
up their images on environmental issues with brochures and
advertising campaigns.
5. Many politicians are keen to revive research into renewable
like solar and wave power.
3.3 B Words in Context

183
belligerent (adj) Usually peaceful and gentle Esteban becomes
belligerent whenever the question of animal
extinction arises.
Belligerent means a. overly casual b. quarrelsome c. confused
commensurate (adj) The developers who endangered the local

water supply by dumping poisonous wastes in
the landfill did not get a punishment that was
commensurate with their reprehensible act:
they had to pay only a small fine.
Commensurate means a. essential b. delayed c. consistent
dissipate (v) After twenty minutes of meditation, I find that

the stresses of my day have dissipated, and I
am relaxed enough to enjoy the evening.
Dissipate means a. blend b. scatter c. assemble
imperative (adj) Its imperative to help people learn more

about environment protection.
Imperative means a. impossible b. difficult c. essential
integral (adj) Careful attitude to natural resources is an

integral part of sustained development.
Integral means a. essential b. very small c. predicted
mitigate (v) Ecology-friendly approach to farming

includes actions to mitigate grievous effects
of indiscriminate usage of pesticides for the
environment.
Mitigate means a. relieve b. worsen c. reveal
nonchalant (adj) Saras calm, casual style seems to be an

inherent part of her personality. She remains
nonchalant in tense situations that would
make most people distraught.
Nonchalant means a. coolly unconcerned b. anxious c. angry
184
noxious (adj) The entire office building had to be evacuated
when noxious fumes started coming out of
the air vents and dozens of workers got sick.
Noxious means a. potential b. unhealthy c. impossible
subversive (adj) For the Green Party supporters logging of

forests is a subversive act.
Subversive means a. faithful b. blameless c. destroying
unprecedented (adj) Recent period has been marked by

unprecedented growth of environmental
awareness, which has caused a greater
demand for recycled paper.
Unprecedented means a. unheard-of b. unprejudiced
c. controversial
utilitarian (adj) In deciding which over-the-counter medicine

to take, its important to use a utilitarian
approach. Choose a drug for the specific
purpose it serves, and dont rely on any one
drug as a panacea.
Utilitarian means a. unique b. practical c. expensive
vindicate (v) People falsely accused of crimes often have to

spend a great deal of money on legal fees in
order to vindicate themselves.
Vindicate means a. prove innocent b. make a commitment
c. weaken
yen (n) While the word yen can refer to a strong

desire for anything, to many people it has the
specific connotation of a sharp longing for a
particular food.
Yen means a. longing b. disapproval c. memory
185
word.
Necessary or belonging to the whole

Harmful to life or health; poisonous
Made or intended for practical use; stressing
usefulness over beauty or other considerations
Acting or intended to overthrow or destroy
something established
To clear from blame or suspicion; justify or
prove right
Corresponding in degree, number, or size
A strong desire, craving
Quick or eager to argue or fight; hostile;
aggressive
To thin out or scatter and gradually vanish;
drive away
Necessary; urgent
Calm; carefree, and casually unconcerned
Being the first instance of something, never
having occurred before
To make less severe or less intense; relieve

Commensurate, nonchalant, dissipating, integral, yen, noxious,

imperative, mitigate, utilitarian, unprecedented, subversive,
vindicate, belligerent
Indoor pollution
Since the early 80-s of the previous century we have been (1)
. about ecology being only too aware of the devastating
186
effects of (2) scale of environmental pollution. Both
developing and industrialized countries alike are deplored for their
short-sighted, selfish and quite often (3) policies. The
situation is exacerbated by the fact that not all the pollution is on
grand scale. A large proportion of it has its sources close to our
homes. Severely (4) ..fumes hung over our towns and
cities for days. Staying at home with a view to (5) .. the
danger and avoiding pollution however isnt a panacea. A growing
body of scientific evidence proves that levels of pollutants such as
hazardous gases, particulate matters and others are usually higher
indoors than out, even in the most polluted cities. Since most people
spend 18 hours indoors for every hour outside, it looks as though
many environmentalists lack (6). approach attacking
the wrong target of outdoor pollution. We can try to (7) ..
ourselves saying that our (8)for cleanliness is an (9)
.part of our day to day existence. However we should
remember that researches found that baths, showers, dishwashers
and washing machines can all be significant sources of indoor
pollution, because they extract trace amounts of chemicals from the
water that we use and transfer them to the air, which is hardly (10)
. with the key objective of avoiding detrimental
effects of pollution on our health.
Many people are so concerned about water-borne pollutants
that they drink only bottled water, worldwide sales of which have
exceeded $70 billion. However they should not become (11)
after these precautions as the degree of exposure to
toxic chemicals in tap water by inhalation is comparable to the
exposure that would result from drinking the stuff.
Other examples include inadequate ventilation of overcrowded
rooms containing levels of carbon dioxide which would be regarded
as unacceptable on board a submarine, or new car smell which is
the result of high levels of toxic chemicals, not cleanliness. And
certainly laser printers, computers, carpets and paints dont (12)
the situation but only contribute to the noxious indoor
mix.
In this context it seems that disproportionate effort is wasted
campaigning against certain forms of outdoor pollution, when there
187
is as much or more concern indoors. Its (13) .. to bring
a new sense of perspective to the debate about pollution.
3.3 C. Economics and Ecology
1. Read the article.
Dirty Work Ahead2
Environmental pollution is one of the major hazards facing the

world in the current decade. The industrialized nations have for
years been burning fossil fuels to provide energy as consumer
demand has gradually increased. As Third World countries develop,
they are likely to continue this trend. But the emissions from power
stations and the burning of wood from forests lead to the buildup of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the main
gases contributing to the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the
ozone layer, the layer of the atmosphere that protects the Earth from
the effects of harmful rays from the Sun. The so-called greenhouse
gases contribute to global warming that threatens to change the
future. Dont be fooled by that nice little name. The deadly effect of
these gases is commensurate with the lethal weapon.
At the Kyoto conference, plans were laid to tackle global
warming. But who will pay for clean air? Asian countries are
belligerent. The financial crisis made Asian countries think about
immediate survival, not of expensive new commitments to save the
world from an arguably uncertain disaster. Moreover some Asians
are suspicious that the environmental movement masks a subversive
form of "economic colonialism ". Its imperative in this context to
2
Based on Dirty Work Ahead by KAY IToi, B.J. LEE, MICHAEL LARIS,
BARBARA KOH, Newsweek, December 8, 1997,Heavy Weather: How
Procrastination and Politics Hobble Action on Climate Change by Fiona
Harvey, Financial Times, December 6, 2005, For Sale: a License to
Pollute by Leyla Boulton, Financial Times, 1996.
188
find a way to dissipate the concerns of developing countries with the
need to cut emissions within the tight timetable.
Can Asia afford to combat global warming or at least to
mitigate its consequences? Of course. In the worst case, average
annual growth rates in Asia will fall from around 7 percent to a
normal 3 or 4 percent. Whether they'll choose to afford it is another
thing.
If they don't so choose, prospects at Kyoto are grim. Under
pressure from its own industrialists and from Congress, Washington
won't cut a deal which doesn't include Asia. But in Asia itself
nations, which before the currency crisis seemed ready to agree to
tough emission controls, are now backing away. They try to
vindicate themselves alluding to their favourite argument that
environment is what people think about when they're rich.
Furthermore the factory towns of East Asia are latter-day
reflections of Pittsburgh or Essen in the 1950s, soot-darkened zones
of concentrated manufacturing might. Many officials in East Asia
say the blame lies not with them but with the West's dirty past. "Our
industrial history is too short to have made any changes in global
climate," says Cho Han Jin, an assistant director at South Korea's
Ministry of the Environment.
No one disputes that the West is largely to blame for the
existing greenhouse cover. But it's equally clear that the future
trouble lies in Asia with its unprecedented growth of carbon dioxide
production in the industrial world.
By the way countries classed as developing have no
obligation to reduce their emissions under the protocol as it stands.
A few suggestions have been proposed such as a system of
rewarding poor countries if their emissions fall below a certain
threshold but not penalizing them if they rise above it.
But the emissions of several of these countries have been
soaring in tandem with their economic growth. It is believed that it
is China that holds the key to climate change. According to
prognosis by 2020 it will have displaced the United States as the
world's leading producer of noxious greenhouse gases.
Kyoto addressed several ways to leap the funding hurdle. One
is supposed to create partnerships in which developing nations set
189
up emission-reducing projects, like natural-gas power plants, while
developed nations provide financing and technology. Another
scheme is to create a global market in emissions quotas, allowing
rich nations to meet their responsibilities by paying poor nations to
cut their pollution.
In the years after Kyoto the scientific consensus on climate
change that the warming of the earth can be traced largely to
human activity and our ever-increasing yen for more material
possessions has increased. But the political will to take actions to
reduce the output of these gases, by measures such as switching to
new sources of energy and using fuel more efficiently, appears still
to be lacking.
The implementation of the protocol has deepened the divide
between the US and the rest of the developed world which has
accepted the agreement. The European Union has toyed with the
idea of a carbon tax. The US, however, rejects the idea of new
taxation. The US supports the idea of international trading in carbon
dioxide permits, distributed to countries and companies, which
would achieve reductions as cheaply and as flexibly as possible.
Trading in emission quotas is believed to have two main advantages
over traditional environmental regulation. It gives companies a
financial incentive to reduce emissions for less than it would cost to
buy permits. And, by leaving it to companies to decide how and
when to cut emissions, it reduces not just the cost of compliance but
the bureaucracy required to enforce environmental legislation. The
country alludes to its own successful experience in this sphere to
demonstrate the workability of this scheme.
And finally, trading could prove the best mechanism for
drawing developing countries into the fight against global warming
without asking them to sacrifice their right to economic
development.
While the White House remains implacably opposed rather
than nonchalant to the Kyoto protocol, mayors across the country
are signing up to the climate-change agenda in the most utilitarian
way committing to cut the greenhouse gas emissions generated by
their own towns and cities.
190
Cutting the worlds emissions of greenhouse gases would
involve a shift away from the fossil fuels that powered the industrial
revolution and provided cheap energy for more than a century. As
this implies massive disruption at a potentially huge cost, businesses
must be at the forefront of any attempt to curb the gases. But while
some business lobbies have resisted international action on climate
change for precisely these reasons, a growing number of high-
profile companies are calling for stiffer regulation of carbon
dioxide. These businesses are seeking greater regulatory certainty
for future investment decisions. Some also have an eye to the
possibility of future legal actions by environmental groups holding
them responsible for damaging the planet.
2. Find the words in the article which mean the same.
Destruction, try to solve the problem, determination, anxiety,

soon, come to an agreement, referring to, modern, along with, to
overcome the obstacle, agreement, widen the gap, to pioneer, in the
public eye.
3. Match the words that collocate. Refer to the article if

necessary.
1. tough a. inflation
2. opportune b. the idea
3. fossil c. determination
4. lack d. warming
5. sacrifice e. fuel
6. grim f. of political will
7. ozone g. weapon
8. combat h. demand
9. lethal i. competition
10. toy with j. the right
11. consumer k. moment
12. global l. layer
191
4. Answer the following questions.
What plans were laid at the Kyoto conference?

Why are Asian countries no longer committed to the idea of
funding environment protection programs?
Can Asia afford to combat global warming?
What is the key argument of Asian reluctance to provide finance
for environmental schemes?
What are the possible ways of the solving the problem?
4. Summarize the article. Mention the history of the

question, latter-day state of affairs and possible solutions.
5. For Discussion
Who is responsible for the dreadful conditions of the planet

described in the article?
Do you think that all the countries should apportion the
blame? Who is to pay?
What other possible solutions can you think of?
3.3 D. Watching and Listening

Measuring Eco-efficiency
You will hear an interview with Marc Keiser, a researcher who

has developed a methodology and a computer program that would
allow producers to measure the environmental acceptability (or
eco-efficiency) of all manufacturing processes and all
manufactured products. For the consumer it would result in all
goods having an eco-efficiency label, expressed in a number
between 0 and 100.
1. Match the words from the first part with their

explanations.
192
disposal a general agreement about something
emissions anything (gases, liquids etc.) released into the
waste environment
consensus very short-term profits
incentive a survey of peoples opinions, using a
poll representative sample
quarterly results throwing away or getting rid of something
unwanted
something that encourages or gives a reason to
do something
something unwanted and useless, such as by-
products resulting from manufacturing processes
2. Read the four questions below and answer them after

listening to the first part of the interview.
The interview mentions three different ways in which companies

might be obliged to reduce pollution. What are they?
Marc Keiser says there are three pressure groups involved in
environmental issues. What are they?
Can any one of these groups bring about important changes?
Marc Keiser mentions, in relation to the United States, three
different areas of concern to himself and other environmentalists.
What are they?
3. Match the words from the second part of the interview

with their explanations.
free hand from the beginning to the end of existence

legal framework a numerical measure or standard
quantitative an overall structure, or plan, or outline
from cradle to grave the possibility to choose for themselves
a scale concerning the amount or number
the ultimate target final aim
4. Listen to the second part of the interview about eco-

efficiency label. And answer the questions below.
193
1. Which of the following sentences most accurately summarizes
what Marc Keiser says?
a. Companies are unconcerned about ecological efficiency.
b. Companies are willing to make some environmental
improvements, as long as the government doesnt tell them exactly
how to do it.
c. Companies are willing to make some environmental
improvements proposed by the government.
d. Companies dont want any governmental interference in
their business.
2. Keisers third model is designed to inform consumers. What does
it concern?
a. a specific production system
b. the entire existence of an individual product
c. the output of a specific production system during a certain
period of time
3. Which of the following does Keiser say?
a. Companies would have to follow regulations concerning
acceptable technologies.
b. Companies could choose whether they wanted to adopt the
eco-label system.
c. Companies would be free to produce whatever products
they like.
d. The government could still forbid the sales of products
whose eco-efficiency was below a certain level.
5. Discuss the following questions.
What do you think of the idea of an eco-efficiency label?

Would it be right for the government to oblige companies to
provide a label for all products?
Would it be difficult to control the labels that manufacturers put
on their products?
Would such a label be sufficient to reduce pollution?
194
3.3 E. Vocabulary in Focus
1. Explain the meaning of the words and phrases in bold.
Threats to the environment
Shrinking habitats are a threat to both plants and animals,

and endangered species need legal protection if they are to survive.
Meanwhile, global warming will produce rising sea levels and
climatic changes, and carbon dioxide emissions from the burning
fossil fuels are contributing to the greenhouse effect. In addition,
population growth exerts severe pressure on finite resources, and
the ecological balance may be upset by uncontrollable
deforestation. Demographic projections suggest the world
population will grow before it begins to stabilize. One of the worst
case scenarios is that there will be no tropical forests left by the
year 2050. Our only hope is that pristine environments such as
Antarctica can be protected from development and hence from
damage.
2. Make the sentences more formal using the words from the
previous exercise instead of the underlined ones. Make any other
necessary changes to produce a correct sentence.
1. All that carbon-whats-it-called gas put out by our cars and

factories is a major problem.
2. These flowers here are a type theres not many left of, so its
illegal to pick them.
3. A lot of wild animals have to survive in smaller and smaller areas
where they can live.
4. Most of Patagonia is a completely spotless area thats never been
touched.
5. We have to look after the things we use on this planet because
they wont last forever.
6. If the cutting down of trees continues, there will be no forest left
ten years from now.
7. Burning coal and oil and stuff like that causes a lot of pollution.
195
8. The sea will get higher if this heating up of the world continues.
9. Increasing population puts really big pressure on economic
resources.
10. The way things all balance one another in the nature is very
delicate.
3. Complete the sentences with the following expressions
from the box.
non-renewable resources, discharge, dispose, effluent, monitor,

carcinogenic, protection of natural environment, toxic emissions,
environmental pollution, radioactivity
1. In recent years the quest for economic growth has increasingly

come up against a concern for
the...
2. Ecologists are concerned about the consumption
of, the creation of waste, and the
pollution of the land, sea and air.
3. The scientists believe that companies should minimize
.
4. Companies should not pollute the air with
..from chimneys or with .. toxic liquids
that they .into rivers or the sea.
5. Companies should of waste in more acceptable
ways.
6. Nuclear power plants are required to levels of
radioactivity in the air and water around them, but critics say that
even minimum levels of are unacceptable.
7. Some pollutants are, causing cancer.
8. Many .people advocate imposing
stringent regulations to compel companies to limit pollution.
4. What do the words in the bold mean? Match the words

with their explanations. Answer the questions that follow.
196
Recycling
Recycling, the recovery and re-use of various materials, is an

environmentally friendly approach to using scarce resources. Not
only products should be recyclable the European Union, for
example, has regulations about the percentage content of products
and packaging that must be reused and recycled. Household and
industrial waste should also be recycled. Supporters of recycling
say that its imperative that we should stop messing up the
environment and salvage refuse. Dumping waste in landfills
cannot continue indefinitely and burning waste in incinerators is
also environmentally damaging.
a machine designed to burn things at a very high temperature in

order to destroy them;
unwanted materials or substances that are left after you have
used sth;
designed not to harm natural environment;
used materials put through a special process so that they can be
used again;
limited in number and amount;
pollute, affect in a damaging way;
to save rubbish from damage and destruction for the subsequent
recycling and re-use;
the practice of burying waste under the soil, or the waste buried
in this way, a place where this waste is buried;
the amount of substance in a container;
getting rid of sth that you no longer need in a most careless way.
Is packaging always necessary or is it just one of the sales

gimmicks?
Is excessive packaging confined only to luxuries? Give your own
examples. (For example, to get a chocolate out of a box requires a
considerable amount of unpacking)
The most popular packaging containers are made of plastic. What
is the impending threat to the environment? (The trouble with the
plastic is that it doesnt rot)
197
5. Study the following expressions and match the two parts
of the sentences containing these expressions.
To know more about environmental issues
Environmental credentials evidence that you care about

environment
Environmental degradation damage to environment
Environmental devastation severe damage to the environment
Environmental lobby pressure groups such as Greenpeace and
Friends of the Earth
Environmental standards rules that companies and government
authorities should follow in relation to the environment
1. He led a political campaign a. lobby, this type of plastic is

against the company , saying its such a dangerous substance to
oil production caused manufacture and dispose of that
environmental it should be banned.
2. According to the b. credentials, there are several
environmental household cleaning products that
will cause less damage to the
environment, but are likely to
cost slightly more.
3. If you really want to shoe your c. devastation in the area.
environmental
4. The project will boost d. standards, the amount of
Brazilian efforts to fight household waste is growing
environmental more slowly than the economy
as a whole.
5. In the richest countries with e. degradation in the Amazon
the toughest environmental basin.
198
6. Use the words in the box once each to complete the
paragraph below.
Pollution and market solutions
Verb Noun Adjective

Economize Economy Economic
Economics Economical
Economists Uneconomical
Most people today agree that we ought to be as (1)

as possible in our use of natural resources, particularly
energy, and to limit pollution to a minimum. Ecologists sometimes
argue that manufacturers should either clean up their production
processes, i.e. limit the amount of waste and emissions they
produce, or be forced to close down. Manufacturers often reply that
it is frequently (2). to clean up, and impossible if their
competitors do not face the same constraints. Furthermore, if all
polluting industries were closed down, the (3).would
simply collapse. They suggest that many ecologists are simply
ignorant or naive when it comes to (4) .. . Some (5)
suggest applying market solutions, i.e. finding a way
to give financial rewards to producers who (6) in the
use of energy, and who pollute less, and to penalize polluters, but
without the use of taxes. Many ecologists disagree, as they see
pollution as a moral issue rather than an (7). one.
3.3 F. Creative Consolidation
1. Make a synthetic review of the information in the article Dirty

Work Ahead, supporting it with the information from other
sources.
2. Write an article advocating the necessity of eco-labeling. Refer

to the interview with Marc Keiser and the practice of some
companies in this sphere.
199
3. Project-Making
Make a 350-word project on one of these issues.
Prepare a presentation of a new product which is not dangerous

for the environment, it is however more expensive because of higher
production cost.
Devise a campaign in mass media, aimed at stopping the use of
products damaging for the environment.
The role of the governments in preventing manufacturers
polluting or damaging the environment.
3.4 Raise the Issue

Pollution, scarcity of supplies and fatal diseases often top the
list of most serious challenges of the modern world. Our day-to-
day existence is however replete with dangers which are usually
underestimated. You have undoubtedly guessed right what these
dangers are stresses. Mention some of them. What do you do to
reduce their detrimental effect?
3.4 A Words in Context

derogatory (adj) Any derogatory remark let alone persistent

unforgiveness works to the detriment not just
of our spiritual well-being but our physical
health as well. Researchers say that the most
selfish thing you can do for yourself is to
forgive other people.
Derogatory means a. critical b. mistaken c. complimentary
200
denunciation (n) My mother, a zealot for exercise, is loud in
her denunciation of my indolent ways. Must
you be so sedentary? she says Dont just sit
around all the time like a lump of mashed
potatoes!
Denunciation means a. appreciation b. ignoring c. criticism
exhilaration (n) People with strong social networks of friends,

neighbors and family apt to exhilaration,
happiness and high spirits tend to be
healthier than loners.
Exhilaration means a. commitment b. liveliness c. sadness
exorbitant (adj) Malaria costs Africa exorbitant $12 billion a

year in lost output.
Exorbitant means a. convenient b. traditional c. extremely high
extricate (v) Meditation is hardly likely to extricate from

diseases but it can undoubtedly help how to
step back from pain and worries of life.
Extricate means a. get rid of b. distinguish c. excuse
macabre (adj) According to recent studies, drinking very hot

tea or coffee with milk appears to have most
macabre consequences it raises the risk of
esophageal cancer.
Macabre means a. confusing b. mocking c. gruesome
platitude (n) Whenever officials of major pharmaceutical

companies speak about fake cheaper drugs
produced by developing countries their
arguments are full of platitudes, banalities
such as We have to invest money into
expensive research. However when millions
of peoples life is at stake, nobody cares.
Platitude means a. good advice b. lie c. unoriginal remark
201
quandary (n) Developing countries quite often find
themselves in financial quandary because of
the price of medication for AIDS or malaria.
Anti-malarial insecticide can cost $5 as
much as a typical African country spends on
health care, per person, each year.
Quandary means a. state of confusion b. anger c. confidence
staunch (adj) Staunch supporters of healthy life style abide

by balanced and low-calorie diet
complemented by exhausting exercise.
Staunch means a. busy b. unsteady c. faithful
stigma (n) In the past seeing a psychiatrist might harm a

persons reputation, but now theres little or
no stigma attached to seeking help for
psychological problems.
Stigma means a. dishonor b. insight c. argument
rejuvenate(v) Although mind-body techniques havent been

shown to rejuvenate people suffering from
cancer returning them health or affect
survival rates, they do improve patients
attitudes, making life with their disease easier.
Rejuvenate means a. set free b. excite c. give new life to
validate (v) There is no real doubt about the dangers of

smoking; the claim that smoking is a serious
health risk has been validated by many
studies.
Validate means a. misinterpret b. confirm c. invent

word.
To free from a tangled situation or a difficulty
202
To make feel or seem young again
A strong expression of disapproval; an act of
condemning
Excessive, especially in amount, cost, or price
Firm, loyal; strong in support
A mark of shame or disgrace; blemish on character
or reputation
.. To show to be true; prove
. Expressing a low opinion; belittling
... A remark that is commonplace or has become
uninteresting through repeated use
Suggestive of death and decay; frightful
A state of uncertainty or confusion
Cheerfulness; high spirits

Quandary, exorbitant, stigma, macabre, rejuvenate, validate,

exhilaration, derogatory, platitude , extricate, denunciation, staunch
1. Malaria is definitely the most disease in many

countries: at least 1 mln Africans die of it each year.
2. The youthful addiction to mobile telephones that causes ..
of so many parents and teachers could be providing a big benefit
mobiles could be turning teenagers from tobacco.
3. The research in Finland has . the hypothesis that
excessive workload resulting from downsizing doubles the death
rate from heart attack and stroke.
4. A fright, anger, stress any situation when the person finds
himself in can stimulate cardiovascular disorder
whereas stress reducers like yoga, meditation and group sharing low
levels of stress hormones and help to relax arteries.
5. Heart-attack survivors who live with others .. much
better than the ones who live by themselves. The latter die at twice
the rate of the former.
203
6. Every year thousands of people join the ranks of
supporters of traditional medicine3, turning to meditation, herbalism,
acupuncture etc.
7. Stress can be one of many obstacles to pregnancy. Studies are
now confirming that not a few women were able to conceive only
after they managed to .. themselves from distress.
8. The attacks of avian influenza are usually associated with
slaughter of poultry. However we should be more
concerned not with the financial repercussions. Many human
infections have animal precursors.
9. After several cases of infection mandatory AIDS testing of
medical staff is no longer the cause of . comments on the
part of human rights advocates.
10. Many surfers prefer turbulent water to more uniform waves.
Their paramount goal is excitement, and they get a feeling of
.. from confronting dangerous situations.
11. Today whatever the diagnosis of the patient is every doctor starts
his recommendations with the advice either to avoid or at least to
reduce stress. However, we shouldnt treat it as simple
as the researches have proved that many modern diseases originate
from stress.
12. Unfortunately there is still a attached to certain
diseases.
3.4 B. Strive to Thrive

How do you understand the title?
3
Persons dissatisfied with the methods of modern medicine or with the results
sometimes seek help from those professing expertise in other, less
conventional, and sometimes controversial, forms of health care, which are
often called traditional, alternative or complementary medicine. Such
practitioners are not medically qualified. Numerous persons also seek out
some form of faith healing to cure their ills, sometimes as a means of last
resort.
204
In Time for a Divine Comedy4
By Peter Ustinov
Though it has become commonplace, Ill run a risk of

becoming a target of derogatory remarks and repeat a platitude We
live in the time of stress. Trying to extricate themselves from the
macabre web of its influence people turn to psychoanalysts, which
has become especially popular in the USA.
Freud effectively invented psychoanalysis in 1895, and it goes
without saying that his research contributed enormously to our
understanding of the subconscious. But whether analysis has any
place in modern medical treatment is open to doubt. The "talking
cure" which Freud and his co-worker Joseph Breuer developed in
Vienna was designed specifically to uncover the cause of hysterical
symptoms, in which narrow field they had a few successes. But
analysis was then adopted for all sorts of psychological problems to
which it was entirely unsuited. Psychoanalysis was also tried as a
cure for schizophrenia and mental deficiency on which it has no
effect at all. It was used until very recently as a treatment for
depression, which it can actually exacerbate - if your problem is
morbid introspection then the worst thing you can do is spend hours
talking about yourself.
Having failed to improve any of these conditions the analysts
redirected their energies towards treating people who weren't ill at
all, and here they struck gold. Such is the appeal of lying down and
talking about yourself that the treatment became phenomenally
popular. There is no stigma attached to seeking help for
psychological problems. Patients are ready to pay exorbitant fees
to get someone to listen to them. They usually reach the point of
exhilaration when they speak about it with their friends who in their
turn happily join the ranks of patients. We can say that it has
become a national obsession.
In America it was finally the health insurance companies who
called a halt to all this madness. Unable to keep up with the amounts
4
Based on Peter Ustinov In Time for a Divine Comedy, the European and John Collee
Psychobabble, the Observer, Simon Greenall, Diana Pye, CAE Reading Skills, Cambridge University
Press, 1996, pp. 101-109; Christine Gorman Vitamin Overload, Time, November 10, 1997.
205
being charged by psychoanalysts they finally insisted that therapists
specify the length of treatment for different diagnoses. The analysts
were forced to admit that treatment was open-ended, the benefits
uncertain and could hardly be validated by scientific data. In fact,
psychoanalysis, is potentially limitless You find yourself in a new
quandary as fast as you solve some problems and the phony sense of
progress is one of the things that makes it so addictive.
In their own defense, analysts will tell you now that curing
you is not the purpose of the exercise. The point is simply to help
people to understand themselves. But the assumption here is surely
that understanding will produce change, which is highly doubtful.
Any drunk driver who gets pulled over may well understand that he
has behaved irresponsibly. But this understanding does not diminish
the pleasure of drinking three gins and driving through town at 40
miles an hour. So what has this self knowledge achieved?
In view of the stress to which we are subjected, however, it is
remarkable that we tend to live longer than our medieval ancestors.
They would not have known what to make of the word "stress"
unless it was used in the context of shipbuilding, architecture or the
weaving of cloth.
Consider the limits of their experience. Even after many
lessons their reflexes would have been utterly unable to cope with
the new frontiers of possibility. The fastest thing they would ever
have been liable to see was the flight of an arrow or, perhaps, a
shooting star at night. In the realm of noise there was thunder and
brass instruments in the cathedral, but nothing to match the total
lack of silence we suffer from today.
The sirens of fire brigades and police, with their evil cadences,
would have struck panic in the medieval heart. As for the sheer
assault on the nerves practiced by certain discotheques, in which the
volume is accompanied by psychedelic lighting - that stammering
stuttering abuse of the optic nerves - the poor friar of long ago
would have believed himself prematurely in a hell, out of range of
even Dante's imagination.
Television would have proved painful to him also, the
succession of images being far too rapid for his comprehension. We
probably absorb more images in a day than our ancestor would have
206
managed in a year, most of them ill-digested, lingering in the mind
only as subliminal worry-beads, recurring every now and then in the
hopeless quest for interpretation.
There's no doubt about it - our bodies and our sense: are
pummelled in a way which would have been intolerable 600 years
ago. And yet they surrendered to contagion and unhealthy living far
more readily than we do.
For that reason, perhaps, death was perceived as a necessary
adjunct to life. The concepts of heaven and hell, being devoutly
believed in, lent a certain degree of morality to life and made death
inevitable, sooner rather than later. Homeopathic medicine and
herbalism were already far in advance of conventional medicine, but
there was certainly a tendency towards fatalism which encouraged a
gloomy acceptance of the worst.
There never seems to have been the almost hysterical fight
before death which is apparent today, both in the sad bravery of
those condemned by AIDS and in the struggles of brilliant surgeons
in the transplant of more and more unlikely organs into the bodies
of the barely living in the attempt to rejuvenate them.
Naturally, all this speaks highly for the resilience and the
ingenuity of the human animal. In its contemporary form this animal
is unwilling to accept the resignation of past times, and works over
time to negate the implacable rules of nature. There is no telling
whether this tendency will continue.
Certainly the increased activity of today has prolonged youth
far into what was once considered advanced middle age, and middle
age stretches far into what was thought of as the ultimate years of
life's span. Exercise, the voluntary exhaustion of the human
mechanism, is partly due to the speed of life and the need for
lightning reactions. The new preoccupations with diet and physical
well-being, expressed in many ways from cuisine minceur to that
orgy of hopping and skipping enjoying the typical pseudo-scientific
name of aerobics, are valid reflections of the preoccupations of
today. Staunch supporters of healthy life style would either stuff
themselves with vitamins or starve themselves to death in the
pursuit of perfection, though it has always been known that
moderation is the key to good health. For example, in denunciation
207
of modern craze of health-conscious Americans that extra doses of
vitamin supplements can cover a multitude of dietary sins, scientists
have proved that One-A-Day is still OK, but swallowing
supplements by megadose may be dangerous for health as they tend
to interact with each other provoking cellular damage, stroke, heart
attack and even cancer.
Human beings are under enormous pressure, not only from the
stunning acceleration of technical development, but also from a
gathering nostalgia for a past which seems so clear, so natural and
so untroubled.
Is this so? How would you have enjoyed having a
toothache in the 12th century? The dentist always came with a
drummer to drown the patient's cries.
There's a lot to be said for the times we live in, especially once
discotheques are not compulsory.
Culture
shooting star a small piece of rock or metal from space, that

burns brightly as it falls towards the Earth (meteor).
friar a man who belongs to a Christian group, whose members in
the past traveled around teaching about Christianity and asking for
money and food.
ancestor a member of your family who lived long ago; ancestry
the members of your family, who lived a long time ago: of Russian
ancestry (having ancestors who were Russian); ant. descendant
someone who is related to a person who lived a long time ago:
direct descendant; compare predecessor someone who had the
job before you started it and successor someone who takes a
position previously held by someone else.
2. Match the following words from the article with their

explanation.
1. lingering a. be equal to
2. adjunct b. officially stop an activity
3. subjected to c. cleverness
208
4. liable d. make a lot of money or have good luck
5. match e. added or joined to something but not part of
6. strike panic it
7. resilience f. forced into
8. implacable g. determined to continue opposing smth
9. ingenuity h. ability to restore strength
10. strike gold i. infinite, without end
11. call a halt to j. make sb feel afraid
12. open-ended k. likely to
l. slow because of reluctance
3. What evidence is there in the article for the following

statements? If there is no evidence, decide what the article really
says.
The meaning of the word 'stress' has changed over the years.
They were unable to see fast-moving objects.
Loud noises made them panic.
We live longer than our ancestors because our senses are
continually being stimulated.
We are unable to interpret all the visual images our eyes absorb
daily.
4. There are a number of questions or unfinished sentences

below. Choose the best answer from A, B, C or D.
Life in the past wasn't as stressful as life today because

A. people led healthier lives.
B. people died younger.
C. people's experience of life was smaller.
D. people's diet was poorer.
Life today
A. is immoral
B. accepts the rules of nature.
C. does not accept death easily.
D. is hysterical and exhausting.
209
Why are people more concerned about their physical well-being
today?
A. They want to prove they can live longer than their ancestors.
B. Because they are unwilling to resign themselves to the rules of
nature.
C. Because it is natural instinct.
D. Because they don't believe in heaven and hell.
The writer believes that people today
A. live too long.
B. will continue to evolve until they meet the limits of human
reactions.
C. have a dangerous lifestyle.
D. will have to achieve weightlessness.
What is the writer's attitude to life in the past?
A. Life was easier than it is today.
B. People were happier because they were not under so much
pressure.
C. Life was not as good as present nostalgia would have us believe.
D. Religion did not help people accept the future.
5. We can infer the writer's views on certain aspects of

medieval and modern life by his choice or words.
Example: In the realm of noise there was thunder and brass

instruments in the cathedral, but nothing to match the total lack of
silence we suffer from today.
The word 'suffer' suggests that he considers that the lack of
silence is unpleasant. Read the text carefully and underline other
words and phrases which reveal the writer's views.
6. Which of these statements would the writer agree with?
Psychoanalysis is a waste of money.

Freud used psychoanalysis to cure a wide variety of psychological
problems.
Psychoanalysis is no longer used for curing mental diseases.
There is no end to an analysis.
210
Change in behavior is only produced by self-knowledge.
Psychoanalysis is a rich person's self-indulgence.
6. Find the following sentences in the article. What does

each sentence comment on? Which sentences express approval
and which express disapproval?
1. '...it goes without saying that his research contributed enormously

to our understanding of the subconscious.'
2. 'But analysis was then adopted for all sorts of psychological
problems to which it was entirely unsuited.'
3. '...if your problem is morbid introspection then the worst thing
you can do is spend hours talking about yourself.'
4. You find yourself in a new quandary as fast as you solve some
problems, and the phony sense of progress is one of the things that
makes it so addictive.'
Are you nostalgic about the past?

One of the themes of the article is the ability of human beings to
adapt to an environment which is increasingly demanding on the
body and the senses. What are the things in daily life which you find
particularly stressful and put them in order of how stressful they are
to you.
Which of the things on your list would have been unknown to
former generations?
Do you consider that life in the past was healthier and in many
ways better than it is today?
Why do you think that many people become nostalgic about the
past as they grow older? Is this a new phenomenon?
What style of life is considered to be healthy? Are you health
conscious? What do you do to preserve your health and keep fit?
What do you think about latter-day obsession with healthy life
style?
How do you feel about conventional and alternative medicine?
211
3.4 C. Listening and Watching
Was Freud a Fraud?
In the recording Professor Carl Abrahams is talking about

Sigmund Freud.
1. Say whether the statements are true or false, according to what

Prof. Abrahams says.
1. Freud was a genius.

2. Some patients get worse after psychoanalysis.
3. Professional psychiatrists misunderstand Freud's ideas.
4. Freud's own patients did recover after he treated them.
5. The 'wolf man' dreamt he was a werewolf and killed people at
night.
6. Freud's own account of the 'wolf man" case was falsified.
7. Although Freud misdiagnosed the 'wolf man's' illness, his
treatment of the patient was a success.
8. Freud was a good writer.
9. Freud asserted that pleasure and sexuality were directly related.
10. An innocent slip of the tongue is commonly believed to betray
of a speaker's concealed secret desires.
11. Freud wanted people to think he was undervalued.
12. Freud's books got bad reviews when they first came out.
13. Freud invented the concept of the 'unconscious mind'.
14. Freud's technique of 'free association' was not an original idea.
15. Practically all of the ideas Freud claimed to be original were in
fact used by others before him.
16. The popularity of Freud has hindered research into mental
disorders.
17. People who consult psychoanalysts are being deceived by them.
18. The myths surrounding Freud and his work will soon be
discredited.
2. Discuss the following questions:
212
How would you describe Prof. Abrahams' attitude during the
interview? Write down three descriptive adjectives to characterize
your impression of him.
To what extent were you convinced by what he said?
How can a psychiatrist (or psychoanalyst or psychotherapist)
help someone with their problems?
What is the difference between a psychologist and a
psychiatrist?
3.4 D. Vocabulary in Focus

1. Complete the text with the words from the box.
Inherent, integral, denunciation, exhilaration, facilitate, scenario,

exacerbate, synchronize, tantamount, decorum, orthodox,
exorbitant, espouse, rejuvenate, assimilate
Eco-friendly holiday is eco-logical
Tourism has become an part of modern life. Every

year families their working schedules to
.with the crowds of travelers undertaking pilgrimages to
the most distant destinations.
However these days ..demands that ecologically
concerned which is now to thinking person
should help to .the planet rather than
its wearing out and gradual degradation. Thats why the
idea of spending a holiday at some well-known resort
quite often gives way to a more extravagant of
staying with remote Indonesian tribes.
The term ecotourism first surfaced in the early 80-s reflects
a surge in environmental awareness. Today tourists are ready to pay
an price just to know that their presence doesnt
disrupt fragile natural balance. The idea that they.
developing economies bringing finance to dilapidated parts of the
world gives them a feeling of...
213
Helping to create ..economic value in wilderness
environments and endangered cultures has undoubtedly been one of
the ecotourism movements most notable achievements. The
Ecotourism Society (TES) organizes an annual initiative to
.aid development of ecotourism industry aimed at
advocacy of the positive and .of the possible negative
impacts of our travel decisions.
Does the idea of eco-friendly holiday appeal to you?

Are you ready to pay more if your money goes into regional and
local development?
Do you think that some unscrupulous travel agents are not above
marketing unpopular holiday destinations disguised as eco-friendly?
Is it possible to support the information provided by the agents
and how?
3. Guess the meaning of the following words and match

them with their definitions.
a. a sequence of events that is imagined,

1. synchronize assumed or suggested
2. assimilate b. to cause to occur at the same time
3. orthodox c. to become more similar to a larger whole
4. scenario d. accepted as correct or usual an idea or
5. limit practice
6. stress e. only pretending to be scientific
7. abstraction f. the outer edge of an area
8. herbalism g. an idea that is not related to reality
9.pseudo-scientific h. a worried or nervous feeling caused by.
pressure
i. practice of using plants as medicine
4. Choose the three best answers to fill the gap in each

sentence.
214
1. If he still feels ill after taking this treatment, he should see ...
a consultant GP midwife quack specialist
2. He will have to go on a diet because he is getting.
buxom dense flabby plump robust stout
3. She needs to put on some weight after her illness because she is
too ...
fragile lean light skinny slender slim thin
4. Many illnesses today are related to..
grief sadness stress suffering tension worry
5. What treatment should be given to someone who has . ?
fainted lost consciousness passed away passed out passed through
6. I'm a bit worried about the I've been having in my back.
ache agony pain suffering twinges wound
7. Illness can be stopped before it happens by means of .
after care healthy living preventive medicine therapy vaccines
8. The nurse made her take . to help her sleep better.
a lotion an ointment a pain-killer a sedative a tranquillizer
9. Take two of these . three times a day after meals.
capsules drugs pills placebos sweets tablets
10. Everyone hoped that he would . after the operation.
get better get up get well pull out pull over pull through
11. You really must see a doctor about that.. .
blister inflammation pimple rash scratch swelling
12. Keep away from other people if you have a disease that
is.
antiseptic catching catchy contagious infectious
13. Once a year it's a good idea to go to the doctor for...
a check-up an examination a medical an operation a post-
mortem
14. She had to go to hospital when she...
broke up fractured her wrist had a break pulled a muscle
sprained her ankle
15. Medical experts take the claims of . medicine more
seriously nowadays.
alternative complementary conventional fringe
mainstream orthodox
215
3.4 E. Creative Consolidation
1. Make a synthetic review of the article and the interview,

supporting it with the information from other sources.
2. Write an essay about recent scientific advances which

have dramatically changed our life.
3. Project-Making
Devise a 350-word project of an enterprise which will appeal

to health-conscious community. Apply to the local branch of a
MegaBank for a loan. Be ready to answer the questions of the bank
officials about profitability of your enterprise.
3.5 Raise the Issue

What do you know about genetic engineering?
What do you think about harvesting human organs for
transplantation?
3.5 A. Words in Context

chide (v) Elise was right to chide me when I lazily

threw the newspapers into the trash instead of
stacking and tying them for recycling.
Chide means a. command b. criticize c. be cruel to
complement (v) Balanced diet should complement physical

exercise if you want to stick to healthy life
style.
Complement means a. go perfectly with b. reach out for
216
c. overpower
contingency (n) We believe in providing for every

contingency. We have a list of emergency
phone numbers, a first-aid kit, and a box of
candles in case of a power failure.
Contingency means a. possibility b. advantage c. desire
foible (n) Serious character flaws such as abusiveness

are hard to overlook, but foibles such as
drinking tea from a saucer can often be
easily tolerated.
Foible means a. serious problem b. minor failing
c. complaint
incapacitate(v) The runner was incapacitated by a sprained

ankle and had to miss the big race.
Incapacitate means a. irritate b. be concerned with c. disable
innocuous (adj) Experts at the Poison Information Center can

tell you if a household substance is harmful or
innocuous.
Innocuous means a. without bad effect b. expensive c. satisfying
lucid (adj) Using too many superfluous words can make

something more difficult to understand. Thus
if the essay had not been so verbose, it would
have been more lucid.
Lucid means a. easy to understand b. repetitious
c. fair to both sides
meticulous (adj) When you proofread your own writing, be

meticulous check every detail.
Meticulous means a. precise b. bold c. unconcerned
preposterous (adj) The discovery of x-rays in 1895 was followed

by some preposterous ideas and fears. For
217
example, merchants in England sold x-ray-
proof underwear.
Preposterous means a. risky b. exciting c. ridiculous
presumptuous (adj) Just after two days in the laboratory it would

be presumptuous of me to say that I
understand the process completely.
Presumptuous means a. too forward b. skilled c. cautious
repugnant (adj) A snake is repugnant to many people

Slimy! they say, shivering with distaste.
However, snakes are not at all slimy, and most
are harmless
Repugnant means a. disgusting b. amusing c. remarkable
repudiate (v) I repudiate emphatically any suggestion that

I have acted dishonestly or dishonorably.
Repudiate means a. accept b. discuss c. reject

word.
Offensive; distasteful; repulsive

Clearly expressed; easily understood
To make unable or unfit, especially for normal
activities; disable
Too bold, overly confident
Extremely careful and exact; showing great
attention to details
. Contrary to nature or reason and thus laughable;
absurd
To deny the truth, validity, or authority of
A possible future event that must be prepared for or
guarded against; possibility
Harmless; inoffensive
218
A minor weakness or character flaw; a minor fault
in behavior
To scold mildly or express disapproval
To add what is lacking or needed; bring to
perfection

Chide, preposterous, repugnant, foible, repudiate, presumptuous,

incapacitate, complement, meticulous, contingency, innocuous,
lucid
1. The ships captain seemed to be losing his mental balance.

Fearing that he might become completely insane, the crew held a
clandestine meeting to discuss what to do in that...
2. The new environment friendly project is intended to,
not to replace, local authorities programs.
3. The doctor d Rick for not following her advice about
switching to a low-fat diet.
4. To an allergic person, foods that are normally., such as
milk or wheat, can cause discomfort and even serious illness.
5. Many find the thought of a masochist seeking out and enjoying
suffering to be as .. as the idea of causing someone else to
suffer.
6. At first new ideas and theories sound... It takes time
and effort to comprehend them.
7. We all have our little..
8. Ive been working at the daycare center only one week, so this
suggestion may be., but I think the centers program
should encompass activities geared to shy children as well as ones
for gregarious kids.
9. The scientists explanation of the greenhouse effect was so
that the entire audience was able to grasp it.
10. The prognosis for Dales arthritis is not encouraging. Her doctor
didnt equivocate but told her frankly that in time it may
her completely.
219
11. Scientists need to be . in their calculations.
12. Professor . the released data saying that they need
verification.
3.5 B Genetic Engineering
Full Stem Ahead
Based on the article by Tom Jacobs
Preposterous as it may seem today, chances are someday you

will need replacement tissue. More than 150,000 people worldwide
are waiting for an organ. Doctors perform 3 million
cardiovascular procedures a year and 2.5 million bone and plastic
reconstructive surgeries. At least 200,000 people suffer from spinal-
cord injury. One million have Parkinson's disease; 4.7 million
experience congestive heart failure, and 400,000 to 800,000 diabetic
foot ulcers, which most commonly incapacitate elderly patients, are
treated annually. The conclusion derived from this brief overview is
lucid: this is a market screaming for products, and demand goes up
each year.
Its only evident that meticulous research necessitating huge
investments should precede before this demand is satisfied.
And what will be the prize for companies whose biotech-
nologies meet the need? Joseph Vacanti and Robert Langer, tissue-
engineering pioneers at Harvard and MIT, respectively, put the
potential market as high as $80 billion a year. But they say it is too
presumptuous to evaluate financial benefits as it may take as long as
three decades to move from today, when the ability to perform
transplants is limited by organ availability and tissue rejection, to a
time when engineered tissue and organs are widely available and
perhaps even grown from a person's own cells.
Executives are betting entire companies on which technologies
will succeed first and biggest. Some hope for nearer-term success in
engineering artificial skin and bone using live cells. Others are
220
developing animal tissue for routine transplant to humans. The
largest payoff may go to those who ultimately engineer human
growth factors to repair or regenerate tissue in humans or in the lab
for transplants.
The results we have had in this sphere so far however
repudiate the possibility of unlimited tissue repair and replacement
organs in the near future. So before you invest in Bio-utopia, you
should look at what's already here in the rapidly emerging field of
biomaterials.
Artificial skin, bone and cartilage. Contrary to industry
claims, the first biomaterials on the market are not living tissue but
artificial products composed of some living cells. These include
Organogenesis's skin substitute called Apligraf, made from
neonatal5 foreskin cells which is certainly repugnant to hear - and
two products from Advanced Tissue Sciences, Dermagraft (not yet
approved in the United States, but sold abroad) and Trans-Cyte.
Both are designed to heal chronic wounds like venous ulcers and
diabetic foot ulcers that persist from other causes such as infection,
inadequate blood circulation or malnutrition. Curis, meanwhile, is
testing and seeking approval of two other biomaterials: OP-1, to
mend nonhealing fractures and speed recovery from other bone
injuries; and Chrondrogel, for cartilage repair.
Animal tissue. (Warning: this section is not recommended for
fans of "Charlotte's Web.") To increase the replacement-tissue
supply and reduce or eliminate host rejection, Alexion
Pharmaceuticals and Geron Corp. have turned to genetically
engineered pigs. These animals offer fast growth, large litters and
organ size similar to humans'. Geron's expertise comes from its
1999 purchase of Roslin Bio-Med, the Scottish company whose
cloning techniques helped produce Dolly the sheep. Armed with that
biotechnology, Geron is competing with Alexion to engineer pigs
without the gene that causes human-host tissue rejection. The
temporary goal: "bridge" transplants until human organs become
available, especially for the 150,000 people hospitalized annually
for liver disease. Also Organogenesis is lab-testing a system based
5
Neonatal relating to the first weeks of a babys life.
221
on pig-liver cells that provides liver function until or instead of
transplantation.
Stem cells and protein growth factors. Many companies
believe that the key to restoring or regenerating tissue is to use the
body's natural functions. They are trying to re-create the conditions
that support the growth of cells and tissue, and harness the body's
ability to repair damage caused by disease, trauma or age. To do this
and to avert any contingency, they research and test stem cells and
human protein growth factors.
Researchers have shown in the lab that stem cells from human
embryos can differentiate into almost every kind of cell in the body,
possibly enabling the generation of complete organs. The result
could be relief from conditions as varied as Parkinson's disease to
spinal injury. That's why the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last
August announced federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell
research. Because of Congress's 1996 ban on such funding where
human embryos are specifically destroyed, the NIH's new
guidelines require that grantees obtain specimens discarded from in
vitro fertilization clinics or other private sources.
Despite continued chiding from groups opposed to embryo
researchthe Bush administration is reviewing the guidelinesthe
NIH decision turned investors' attention to companies such as
Geron, which has worked for years to develop biotechnology to
harvest human embryonic stem cells, grow them in sufficient
quantities, urge their differentiation into particular cells from skin to
heart and nerve, and make them work in the body. At the same time,
Human Genome Sciences thinks it can advance stem cells' promise
by isolating the signaling protein that can cause them to differentiate
into the desired tissue. Curis and others are working with adult stem
cells, despite the prevailing view on their foibles: they are not as
powerful as those contained in embryos. But adult stem cells, found
primarily in skin and bone marrow, offer two advantages: the supply
is greater, and the research doesn't invite political objections which
can be far from innocuous and even precipitate the halt of the
project.
Therapeutic protein growth factors may offer another route to
growing and repairing tissue throughout the body, complementing
222
the previous techniques. Human Genome Sciences is moving to
phase II trials of the protein repifermin, which has shown positive
results in treating venous ulcers and is also being tested for mucosal
tissue injuries common in chemotherapy. Joining Human Genome
Sciences, companies such as biotechnology pioneer Genen-tech and
privately held ZymoGenetics work hard to identify, test and patent
therapeutic proteins that can repair or regenerate human tissue.
What's an investor to do in this context? Biomaterials is a
complex industry, with potentially great rewards well into the
future. But you need to have patience and look to the very long
term. And the risks are considerable. This is not investing for the
faint of heart.
2. Explain the meaning of the following expressions

connected with genetic engineering.
Tissue repair; replacement organ; eliminate host rejection;

regenerate human tissue
3. Look at the title of the article and comment on the

interplay of words.
- Why does the claim Chances are, someday you will need
replacement tissue sound quite well-grounded?
- What are the specialists predictions concerning this market?
- What is the situation like in rapidly emerging field of
biomaterials?
- What causes the writers disgust and why?
- What might Charlottes Web be about?
- What is Dolly the sheep?
- What are the two advantages of adult stem cells?
- Do you think that the second mentioned by the writer ranks higher
than the first?
- Why isnt investing in genetic engineering for the faint of heart?
223
How do you feel about genetic engineering?

Do you think that it is possible to limit scientific researches by
growing human tissues and creating genetically modified products?
3.5 C. Listening and Watching

Watch multimedia programs Stem cells 1, Stem cells 2,
Human cloning and be ready to discuss them.
3.5 D. Creative Consolidation
1. Make a synthetic review of the article and multimedia

programs, supporting it with the information from other sources.
2. Write an essay about the future of the human race. Speak

about social consequences of human cloning.
3.5 E. Vocabulary in Focus

1. Revise the active vocabulary. Complete the text with the
following words.
Mitigating, denunciation, facilitate, subversive, impending,

holistic, extricated, vindicate, attrition, annihilate, atrophy,
sanctions, rejuvenating, tenuous, analogy, yen, precipitates,
proficiently
Little short of 30 years ago 24 countries signed the Montreal

Protocol, agreeing to curb and eventually .the
production and use of ozone-munching, i.e. ozone-absorbing,
chemicals as the depletion of the ozone layer which shades the earth
is worrying. The .. between ozone cover and book cover
suffices to understand the gravity of the situation. On average its
224
about as thick as the cover of a hardback book, but in places it has
become as thin as a paperback cover.
If too much ultra-violet radiation gets through, it reduces farm
yields and .skin cancer and eye damage and in the long
run (which in fact wont be so long) grievous of the
mankind.
The Montreal Protocol ..whipping the layer back
into shape by reducing the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) and
other ozone-eating compounds. The number of
.supporters of the urgent measures to improve the
situation is constantly growing. The coalition of the countries
advocating a ..approach to .the depleted
ozone layer has reached 163.
Though their joint actions havent our planet
from the doom completely they the
decline in the accumulation of ozone-consuming compounds in the
lower atmosphere. If the situation is dealt with the
ozone layer might eventually heal itself, perhaps by 2050.
However problems persist.
Manufacturers arent quick to forfeit their profits and replace
CFCs in their models of refrigerators with cleaner-and greener
alternatives.
Moreover though the Protocol introduced restrictions, mans
ingenuity quickly got round them. Smugglers acts
undermine the efficiency of the attempts though still ..-
aimed at .possible consequences. Their ..for
possession is certainly worth and no reasoning can
.them. But CFCs are a smugglers dream: odourless
and colourless they can be used in everything from air-
conditioners to foam.
Last but not least is ozone fatigue.
Governments tend to think of the ozone hole as yesterdays
problem and their zeal and commitment to solve the problem seem
to ..especially in the face of new challenges such as
climate change.
(Based on Phew, the ozone layer may be saved, the
Economist, September 13th, 1997)
225
2. Revise the active vocabulary. Complete the text with the words
from the boxes.
The fraying web of life
mess up exacerbated unprecedented

landfills facilitates carcinogenic
exorbitant demise yen
non-renewable discharging recyclables
annihilating overfishing
For more than half a century Earth has been sending out
distress signals first subtle, then unmistakable. At the beginning of
the new millennium it is obvious that Earths pain has transformed
into humanitys pain.
For example ....caused the collapse of the North Atlantic cod
fishery which had an effect on the life of the whole country,
putting 30,000 Canadians out of work and .the economies of
700 communities.
In Latin America population pressures and overcrowding
.the situation, raising the toll from rains and floods which
killed 30,000 people and creating armies of environmental
refugees.
Our .. for accumulating possessions ..our pace to
inevitable.
Instead of using, which is environmentally-friendly
approach, we consume resources, .the environment,
dumping waste in and toxic liquids into rivers and
the sea. We turn a blind eye even to the fact that many of these
pollutants are., i.e. cause cancer.
log emissions stringent

might greenwashin warming
decorum g temper
greenhous stiff credentials
e deplore fuels
226
depleted pristine
Up to the most recent times producers were reluctant to

manifest commitment to environment protection, stressing that the
rules of competition should necessitate that their rivals be
compelled to face the same .regulations.
However today demands different patterns of behaviour.
Manufacturers are not above showing their environmental .and
..to give a more favourable impression than is justified by the
real facts. Stripped of their disguise they usually reply that if all
polluting industries were closed down the economy would simply
collapse.
With all our in the fit of rightful anger we
aggression and yet to build houses and construct furniture we
..forests home of two-thirds of all species - which
.climate, capture and store water. Mind, that forests store 40%
of terrestrial carbon, and can slow the build-up of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, thus healing the ..ozone layer. Carbon dioxide
from the burning of fossil are contributing to the
..effect and gradual global.
Even .environments such as Antarctica can no longer
be protected from development and hence from damage.
habitats nonchalant chilling

havoc deprive analogy
rejuvenatio balance dilapidated
n mitigating diversity
atrophy diabolically somber
portends extinction contend
overselling
Freshwater is by far the most critical ecosystem since all

organisms need water to survive. Human water consumption rose
sixfold in the past century, double the rate of population growth.
People now use 54% of available freshwater and additional demand
will not have effect on other ecosystems. Water scarcity may
soon wither agriculture and industry. The ..with plant life isnt
227
farfetched. Moreover fertilizers and and outdated sewage
systems continue to kill and poison rivers. Introduction of nonnative
species into an environment disrupts the existing balance
halting..
Nevertheless humankind is still and unconcerned about
the possible consequences. And the of Earths ecosystems
has continued unabated.
Ecosystems are naturally resilient but human impact can affect
them. Not only can it reduce their ability to bounce back but
them of it completely. Mans habit of wreaking .on the
shrinking .of plants and animals destroys biological and
disrupts fragile natural. Even the most conservative forecast
for the future of the planet is a ..one. The .. acceleration of
extinction ..the disruption of the planets ecological
balance. The opponents however that conservationist-
scientists may be their act and the necessity to support
families today certainly outweighs the vitality of saving species
prone to.
vindicate sustainable noxious

nurture commensurat denounce
emanates e connotatio
belligerent indolent n
bottom holistic curb
What will it take us to be less and to do at least

something to the process of self-destruction? When will we
realize that the ultimate line of our existence is global
ecosystem stability as there will be neither society nor economy
without it? When will we grow up to understand that
development shouldnt be aimed at trivial adding economic value
but also at creating social and environmental value? Sustainability
has a of sustaining the ability of the planet to reproduce
rather than facilitate the economic growth. When will
environmentalism move from being a philosophy promoted by
passionate and minority to a way of life with
mainstream behavior? When will a approach to the survival
228
of the whole planet prevail? How can we understand that the threat
to the well-being of towns and cities.from deforestation and
coral reef destruction? What arguments will we find to
ourselves in the face of the descendants?
Only a comprehensive global survey can ..the effects
of the damage to one system on other systems and determine
whether Earth as a whole is losing its ability to he full
diversity of life and the economies of nations.
extricate imperative quotas

species hurdle opportune
unilateral lethargic sanction
coalition tackle synchroniz
subversiv inherent e
e scenario
The new U.N. report examines the state of knowledge about

five major categories of ecosystems, scoring them in terms of their
capacity to deliver goods and services to life and human
economies. It looks at how to environments robustness
peoples activity has turned out to be and where trouble might lie in
future. It also helps to draw the guidelines of measures to
.the whole planet from the impending sinister.
The ....is to understand that each of us must join the ..of
forces to save the planet. We should stop waiting for
..moment and free finance to the problem of globing
warming or preserving endangered.. Instead we should
support all measures to ..the introduction of stringent
regulation procedures in this sphere today.
Mankind should address different ways to leap the
funding. For example global market in emissions will
help to reduce greenhouse cover.
In this cause every step and action is invaluable both on the
grass-root level and international one.
However we cant stay to the position of our own
governments which are quite often only willing to .their
229
activity with the rest of the world and procrastinate until its too late.
decisions can become a beacon on our way to safer future.
(based on Condition Critical, Time, April-May 2000)
3.6 Reading Selection

Look through the articles and choose one for
presentation. Find at least one more article on the same topic and
make a synthetic review6.
3.6 A. Dried Out

By Maryann Bird
Time, May 7, 2001
Water, not oil, is the most precious fluid in our lives, the
substance from which all life on the earth has sprung and continues
to depend. If we run short of oil and other fossil fuels, we can use
alternative energy sources. If we have no clean, drinkable water, we
are doomed. As the 6 billion passengers aboard Spaceship Earth
enter a complex new century, few issues are as fundamental as
water. We are falling far short of the most basic humanitarian
goals: sufficient and affordable clean water, food and energy for
everyone. I cannot bear to watch the nations cry, wrote Derek
Walcott, the Carribbean-born Nobel laureate, whose poetry often
reflects his African heritage. With regional disputes over water
resources increasing, and people and ecosystems alike facing
urgent, immense challenges, business as usual is not a viable option
6
The articles in this section reflect the position of their writers and do not
necessarily coincide with the stance of the author of this book.
230
On a planet that is 71% water, less than 3% of it is fresh. Most
of that is either in the form of ice and snow in Greenland and
Antarctica or in deep groundwater aquifers. And less than 1% of
that water - .01% of all the earths water is considered available
for human needs; even then, much of it is far from large
populations. At the dawn of the 21st century, more than 1 billion
people do not have access to safe drinking water. Some 2.4 billion
40% of the worlds population lack adequate sanitation, and 3.4
million die each year from water-related diseases.
The global governmental neglect behind those numbers is the
most critical failure of the 20th century and the major challenge for
the 21st, contends Peter Gleick, one of the worlds leading experts on
freshwater resources. Governments, NGOs and local communities
must address this problem first as their top priority, says Gleick,
director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in
Development, Environment and Security. There are many tools for
doing so, and the economic costs are not high compared to the costs
of failing to meet these needs.
We are facing a world water gap right now, this minute, the
World Commission on Water has warned, and the crisis will only
get worse. The consequences of failing to bridge the gap will be
higher food prices and expensive food imports for water-scarce
countries that are predominantly poor. Hunger and thirst are also
linked to political instability and low rates of economic growth.
Scientists, water professionals, environmental campaigners
and others have warned for decades that a water crisis was building
alarm bells that rang on many a deaf governmental ear. The crisis
is partly due to natural cycles of extreme weather and the expansion
and contraction of arid regions. But human activity has been playing
an ever-greater role in creating water scarcity and water stress
defined as the indication that there is not enough good-quality water
to meet human and environmental needs. Like so much of the
earths bounty, water is unevenly distributed. While people in some
parts of the world pile up sandbags to control seasonal floods or
struggle to dry out after severe storms, others either shrivel and die-
like their crops and their livestock before themor move on as en-
231
vironmental refugees. In Canadawhich has about the same
amount of water as China but less than 2.5% of its populationthe
resource has been labeled "blue gold." In parched Botswana,
dominated by the Kalahari Desert, water is so precious that the na-
tional currency is called pula"rain" in the Setswana language.
The planet is not actually running out of water, of course. But
its people are having an increasingly difficult time managing,
allocating and protecting the water that exists. In some areas the
hydrological cycleby which the fresh water of rain and snow
eventually evaporates, condenses in clouds and falls againmay be
taking longer to complete as humans use water faster than nature
can renew it. As governments, international agencies and local
officials grapple with the situation, research findings and conflicts
over water rights illustrate the immensity of the task. For example:
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that
792 million people in 98 developing nations still are not getting
sufficient food to lead normal, healthy lives. Even in the
industrialized world and in post-Soviet "countries in transition," 34
million people remain undernourished. In the Commonwealth of
Independent States, the prevalence of undernourishment is greatest
in Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, while in Central
Europe, Bulgaria is considered the worst case. In the Middle East
and North Africa, Yemen, Morocco and Iraq are among the worst
off.
Asia and the Pacific have more chronically hungry people
than elsewhere, says the FAO, but the "depth of hunger"a
calculation based on what energy they get from their food and the
minimum energy needed to maintain body weightis greatest in
sub-Saharan Africa, home to some of the world's poorest countries.
There, some 186 million peoplemore than a third of the popu-
lationare considered undernourished.
In many sub-Saharan countries, according to a report by the
World Water Council, the average per capita water-use rates are 10
to 20 liters a day, which it calls "undesirably low." By contrast, per
capita residential use in Europe runs as high as about 200 liters.
Beset by agricultural failure, fragile ecosystems, erratic weather,
232
war and other factors, 18 sub-Saharan countries face the severest
problems in feeding their people, says the FAO.
Disputes over waterincluding threats of "water wars"
bubble in areas where rainfall is sparse. Ignoring Israeli opposition,
Lebanon began pumping water in late March from the Hasbani
River, which flows into the Jordan. The village of Wazzani, which
had been without water during two decades of Israeli occupation,
views access to the river as a matter of simple rights as well as a
symbol of sovereignty. Other current disputes involve Turkey, Syria
and Iraq (the Euphrates); Israel and Syria (the Sea of Galilee); Is-
rael, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority (the Jordan); Egypt, Su-
dan, Ethiopia and others (the Nile); Senegal and Mauritania (the
Senegal); and Iran and Afghanistan (the Helmand).
In some places, water that is shared by nations has been poi-
sonedsometimes accidentally, as in Romanian cyanide spill in the
Tisza and Danube Rivers, and sometimes naturally, as in arsenic
poisoning of groundwater in India and Bangladesh. More than 200
river basins are shared, and about half of them are in Europe and
Africa, according to the Pacific Institute. Nineteen basins are shared
by more than five political entities, led by the Danube with 17.
As a 21st century issue, freshwater scarcity was ranked second
only to global warming in an International Council for Science
survey of environmental experts in more than 50 countries. Next on
the list were the related topics of desertification and deforestation.
Desertification is a feature of every continent, and it seriously
threatens the livelihoods of more than 1.2 billion people in more
than 110 countries. Stemming from a variety of factorsincluding
climactic variations, overgrazing of livestock, tilling land unsuitable
for agriculture and chopping trees for firewooddesertification has
made its greatest impact in Africa. The continent is two-thirds desert
or fragile dry land, and nearly three-quarters of its extensive
agricultural dry lands are degraded to some degree.
"There is a great deal of natural rhythm in all of these shifts,"
says Vaclav Smil, professor of geography at Canada's University of
Manitoba and an expert on environmental and energy matters. But
he says' better farming practices can help: "recycling crop residues,
planting leguminous cover crops [plants with seeds in pods],
233
planting trees everywhere." Smil also believes that even the poorest
people should be charged for their water"as much as they can
bear"to help ensure both efficient use and quality systems.
"Otherwise they will waste as much as anybody else."
While much of the focus is on Africa, developed but semiarid
European countries along the northern Mediterranean also are
suffering from desertification and deforestation. Much of the soil of
Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal has become saline and sterile as a
result of fire, drought, floods, overgrazing, overfilling and other
factors. Such degradation can be irreversible. As industry, tourism
and farming place greater stress on coastal areas in particularand
groundwater levels decline "water wars" are becoming internal.
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards recently took to the streets of
Madrid and Barcelona to protest government plans to divert the
country's largest river, the Ebro, to supply water to the southeast.
Marcelino Iglesias, president of the regional government in
northeastern Aragon, through which the Ebro flows, has denounced
the plan as "aiming at an absolutely unsustainable model of
development... while consolidating a second-class Spain in the
interior."
Indeed, dams and irrigation are two of the most controversial
aspects of the global water debate and are being examined ever
more critically. The final report of the World Commission on Dams
concluded that while dams have delivered significant benefits, the
price paidin cost, environmental impact and displacement of
peoplehas in many cases been unacceptable and often unneces-
sary. The report found "far greater scope" for alternatives to dams in
meeting water, food and energy needs. "We excluded only one
development optioninaction," says the commission chairman,
Kader Asmal, a former South African Minister of Water Affairs.
"We must rethink water management," says Gleick. "We no
longer live in an era, or a world, in which rivers can be endlessly
dammed, aquifers relentlessly pumped, ecosystems degraded and
impoverished ... We have to focus on how we use water. That's
where new water will be 'found.'"
As the world begins to address the situation more seriously, a
range of proposals, old and new, are coming to the fore. They in-
234
clude: reducing waste in irrigation (providing more drip to the
drop); desalinating (where energy sources and funds permit, as in
Saudi Arabia); recycling; making appropriate local choices of crops
and grain-fed animals (growing corn rather than wheat in areas
where water is not plentiful, raising chickens rather than pigs);
employing low-cost chlorination and solar disinfectant techniques;
increasing water "harvesting"from sources like rain and fogfor
agricultural use, particularly at village level; and transportation of
potable water in giant polyurethane bags to dry areas (as has been
done in Cyprus and the Greek islands for years).
Access to adequate, unpolluted water is increasingly being
viewed in development circles as a basic human right, something
that governments must ensure. As Mary Robinson, the U.N. High
Commissioner for Human Rights, told the dam commission: "In an
age of globalization, greater efforts can and must be made to
reconcile the need for economic growth with the need to protect the
dignity of individuals, the cultural heritage of communities and the
health of the environment we all share." For billions of people, that
like water itselfis a matter of life and death.
Vocabulary
viable - one which can work successfully; a viable

proposition/alternative/method; economically/commercially
viable; viably (adv); viability (n).
allocate to decide officially that a particular amount of money,
time or sth such as a house or a job should be used for a particular
purpose: allocate sb sth; allocate sth for sth; allocate sth to;
allocation (n).
grapple with to try hard to deal with a difficult problem; to fight
or struggle with someone, holding them tightly.
immensity the great size and seriousness of the problem;
immensely (adv) extremely; immense (adj).
beset (usually passive) to make someone experience serious
problems or dangers: beset with; besetting sin/weakness
(humorous) a particular bad feature or habit.
235
sparse existing only in small amounts: sparse vegetation;
sparsely (adv) sparsely populated, sparseness (n).
divert to change the direction or purpose of sth: diverted traffic;
divert sth into; divert attention/criticism; divert people
entertain them; diverting (adj) entertaining and amusing.
1. Find the words and expressions which mean the same.

A winner of the contest; drinkable, potable water; countries
with limited water reserves; suffering from malnutrition; caused by;
limited; not completely provided with water.
2. Explain the meaning of the following expressions.
Alarm bells that rang on many a deaf governmental ear; to

bridge the gap; far greater scope for alternatives; to come to the
fore; to protect the dignity of individuals.
- What makes the author think that water, not oil, is the most
precious fluid in our lives?
- What is the most critical failure of the 20 th century according
to Peter Gleick?
- What are the roots of the water crisis?
- Why has it become especially difficult to manage the water
recently?
- What illustrates the immensity of the task?
- What are the main issues of the 21st century?
- Is Africa the only continent suffering from deforestation and
desertification?
- What are the possible ways of lessening the gravity of the
problem?
4. For discussion
- Are you concerned about the problem raised by the writer?

Do you think she exaggerates?
236
- Do you think the availability of potable water is a topical
problem for our country? Why or why not?
- What other high-ranking environmental problems need
immediate consideration in our country?
3.6 B. The Nuclear Wasteland

by Masha Gessen
Russia's plan to import spent nuclear fuel risks making a bad

situation worse
MUSLYUMOVO, RUSSIA-A man dressed in gray cotton-

padded pants and jacket and a tatty rabbit hat lies on his stomach
very still, pressing his face into a hole in the ice. A warm spring here
means the Techa River never freezes, forcing fish to come up for air
right in this spot, where he can grab them with his bare hands.
Hearing two visitors come down from the road, the man gets up to
look. "That's a Geiger counter," he says, noting the device they're
carrying. "You looking for radiation? I heard it's all gone away."
It has not. The Geiger counter gives a reading of 154
microrads per hour, roughly seven times the maximum safe dose of
background radiation. When the snow melts away, background
radiation in some places along the shore will measure over 1,000.
The village of Muslyumovo is less than 50 miles from Mayak
("Beacon"), the world's oldest nuclear fuel reprocessing plant,
which has been dumping liquid radioactive waste into the river
since the late 1940s. Accidents regularly shake Mayak-at least five
occurred in the 1990sbut the best-known one is the 1957 waste-
container explosion, one of the worst nuclear disasters of all time.
About 10,000 people were evacuated from the contaminated area
that year, and tens of thousands more probably should have been.
But a lethal combination of ignorance, poverty, and official
indifference keeps people living on the land and feeding off itwith
nightmarish consequences.
237
Despite the alarming record of operational mishaps and
regulatory laxness, the
Ministry of Atomic Energy, or Minatom, wants authority to
import thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from power plants in
Europe and Asia. The ministry envisions earning billions of dollars-
money that could expand its already considerable political clout and
finance construction of new nuclear power plants. The far-fetched
plan, which calls for the construction of 40 new reactors in the next
20 yearsan impossible undertaking even for a wealthy country
has proved popular with Russian officials, and the parliament is set
to give its OK this month. Most of that spent nuclear fuel would end
up at Mayak. Up until now, Russia has by and large banned such
imports of spent nuclear fuel; the relatively little that it does import,
along with domestic fuel, uses virtually all capacity at Mayak and
the two other radioactive-waste storage facilities in Siberia. If the
Minatom plan is approved, Mayak would reprocess
some of the spent nuclear fuel, yielding plutonium. Next, the
atomic energy ministry would construct a new nuclear power station
next to the plant, employing a so-called breeder reactor, which both
uses and extracts plutonium-based fuel.
Ignoring public opinion. There's opposition from the Russian
nuclear regulatory agency, the State Committee for Atomic
Oversight (GAN). Minatom's response? It is pushing for legislation
to curtail the powers of the safety agency, which environmental
activists say is already exceedingly permissive.
Minatomand its allies in the parliament and the Kremlin
are prevailing in the face of opinion polls showing that 70 percent to
90 percent of Russians oppose importing radioactive waste. Last
fall, environmentalists gathered 3 million signatures in support of
holding a referendum an unprecedented grass-roots success in a
country where such organizing efforts are rare. But the Central
Election Commission threw out just enough votes to quash the
initiative. Complains former presidential adviser Alexei Yablokov,
one of the organizers, "If we had collected 5 million signatures, they
would just have thrown out that many more."
In the villages around the Mayak plant, opposition often gives
way to tired indifference. "We are worried about feeding our kids,
238
and we really can't give much thought to all this radiation stuff,"
says Maria Akhmadeyeva, who teaches elementary school in
Muslyumovo. "We are soaked with this nuclear stuff anyway," adds
her colleague, Russian language teacher Guzal Yalalova.
"I guess the region needs this new nuclear power plant,"
acknowledges Muslyumovo Mayor Gaynulla Kamalov. "But no
one's promising us any of the benefits." Indeed, in the past, funds
earmarked for residents of the contaminated region were
consistently siphoned off. An early 1990s deal, in which the United
States bought Russian plutonium, was supposed to provide $5.9
million for environmental relief in the region contaminated by
Mayak; in fact, according to a General Accounting Office report,
only $158,000 was used for the specified purpose: improvements in
the local health center. And the medical diagnostic equipment that
was purchased has proved a mixed blessing for residents, who still
have little money to pay for treatment. Mayor Kamalov, 56, knows
all about this: He has had to scrimp, save, and beg to pay for five
operations for his now 3-year-old grandson, who was born with
several tumors around his chest.
Invisible peril. In this remote Ural Mountains region 1,000
miles east of Moscow, residents live with the bitter consequences of
pollution they can neither see, nor taste, nor smell. Gilmenur
Karimova recalls the day four years ago that her granddaughter
Alina was born with severely deformed legs and five fingers
missing. "We cried so much," she says. The family managed to pay
for two operations that enabled Alina to walk, but they are terrified
at the $600 per finger they have been quoted for the hands. Alina,
who makes beautiful ballpoint-pen drawings of mermaids and her
mother despite her handicap, believes her fingers will eventually
grow out.
The contamination is spreading. An underground reservoir of
radioactive waste from Mayak is inching ever closer to a river that
will carry it through the region to the Arctic Ocean. An aging dam
that blocks the Techa River poses another danger, which GAN
warns will grow if more spent fuel is brought to Mayak for
reprocessing.
239
But these are just the most immediate risks from the possible
deregulation of the Russian nuclear industry. Other potential nuclear
disasters: a dozen very old reactors, including six Chernobyl-type
reactors and one reactor in the center of Moscow that happens to be
the world's oldest. GAN has tried to shut down these monsters in the
past, but Minatom has already said it plans to keep them going
and even to re-launch one Chernobyl-type reactor this spring.
Minatom also hopes to build several fast-neutron breeder
reactors, a technology opposed by the United States because it
extracts plutonium that could be stolen to make black-market
nuclear weapons. The Russians should have their own reasons to
reconsider: The one existing Russian breeder reactor, at the
Beloyarsk power plant, has had 26 accidents. But in Moscow, the
issue seems more about political power and its benefits than about
nuclear power.
Vocabulary
dump to put sth such as a load somewhere in a careless, untidy

way; get rid of: dumping ground; dump on to criticize someone
very strongly; to tell someone all your problems; dump (n); down
in the damps very sad and without much interest in life.
envision imagine that something will happen in the future.
curtail to reduce sth such as the amount of money spent: curtail
the powers; curtailment (n).
quash to officially state that a judgment is no longer legal or
correct: to quash a decision; to use force to end protests or
disobedience: quash a rebellion.
earmark (usually passive) to decide that someone or something
will be used for a particular purpose in the future: earmark sb/sth
for; earmark sb/sth as.
peril great danger, especially of being harmed or killed: in peril;
the perils of; you do sth at your peril; perilous.
1. Find the words and expressions in the article which mean

the same.
240
Lack of knowledge; lack of interest on concern; the most
frightening situation that you can imagine; misfortunes; carelessness
in standards of behaviour; extremely unlikely to happen; more or
less; the ordinary people; polluted areas.
2. Explain the meaning of the following phrases.
Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant; spent nuclear fuel;

environmental relief; to prove a mixed blessing; to have ones own
reasons to reconsider.
3. Comment on the title of the article summarizing the

information of the article.
4. For discussion
- What are your impressions of the article? Do you find the

examples the writer gives convincing?
- What is your stance on the problem raised? Do you consider
it topical for Russia?
- What are the key arguments of the opponents and proponents
of the legislation?
3.6 C. Current Accounts of the Fate of the Planet

Steve Connor on a vast sea search for clues to climate
In their darker moments, climatologists talk about their own

"nightmare scenario". This is one where global warming has
brought about such significant climatic changes that ocean currents
change direction. One scene from the nightmare has the Gulf Stream
moving south or even going into reverse, making winter in London
look and feel like a St Petersburg January.
The ocean is a great moderating influence on the planet,
soaking up heat around the tropics and depositing it in the cooler
241
polar regions. Yet scientists know surprisingly little about how the
sea does this - they estimate that the North Atlantic alone moves
energy equivalent to the output of several hundred million power
stations.
Last year oceanographers began their biggest international
research initiative to learn more about ocean circulation. The first
results from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment demonstrate
just how complex the movement of sea water can be. They have
also given scientists a glimpse of the amount of heat being
exchanged between the oceans and the atmosphere. As part of the
experiment,- researchers are monitoring the speed and direction of
ocean currents, water temperature and salinity.
Research ships taking part will gather detailed measurements
at 24,000 points or "stations" along carefully designated trans-ocean
routes. This undertaking dwarfs the 8,000 hydrographic stations
created in the past hundred years of ocean surveying. A fleet of
ships, buoys, seabed sensors and satellites will collect so much data
that Britain, one of the 40 countries taking part, has opened a
research institute, the James Rennell Centre for Ocean Circulation
in Southampton, to process them.
One of the justifications for the experiment, says John Woods,
director of marine and atmospheric sciences at the Natural
Environment Research Council, is that the oceans hold the key to
understanding long-term changes in the global climate. The Earth
has two "envelopes" - the ocean, consisting of slowly circulating
water, and the atmosphere, made of fast-moving air. Far from being
independent, they interact, one modifying the other until a balance
is reached between them. The present balance came about at the end
of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. Scientists hope that
knowing more about the ocean's "weather patterns" will help them
to predict climate changes further ahead.
Knowing how heat is moved around the ocean is crucial to
such long-term forecasting. The top three metres of the ocean store
more heat than all of the atmosphere. Some of the heat can be
transported downward between 30 metres and several thousand
metres. The deeper it goes, the longer it stays out of the atmosphere.
Water heated in the equatorial region flows in shallow currents north
242
or south towards the poles, where it releases its heat to the air and,
as it becomes colder and denser, sinks to the sea floor, where it
forms deep, cold currents that flow back to the equator.
John Gould, one of the British scientists taking part in the
ocean circulation experiment, is discovering just how this occurs in
the North Atlantic. Shallow currents, less than 500m deep, of warm
water at about 8C flow from the Atlantic into the Norwegian Sea,
mainly along a path that follows the point where the continental
shelf ends and the deep mid-ocean valleys begin. Meanwhile, at
depths down to 5,000m, deep currents of cold water at about minus
1 C flow south into the Atlantic along the deep ocean valleys. (Salt
water at this depth does not freeze at 0C.)
Sensors positioned on the seabed have given Dr Gould and his
researchers an accurate assessment of just how much cold water is
flowing back into the North Atlantic having given up its heat to the
atmosphere over north-west Europe. In total, he estimates, about 5
million cubic metres of water per second flows in these deep
currents between Greenland and the British Isles. This means the
warm water of the
North Atlantic must be giving up about 200 million megawatts
of energy to the atmosphere over north-west Europe. '
Research at the other end of the world, in the seas around
Antarctica, is also finding that sea-floor topography plays a crucial
role in determining the direction of ocean currents. In the past,
oceanographers have assumed, for instance, that surface currents
such as the Gulf Stream do not extend much beyond a kilometre in
depth. But an analysis of currents in Antarctic waters has shown that
currents are not concentrated in the top kilometre, but reach down to
the submerged mountain ranges.
Dr Woods believes such research will help to save lives.
"More deaths can be prevented by ocean forecasting than by
weather forecasting, and our economic and social well-being are
more vulnerable to change in the ocean than in the atmosphere."
Vocabulary
243
reverse to change sth, go backward: reverse out/into a car/bus;
reverse the charges call collect; reversible; reverse (n): quite
the reverse (=completely the opposite); go into reverse (=happen
in the opposite way); reverse order/procedure/process: in
reversed order; the reverse side the back of sth; reverse
discrimination; reversion to a return to a former, usually bad,
condition.
moderate to make something less extreme or violent; moderate
(adj): a moderate smoker/ moderate wage demands; moderate
(n); moderately (adv); moderation: in moderation; moderation
in reduction in force, degree, speed.
dwarf to be so big that other things are made to seem very small;
dwarf (n); dwarf(adj): a dwarf plant/animal much smaller than
the usual size.
modify to make small changes to something in order to improve
it; modification (n).
balance a steady state: lose/keep your balance; balance
in/between/of; strike a balance (= manage to balance the
opposing forces); on balance/ off balance; the balance of
evidence/probability; be/hang in the balance (not to know what
the results, outcome will be); tip/swing the balance (influence the
result of); balance (n); (hold) the balance of power.
shallow a short distance from the bottom to the surface: shallow
river/ waters; not interested or showing any understanding in
important matters; shallowness (n)
release let sb free; stop holding; make public; release sb from
to allow someone not to do sth; release (n): on(general) release if
a film is on general release it has recently become possible to see or
buy it.
1. Scan the text as quickly as possible to find where these

ideas are mentioned. Read the article and decide whether the
statements are true or false.
1. Deep ocean currents transfer heat from the equator to the polar
regions.
244
2. Global warming has already caused significant changes to ocean
currents.
3. A large number of countries are participating in a wide-scale
research program.
4. Ocean currents are essential factors in the planetary heat transfer
system.
5. International research is aimed at a better understanding of
climatic changes.
6. More data will be collected in this research initiative than ever
before.
7. Research has shown that the topography of the seabed does not
influence the direction of currents.
8. British scientists will monitor wind speeds in the polar regions.
2. There are a number of questions or unfinished sentences

below. Choose the best answer from A, B, C or D.
1. Some scientists believe that global warming could

A. modify ocean currents.
B. change wind directions in the polar regions.
C. reduce the influence of currents.
D. increase wind speeds.
2. The first results have already confirmed
A. that heat is stocked at great depths.
B. that the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago.
C. the complexity of ocean currents.
D. that Gulf Stream currents are situated in the surface layer of
water.
3. Heat is transferred from the tropics to the poles
A. in the surface currents.
B. in the atmosphere.
C. in the deep currents.
D. along the seabed.
4. The atmosphere and the ocean
A. influence the climate independently.
B. interact and create a global climatic balance.
C. have no effect on the climate.
245
D. have only modified the climate since the last Ice Age.
5. Why is this research considered to be of great importance?
A. It will enable scientists of the future to prevent extreme climatic
changes.
B. It will help scientists predict climate changes.
C. It unites a large number of different countries.
D. It will help dissipate the climatologists' 'nightmare scenario'.
3. Scientific texts often look more complicated than they

really are. Look at the article in this section again and note down
any 'difficult' scientific words or expressions.
4. The opening sentence of the text suggests that there are

other 'nightmare scenarios'. What scenarios is the writer probably
referring to?
3.6 D. Breezing into the Future

by Dick Thompson
A decade ago, windmills promised to be a clean, reliable

source of power that could help wean America from its dependence
on dirty fuels and foreign oil. The idea of harnessing an energy
supply that was free as the breeze generated enough megawatts of
excitement to light up an entire new industry. Spurred by generous
government tax incentives, investors poured more than $2.5 billion
into U.S. wind projects during the early 1980s.
But enthusiasm was not enough to propel the dream into
reality. "Wind developed a reputation for not working, and it had the
stigma of a tax scam," says Robert Thresher, the wind-program
manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden,
Colo. Eventually the problems caused power companies to back
away. And by 1985, when the tax credits expired, the remaining
wind towers began looking more and more like monuments to a lost
cause.
246
Now, however, there's new energy in the wind. Engineers have
used advanced technology to make wind turbines that are far more
efficient and cost effective than those of yesteryear. Says J. Michael
Davis, chief of renewable-energy programs at the U.S. Department
of Energy: "These machines are real and reliable." Today's models
are capable of meeting 10% of America's energy demand, and
within 30 years, newer versions could provide for a quarter of the
nation's power needs. Such figures have re-energized the
manufacturers of wind-power equipment and attracted the interest
of foreign competitors. Utilities are conducting wind surveys and
starting pilot projects. And a new breed of wildcatter is scurrying to
buy up wind rightslicenses to erect what may be the oil wells of
tomorrow.
For years, the wind industry's goal has been to produce power
at rates similar to oil's: roughly a nickel for a kilowatt. Machines
now operating in California can produce energy at 7cents per kW. In
areas of consistent high winds, the next generation, currently being
deployed, will bring that cost down to 5cents by 1995, and more
advanced designs are likely to shave off another penny by the year
2000. While many locales do not have enough wind to use the
technology, enhancements already in the works will expand by a
factor of 20 the area of land that can generate wind power
profitably, according to experts at the National Renewable Energy
Lab.
Wind's success says something about a dicey political issue:
Should government tamper with free enterprise to nurture a new
technology? The answer for renewable energy sources is definitely
yes. Had manufacturers and utilities not received state and federal
assistance early on, the future of wind power would now be con-
trolled by either Japan or Europe; both have consistently funded
wind research. Today American technology dominates the field.
In a sense, wind power has come full circle. In the early 1900s,
most of the electricity on U.S. farms was provided by windmills.
Those were replaced during the 1930s when the Rural
Electrification Administration wired the countryside. But the oil
embargoes and environmental concerns of the '70s prodded
politicians to encourage the investigation of alternative energy
247
sources. States began requiring their utilities to spend between 1 %
and 2% of profits on research, and the federal government added its
generous tax credits for investments in renewables.
Unfortunately, the credits were for investment, not
performance. Consequently, many wind-power machines seemed to
be designed on an accountant's calculator to capture more
deductions than breezes. Some towers were planted in fields of
feeble winds. Others broke down with frustrating regularity. But a
few companies persisted, and California in particular became the
nursery for advanced technology. The state's hot central valleys are
linked to the cool ocean by a series of gorges and valleys along the
coast that act like wind tunnels. It was in these natural labs that
engineers began testing new designs.
The failures of the 1980s showed the researchers that they
knew almost nothing about building machines that could withstand
and harness the turbulence of wind. Early models used blades of a
type originally designed for helicopters. Since wind pressure could
vary considerably from one end of the blade to the other, the rotor
would wobble wildly and eventually break off. Sudden gusts of
wind could overpower the machine and burn out its energy-
converting turbine. Some engineers tried solving the problems by
building heavier machines, but that simply made them more
expensive.
After much trial and error, researchers modified the contours
of the blades; some, for instance, are thicker in the middle in order
to provide more stability. Engineers put electronic sensors atop the
towers that could constantly monitor wind direction and turn the
machine to correct for changes. The sensors do not respond to every
fluctuation, but when a computer calculates a sustained 15 shift, it
signals for a turn into the wind. The leading American manufacturer,
U.S. Windpower of Livermore, Calif., has built machines with
electronic components that act as a giant surge protector, keeping
sudden bursts of energy produced by gusts from overpowering the
turbine.
Researchers also found that less than ideal placement of a
windmill can have a major impact: missing 10% of the wind can
reduce power 30%. Moreover, the arrangement of turbines within a
248
wind "farm" is important because the wake produced by one
windmill affects those around it. Computers are being used to
simulate varied terrain and calculate how to produce the most
energy.
The advances are slowly changing the way utilities evaluate
the technology. "We look at it as a real competitive option," says
Carl Weinberg, director of research for San Francisco-based Pacific
Gas and Electric. Outside California, however, wind power still
carries the burden of past failures. Even though a government
survey found that 10 Midwestern states could more than meet all
their electrical power needs from wind, no major wind projects are
planned in the region.
But growing public concern over pollution from burning fossil
fuels will increase the pressure for renewable energy. Several states
are starting to require utilities to factor the cost of environmental
damage into the cost of power production. In California, where the
process of calculating environmental cost is just beginning, wind
power maybe assigned a price 15% lower than that for energy from
traditional sources.
Seven different proposals are before Congress to provide
incentives for new wind-turbine purchases. Surprisingly, the energy
industry itself is divided on the value of such incentives. Turbine
manufacturers believe that wind should prove itself competitive
without further special assistance. But utilities would like a tax
credit to make investment more attractive.
Additional technological advances now on the drawing board
are likely to make wind power even more appealing. Engineers plan
to boost the towers in some areas higher than they are at present so
that the machines can escape ground turbulence and tap more
consistent winds. Lighter materials could reduce the cost of building
the towers And researchers are looking into ways to store excess
energy produced during windy periods so that it could be banked for
use on calmer days or during peak energy demand.
If wind power does not fulfill its promise as a major energy
source by the end of the century, it will not be a failure of
technology. It will be a failure of vision on the part of society to
make the necessary commitment.
249
Vocabulary
conduct conduct a survey/experiment/inquiry to carry out a

particular process to get information; to conduct an orchestra; to
conduct sb about; conduct yourself behave in a particular way;
conduct (n); conductor (n)
deploy to organize people or things, especially soldiers, military
equipment so that they are in the right place ready to be used;
deployment.
enhance improve sth; enhancement (n): much needed
enhancement.
tamper tamper with to touch sth or make changes to it without
permission, especially in order to deliberately damage it; tamper-
evident/tamper-resistant a package or a container made so that
you can see if someone had opened it before; tamper-proof made
so that to prevent opening it before it is sold.
nurture to feed and take care of a child or a plant while it is
growing; to help a plan idea, feeling to develop; nurture (n)
education and care that you are given as a child, and the way it
affects your later development and attitudes; nurturance loving
care and attention
prod 1. push with a finger; 2. To strongly encourage someone to
do sth: to prod sb into doing sth; prod (n): give sb a prod.
escape to get away from some place, somebody, something: to
escape sbs clutches; to escape from/through/into; escape sbs
attention/notice; the name/date/title escapes me; theres no
escaping (the fact); escape (n):an escape of gas/liquid etc.; a
lucky escape.
Energy produced by a source different from mainstream ones;

a source of energy that comes from ancient plant or animal remains
in the earth; a trial activity; energy produced by a source that never
runs out; to arrive at the starting point again; chancy and potentially
controversial; having no cost; a motive, a reason to do something;
250
a project or plan with no hope of success; being planned or in the
process of development; a deceptive act or plan; to reduce or lessen
something; trying repeatedly for success; someone who looks for
energy sources in untried areas.
2. Explain the meaning of the following phrases.
Wean America from; harness an energy supply; spurred by;

propel the dream into reality; to have the stigma; a monument to a
lost cause; to become the nursery for advanced technology; to carry
the burden of past failures; to make the necessary commitment.
1. How much of the energy needed in the United States can

windmills provide today? How much could they provide in thirty
years?
2. Why were the windmills of the early 1900s replaced?
3. What problems did the windmills of the 1980s have?
4. What features do 1990s models have to correct these
problems?

information provided by the writer.
5. For Discussion
- Do you think that governments should give companies

financial incentives for developing alternative energy sources? Why
or why not?
- What problems do windmills have that still need to be
solved?
- Do you think that windmills are worth developing in our
country notable for its oil and gas resources? Why or why not?
251
- What are the sources of energy that are used today or that
could be developed. What are the advantages and disadvantages of
each one.
3.6 E. Environmental Responsibility and

Consumer Protection
by Joseph T.Straub and Raymond F.Attner
ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY
Environmental preservation, maintenance, and restoration
must rank high on any corporation's list of social concerns. The
advent of synthetic chemical compounds and materials and of exotic
manufacturing processes means that the environment has become
polluted. Actions have to be taken to eliminate the causes, and firms
that are responsible must be held accountable. With this realization,
there has been much environmental progress. Since Earth Day 1970,
when Americans first began to "think green":
Miles of polluted rivers and streams have been brought
back to life.
The number of cities with adequate sewage treatment plants
has more than doubled.
The pumping of sewage sludge into the ocean has ceased.
Major air pollutants have been considerably reduced.
The business sector must continue its commitment. There are
still problems in the areas of hazardous and solid waste and environ-
mental maintenance.
Hazardous Wastes
The problem with hazardous wasteswaste materials
containing toxic substancesis one common to land, water, and air
pollution. According to recent estimates, industrial operations
produce more than 50 million tons of hazardous waste each year, an
average of 14.2 tons for each square mile of land mass in the forty-
eight contiguous states. While generating products that benefit
252
consumers in various ways, many manufacturing processes produce
toxic chemical waste faster than it can be disposed of. Farsighted
business leaders see this situation and give more than lip service to
environmental concerns.
Recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency show
that the toxic releases of U.S. manufacturers are falling. What's
more, chemical makers that pump out the largest share of these
poisons cut their emissions by 35 percent between 1987 and 1992.
One factor that has led to this decrease is the chemical
industry's voluntary program to reduce toxic air pollutants below the
standards set by the 1990 Clean Air Act. Nine of the nation's biggest
polluters, including Du Pont and Monsanto, signed on with the
understanding that they could use the technology of their choice. At
the same time, the Chemical Manufacturer's Association committed
to pollution control. The results speak for themselves.
Solid Wastes
Besides hazardous waste, there is the basic problem of solid
waste generated through packaging, bottling, and product
construction. Experience and mistakes with waste disposal over the
last three decades have shown that waste cannot be simply thrown
away. About 64 percent of the country's growing mountain of waste
is paper and paperboard, metals, glass, and plastics.
In response to difficulties with solid waste disposal,
organizations have attempted to provide alternative packaging that
can help in the decomposition of products. Another area of emphasis
has been to limit the manufacturing of new products by recycling,
the practice of reclaiming or producing materials from previously
manufactured products and using them to make other items. At the
present time only 11 percent of solid waste is recycled.
Recycling opportunities exist in all areas of a business. Instead
of discarding its cocoa-bean hulls, Hershey Foods Corporation
reportedly grinds them up and sells them as garden mulch.
Fiberboard and pressboard made from sawdust and wood chips
enable economy-minded forest products firms to convert virtually
every splinter of a tree into a salable product. In some manu-
facturing plants, heat from production processes is cycled through
the heating system to heat the building. The Adolph Coors brewery
253
once generated most of its needed electricity from recycled waste
materials. The cumulative effects of recycling are impressive:
Mississippi River water is used at least eight times on its
journey to the Gulf of Mexico.
Forty percent of all new copper is made from recycled
copper.
Twenty percent of the glass we use comes from recycled
scraps and shards that are melted down and mixed with new
material.
Organizations that have committed to recycling are varied:
Gardner's Supply, a mail order company in Burlington,
Vermont, committed to a program that composts grass clippings and
leaves for free in the local area. The program has been so successful
that it collects 3,000 to 4,000 tons per year.
Yakima Products, Inc., a car-rack maker in Arcata,
California, was unable to avoid using plastic and foam in packing its
high-end roof-rack systems. The company created a way for
customers to easily mail the packaging materials backfree. It then
reuses the foam and polyethylene-shell portions of the container and
recycles the outer chipboard.
The Boston Park Plaza Hotel has become immersed in
recycling. Wooden pallets on which food is delivered to the hotel
up to 100 each weekare now returned to the vender and reused.
The housekeeping staff makes chefs' aprons from damaged table-
cloths. And, guests' returnable bottles are recycledresulting in the
purchase of several new vacuums.
Environmental Maintenance
In addition to solid waste problems, industry has another
major social concern: overall environmental maintenance of water,
air, and land. Business has begun to address this area. For example:
E&J Gallo Winery gave $250,000 to the American Forestry
Association's Global Relief Program, whose goal is to plant 100
million trees in the United States to counteract the greenhouse
effect.
Apple Computer donated $40,000 worth of computer
equipment to Earth Day 1990.
254
Timberland Shoes gave $250,000 to the Wilderness Society
to assist in accomplishing its goals.
Du Pont voluntarily spends $50 million each year on
environmental projects beyond what the law requires, such as the
$15 million it spent at a Texas plant to reduce the risk of dangerous
gases being released.
ENERGY PROGRAMS
Companies have approached the energy situation from two
directions: internal consumption efficiency and public programs. In
the first area, organizations have attempted to use alternative means
of energy, if possible, but many more have focused on developing or
purchasing more efficient equipment. For example, Fox River Mills,
a manufacturer of gloves and athletic socks, spent $40,000 on
measures to improve energy efficiency and reduced the company's
monthly utility bill by about $3,000. The company installed energy-
efficient ballasts in 600 fluorescent lights, moved the lights closer to
the work being performed, added six inches of insulation to outside
walls, installed white steel inner walls to reflect light, and directed
wasted heat from air compressors and boilers inside its facility to
heat part of the building in cold months.
In the second area, firms have encouraged the use of van
pooling. This public program has a twofold benefit: it reduces the
amount of fuel consumed by using one vehicle instead of six, and it
reduces traffic congestion on already snarled streets and freeways.
CONSUMER PROTECTION
In recent years another major area of concentration for
businesses has been consumerismactivities undertaken to protect
the rights of the consumer. To genuinely partner with society,
businesses cannot simply produce a product and place it on the
market. Consumer protection involves consumer rights: the right to
product safety, to be informed, to choose, and to be heard.
Product Safety
Businesses have spent time and money to improve the safety
of products. Spurred on by the fear of lawsuits and consumer action,
255
they have initiated a number of innovative ideas to ensure product
safety.
Companies spend millions of dollars researching product
safety. The auto industry has developed padded dashboards, shock-
absorbing steering columns, and stronger gasoline tanks. Many
companies have delayed the release of products until conclusive
results of testing have been obtained, have initiated product recalls
when their testing has discovered problems, and have attempted to
identify product purchasers to make recalls less difficult.
Consumer Information
Consumers have the right to have access to complete
information about a product before they buy it, including
information on potential dangers associated with the product. In
response, companies have provided specific information on labels of
food containers, and tags on clothing contain information on fabric
composition and
care. In addition, companies have co-sponsored, with retailers,
workshops or clinics where consumers can see demonstrations of
products and receive answers to their questions. Companies have
produced extensive operating instructions, safety procedures, and
practical uses of products to be provided to consumers at the time of
purchase.
Product Choice
Consumers have the right in the marketplace to choose
between products offered by competing producers and marketers.
This right is assured through the competition in the private
enterprise system and by government antitrust laws.
Voicing Concerns
Consumers have the right to be listened to and to have action
taken when it is justified. A number of manufacturers have
developed systematic programs to deal with consumer issues. A
number of companies have established toll-free numbers for
consumers to use to solve operating problems or receive product
advice. Maytag introduced Red Carpet Service to improve its
256
response to repair problems. General Electric operates the GE
Answer Center, which handles consumer inquiries twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week, via a toll-free number. It receives 3
million calls each year. The center responds to questions from
potential consumers and do-it-yourselfers and tries to resolve com-
plaints from disgruntled customers.
Vocabulary
rank to have a particular position in a list of people or things that

are put in order of quality or importance: rank among/as/with; be
ranked fourth/number one; rank sb/sth in order; rank (n):
high/low/senior/junior rank; be reduced to the ranks (=be
punished by no longer being an officer); rise from the ranks (=to
become an officer); join the ranks of become a member; of the
first rank of the highest quality; the rank and file ordinary
members of the organization; ranking officer the officer in a
group who has the highest rank
contiguous next to something (with); contiguity (n).
discard to get rid of something useless; discarded (adj).
immerse to put sth deep into a liquid so that it is completely
covered: immerse sth in; immerse yourself in get completely
involved in; immersion (n).
counteract to reduce or prevent the bad effect of something.
resolve to find a satisfactory way of dealing with a problem;
resolve to do sth to make a formal decision, especially by voting;
resolve sth into sth to separate or become separated into parts;
resolve itself into to gradually change into sth else, become;
resolution (n); to make (New Years) resolution.
disgruntled annoyed, unhappy, especially because things have
nor happened the way expected.
Not of natural origin; to make a mixture of decaying organic

matter; a natural effect that traps heat in the atmosphere; heavy
materials used to provide stability; laws concerned with breaking
257
up huge businesses or monopolies; to be found responsible;
dangerous; protection of the ecosystem; shrewd and clever.
2. Explain the meaning of the following words and

expressions.
To continue commitment; to benefit consumers; to give a lip

service to; economy-minded forest products firms; to counteract the
greenhouse effect; accomplish the goals; to have a twofold benefit;
spurred on; to resolve complaints.
3. Choose the most suitable answer.
1. The authors admit that industry often

a. produces more toxic waste than it can eliminate
b. eliminates all the toxic waste that it produces
c. disobeys the government's toxic-waste legislation
d. works with other industries to sidestep environmental laws
2. The industries that produce the most toxic waste are
a. plastics companies
b. chemical manufacturers
c. automobile manufacturers
d. paper manufacturers
3. Which of the following is not mentioned as a solid waste that
industry produces?
a. wood b. paper c. glass d. plastics
4. One of business's solutions to solid waste that the authors
mention is
a. alternative packaging
b. chemical decomposition
c. burning
d. dumping
5. The authors note that the Adolph Coors brewery once created its
electricity by
a. building a hydroelectric plant
b. recycling waste products
c. harnessing solar energy
258
d. harnessing wind energy
6. Which action is not an example of business helping maintain the
environment?
a. Gallo Winery gave a monetary contribution to the American
Forestry Association.
b. Apple Computer contributed to Earth Day 1990.
c. Timberland Shoes supported the Wilderness Society.
d. Maytag introduced the Red Carpet Service to help its
customers with their repair problems.
7. The authors note that businesses have improved the safety of their
products because
a. they fear lawsuits by consumers
b. they have been given financial assistance from the federal
government
c. they want to increase their profits
d. they want to compete with other consumer-conscious
corporations
8. Which is an example of business's response to consumer
protection?
a. Fox River Mills spent $40,000 to improve energy efficiency.
b. General Electric operates the GE Answer Center.
c. Wooden pallets in the Boston Park Plaza Hotel are being
reused.
d. Hershey Foods grinds cocoa-bean hulls into garden mulch.
9. This excerpt generally depicts U.S. industry as being
a. the leader in environmental protection
b. reluctant to enforce consumer protection laws
c. hostile to environmental legislation
d. supportive of environmental legislation
4. Summarize the article.
5. For discussion
- At the beginning of the article the authors discuss how

industry is solving the hazardous waste problem. Choose three of
the most convincing facts from these paragraphs to show industry's
259
success in dealing with hazardous waste. Do you think these
examples are impressive? Why or why not?
- The authors go on to discuss industry's response to
recycling. Select three examples of industrial recycling mentioned
in this excerpt and show why they are intelligent recycling methods
or not.
- The authors also speak about energy programs sponsored by
industry. What energy programs do they mention? Provide three
other energy programs of your own that industry could employ to
conserve energy.
- Examine the evidence the authors use to support their
contention that industry is protecting the environment. Which
examples from the excerpt do you find least convincing? Why?
3.6 F. The Weather Turns Wild
by Nancy Shute
The people of Atlanta can be forgiven for not worrying about

global warming as they shivered in the dark last January, their city
crippled by a monster ice storm that hit just before the Super Bowl.
So can the 15 families in Hilo, Hawaii, whose houses were washed
away by the 27 inches of rain that fell in 24 hours last November.
And the FBI agents who searched for evidence blown out of their
downtown Fort Worth office building, which was destroyed by a
tornado last March. Not to mention the baffled residents of Barrow,
Alaska, who flooded the local weather office with calls on June 19,
as rumbling black clouds descended a rare Arctic thunderstorm.
But such bizarre weather could soon become more
common, and the consequences far more dire, according to a United
Nations scientific panel. Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change met in Shanghai and officially released the most
definitive and scary report yet, declaring that global warming is
not only real but man-made. The decade of the 90s was the
warmest on record, and most of the rise was likely caused by the
burning of oil, coal, and other fuels that release carbon dioxide, as
well as other so-called greenhouse gases. What is more, future
260
changes will be twice as severe as predicted just five years ago, the
group says. Over the next 100 years, temperatures are predicted to
rise by 2.5 to 10.4 degrees worldwide, enough to spark floods,
epidemics, and millions of "environmental refugees."
By midcentury, the chic Art Deco hotels that now line Miami's
South Beach could stand waterlogged and abandoned. Malaria could
be a public health threat in Vermont. Nebraska farmers could
abandon their fields for lack of water. Outside the United States, the
impact would be much more severe. Rising sea levels could con-
taminate the aquifers that supply drinking water for Caribbean
islands, while entire Pacific island nations could simply disappear
under the sea. Perhaps the hardest-hit country would be Bangladesh,
where thousands of people already die from floods each year.
Increased snowmelt in the Himalayas could combine with rising
seas to make at least 10 percent of the country uninhabitable. The
water level of most of Africa's largest rivers, including the Nile,
could plunge, triggering widespread crop failure and idling
hydroelectric plants.
Higher temperatures and lower rainfall could stunt food
production in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
No more words. The debate is over," says Peter Gleick,
president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Envi-
ronment, and Security, in Oakland, Calif. "No matter what we do to
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, we will not be able to avoid some
impacts of climate change."
This newest global-warming forecast is backed by data from
myriad satellites, weather balloons, ships at sea, and weather
stations, and by immense computer models of the global climate
system. As scientists have moved toward consensus on warming's
inevitability, there has been growing movement to come up with re-
alistic adaptations to blunt the expected effects. Instead of casting
blame at polluting SUV drivers, environmentalists and businesses
alike are working to create feasible solutions. These range from
measures as complex as global carbon-dioxide-emissions taxes to
ones as simple as caulking leaks in Russian and Chinese natural gas
pipelines. The take-home message: Change is difficult but not
impossible, and the sooner we start, the easier it will be. Civilization
261
has adjusted to drastic weather changes in the past and is well
positioned to do so again. Indeed, while governments squabble over
what is to be done, major corporations such as BP Amoco and
DuPont are retooling operations to reduce greenhouse gases. "I am
very, very optimistic," says Robert Watson, an atmospheric scientist,
World Bank official, and leader of the IPCC panel that created the
report.
Concern about greenhouse gases is hardly new; as early as the
1700s, scientists were wondering whether atmospheric gases could
transmit light but trap heat, much like glass in a greenhouse. By
1860, Irish physicist John Tyndall (the first man to explain why the
sky is blue) suggested that ice ages follow a decrease in carbon
dioxide. In 1957, Roger Revelle, a researcher at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in California, declared that human
alteration of the climate amounted to a "large-scale geophysical
experiment" with potentially vast consequences.
Such dire predictions had been made before and not come true,
and this environmental hysteria emboldened skeptics. But by 1988,
the evidence was hard to rebut; when NASA atmospheric scientist
James Hansen told a congressional hearing that global warming had
arrived, climate change became a hot political topic. At the 1992
Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, 155 nations, including the United
States, signed a treaty to control greenhouse emissions, which also
include other gases such as methane. That accord led to the 1997
Kyoto protocol calling for reducing emissions of developed nations
below 1990 levels but placing no emissions restrictions on China
and other developing nations. In November, talks over the treaty
broke down over the issue of how to measure nations' progress in
reducing emissions. They are set to resume by midyear, after the
Bush administration has formulated its position.
Doubters remain. Some argue that climate is too chaotic and
complex to trust to any computerized prediction, or that Earth's
climate is too stable to be greatly upset by a little more CO2. "I
don't see how the IPCC can say it's going to warm for sure," says
Craig Idso, a climatologist and vice president of the Center for the
Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Tempe, Ariz. He
calls predictions of drastic warming "a sheer guess" and says that
262
extra carbon dioxide "is going to be nothing but a boon for the
biosphere. Plants will grow like gangbusters."
But these skeptics appear to be losing ground. "There are
fewer and fewer of them every year," says William Kellogg, former
president of the American Meteorological Society and a retired
senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
"There are very few people in the serious meteorological com-
munity who doubt that the warming is taking place."
If the majority view holds up and temperatures keep rising,
over the next century global weather patterns will shift enough to
affect everyday life on every continent. The effects would vary
wildly from one place to the next; what might be good news for one
region (warmer winters in Fairbanks, Alaska) would be bad news
for another (more avalanches in the Alps). Weather would become
more unpredictable and violent, with thunderstorms sparking
increased tornadoes and lightning, a major cause of fires. The
effects of El Nino, the atmospheric oscillation that causes flooding
and mudslides in California and the tropics, would become more
severe. Natural disasters already cost plenty; in the 1990s the tab
was $608 billion, more than the four previous decades combined,
according to Worldwatch Institute. The IPCC will release its tally of
anticipated effects on climate and societies on February 19 in
Geneva. Key climate scientists say that major points include:
Death and pestilence. Cities in the Northern Hemisphere
would very likely become hotter, prompting more deaths from
heatstroke in cities such as Chicago and Shanghai. Deaths would
also increase from natural disasters, and warmer weather would
affect transmission of insect-borne diseases such as malaria and
West Nile virus, which made a surprise arrival in the United States
in 1999. "We don't know exactly how West Nile was introduced to
the U.S. but we do know that drought warm winter, and heat waves
are the conditions that help amplify it," says Paul Epstein a
researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Wildfires. Rising temperatures and declining rainfall would
dry out vegetation making wildfires like last summer'swhich
burned nearly 7 million acres in the West and cost $1.65 billion
-more common, especially in California, New Mexico, and Florida.
263
Rain and flooding. Rain would become more frequent and
intense in the Northern Hemisphere. Snow would melt faster am
earlier in the Rockies and the Himalayas exacerbating spring
flooding and leaving summers drier. "This is the opposite of what
we want," says Gleick. "We want to be able to save that water for
dry periods."
Rising sea levels. Sea level worldwide has risen 9 inches in
the last century, and 4 million people live at risk of flooding due to
storm surges. That figure would double if oceans rise 20 inches. The
IPCC predicts that seas will rise anywhere from 3.5 inches to 34.6
inches by 2010, largely because of "thermal expansion" (warmer
water takes up more space), but also because of melting glaciers and
ice caps. A 3-foot rise, at the top range of the forecast, would swamp
parts of major cities and islands, including the Marshall Islands in
the South Pacific and the Florida Keys.
Water wars. Droughtand an accompanying lack of water
would be the most obvious consequence of warmer temperatures.
By 2015,3 billion people will be living in areas without enough
water. The already water-starved Middle East could become the
center of conflicts, even war, over water access. Turkey has already
diverted water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with dams and
irrigation systems, leaving downstream countries like Iraq and Syria
complaining about low river levels. By 2050, such downstream
nations could be left without enough water for drinking and
irrigation.
Refugees. The United States is the single largest generator of
greenhouse gases, contributing one quarter of the global total. But it,
and other higher-latitude countries, would be affected less by cli-
mate change than would more tropical nations. The developing
world will be hit hardestand least able to cope. "Bangladesh has
no prayer," says Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford
University, noting that flooding there, and in Southeast Asia and
China, could dislocate millions of people. "The rich will get richer,
and the poor will get poorer. That's not a stable situation for the
world."
Those daunted by this roster of afflictions will be cheered, a
bit, by the United Nations group's report on how to fend off these
264
perils, which will be released March 5 in Ghana. Not only is
humanity not helpless in the face of global warming, but we may
not even have to give up all the trappings of a First World lifestyle
in order to surviveand prosper.
The first question is whether it's possible to slow, or even halt,
the rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Scientists and
energy policy experts say yes, unequivocally. Much of the needed
technology either has already been developed or is in the works.
The first step is so simple it's known to every third grader: Conserve
energy. Over the past few decades, innovations from higher gas
mileage to more efficient refrigerators to compact fluorescent lights
have saved billions of kilowatts of energy. The second step is to use
less oil and coal, which produce greenhouse gases, and rely more on
cleaner energy sources such as natural gas and wind, and later on,
solar and hydrogen.
In Denmark, 13 percent of electricity now comes from wind
power, probably the most economical alternative source. In Britain,
a company called Wavegen recently activated the first commercial
ocean-wave-energy generator, making enough electricity to power
about 400 homes.
Taxing ideas. But despite such promising experiments, fossil
fuels remain far cheaper than the alternatives. To reduce this cost
advantage, most Western European countries, including Sweden,
Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy, have levied taxes on
carbon emissions or fossil fuels. The taxes also are intended to
nudge utilities toward technologies, like coal gasification, that burn
fossil fuels more cleanly. In Germany, where "eco-taxes" are being
phased in on most fossil fuels, a new carbon levy will add almost 11
cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline.
But the United States has always shunned a carbon tax. John
Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard's Kennedy
School of Government, says such a tax could stimulate economic
growth and help position the United States as a leader in energy
technology. "The energy technology sector is worth $300 billion a
year, and it'll be $500 to $600 billion by 2010," Holdren says. "The
companies and countries that get the biggest chunk of that will be
the ones that deliver efficient, clean, inexpensive energy."
265
A growing number of companies have already figured that out.
One of the most advanced large corporations is chemical giant
DuPont, which first acknowledged the problem of climate change in
1991. Throughout the past decade, the company worked to cut its
carbon dioxide emissions 45 percent from 1990 levels. Last year, it
pledged to find at least 10 percent of its energy from renewable
sources.
Even more surprising was the dramatic announcement by oil
giant BP in 1997 agreeing that climate change was indeed
occurring. Even with other oil firms protesting that the evidence was
too thin, BP pledged to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 10
percent from 1990 levels by 2010. At the same time, BP Amoco is
pouring money into natural gas exploration and investing in
renewable energy like solar power and hydrogen.
Even America's largest coal-burning utility company is
experimenting. American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio, is
testing "carbon capture," which would separate out carbon dioxide
emissions and dispose of them in deep underground saline aquifers,
effectively creating carbon-emission-free coal power. Application is
at least a decade away. "If we're able to find creative solutions,
they're going to place us at a competitive advantage in our industry,"
says Dale Heydlauff, AEP's senior vice president for environmental
affairs.
In automobile manufacturing, there is already a race on for
alternatives to fossil fuels. Several automakers like Ford,
DaimlerChrysler, and Volkswagen have developed prototypes of
cars run by hydrogen fuel cells rather than gasoline. The per-
formance is very similar to that of today's cars, but the cost remains,
for now, prohibitive. Fuel-cell vehicles are unlikely to be mass-
produced until after 2010, and even then, people will need a push to
make the switch. "Climate change is too diffuse to focus people's
attention," says C. E. Thomas, a vice president at Directed Tech-
nologies, an Arlington, Va., engineering firm working on fuel cells.
"But if we have another war in the Middle East or gasoline lines,
that will get their attention."
Even with these efforts, and many more, climatologists point
out that turning the atmosphere around is much harder than turning
266
a supertanker. Indeed, atmospheric changes already underway may
take hundreds of years to change. As a result, some vulnerable
countries are already taking preventive, if costly, measures. More
than half of the Netherlands lies below sea level and would be
threatened by increased storm surges. Last December, the Dutch
government outlined an ambitious plan to bolster the sea defenses.
Over the next decade, the Netherlands will spend more than $1
billion 1 build new dikes, bolster the natural sand dunes, and widen
and deepen rivers enough to protect the country against a 3- foot
rise in ocean levels.
Some of the most successful adaptations to climate change
probably won't involve high-tech gizmos or global taxes. They'll be
as simple as the strips of cloth distributed to women in Bangladesl
which they use to screen cholera-causing microbes from water.
Villages where women strained water have reduce cholera cases by
50 percent.
"Society is more robust than we give credit for," says Michael
Glantz, a political scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research. Like farmers who gradually change to new crops as wells
grow dry, people may learn to live comfortably in a new, warmer
world.
U S NEWS & WORLD REPORT, FEBRUARY 5, 2001
Vocabulary
cripple to seriously damage or weaken something: crippled:

crippling; cripple (n) an offensive word for somebody who is
physically unable: emotional cripple someone who is not able to
deal with their own or other peoples feelings.
idle not working or producing anything: lie/stand idle; the idle
rich (= rich people who do not have to work); idle (v): idle away;
idler.
plunge to move, fall, or to be thrown suddenly forwards or
downwards: plunge off/into; plunge to your death; plunge sb/sth
forward/through; plunge in start doing sth quickly and
confidently; be plunged into gloom and despair.
267
cast cast light on provide new information which makes sth
easier to understand; cast a shadow make people feel less happy
or hopeful because they are worried; cast a look/glance at; cast
doubt on; cast a vote/ballot; cast sth from you mind (=get rid of
your worries); be cast down (= depressed and sad).
dire extremely serious, bad or terrible: in dire need/poverty; dire
consequences; be in dire straits (=be in extremely difficult
situation); dire warning/threat.
rebut to prove that a statement or a charge made against you is
false; syn. Refute.
daunt ( usually passive) to make someone feel afraid or less
confident: nothing daunted not at all discouraged; daunting
frightening; daunting prospect; dauntless.
dispose to arrange things or put them in their places; dispose of
get rid of; dispose to ( usually passive) to make someone more
likely to feel or think in a particular way; well/ favourably/ kindly
disposed to approving of someone or something such as ideas; be
disposed to do sth feel like doing sth; disposition (n): a
cheerful/sunny disposition.
1. Find the words and expressions in the article meaning the

same.
A dramatic change, causing problems; very unusual and

strange; to be the cause of violence; leave; pollute; initiate or cause;
a very number of; a wild guess; make something stronger; worsen;
stop abruptly, to strengthen.
2. Explain the meaning of the following expressions.
To move towards consensus, nothing but a boon; to prompt

more deaths from heart stroke; those daunted by the roster of
afflictions; to fend off the perils; to nudge utilities toward
technologies; the evidence was too thin.
268
- What are the United Nations scientific panels predictions?
Do they coincide with the ones of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change?
- What is the scary scenario for Americas, Africa, Asia?
- How has the situation changed since scientists have moved
toward consensus on warming inevitability?
- What is the history of the question? Are the concerns about
greenhouse gases new?
- Is there any division in the opinion of the scientists today?
- What are the key points of anticipated effects on climate?
- What are the most successful adaptations to climate change?

arguments provided by the writer.
5. For discussion
- Were you impressed by the article? What arguments of the

writer sound the most striking to you?
- Does Nancy Shute sound pessimistic to you? How is her
position different from the stance of other environment-concerned
authors?
- Where do you stand on the matter yourself?
3.6 G. Monster Vegetables Escape from the Lab

Genetically engineered food will soon be on the
supermarket shelves
by Keri Goldenhar
SUPERMARKET shoppers have never been more spoilt for

choice. But just when we thought traditional systems of selective
farming had created the most tempting array of foods money could
buy, we are now being presented with the prospect of genetically
created strains of cabbage, onion, tomato, potato and apple.
269
It may not tickle the fancy of food purists but it fires the
imagination of scientists. Last week they discovered that the classic
Parisian mushroom contains just the properties that, when
genetically mixed with a wild strain of mushroom from the Sonora
desert in California, could help it grow en masse while at the same
time providing it with the resilience of the wild strain. "We have
found a way of increasing the success rate from one to 90 per cent."
This is just one of the many products that, according to
sceptics, are creating a new generation of "Frankenfoods". The first
such food that may be consumed on a wide scale is a tomato which
has been genetically manipulated so that it does not soften as it
ripens. Critics say that the new tomato - which cost $25 million to
research - is designed to stay on supermarket shelves for longer. It
has a ten-day life span.
Not surprisingly, the ever-hungry US is leading the search for
these forbidden fruit. By rearranging the genes of a grapefruit, a
grower from Texas has created a sweet, red, thin-skinned grapefruit
expected to sell at a premium over its California and Florida
competitors.
For chip fanatics who want to watch their waistlines, new
high-starch, low-moisture potatoes that absorb less fat when fried
have been created, thanks to a gene from intestinal bacteria.
The scientists behind such new food argue that genetic
engineering is simply an extension of animal and plant breeding
methods and that by broadening the scope of the genetic changes
that can be made, sources of food are increased. Accordingly, they
argue, this does not inherently lead to foods that are less safe than
those developed by conventional techniques. But if desirable genes
are swapped irrespective of species barriers, could things spiral out
of control? "Knowledge is not toxic." said Mark Cantley, head of
the biotechnology unit at the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development. "It has given us a far greater under-
standing of how living systems work at a molecular level and there
is no reason for people to think that scientists and farmers should
use that knowledge to do risky things."
Clearly, financial incentive lies behind the development of
these bigger, more productive foods. But we may have only
270
ourselves to blame. In the early days of mass food commerce, food
varieties were developed by traditional methods of selective
breeding to suit the local palate. But as suppliers started to select
and preserve plant variants that had larger fruit, consumer
expectations rose, leading to the development of the desirable
clones. Still, traditionalists and gourmets in Europe are fighting their
development.
Even in the pre-packaged US, where the slow-softening
tomato will soon be reaching supermarkets, 1.500 American chefs
have lent their support to the Pure Food Campaign which calls for
the international boycott of genetically engineered foods until more
is known about the consequences of the technology and reliable
controls have been introduced.
In the short term, much of the technology remains untested
and in the long term the consequences for human biology are
unknown. Questions have arisen over whether new proteins in
genetically modified foods could cause allergies in some people.
Then there are the vegetarians who may be consuming animal
non-vegetable proteins in what they think is a common tomato, or
the practising Jew who unknowingly consumes a fruit that has been
enhanced with a pig's gene. As yet, producers are under no
obligation to label "transgenic" products.
Environmentalists worry that new, genetically engineered
plants may damage the natural environment. A genetically
engineered pest-resistant strain of plant that comes into contact with
a native strain, for example, could turn them into virulent weeds
beyond chemical control.
Animal welfare groups worry about the quality of life of farm
animals manipulated so that they produce more meat, milk and eggs
but which may suffer physical damage in the process.
Many of these fears spring from ignorance. And although it is
hard to separate the paranoia from the benefits, the fact remains that
genetic engineering offers ways of solving serious medical and
agricultural problems. It would be a huge loss if exaggerated fears
prevented its potential from being explored.
Vocabulary
271
tempt to make someone to have or to do something, even though
they know they really should not: be tempted; tempt sb into doing
sth; tempt sb to do sth; tempt fate/providence to do sth
involving unnecessary risk; temptation (n): temptation to do sth;
resist/overcome temptation; give in to (the) temptation;
tempting (adj): its tempting to do sth.
tickle to rub someones body gently with the fingers in order to
make them laugh; be tickled pink (=be very pleased or amused);
tickle sbs fancy to seem interesting and make you want it; tickle
the ivories play the piano; tickle (n): give sb a tickle; ticklish
(adj): ticklish situation.
ripe fully grown and ready to eat (fruit): be ripe for; the time is
ripe for it is a suitable condition for sth, especially for some kind
of change; ripe old age; ripen (v).
premium at a premium 1. sold at a higher price than usual; 2.
Unavailability of sth or difficulty to get it; premium quality high
quality; put/place a premium on to consider one quality as being
much more important than others; premium prices higher than
usual because there is not much of sth.
spiral move in continuous curve that gets nearer to or further from
its central point as it goes round; increase quickly and
uncontrollably; spiral to/around; spiral (n); inflationary spiral.
palate the sense of taste; palatable (adj): palatable wine;
palatable idea acceptable, pleasant (to).
1. Which of the statements below express arguments for

genetic engineering and which against?
1. Genetic engineering may interfere with the balance of nature.

2. The development of new breeds of animals may lead to physical
suffering.
3. There are no reliable controls for this technology.
4. Genetic engineering can create a wider variety of food sources.
5. Genetic research has led to a better understanding of living
organisms.
6. The consequences of this technology are unknown.
272
2. According to the article, genetic engineering has already
been used to modify the following foods:
mushrooms tomatoes grapefruit potatoes

Look quickly through the article and find the sections which
mention these vegetables. What modifications have been made to
each vegetable and what are the advantages expected to be?
3. Decide where the following sentences should go in the

article.
1. Western farmers have already bred cattle with more muscle than a
skeleton can carry.
2. Supporters say the tomato, unappetisingly called Flavr Savr, will
taste better because it will be able to mature on the branch longer.
3. Consumer opposition means that there are no genetically
manipulated foods on the German market, and the Norwegian
government has recently put research into genetically engineered
foods on hold.
4. For example, if a corn gene is introduced into a wheat gene for
pest resistance, will those who are allergic to corn then be allergic to
wheat?
5. 'Mushrooms in the past were almost impossible to cross,' says
Philippe Callac, one of the three scientists working on the
mushroom.
4. What evidence is there in the article for the following

statements?
1. Genetically manipulated tomatoes taste better because they

mature on the plant.
2. Genetic engineering does not lead to foods that are unsafe.
3. Gene swapping between species may damage the environment.
4. Many farmers are prepared to do risky things to increase their
profits.
273
5. Financial gain is the primary factor in the development of genetic
engineering.
6. The dangers of the technology are unknown because there are no
controls.
7. It is likely to have serious long-term consequences on human
biology.
8. Genetically engineered plants become uncontrollable weeds.
Which of the statements do you agree with?
5. Would you say the writer of this article has done the
following?
- presented many of the arguments for and against genetic

engineering very fairly
- shown prejudice in favour of the new technology
- used the article to promote personal views
- succeeded in informing the reader of many aspects of the
topic
- given readers enough information to enable them to form a
personal opinion on the subject
6. Which arguments in the article do you sympathize with?
After reading the article, have you changed your mind about
whether or
not you would eat the vegetables?
7. Write a short paragraph summarizing your views.
3.6 H. When Your Doctor Has AIDS
Should HTV-infected health-care workers be required to tell

patients about their condition?
Bucking an emotional national crusade, New York decides
not to force physicians to tell their patients
274
by CHRISTINE GORMAN
SURELY THERE ARE ONLY A HANDFUL OF people in the

U.S. who have not heard about or witnessed on television the
suffering of Kimberly Bergalis - the 23-year-old Floridian who
contracted AIDS from her dentist. Her anguished letters and
poignant testimony before Congress have sparked a nationwide
campaign, endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to
test health-care workers for HIV and inform their patients if they are
infected.
But last week the New York State health department decided
to put Bergalis' plight into perspective. She is but one of 1 million
HIV-infected Americans and one of only five ever to have been
infected by a health-care workerall five by the same dentist.
These facts, state health officials concluded, did not merit what they
saw as a witch hunt to track down and expose every health-care
worker who carries the deadly virus.
Rejecting the emotionalism surrounding the Bergalis case as
well as the Federal Government's response to her highly unusual
predicament, New York proposed its own set of guidelines
governing the lives of infected doctors and their patients. By
charting an independent course, the state, which leads the nation in
AIDS cases, could lose tens of millions of dollars in federal health-
care funds if authorities in the national government determine that
New York's rules depart too radically from its own.
In most respects, the state's proposed policy matches that set
forth last summer by the CDC. Both urge health-care workers to
undergo voluntary HIV tests. Both recommend setting up expert
panels to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether infected
health-care workers should continue practicing medicine and what
procedures they may safely perform. Where the feds and state part
company is over the issue of informing patients about their doctor's
health status. Under CDC guidelines, an infected health professional
may continue to perform invasive procedures, such as cardiac or
abdominal surgery, if he or she informs patients; New York makes
no such demand.
275
Why? Because state health officials are convinced the CDC's
requirement will backfire. The state has discovered that hospitals,
worried about their liability under the CDC guidelines, have begun
to force the resignations of HIV-infected workers, regardless of
whether or not they perform invasive procedures. With their
livelihoods thus threatened, argues the state, infected doctors have a
big incentive to hide their condition from hospital colleagues as well
as patients. That, say state officials, will be far more dangerous than
protecting the doctors' privacy while formally advising them to
refrain from invasive procedures.
Furthermore, state health officials argue, the best way to
minimize the remote chance of patients getting HIV from a medical
worker is to make sure that strict infection controls are followed.
New York is now requiring all health professionals who perform
invasive procedures to undergo mandatory training in the latest
sterile techniques. Such measures not only protect patients from an
infected doctor, they also protect patients from one another by
ensuring that instruments are thoroughly decontaminated between
uses. Infection control also protects the doctor. In New York City,
where 1 in 50 people carries the AIDS virus, and in most other
places, doctors have far more to fear from their patients than vice
versa.
Dr. Hacib Aoun of Baltimore is one of 40 U.S. health workers
known to have become infected with AIDS on the job. Like many
doctors, he deplores the CDC recommendations and prefers New
York State's approach. "The CDC guidelines mean that hospitals
will just get rid of their infected doctors no matter what," says Dr.
Aoun. "I understand the Bergalis family's pain. I understand it better
than anybody else. But their efforts have set AIDS education and
treatment in this country back by many years."
Culture
AIDS - acquired immune deficiency syndrome; a deadly disease

caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) - federally supported medical
research facilities located in Atlanta, Georgia
276
fed - an official of the federal government. The word is slang,
usually plural, and sometimes has a negative connotation.
witch hunt - an extremely emotional investigation in which
innocent people are harmed and/or harassed. The phrase refers to
the Salem (Massachusetts) witch trials of the 1600s, in which
women were accused of being witches.
Vocabulary
backfire - to end in the opposite way of what was planned

buck - to resist or go against something
case-by-case - one-by-one; one at a time
chart a course - to make a plan of action; to choose a direction
incentive - a motive; a reason to do something
part (company) - to disagree
spark - to begin
track down -to search for and find
1. Why do you think people use acronyms like AIDS and

abbreviations like HIV and CDC? What is the difference between
an acronym and an abbreviation?
2. Make up sentences using the verbs backfire, set

(something) back, and track down.
3. Comprehension Questions
1. How did Kimberly Bergalis contract AIDS? How many

Americans have gotten HIV from health-care workers?
2. What are the CDC guidelines regarding health-care workers with
HTV?
3. How do New York's guidelines differ from those of the CDC?
4. According to health officials in New York, what is the best way to
avoid spreading HTV from health-care workers to patients?
4. Analysis Questions
277
1. Do you think New York should lose federal funds because its
guidelines are different from the CDC guidelines? Explain your
answer.
2. New York officials say that health-care workers with HIV may lie
if they are forced to tell patients about their condition. Do you
agree? Why or why not?
3. This topic is obviously very controversial. Do you think the
writer did a good job of presenting both sides of the issue? Give
examples to support your opinion.
5. For Discussion
- Health-care workers with HIV must inform patients of

their condition. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such a
policy.
3.6 I. Last Bastion for Foreign Smokers

Appalled by Restrictions, Visitors Take Refuge in Bistros
by Lynda Richardson
Shortly after 10 o'clock on a recent morning, a white and blue

tour bus lumbered up to Caffe Lucca, a popular coffee-house in
Greenwich Village, and disgorged dozens of European tourists.
More than a few of them had cigarettes dangling from their lips like
spare appendages.
The dimly lighted cafe beckons New Yorkers with the promise
of dark espresso and deep conversation. But it is the blue-gray haze
of cigarette smoke that makes these European tourists feel at home
at the Caffe Lucca. The young people are smoking. The
grandmothers are smoking Everybody is incessantly puffing in what
seems to them, alas, the last bastion for smokers in New York City.
"The place is full of them, and they sit and puff," said Sal
Moussa, the cafe owner. "The laws are different here, and they think
they are stupid laws. 'Typical Americans,' they say." Anti-smoking
fever has left America a bewildering place indeed for a foreigner
278
who simply takes for granted the inalienable right to light up in
public. And there is hardly anywhere more bewildering than New
York, where some of the nation's toughest smoking restrictions may
soon be expanded to include all restaurants and to ban cigarette
advertising on billboards.
To foreigners who take refuge in the smoking zones of the
city's bistros, cafes and restaurants, this anti-tobacco militancy is a
peculiarly American bit of foolishness, emblematic of one or
another flaw in the national character. These people are, after all,
from countries like Portugal, France and Italy, where a cigarette and
a cup of coffee or a glass of wine go together like peanut butter and
jelly - and where a tendency to muse about national character is part
of the national character.
"Europeans are very stubborn," said Ze Cardosa, a general
contractor from Lisbon, tossing back his head in a swirl of smoke at
Caffe Lucca. "If they are just coming here to visit, if they want to
smoke, they're going to smoke no matter what, especially if they are
Italians or Portuguese."
Mr Cardosa, a gaunt man in a black suit, considers himself a
gentleman. But having lived in the United States for some 20 years,
he said American social trends strain even his well-mannered
sensibilities. He is stunned at the lengths to which Americans will
go, from outright orders to vicious facial expressions, to make
smokers quit. "If you're smoking, they give you a dirty look. They
look at you as if you're almost a criminal," Mr Cardosa said.
To be regarded as a criminal, some would suggest, is better
than as an insect. "I feel like a mosquito," said Marian Sanchez-Elia,
a financial consultant from Buenos Aires, flailing his arms in
imitation of the way Americans bat away his offensive tobacco
fumes.
"They are completely crazy," said Mr Sanchez-Ella, as he had
lunch with friends from South America the other day at Jerry's
restaurant in SoHo. Mr Sanchez-Elia, wearing a black beret and
leather jacket, felt immediately at home in the restaurant's smoking
section, located conveniently near the bar. In other restaurants, he
muttered, "You usually have to sit near the kitchen or in some back
room."
279
In the eyes of many foreigners, this non-smoking militancy
points, more than anything else, to the extremes in American
society: the same countrymen who eschew smoking and exercise
obsessively are also among the unhealthiest people living. "There's
always a contradiction in this country, they care about the cigarettes,
but they don't care if people get fat," a 23 year-old Japanese painter
commented.
"America is a land of excess: people care more about
everything; their opinions are so strong. They smoke and drink in
Japan and they really don't care because most people are healthy.
Here, they have to care more about their health because they're
eating too much junk stuff."
The toughest of the European anti-smoking laws are in France.
But visitors say there is little of the zealotry and Puritanism they
find in America. In a country where the right to relax and smoke is
considered part of the "art de vivre" - and where an estimated 40 per
cent of adults and 65 per cent of those between 18 and 24 smoke -
the new rules have been greeted by little more than a Gallic shrug in
many cafes, bistros and brasseries.
"In the bars, it's not respected." said Philippe Rey-Gorez, a
radio journalist on holiday from Paris, as he drank his morning
coffee and smoked at the Cafe
Figaro in Greenwich Village. "When you go into bars to have
a drink, it's impossible not to smoke. It's the place where people can
meet and speak and listen to
music."
While some people must suffer, others find a way to benefit.
The call for a smoke-free environment has been a boon to business
at the Caffe Reggio in Greenwich Village, according to the
headwaiter, Jack Williams. He informs visitors of two separate
sections. "I say smoking or chain-smoking'?"
The eating salon is not required by law to have a nonsmoking
section because it seats fewer than 50 people. Half of the cafe's
business caters to Japanese and European tourists who "smoke like
kings and queens", Mr Williams said. At times, the waiter said he is
so shrouded in cigarette fog that his clothes turn a smoky gray "It's
the truth; I've got clothes that are beyond black."
280
Vocabulary
beckon to make a signal to someone with your hand or arm, to

show that you want them to come towards you: beckon
to/forward/towards; money/happiness beckons it is so
attractive that you have to do something in order to get it.
strain to try very hard to do something using all your physical or
mental strength: strain for sth; strain your ears/eyes; strain
yourself; strain a friendship/relationship (=to cause problems in a
friendship); strain every nerve; strain (n): be under a strain; put
a strain on sb; stresses and strains (=problems and worries).
boon something that is very useful and makes your life a lot
easier; boon companion (=very close friend).
1. Find the equivalents in the article.
To move slowly and awkwardly, to unload passengers, without

stopping, very strong belief or feeling, cannot be taken away,
symbolic, drawback, unhealthy food, eagerness to make people
share your religious beliefs
2. Look at the title of the article in this section from the New
York Times and answer these questions.
1. What sort of restrictions are referred to?

2. Who are the foreign smokers likely to be?
3. What does the idea of a last bastion suggest?
4. What is the main idea of the article?
3. Does the writer present arguments both for and against

smoking restrictions or does she only present one side of the
problem? What do you think the writer's attitude to these
restrictions is likely to be?
4. What type of organization does the text follow?
281
a) there is a chronological development
b) the writer develops an argument
c) the passage describes a situation and presents various comments
on it
d) the writer presents personal views and comments on them herself
5. Answer the questions.
1. Why do foreigners go to Caffe Lucca?

2. What, according to many foreigners, does the anti-tobacco
militancy suggest about the American character?
3. What is one explanation given in the text for this extreme
behaviour?
4. How do the Japanese differ from Americans?
6. For Discussion
- Are you a smoker or a non-smoker? How do you feel

about smoking? Write a paragraph expressing your opinions.
- Are there smoking restrictions in our country or can
people smoke anywhere?
- What are the social conventions surrounding smoking in
private homes or at work?
282
3.7 Group Discussion
Are you concerned about deforestation of the rain forests? Should
you be? What solutions would you propose?
Are there any endangered species in our country that scientists are
trying to save? What is being done to prevent their extinction?
Have you ever taken up a cause that you felt would improve the
world?
What scientific evidence do you now have that helps you better
understand the environmental problems?
How can industry help solve the pollution problem?
Do you think people have the tight to control nature, or should
nature control people?
What do you think about the future of conventional and
alternative medicine?
What innovative approaches to treating people can you think of?
What do you think will be the future of healing by wire or via
Internet?
Have you ever heard about living wills ( a document that specifies
that if something goes wrong the patients wont be kept alive
against their wishes)? Do you think they are a good idea? Why?
Why not?
We are constantly bombarded with the advice from experts on
ways of staying healthy and surviving to a ripe old age. Which
aspects of their advice do you think is practicable to follow?
3.8 Panel Discussion

Do you think environmental restrictions on industry should be
abolished or relaxed if this leads to the creation of jobs? Or Do you
283
think that environmental restrictions on industry should be
strengthened even if this leads to unemployment?
3.9 Creative Consolidation
1. Project-Making
Devise an environmentally friendly enterprise. Remember

about community benefits. Be ready to present it to the municipal
committee and speak about its advantages ecological, social and
economic. Take into account the population profile of the
community (old age pensioners, young families, high proportion of
the unemployed etc.)
2. Write a 350-word essay supporting one of the following

theses. Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the
statement. Support your views with the reasons and examples
from your own experience, observations, or readings.
1. Government should establish regulations to reduce or

eliminate any suspected health hazards in the environment, even
when the scientific studies of these health hazards are incomplete or
contradictory.
2. Responsibility for preserving the natural environment
ultimately belongs to each individual person, not to government.
3. It is unrealistic to expect individual nations to make
independently the sacrifices necessary to conserve energy.
International leadership and worldwide cooperation are essential if
we expect to protect the worlds energy resources for future
generations.
4. With the increasing emphasis on a global economy and
international cooperation, people need to understand that their role
284
as citizens of the world is more important than their role as citizens
of a particular country.
5. The best way to preserve the natural environment is to
impose penalties whether fines, imprisonment, or other
punishments on those who are most responsible for polluting or
otherwise damaging it.
6. The primary responsibility for preventing environmental
damage belongs to the government, not to individuals or private
industry.
7. In general people are not as concerned as they were a
decade ago about regulating their intake of red meat and fatty
cheeses. Vegetarian restaurants are still making a modest living but
the owners of the houses of beef are millionaires.
8. Because of recent advancements in business and
technology, the overall quality of life in most societies has never
been better than at the present time.
9. It is essential that the nations of the world increase
spending on the building of the space stations and on the
exploration of other planets, even if that means spending less on
other government programs.
10. Technology ultimately separates and alienates people more
than it serves to bring them together.
11. The automobile has caused more problems than it has
solved. Most societies would probably be much better off if the
automobile had never been invented.
12. Some people claim that the growth of mass media has
stifled intellectual curiosity. Others however, argue that the
availability of so much information and entertainment has
encouraged individuals to expand their intellect and creativity.
285

Part Three

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Исходное описание:

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Part Three

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

PART THREE

Survive and Thrive

3.2 Raise the Issue

3.2 A Words in Context

1. Tick the word closest in meaning to that of the each

accelerate (v) The sun has an adverse effect on the skin. It

advent (n) The advent of Euro redefined Europe.

annihilation (n) Indiscriminate usage of non-renewable

demise (n) Many scientists voice their anxiety about

doom (n) Biologists predict doom for the whole

havoc (n) Winter storms continued to wreak havoc for

impending (adj) Just before the flood, I had a sense of

portend (v) There was a chain of strange events that

schizophrenic (adj) If you have a schizophrenic attitude toward a

somber (adj) Scientists usually make somber predictions

. Receive from a source, get

3. Using the answer line provided, complete each item below

Demise, somber, havoc, doom, portend, extinct, impending,

Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, man's first

4. Summarize the issue presented in the text.

1. The issue (state in your own words):

3.2 B. Listening and Watching

Listen to Jim Trefils commentary.

1. Because of man, many living things have become extinct.

What is your reaction to the Endangered Species Act? Where do

3.2 C. Live and Let the Others Live

1. Read the article

All Creatures Great and Dying

Based on the article by Jon Bowermaster1

2. Find the words meaning the same in text.

complete destruction, great power, causing damage, medicinal

3. Match the words that collocate.

1. make your skin a. to the bone

4. In developing critical thinking skills, it is necessary to

Mankind is primarily responsible for the destruction of other

5. After you have distinguished the opinions of the

3.2 D. Vocabulary in Focus

Allusion is a figure of style indirectly referring to some famous

Study the following allusions.

2. Match the following allusions with their meaning.

3. Replace the italicized words with one of the discussed

1. I am not good at putting on a false show of grief.

4. Use allusions from the list above no more than once in

1. The only field in which our company is vulnerable is developing

5. Choose the word that best completes each of the

1. Many species of animals and plants today are..

6. Explain the meaning of the following animal idioms and

Like water off a ducks back

1. He has got . about using only recycled

Blend/ bland/ blunt

1. Make a synthetic review of Bowermasters article and Trefils

2. Write an essay Economic might vs. Ecologic right.

3.3 Raise the Issue

What is sustained development? What are its preconditions?

What can the results of the neglectful attitude to the

1. Read the text paying special attention to the terms in bold

2. Complete the sentences with the terms from the previous

1. Illegal could accelerate degradation or even cause

3.3 B Words in Context

1. Tick the word closest in meaning to that of the each

commensurate (adj) The developers who endangered the local

dissipate (v) After twenty minutes of meditation, I find that