Environment and Ecology Aims: 1. To involve pupils in investigating the problems of ecology. 2. To give pupils the opportunity to practice reading, understanding and speaking. 3. To encourage pupils to use English in real situation. Main activities: Conducting an interview, skimming, making notes, discussion. End product: Press-conference, reports to the local paper.

If everybodys ready, may be we could make a start? Ladies and Gentlemen, are we ready to begin? On behalf of the regional organization Greenpeace and on behalf of correspondents of different local newspapers in Tatarstan it is my honor and duty to declare the Press- conference open. I think we should create a friendly atmosphere and give the floor to our guests. The subject of to-days meeting is Ecology and Environment. The effects of both air and water pollution on the environment have been observed for years. The average citizen, you and me, is part and parcel of this problem.

I believe you know that the problems of ecology have become very pressing. These problems assume paramount importance, the subject of many scientific meetings. To-day we have gathered because the questions of environment and ecology are important for us all. Joe Adamson, the greatest naturalist once said: Man can rebuild a pyramid, but he cant rebuild ecology. Can we rebuild ecology? These are the questions many people are beginning to ask.

We should be frank and say that technology must bring apology to ecology because it has polluted and is still badly polluting our environment. Modern live is impossible without industry and technology. For a long time too little attention was paid to the environment because of the efforts to meet production goals. In recent years people have become more sensitive towards the environment. We must always remember the wise advice of the great English writer John Galsworthy who said: If you dont think about the future, you will not have it. НЕ ДАДИМ ВЫЖИТЬ ВСЕ СОКИ ИЗ НАШЕЙ ПЛАНЕТЫ!!! ОЗЕЛЕНИМ И ОБОГАТИМ НАШУ ЗЕМЛЮ!!! НАМ НУЖНА ЗЕЛЁНАЯ ПЛАНЕТА!!!

And now a few words about Greenpeace organization. It all started in 1971 in September when a group of young peace activists rented an old tug and sailed from Vancouver to Alaska to the atomic test site. The testing stopped the next year and Greenpeace, the largest and best known ecological movement in the world, has never looked back. It now has millions supporters in over 130 countries and offices in 32 countries. Greenpeace or simply GP is well-known everywhere because of its protest actions around the world.

We must raise our voices against powerful monopolies, against their destructive force. What have they done to the Earth? Theyve turned our land into a desert of concrete and stone. Rivers that used to be so beautiful and full of fish are poisoned! Air that used to be so clean and fresh is polluted. What have they done to the skies, to the seas, to the oceans? Theyve created new machines, built roads and cities. The noise is maddening! Theyll test their bombs till the world explodes into millions of little pieces. Theyve done a great deal of harm to Man and they are still doing so for profit and gain. If nobody stops them well face a nuclear war! Lets choose life before its too late.

Actually, there is a great threat of atomic power stations. In Russsia it all began with The Urals Hiroshima in the region of Chelyabinsk at the Mayak Plant. It was a real catastrophe in the Urals, although we didnt know about it for many years. The fate of the Mayak Plant was worse than that of Chernobyl. Chernobyls fate was luckier because it got the universal sympathy, foreign relief, aid and support. The problems of atomic power stations have become acute all over the world, in Tatarstan as well. There were movements against building of atomic power station in our republic. But there is another urgent problem in Tatarstan: our industry is developing without any care of the environment. If no measures be taken in the nearest future, industrial pollution will cause environmental disaster.

In one of the issues of our newspaper Kazanskie Vedomosty there was given a map. Have a look at it. It may seem a real paradox, but the concentration of harmful substances in the air is many times over the admissible level not in large industrial cities but in small towns and villages in the south of our republic. This map was made by the specialists of the ecological faculty of the Kazan University:

Nature doesnt avenge, it defends. Six hundred thousand tons of harmful substances are polluted every year in our Republic. The champion of pollution is the industrial city Naberzhnye Chelny, 134,4 tons, then comes Nizhnekamsk, 126,6 tons and our capital Kazan is on the third place – 86,8 tons. And we can go on with this list of cities. The winds greatly increase the pollution of the environment. Its high time to start solving these problems. If our industrial complexes had been built in the north- west or in the south-west of our republic, the harm would have been less because of the winds. I The intensive development of sciences, industry and chemistry in Kazan has made the pollution of water a global problem. In Urussu, the center of the Yutaza region, the citizens carry water every day although the town is situated on the river Ik.The river is so polluted that it is a real danger to drink it. In Derbyshky, one of the areas of our city, the concentration of harmful substances in the wate,r such as copper and zinc, is over ten times the admissible level in Derbyshky. Rivers in our Republic are in danger too, they are filled with poison: industrial waste, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The effect might be emphysema, heart problems, or general ill health, if not death. If nothing is done about it, one day we will have nothing to drink.

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