Environment Vocabulary

1. Now match the sub-categories to numbers 1-6 below.
Listen again if necessary.

2. Now write the words you heard next to the phonetic script.

1/6

Environmentalists have long argued that being energy-efficient is essential for maintaining the balance in our fragile ecosystems. Measures such as using biodegradable materials, biofuel and unleaded petrol have helped combat some of the effects of global warming. While eco-warriors concern themselves with protecting fertile land and encouraging responsible cultivation, consumers can also help. When we recycle packaging, rather than throwing it away as rubbish that ends up in landfill sites, we also do our little bit to help environmental conservation.

2/6

Acid rain is produced when fumes from factory and motor car emissions rise into the atmosphere, mixing with the water in clouds and falling as poisonous acidic droplets. This noxious rain is harmful to animals, and a threat to natural habitats whose species suffer as a result of the contamination. The destructive effects of acid rain can leave the land it falls on infertile for many years. The problem of acid rain has not only increased with population and industrial growth, but has become more widespread. The use of tall chimneys to reduce local pollution has contributed to the spread of acid rain by releasing gases into regional atmospheric circulation. Often this occurs a considerable distance downwind of the emissions, with mountainous regions tending to be the worst affected, simply because of their higher rainfall. An example of this effect is the high acidity of rain which falls in Scandinavia.

3/6

Wherever human beings settle, they have an impact on their local environment. When people decide to live together en masse, the challenges to supply large urban areas with power, food and other goods require the industries that supply them to use huge amounts of natural resources. As we have increasingly abandoned sustainable ways of living such as small-scale fishing and farming in favour of city dwelling, the strain we place on the environment has increased too. 
Around 1760, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, a growing population and the demand for cheap, mass-produced goods required increasingly large quantities of raw materials and the machines and factories to produce them. All of this production in turn required energy. And lots of it. And with the production of energy, came industrial waste and contamination.
By the middle of the 20th century, industrial manufacturing had spread across and between continents. Fumes from factories, extensive farming, mass shipping with oil tankers and ships bringing goods from all over the world, and later the industrialized transportation of people through the skies had reached tipping point for the environment. Logging, dumping, and the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides also form part of the legacy of mass production. 
Today, industries are under growing pressure to clean up their act, though perhaps consumers in industrialized countries also need to change their attitude. Buying cheap, mass-produced goods from the other side of the world may seem attractive, but it comes at a high cost to the environment.

4/6

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-seventeen hundreds, industry has looked for cheap, efficient ways to generate electricity. Inexpensive and abundant, coal has been used extensively as an energy source and continues to be an important material for heat energy production. 
The problem with coal, natural gas and crude oil, which are fossil fuels, is the carbon dioxide they emit when burnt, contributing to global warming. 
During the 20th Century, nuclear energy was considered an attractive alternative for producing electricity, until the terrible accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986 raised alarms about the safety of nuclear power stations and fears of radiation. These concerns were echoed in 2011 by the meltdown at a nuclear plant that followed a tsunami in Fukushima, Japan. 
In the mid-twentieth century, scientists began to notice how pollution from industry was having a negative impact on the environment, and the search for alternative, clean sources of energy was born. In 1975, the term 'global warming' was first used and pollution was now seen as a serious threat to life on our planet. As a response, wind energy, solar power and hydro-electric power have all gained popularity as clean energy sources, though they are expensive ways of harnessing energy and until recently have also been inefficient. Biofuels, while sustainable and biodegradable have been criticized as large areas of land and rainforest are cleared to grow palm oil as a fuel source.
Clean energy is more important than ever, and the invention of electric cars is a more recent example of how industry is adapting to demands for a cleaner environment. How the electricity will be produced to run them is another challenge.

5/6

Every time we breathe, we inhale about half a litre of air. Twenty per cent of that air is oxygen, so we breathe in approximately 100ml of oxygen. Without oxygen we die, and it doesn't require too much polluted air to finish us off either. It's easy to imagine there's an endless supply of fresh, clean air on our planet, but over the last century, there have been numerous occasions when air quality was so low it posed a threat to human health. Asthma, heart disease and even lung cancer have been linked to poor air quality. 
So what affects the quality of air we breathe? Natural events that pollute the air include forest fires, volcanic eruptions, and natural radiation. However, most air pollution results from the burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity and power our vehicles. 
The fumes that are emitted from burning fossil fuels are called greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect happens when these gases collect in Earth's atmosphere. They include Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and ozone. It is necessary for life on Earth to have these gases in the atmosphere because they trap the heat from the sun during the day, making the surface temperature perfect for life. But when there is too much of these gases in the atmosphere, our planet heats up excessively and we experience global warming. The climatic change due to this warming would result in more heatwaves in some areas, with evaporation of the water that normally causes precipitation resulting in drought, while violent tropical storms would become more frequent in others.

6/6

To study the impact of human interaction on the environment, all the ecosystems that make up the biosphere are closely monitored for changes in local as well as regional conditions. While cultivation of farmland is easy to monitor, many parts of our world are more difficult to access. These include maritime areas, made up of the oceans, seas, and coasts which account for seventy per cent of Earth's surface. Jungles and rainforests are also challenging terrains of particular interest to scientists. As well as being rich in biological diversity, they are home to indigenous tribes living in harmony with their natural surroundings, and constitute some of the few remaining unspoiled habitats of our planet. The creation of natural reserves has helped ensure that swamps, woodland and savannah habitats also remain living parts of our fascinating and varied planet.

1/6

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2/6

Match the words below from text 2 to make two-word collocations.

3/6

Find eight words in the square, then write them below.
(The first letter of each word is given.)

4/6

Choose the option which has correct spelling for all words.

5/6

Fill each space in the sentences from text 5 with one word.

6/6

Order the parts of text 6 beginning with “Environmentalists have long argued that”