TASK 3 Understanding a longer source text Понимание более длинного исходного текста

Read the text quickly and decide how you could use'it as a source for the essay in Task 2.2. Прочитайте текст быстро и решите, как вы могли бы использовать его в качестве источника для эссе в задаче 2.2.

Match sentences a-h with the paragraph (1-8) they summarize. Составьте предложения a-h с абзацем (1-8), которые они суммируют.

a) Incomes have risen dramatically, by 700% in fifty years. Доходы резко возросли - на 700% за пятьдесят лет.

b) Food supplies are most likely to suffer first: grain stocks fell for three years in a row. Наиболее вероятно, что продовольственные запасы будут первыми пострадать: запасы зерна упали в течение трех лет подряд.

c) The world's population has grown rapidly in the last fifty years, faster than in the four million years before it. За последние пятьдесят лет население мира быстро росло быстрее, чем за четыре миллиона лет до этого.

d) In the past, farmers increased production when there was a shortage of food, but now it is not clear if they can do so. Раньше фермеры увеличивали производство при нехватке продовольствия, но теперь неясно, могут ли они это сделать.

e) It was the goal of the UN to halve levels of world hunger by 2015. Целью ООН было сокращение наполовину уровня голода в мире к 2015 году.

 

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f ) We are using more water than is being replaced by the natural environment, causing significant ecological damage. Мы используем больше воды, чем заменяется природной средой, нанося значительный экологический ущерб.

g) Income and population growth have increased food demand so much that farmers are now farming land that is not sustainable. Доходы и рост населения привели к увеличению спроса на продовольствие настолько, что фермеры теперь выращивают землю, которая не является устойчивой.

h) Nature is struggling to cope with CO, emissions, which are up from 316ppm to 369ppm in just over forty years. Природа изо всех сил пытается справиться с выбросами CO, выбросы, которые превышают 316 ppm до 369 ppm в течение более чем сорока лет.

 

Identify the specific words or phrases in the text that helped you to match each paragraph to its summary.

Highlight the main ideas in paragraphs 9 and 10. Use these to write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph.

A Planet Under Stress

1 Humanity's demands on the Earth have multiplied over the last half-century as our numbers have increased and our incomes risen. World population grew from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.1 billion in 2000. The growth during those 50 years exceeded that during the 4 million years since we

(amergplTas a distinct species.

2 Incomes have risen even faster than population. Income per person worldwide nearly tripled from 1950 to 2000. Growth in population and the rise in incomes together expanded global economic output from just under $7 trillion (in 2001 dollars) of goods and services in 1950 to $46 trillion in 2000, a gain of nearly sevenfold.

3 Population growth and rising incomes together have tripled world grain demand over the last half-century, pushing it from 640 million tons in 1950 to 1,855 million tons in 2000. To satisfy this swelling demand, farmers have plowed land that was highly erodlble - land that was too dry or too steeply sloping to sustain cultivation. Each year billions of tons of topsoil are being blown away in dust storms or washed away in rainstorms, leaving farmers to try to feed some 70 million additional people, but with less topsoil than the year before.

4 Demand for water also tripled as agricultural, industrial andj recreational uses climbed, out­stripping the sustainable supply in many countries. As a result, water tables are falling and wells are going to dry. Rivers are going to be drained dry, to the detriment of wildlife and ecosystems.

5 Fossil fuel use quadrupled, setting in motion a rise in carbon emissions that is overwhelming nature's capacity to fix carbon dioxide. As a result of this carbon-fixing deficit, atmospheric GO, concentrations climbed from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1959, when official measurement began, to 369ppm in 2000.

6 The sector of the economy that seems likely to unravel first is food. Eroding soils, deteriorating rangelands, collapsing fisheries, falling water tables, and rising temperatures are converging to make it more difficult to expand food production fast enough to keep up with demand. In 2002; the world's grain harvest of 1,807 million tons fell short of world grain consumption by 100 million tons, or four percent. This shortfall, the largest or record, marked the third consecutive year of grain deficits, dropping stocks to the lowest level in a generation.

7 Now the question is, can the world's farmers bounce back and expand production enough to fill the 100-million-ton shortfall, provide for the more than 70 million people added each year, and rebuild stocks to a more secure level? In the past, farmers responded to short supplies and higher grain prices by planting more land and using more irrigation water and fertilizer. Now it is doubtful that farmers can fill this gap without further depleting aquifers and jeopardizing future harvests.

8 In 1996, at the World Food Summit in Rome, hosted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 185 countries plus the European Gommunity agreed to reduce hunger by half by 2015. Using 1990-92 as a base, governments set the goal of cutting the number of people who were hungry - 860 million - by roughly 20 million per year. It was an exciting and worthy goal, one that later became one of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

9 But in the late 2002 review of food security, the United Nations issued a discouraging report: 'This year we must report that progress has virtually ground to a halt. Our latest estimates, based on data from the years 1998-2000, put the number of undernourished people in the world at 840 million... a decrease of barely 2.5 million per year over the eight years since 1990-92.'

10 Since 1998-2000, world grain production per person has fallen five per cent, suggesting that the ranks of the hungry are now expanding. As noted earlier, life expectancy is plummeting in sub­Saharan Africa. If the number of hungry people worldwide is also increasing, then two key social indicators are showing widespread deterioration in the human condition.

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