Дополнительная информация "Healthy lifestyle"

 

Something strange is happening! Not just the illness and death sweeping the planet. Not just the closing of borders, bars and schools, the hoarding of wipes and sanitizer, the orders to stay indoors.  Something else is going on. In China and Italy, the air is now strikingly clean. Venice’s Grand Canal, normally polluted by boat traffic, is running clear. In cities across the world, the fog of pollution has lifted. Global carbon emissions have fallen.

Describe the image. What point is it making?

Coronavirus has led to an astonishing shutdown of economic activity and a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels. In China, measures to contain the virus in February alone caused a drop in carbon emissions of an estimated 25 percent. The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that this is equivalent to 200 million tons of carbon dioxide — more than half the annual emissions of Britain. So, in the short term, response to the pandemic seems to be having a positive effect on global carbon emissions.

To be clear, the coronavirus pandemic is a tragedy — a human nightmare of overcrowded hospitals, unemployment and social isolation. On the horizon is economic disaster. But this global crisis is also affecting that other global crisis, the slower one with even higher stakes, which remains the backdrop against which modernity now plays out. As the United Nations’ secretary general recently noted, the threat from coronavirus is temporary, whereas the threat from heat waves, floods and extreme storms resulting in the loss of human life will remain with us for years.

In the longer term, will the virus help or harm the climate? Our response to this health crisis will shape the climate crisis for decades to come. The efforts to revive economic activity — the stimulus plans, bailouts and back-to-work programs being developed now — will help determine the shape of our economies and our lives for the foreseeable future, and they will have effects on carbon emissions that will reverberate across the planet for thousands of years.

We must grasp this opportunity to do things differently and allow the planet to recover from negative human activity. We must take this chance to promote cleaner energy.

	True or false? Correct the false sentences. 1.       Something unusual is going on in the world right now. 2.       In major cities, pollution is increasing. 3.       Coronavirus has influenced the world economy in a beneficial way. 4.       China’s usual carbon emissions are less than those of Britain. 5.       Coronavirus is causing more people to be admitted to hospital. 6.       Coronavirus is a permanent threat. 7.       Climate change is a threat which will pass one day. 8.       Attempts to help global economies recover are currently underway. 9.       We need to take the opportunity presented by Coronavirus to improve the environment. 10.   We should seize this opportunity to promote cleaner energy.		Answer the questions in full sentences. a)       List the measures mentioned in the article, currently being undertaken to control coronavirus. b)      In your own words, explain what is happening in Venice and why. c)       Why have global carbon emissions gone down recently? d)      What happened to emissions from China during February? e)      In what sense is the pandemic a human tragedy? f)        What is ‘the other global crisis’? g)       What, according to the UN secretary general is the essential difference between coronavirus and climate change? h)      How should we go forward, according to the article?