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Lesson 11 Silent Spring.

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1 Lesson 11 Silent Spring

2 Lesson 11 Silent Spring 1. About the Author 2. About the text
3. About Environmental Protection 4. Details in the text

3 1.About the Author "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us,the less taste we shall have for destruction." ---Rachel Carson ©1954

4 Rachel Carson BIRTHDATE: May 27,1907 BIRTHPLACE: Springdale, PA
EDUCATION:  entered Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) graduated with honors, earning a scholarship to continue her studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD M.A. in Zoology from John Hopkins University. FAMILY BACKGROUND: ---the youngest of three children ---had a rugged upbringing in a simple farmhouse outside the western Pennsylvania river town of Springdale ---credited her mother with introducing her to the world of nature that became her lifelong passion.

5 DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
After completing her education---joined the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries as the writer of a radio show entitled "Romance Under the Waters," in which she was able to explore life under the seas and bring it to listeners. In 1936, after being the first woman to take and pass the civil service test, the Bureau of Fisheries hired her as a full-time junior biologist. over the next 15 years--- rose in the ranks until she was the chief editor of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. During the 1940s---began to write books on her observations of life under the sea, a world as yet unknown to the majority of people.

6 DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
In resigned from her government position in order to devote all her time to writing. In The idea for her most famous book, Silent Spring, emerged, and she began writing it. In It was published and influenced President Kennedy, who had read it, to call for testing of the chemicals mentioned in the book. Carson has been called the mother of the modern environmental movement.

7 DATE OF DEATH: April 14, 1964 PLACE OF DEATH: Her home in Silver Spring, MD PORTRAYED BY: Celeste Earhart WEB SITES: Rachel Carson Homestead Rachel Carson Council Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Rachel Carson Forum - a center for "new ideas and opinions about environmental issues facing Pennsylvania." Former Vice-President Al Gore's Introduction to the 1994 reissue of Silent Spring Rachel Carson is a charter inductee into the Ecology Hall of Fame

8 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1941-Under the Sea Wind Food From the Sea: Fish and Shellfish of New England Food From the Sea: Fish and Shellfish of the South Atlantic The Sea Around Us The Edge of the Sea Silent Spring The Sense of Wonder (posthumous)

9 Rachel Carson’s experience:
Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the Depression and supplemented her income writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun.

10 Rachel Carson’s experience:
She began a fifteen-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article "Undersea" (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.

11 She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including "Help Your Child to Wonder," (1956) and "Our Ever-Changing Shore" (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson's writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.

12 Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.

13 Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment. Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.

14 2.About the text Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Sketches from one of the Twentieth Century's most important works

15 A Fable for Tomorrow “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings...a pastoral Eden of hardwood forests and bountiful wildlife...strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change...Everywhere was a shadow of death...It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh...Even the streams were now lifeless...No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves...”

16 "Man, however much he may like to pretend, is part of nature.”
"The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials...The poisons circulate mysteriously by underground streams until they emerge and, through the alchemy of air and sunlight, combine into new forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure wells...They travel from link to link of the food chain...."

17 Exterminism: "Nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in the soil...Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called 'insecticides' but 'biocides'...

18 "The insects are winning: We're on a pesticide treadmill
"The insects are winning: We're on a pesticide treadmill. The insects adapt to the particular insecticide used...forcing us to find ever deadlier new ones...Thus the chemical war is never won, and all life is caught in its violent crossfire...many chemicals, like radiation, bring about gene mutations...Many of these substances are persistent and bio-accumulative. Health effects depend on exposure over time. Effects are delayed. But this can lull us: the danger is easily ignored. It is human nature to shrug off what may seem to us a vague threat of future disaster...Some of these substances have toxic effects in very small quantities. In the ecology of our bodies, minute causes produce mighty effects."

19 Violation of human rights:
“We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge...” Self-endangerment: “The chief public health threat has ceased to be disease; now it is a hazard we ourselves have introduced into our world. Indeed, we may be technically incapable of detecting the presence of some toxins...The lack of sufficiently delicate methods to detect injury before symptoms appear is one of the great unsolved problems in medicine.”

20 We are the subjects of a massive uncontrolled experiment: "A human being, unlike a laboratory animal living under rigidly controlled conditions, is never exposed to one chemical alone...we are subject to multiple exposures...This is a problem of ecology, of interrelationships, of interdependence." Why have we done this? Carson dismisses the claim that increased farm production necessitates this; as far as that goes overproduction is the real problem. Rather, the source lies in our "modern way of life," specifically: (1) agricultural intensification and its use of large scale monoculture (simplification destroys nature's "checks and balances"); and (2) the migration of species with humans, both deliberately and accidentally ("nearly half of the 180 or so major insect enemies of plants in the United States are accidental imports from abroad").

21 The alternative: develop ecological knowledge and use it
The alternative: develop ecological knowledge and use it. "We need the basic knowledge of animal populations and their relations to their surroundings, but we allow the chemical death to fall as though there were no alternative...Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior and detrimental?...The choice, after all, is ours to make." If once we have "at last asserted our 'right to know,'" we decide that we "are being asked to take senseless and frightening risks," then we should no longer accept the counsel of those who tell us that we must fill our world with poisonous chemicals; we should look about and see what other course is open to us.

22 The Story of Silent Spring How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind's impact on nature. Although their role will probably always be less celebrated than wars, marches, riots or stormy political campaigns, it is books that have at times most powerfully influenced social change in American life. Thomas Paine's Common Sense galvanized radical sentiment in the early days of the American revolution; Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe roused Northern antipathy to slavery in the decade leading up to the Civil War; and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement.

23 Carson, a renowned nature author and a former marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was uniquely equipped to create so startling and inflammatory a book. A native of rural Pennsylvania, she had grown up with an enthusiasm for nature matched only by her love of writing and poetry. The educational brochures she wrote for the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as her published books and magazine articles, were characterized by meticulous research and a poetic evocation of her subject.

24 "Things Go Out of Kilter" Carson was happiest writing about the strength and resilience of natural systems. Her books Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us (which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks), and The Edge of The Sea were hymns to the inter-connectedness of nature and all living things. Although she rarely used the term, Carson held an ecological view of nature, describing in precise yet poetic language the complex web of life that linked mollusks to sea-birds to the fish swimming in the ocean's deepest and most inaccessible reaches. DDT, the most powerful pesticide the world had ever known, exposed nature's vulnerability. Unlike most pesticides, whose effectiveness is limited to destroying one or two types of insects, DDT was capable of killing hundreds of different kinds at once. Developed in 1939, it first distinguished itself during World War II, clearing South Pacific islands of malaria-causing insects for U.S. troops, while in Europe being used as an effective de-lousing powder. Its inventor was awarded the Nobel Prize.

25 When DDT became available for civilian use in 1945, there were only a few people who expressed second thoughts about this new miracle compound. One was nature writer Edwin Way Teale, who warned, "A spray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy. Ninety percent of all insects are good, and if they are killed, things go out of kilter right away." Another was Rachel Carson, who wrote to the Reader's Digest to propose an article about a series of tests on DDT being conducted not far from where she lived in Maryland. The magazine rejected the idea.

26 Silent Spring Thirteen years later, in 1958, Carson's interest in writing about the dangers of DDT was rekindled when she received a letter from a friend in Massachusetts bemoaning the large bird kills which had occured on Cape Cod as the result of DDT sprayings. The use of DDT had proliferated greatly since 1945 and Carson again tried, unsuccessfully, to interest a magazine in assigning her the story of its less desirable effects. By 1958 Carson was a best-selling author, and the fact that she could not obtain a magazine assignment to write about DDT is indicative of how heretical and controversial her views on the subject must have seemed. Having already amassed a large quantity of research on the subject, however, Carson decided to go ahead and tackle the DDT issue in a book.

27 Silent Spring took Carson four years to complete
Silent Spring took Carson four years to complete. It meticulously described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissues of animals, including human beings, and caused cancer and genetic damage. A single application on a crop, she wrote, killed insects for weeks and months, and not only the targeted insects but countless more, and remained toxic in the environment even after it was diluted by rainwater. Carson concluded that DDT and other pesticides had irrevocably harmed birds and animals and had contaminated the entire world food supply. The book's most haunting and famous chapter, "A Fable for Tomorrow," depicted a nameless American town where all life -- from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children -- had been "silenced" by the insidious effects of DDT.

28 First serialized in The New Yorker in June 1962, the book alarmed readers across America and, not surprisingly, brought a howl of indignation from the chemical industry. "If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson," complained an executive of the American Cyanamid Company, "we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." Monsanto published and distributed 5,000 copies of a brochure parodying Silent Spring entitled "The Desolate Year," relating the devastation and inconvenience of a world where famine, disease, and insects ran amuck because chemical pesticides had been banned. Some of the attacks were more personal, questioning Carson's integrity and even her sanity.

29 Vindication Her careful preparation, however, had paid off. Anticipating the reaction of the chemical industry, she had compiled Silent Spring as one would a lawyer's brief, with no fewer than 55 pages of notes and a list of experts who had read and approved the manuscript. Many eminent scientists rose to her defense, and when President John F. Kennedy ordered the President's Science Advisory Committee to examine the issues the book raised, its report thoroughly vindicated both Silent Spring and its author. As a result, DDT came under much closer government supervision and was eventually banned. The public debate moved quickly from whether pesticides were dangerous to which pesticides were dangerous, and the burden of proof shifted from the opponents of unrestrained pesticide use to the chemicals' manufacturers.

30 The most important legacy of Silent Spring, though, was a new public awareness that nature was vulnerable to human intervention. Rachel Carson had made a radical proposal: that, at times, technological progress is so fundamentally at odds with natural processes that it must be curtailed. Conservation had never raised much broad public interest, for few people really worried about the disappearance of wilderness. But the threats Carson had outlined -- the contamination of the food chain, cancer, genetic damage, the deaths of entire species -- were too frightening to ignore. For the first time, the need to regulate industry in order to protect the environment became widely accepted, and environmentalism was born.

31 Carson was well aware of the larger implications of her work
Carson was well aware of the larger implications of her work. Appearing on a CBS documentary about Silent Spring shortly before her death from breast cancer in 1964, she remarked, "Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself?#91;We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves." One of the landmark books of the 20th century, Silent Spring's message resonates loudly today, even several decades after its publication. And equally inspiring is the example of Rachel Carson herself. Against overwhelming difficulties and adversity, but motivated by her unabashed love of nature, she rose like a gladiator in its defense.

32 3. About Environmental Protection
. . . to protect human health and the environment 1. EPIC Cases 2. Bush's Abysmal Record 3. Environmental Protection in China

33 1.EPIC Cases Humboldt Bay Master Petroleum's gold mining plan
would take up to 190,000 gallons of water every day from Canyon Creek Humboldt Bay

34 Case summaries, legal briefs, and other info
Cases filed to the present Cases Filed Legal Highlights some of EPIC's success stories

35 It's been decades since EPIC first entered the courtroom to challenge the degradation of public trust resources and the government's complacency to violations of environmental laws. Since that time we have filed more than 70 lawsuits on behalf of the native species and wildlands of the North Coast. Although our work is focused on the redwood and Douglas fir ecosystems of northern California, many of our cases have set legal precedents to help restore and protect imperiled areas throughout the region, state and nation. EPIC's legal actions today employ a number of different strategies and are focused on three primary program areas: industrial logging on private and state land, National Forest conservation, and actions to defend Humboldt Bay.

36 2.Bush's Abysmal Record Under the Bush Administration, the number of new species added to the endangered list has dramatically declined, but not because things have improved for imperiled fish and wildlife. This administration is the first to have failed to list a single species on its own initiative, and also the first to deny listings more times than it has granted them. Since Bush Jr. took office, the FWS has listed a total of only 31 species--fewer than either the Bush Sr. or Reagan Administration averaged each year in office.

37 Average Number of Species Listed Per Year Under Clinton: 65 Under Bush Sr.: 59 Under Reagan: 32 Under Bush Jr: 9 Thanks to CBD for providing these statistics

38 3.Environmental Protection in China
Foreword China is a developing country. ---confronted with the dual task of developing the economy and protecting the environment. ---made environmental protection one of its basic national policies, regarded the realization of sustainable development as an important strategy and carried out throughout the country large-scale measures for pollution prevention and control as well as ecological environment protection. ---Over the 18 years since its adoption of reform and opening to the outside world, GNP has achieved a sustained annual growth of around 10 percent, while its environmental quality has basically steered clear of the outcome of corresponding deterioration. ---the society and the environment has been effective.

39 Environmental Protection in China
I. The Choice of Implementing a Sustainable Development Strategy II. Improving the Legal and Administrative Systems Step by Step III. The Prevention and Control of Industrial Pollution and the Comprehensive Improvement of the Urban Environment IV. Territorial Control and Rural Environmental Protection V. Protection of the Ecological Environment and Biodiversity VI. Environmental Science and Technology, and Environmental Publicity and Education VII. Taking Vigorous Action to Promote International Cooperation in Environmental Protection

40 I. The Choice of Implementing a Sustainable Development Strategy China's modernization drive has been launched in the following conditions: ---a large population base ---a lowper-capita average of natural resources ---quite backward economic development as well as scientific and technological level remain ---short supply for the pressure on resources and greater fragile environment ---the choice of the road of development to the survival of the Chinese people as well as their posterity.

41 China enacted and implemented a series of principles, policies, laws and measures for environmental protection in the 1980s. ---Making environmental protection one of China's basic national policies. The prevention and control of environmental pollution and ecological destruction and the rational exploitation and utilization of natural resources are of vital importance to the country's overall interests and long-term development. The Chinese government is unswervingly carrying out the basic national policy of environmental protection. ---Formulating the guiding principles of simultaneous planning, simultaneous implementation and simultaneous development for economic construction, urban and rural construction and environmental construction, and combining the economic returns with social effects and environmental benefits; and carrying out the three major policies of “prevention first and combining prevention with control”,“making the causer of pollution responsible for treating it” and “intensifying environmental management”.

42 ---Promulgating and putting into effect laws and regulations regarding environmental protection and placing environmental protection on a legal footing, continuously improving the statutes concerning the environment, formulating strict law-enforcement procedures and increasing the intensity of law enforcement so as to ensure the effective implementation of the environmental laws and regulations. ---Persisting in incorporating environmental protection into the plans for national economic and social development, introducing to it macro regulation and management under state guidance, and gradually increasing environmental protection input so as to give simultaneous consideration to environmental protection and other undertakings and ensure their coordinated deevelopment. ---Establishing and improving environmental protection organizations under governments at all levels, forming a rather complete environmental control system, and bringing into full play the governments' role in environmental supervision and administration.

43 -- Accelerating progress in environmental science and technology
-- Accelerating progress in environmental science and technology. Strengthening research into basic theories, organizing the tackling of key scientific and technological problems, developing and popularizing prac"itical technology for environmental pollution prevention and control, fostering the growth of environmental protection industries, and giving initial shape to an environmental protection scientific research system. -- Carrying out environmental publicity and education to enhance the whole nation's awareness of the environment. Widely conducting environmental publicity work, gradually popularizing environmental education in secondary and primary schools, developing on-the-job education in environ"imen tal protection and vocational education, and training specialized personnel in environmental science and technology as well as environmental administration. -- Promoting international cooperation in the field of environmental protection. Actively expanding exchanges and cooperation concerning the environment and development with other countries and international organizations, earnestly implementing international environmental conventions, and seeking scope for China's role in global environmental affairs.

44 II. Improving the Legal and Administrative Systems Step by Step China pays great attention to environmental legislative work and has now established an environmental statutory framework that takes the Constitution of the People's Republic of China as the foundation and the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China as the main body. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates, ``The state protects and improves the living environment and the ecological environment, and prevents and remedies pollution and other public hazards,'' and ``The state ensures the rational use of natural resources and protects rare animals and plants. The appropriation or damage of natural resources by any organization or individual by whatever means is prohib"iited.''

45 The Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China is the cardinal law for environmental protection in China. The law has established the basic principle for coordinated development between economic construction, social progress and environmental protection, and defined the rights and duties of governments at all levels, all units and individuals as regards environmental protection. China has enacted and promulgated many special laws on environmental protection as well as laws on natural resources related to environmental protection. They include the Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, Law on the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution, Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Wastes, Marine Environment Protection Law, Forestry Law, Grassland Law, Fisheries Law, Mineral Resources Law, Land Administration Law, Water Resources Law, Law on the Protection of Wild Animals, Law on Water and Soil Conservation, and Agriculture Law.

46 The Chinese government has also enacted more than 30 administrative decrees regarding environmental protection, including the Regulations ---for the Prevention and Control of Noise Pollution ---on Nature Reserves, Regulations on the Prevention of and Protection Against Radiation from Radio Isotopes and Radioactive Device ---on the Safe Administration of Chemicals and Other Dangerous Materials ---on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution in the Huaihe River Drainage Area ---Governing Environmental Protection Administration in Offshore Oil Exploration and Development ---on the Control of Marine Wastes Dumping ---for the Implementation of the Protection of Terrestrial Wildlife, Pro"ivisional Regulations on the Administration of National Parks ---on the Protection of Basic Farmland ---on Urban Afforestation. In addition, departments concerned have also issued a number of administrative rules and decrees on environmental protection.

47 To implement the state's environmental protection laws and regulations, people's congresses and people's governments at local levels, proceeding from specific conditions in their own areas, have enacted and promulgated more than 600 local laws on environmental protection. Environmental standards are an important component of China's environmental statutory framework. They include environmental quality standards, pollutant discharge or emission standards, basic environmental criteria, criteria for samples, and criteria for methodology. The environmental quality standards and pollutant discharge or emission standards are divided into state standards and local standards. By the end of 1995, China had promulgated state environmental standards on 364 items. As stipulated in Chinese law, the environmental quality standards and pollutant discharge standards are compulsory standards, and those who violate these compulsory environmental standards must bear the corresponding legal responsibility.

48 In the process of establishing and improving the environmental statutory framework, China attaches equal importance to environmental law enforcement and environmental legislation. For four years in a row, China has conducted nationwide checks on the enforcement of environmental legislation to seriously deal with acts of polluting and damaging the environment and severely punish environmental law violations. China pays great attention to supervision exercised by the people and media over law-breaking activities regarding the environment -- it has opened channels for the masses of people to report on environmental problems and adopted measures for the media to expose environmental law-breaking activities. But it should be pointed out that China's environmental legislative work needs to be further improved. For instance, some areas still remain uncovered, some contents are yet to be amended or revised and there are still the phenomena of not fully observing or enforcing laws. Therefore, to make continuous efforts to strengthen environmental legislative work remains an important strategic task.

49 China attaches equal importance to the establishment of an environmental administrative system.
The National People's Congress has established an Environment and Resources Protection Committee, whose work it is to organize the formulation and examination of drafted laws related to environmental and resources protection and prepare the necessary reports, exercise supervision over the enforcement of laws governing environmental and resources protection, put forward motions related to the issue of environmental and resources protection, and conduct exchanges with parliaments in other countries in the field of environmental and resources protection. The people's congresses of some provinces and cities have also established corresponding environmental and resources protection organizations.

50 The Environmental Protection Committee under the State Council is made up of leaders of various related ministries under the State Council. Its major tasks are studying and examining the principles, policies and measures relating to coordinative development of the country's economy and environmental protection, giving guidance to and coordinating efforts in tackling major environmental problems, exercising supervision over and conducting checks on the implementation of the environmental protection laws and regulations by various localities and departments, and promoting the development of environmental protection undertakings throughout the country. The people's governments at the provincial, city and county levels have also established corresponding environmental protection committees.

51 The National Environmental Protection Agency is the competent environmental protection administration agency under the State Council, whose task it is to exercise overall supervision and administration over the country's environ"imental protection work. Environmental protection organizations have also been established in comprehensive administration departments, resources administration departments and industrial departments under governments at various levels to take charge of related environmental and resources protection work.

52 III. The Prevention and Control of Industrial Pollution and the Comprehensive Improvement of the Urban Environment The Chinese government regards prevention and control of industrial pollution as the focal point of environmental protection. Thanks to unremitting efforts over the past 20-odd years, China has made great progress in this regard.

53 ---Changes in the strategy for the prevention and control of industrial pollution have been effected. In the 1970s ---the control of point sources; in the in a comprehensive way through the readjustment of irrational industrial distribution; in the 1990s China has changed its traditional development strategy, promoted clean production and embarked on the sustainable development road. In guiding concept for the prevention and control of industrial pollution, ``three changes'' have been decided upon. ---Policy and legislation for preventing and controlling industrial pollution have taken initial shape as a coherent system. In order to effectively prevent and control industrial pollution, the Chinese government has drawn up three major policies for environmental protection. ---Enterprise environment supervision and management have been reinforced. The Chinese government has promoted the enforcement of the environmental impact assessment system and the ``three-at-the-same-time'' system.

54 ---Measures for preventing and controlling industrial pollution have gradually been perfected.
1.First, China has completed a great number of pollution-control projects through the readjustment of the industrial structure and product mix, and promoted clean production through technical transformation. Chemical, metallurgical, light, machine-building, power and construction materials industries have actively adopted clean production, speeded up technical transformation and firmly eliminated a large amount of equipment and products characterized by heavy pollution and high consumption of energy and materials. Consequently, industrial production has increased for several years running, the discharge of pollutants has declined steadily and the economic returns of enterprises have gone up year by year. 2.Second, in combination with the comprehensive improvement of the urban environment and regional reconstruction, a number of enterprises featured by heavy pollution have been closed down, moved away or otherwise put under control, thus alleviating the trend of pollution in some regions.

55 3.Third, the dynamics of setting deadlines for eliminating pollution have been reinforced. 4. Fourth, the prevention and control of pollution is developing toward regional and river valley comprehensive improvement. 5.Fifth, efforts have been stepped up to save energy and reduce consumption. The capability to treat waste gas, waste water and industrial residue (the ``three wastes'') has been enhanced and the comprehensive utilization rate of these materials has been increased. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period ( ) energy consumption for every ten thousand yuan worth of the gross domestic product (GDP) decreased from 5.3 tons of the standard coal in 1990 to 3.94 tons in 1995, saving a grand total of 358 million tons of the standard coal, or an annual averge economization rate of 5.8 percent.

56 China is a country with coal as its main energy source
China is a country with coal as its main energy source. Seventy percent of the smoke and dust in the air and 90 percent of the sulfur dioxide emission come from burning coal. As a result, the cities with concentrated industries and populations suffer from serious air pollution. Acid rain has occurred, and the situation has gone from bad to worse in some regions and cities. The Chinese government has adopted some measures, such as developing clean coal technology and clean-combustion technology, and collecting sulfur dioxide emission fees, to control acid rain. Like other developing countries, China's per capita energy consumption level and the emitted sulfur dioxide are much lower than the world average level at present, and it will remain so by the end of this century. According to the Framework Convention on Climatic Changes, China is under no specific obligation to limit the emission of carbon dioxide. However, mindful of its responsibility for protection of the global climate, China follows the principle of attaching equal importance to economization on energy and expansion of the energy industry, striving to raise its energy utilization efficiency and to readjust its energy structure.

57 ---Drawing up overall city plans and readjusting the layout of urban functions.
---Strengthening the construction of infrastructure and improving the capability to prevent and control pollution. ---Comprehensive improvement of the urban environment and improving the quality of the urban environment. All cities in China have increased their investment in environmental improvement and speeded up relevant construction. Obvious results have been achieved.A large number of urban waterways, such as the Zhongdong River in Hangzhou, the Funan River in Chengdu, the Haihe River in Tianjin, the Suzhou River in Shanghai, the Qinhuai River in Nanjing and the Haohe River in Nantong, have been cleaned up on a large scale. Benxi City in Liaoning Province has cleared up 21 ``smoke dragons,'' 17 polluted springs and two mounds of industrial residue which were notorious sources of pollution.

58 IV. Territorial Control and Rural Environmental Protection
Territorial control forms part of China's work in implementing the sustainable development strategy. Since the start of the reform and opening-up era, the Chinese government has carried out territorial control on a large scale. ---New progress has been made in territorial control planning. ---Many achievements have been made in research on territorial control. ---Land preservation, exploitation and control have been promoted on a full scale. ---The ability to combat natural disasters has been improved.

59 ---Achievements have been made in eco-agriculture
---Achievements have been made in eco-agriculture. The government has taken the development of eco-agriculture as an important means to realize the coordinated development of the environment and the economy. --- Further development of rural energy construction. Energy construction in rural areas is an important measure for protecting and improving the rural ecological environment. ---Pollution prevention and control in township enterprises have been strengthened. ---Development of green and organic foods is welcomed.

60 V. Protection of the Ecological Environment and Biodiversity
The Chinese government regards ecological environmental protection as the focal point of its environmental protection work. Through protracted efforts the country has made outstanding achievements in the protection and nurturing of the ecological environment. ---Achievements have been made in afforestation. ---Grassland construction has made progress in the phasal sense. -- Marine environmental protection has been strengthened.

61 The Chinese government has for a long time made unremitting efforts for biodiversity conservation, formulating the China Program for Nature Conservation and China's Action Plan for the Conservation of Biodiversi"ity, containing the policy, strategy and key fields and priority projects for biodiversity conservation. ---China has adopted the on-site conservation and off-site preservation methods to protect biodiversity. ---Establishing nature reserves is the most effective method for the in situ conservation of wild plants and animals. ---Establishing zoological gardens, botanical gardens and various artificial breeding centers is an effective method for off-site preservation of various species of wild animals and plants.

62 ---The government has placed much stress on the preservation of the genetic materials from domestic animals and fowls, as well as germ plasma resources from crops ---The government also attaches great importance to the environmental protection of the Tibet Autonomous Region. many problems still exist the shortage of the forest area, grassland degradation, soil erosion, desertification and difficulties in the protection of rare and endangered species of wild animals and plants. Thus, the further strengthening of the preservation of the ecological environment and biodiversity remains an important task for the Chinese government to tackle.

63 VI. Environmental Science and Technology, and Environmental Publicity and Education Through adopting the strategy of ``relying on science and education to rejuvenate the nation,'' China has made certain achievements in actively accelerating the development of environmental science and technology, as follows: -- The research spectrum of environmental science and technology has been steadily broadened. -- The numbers of research institutes and personnel engaged in environmental protection have been steadily increased. -- Work regarding the screening, evaluation and popularization of the optimum and practical technology for environmental protection has been organized.

64 ---The development of environmental labels has entered the stage of implementation. ---China strives to popularize environmental protection knowledge among the people and raise their consciousness about environmental protection and gradually to cultivate fine environmental ethics and codes of conduct. ---Higher education has provided a great number of scientific, technological and managerial personnel for environ"imen tal protection work. ---On-the-job training has enhanced the quality of environmental managerial personnel. ---Basic environmental education has cultivated and enhanced young people's environmental consciousness.

65 VII. Taking Vigorous Action to Promote International Cooperation in Environmental Protection China consistently holds that economic development should be coordinated with environmental protection; protection of the environment is a common task for mankind, but the economically developed countries should take more responsibility in this respect. It always maintains that the strengthening of international cooperation should be based on respecting national sovereignty, the protection of the environment and the spurring of development can not be done without peace and stability in the world, and both practical interests of various countries and long-term interests of the world should be considered in handling environmental problems.

66 China supports and actively participates in the environmental activities launched by the UN organizations. China has actively developed bilateral cooperation in the field of environmental protection. In order to promote further international cooperation in the environment and development field, China set up the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development in April 1992, composed of more than 40 leading specialists and well-known public figures from China and other countries, to be responsible for submitting propo"isals and advisory opinions to the Chinese government. China took an active part in the preparations for and in attending the UN Conference on Environment and Development.

67 Since 1979 China has signed a series of international environmental conventions and agreements.
China always conscientiously carries out its responsibilities for international environmental conventions and agreements which it has signed, approved or joined. China EnvironmentaI Protection Foundation (CEPF) was founded on April 27, It is the first Non-goverment Foundation dedicated to environmental protection in China. The supreme organ of the CEPF is the Board of Directors, which is composed of celebrities of both China and abroad, and represe- ntatives from govemments, social organizations and enteprises.

68 中华绿色版图工程启动仪式 时间:2001年9、18 地点:北京人大会堂 首届中华环境奖颁奖仪式 中华绿色版图工程纪念活动 及东西部环保启动活动 2002、8、25 陕西西安

69 中华绿色版图工程送一片绿色到密云水库, 还一波清水给北京城区人民 2002、4、14 北京密云 中华绿色版图工程珠江流域采水行 2002、3、6 珠江流域 中华绿色版图工程粤黔 百校环保活动 2002、3、12 广州市

70 4. Details in the text Why did Rachel Carson write the Silent Spring? What’s the content? Because she felt that the wonders of Nature are precious and permanent, and much of Nature was forever beyond the destruction of man. But then she discovered she was wrong. She learned with sadness that little in Nature is truly beyond the tampering reach of man. Then, She wrote the book Silent Spring to sound a startling warming to mankind and the book showed quite clearly that man was endangering himself and everything else on this planet by his indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. As her title suggests, Miss Carson was saying that there might come a springtime that would indeed be silent because the birds, as well as other creatures, and plants would have been destroyed by the man-made poisons used to kill crop-threateding insects.

71 Outline: Para.1-Para8---Description of a typical American town which is extremely beautiful until it is destroyed by chemicals. Para9-Para25---What the author thinks it is that causes the change. Vocabulary and Grammar 1. The town lay in the midst of prosperous farms, where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. White clouds of bloom: white flow-shaped clouds/white clouds that looked like flowers 2. In autumn, oak and maple and birth set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a background of pines. A blaze of color: an impressive and noticeable show of colors. 3.When the flood of migrants was pouring through Pour through : to come or go somewhere continuously in large numbers.

72 4. then some evil spell settled on the community: mysterious diseases swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. A flock of chicken/sheep/tourists; a herd of cattle/elephants P Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a large number of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? This is a rhetorical question 6. the whole process of spraying seems caught up in an endless spiral be caught up in: to become involved in, often against your wishes,e.g an endless spiral: a process of never-ending , continuous upward movement

73 7. Darwin’s principle of the survival of the fittest
In his On the Origin of Species, Darwin developed his theory of evolution. According to this theory, plants and animals that are naturally suitable for life in their environment will continue to live and develop, while plants and animals that do not have these qualities gradually disappear. This process is called natural selection. “survival of the fittest” is a quote from “Principle of Biology” by the English philosophy Herbert Spencer. Today the phrase is often used to refer to any situation in which unsuccessful competitors are quickly destroyed or defeated. The phrase is sometimes used humorously in other ways, remarkable survival of the quickest.

74 8. Obviously then, an insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not adapted. Live on sth: to eat a particular type of food to live Build up sth: to increase, strengthen, develop toward Be devoted to sth: to be given to, to grow completely Be intermingled with sth: to be mixed together Adapt to: to change in such a way that sth/sb has become suitable for a new situation 9. damp down: to control and reduce; to suppress 10. subjest sb/sth: to make sb/sth experience, suffer or be affected by sth, usually sth unpleasant

75 Exercises: P329 3 translation P332 6 words in proper forms
P335 2 preposition P336 4 “such” and “so”


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