5. How much of the growth in labour productivity in the postwar years in the USA could be accounted for by the added capital.
6. By what means can a country raise its level of consumption?
7. Which is preferable in the long run?
8. What makes a country the number one country in the world?
9. What countries were the leaders in the world in the past, and when?Natural Resources
The natural resources are limited. If we use them continuously, we will eventually exhaust them. But there is another approach to the problem. According to it the earth\'s exhaustible natural resources can actually increase year after year, perhaps never coming to an end. How can this fact be accounted for? The answer is that the effective stocks of natural resources are continually growing due to the technological developments that have enhanced the growth in living standards since XIXth century.
First, innovation has boosted up the productivity of natural resources. Second, innovation makes it possible to recycle resources, thus reducing waste. Third, innovation affects the prospective output contribution of natural resources (for example, the coal still underneath the ground). If the discovery of new sources or technological innovation in a given year raises the prospective output by an amount greater than the reduction in that year, then the stock of that resource will be larger at the end of the year than at the beginning. The exhaustion of a particular resource, though not impossible, is also not inevitable.
Since the times of the industrial revolution, consumption of power and raw materials has grown rapidly. We used more energy between 1900 and 1920 than in all previous time, and each twenty year period since has experienced a similar rate of increase in power demands. Still, new sources of power have made it possible to make up for the used resourses of energy.
Experts assert that the effective stocks of a natural resource can be increased in at least three ways:
1. New technologies are able to reduce the amount of a metal lost during mining or smelting, which increases the effective stock of this metal. In the similar way, innovations allow for extracting more resources out of previously abandoned sources. The less we waste, the more of effective resource is available.
2. The effective stocks of natural resources within the economy may be increased by substituting one resource for another. The illustration of this was the energy crises of the seventies, when people used insulation extensively to save fuel (fiberglass substituted oil and coal).
3. The third method to boost up our effective stocks natural resources is recycling.
Слова и выражения:
abandon – бросать, отказываться (от чего-либо)
approach – подход; подходить
assert – утверждать
available – доступный, имеющийся в наличии
coal – уголь
effective – наличный, рабочий, предназначенный к использованию
enhance – повышать, увеличивать
exhaust – истощать
exhaustible – истощимый
extensive – широкомасштабный
extract – добывать, выделять
fiberglass – искусственное стекло
fuel – горючее
inevitable – неизбежный
insulation – изоляция, изолирование; изолировать
mine – шахта; добывать в шахте
particular – особенный, конкретный
recycle – возвращать в (производственный) цикл
smelt – плавить (металл)
substitute – заменять, подменять
underneath – под, внизу
waste – отбросы (производства); тратить, терять (впустую)
natural resources – природные ресурсы
prospective output – ( в геологии ) разведанные запасы, предполагаемая добыча
raw material – сырье
rate of increase – темп роста
make up for – восполнять, компенсировать
at least – по крайней мере
Exercise 11
Answer the questions:
1. What would happen to natural resources if we used them continuously?
2. Why are the effective stocks of resources growing despite the fact that we use them continuously?
3. What are the effects of innovation on the stocks of natural resources?
4. What are the ways in which the effective stocks of natural resources can be increased?
5. How can we save fuel by insulating our homes?Recycling
By means of recycling we can convert waste into reusable materials. It differs from reuse, which simply means using a product again. In the developed countries up to about 20 percent of the nation\'s solid waste is recycled.
Recycling allows both to reduce the amount of waste disposed in landfills and to have natural resources. In the eighties environmentalists concentrated public attention on recycling as the principal method of protecting the environment.
However, recycling is not always economically efficient. Neither does it always help to protect the environment. On the other hand, assumptions that landfills and incinerators are necessarily «bad,» and the nation is running out of landfill space, are not well grounded. Specialists say that landfills can be safely sited and designed, and there is still plenty of space for them in every country.
What we have to do is not to put landfills in places that come into contact with water, as well as to design monitoring programs to prevent any possible harm that landfills may cause.
Of all the recycled materials aluminium and paper are the most popular. About 60 percent of all aluminium beverage cans are recycled. It is accounted by the fact that recycling aluminium is less expensive than producing new aluminium, as it takes 10 percent less energy to recycle aluminium than to make it out from bauxite.
Paper and cardboard are also extensively recycled. Producing cardboard requires a wide variety of used paper which is rather cheap to sort out. In addition there are lots of places (such as grocery stores) where large quantities of corrugated boxes are used, which makes collection quite efficient.
On the contrary, plastics are very expensive to collect and separate which limits the possibility of their recycling. Nevertheless, around 20 percent of plastic soft drink bottles are now recycled in the USA alone.
Слова и выражения:
aluminium – алюминий
bauxite – боксит
beverage – напиток
can – банка ( консервная, для напитков )
cardboard – картон
corrugated – рифленое (железо), рифленый (картон)
dispose – иметь в наличии, иметь в распоряжении
environmentalist – защитник окружающей среды
incinerator – кремационная печь, мусоросжигательная печь
landfill – свалка мусора
plastics – пластмассовый, пластиковый
reusable – пригодный к повторному использованию
reuse – использовать повторно
solid – твердый
by means of – посредством ( чего-либо ), с помощью ( чего-либо )
public attention – общественное внимание
economically efficient – экономически выгодный
monitoring program – программа текущего контроля
wide variety – широкое разнообразие
sort out – сортировать, рассортировывать
grocery store – бакалейный магазин
soft drink – безалкогольный напиток
Exercise 12
Answer the questions:
1. What do we get when we recycle waste?
2. What is the difference between recycling and reuse?
3. What is a landfill?
4. Who concentrated public attention on recycling as the principal method of protecting the environment in the eighties?
5. Why aren\'t landfills so dangerous as the general public believes?
6. What materials are most popular for recycling?
7. Why is it more economically efficient to recycle aluminium than to produce it from bauxite?
8. Why is paper so extensively recycled?
9. Why is it easy to find paper fit for recycling?
10. What portion of all plastic soft drink bottles is recycled in the USA?Clinton Recycles
Bill and Hillary are now married 40 years. When they first got married, Bill said, «I am putting a box under the bed. You must promise never to look in it.»
In all their 40 years of marriage, Hillary never looked. However, on the afternoon of their 40th anniversary, curiosity got the best of her, and she lifted the lid and peeked inside. In the box were 3 empty beer cans and $1,874.25 in cash. She closed the box and put it back under the bed. Now that she knew what was in the box, she was doubly curious as to why.
That evening they were out for a special dinner. After dinner Hillary could no longer contain her curiosity and she confessed and said «I am so sorry. For all these years I kept my promise and never looked into the box under our bed. However, today the temptation was too much, and I gave in. But now I need to know why do you keep the empty cans in the box?»
Bill thought for a while and said, «I guess after all these years you deserve to know the truth. Whenever I was unfaithful to you I put an empty beer can in the box under the bed to remind myself not to do it again.»
Hillary was shocked, but said, «I am very disappointed and saddened, but I guess after all those years away from home on the road, temptation does happen and I guess that a few times is not that bad considering the years.»
They hugged and made their peace. A little while later Hillary asked Bill, «Why do you have all that money in the box?» Bill answered, «Whenever the box is filled with empty cans, I sell them for recycling.»