Environmental Issues

-      So, Mr. McKibben, you’re an environmentalist. What do you actually do?

-     Our environment is our planet. Human activities have a big impact on the environment. People are becoming more aware that their activities can seriously damage the planet and the animals and plants on it. Environmentalists assess this damage and give advice on what can be done to help clean up and protect our planet.

-      What environmental issues are most important today?

-    There are many of them and they’re all interdependent. The most dramatic of them is, probably, climate change. It is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world today. Climate change refers to changes in the Earth’s temperature over the last 100 years. In Europe, for example, climate change results in hotter and drier summers; warmer and wetter winters; more storms and rainfall; other extreme weather conditions and rising sea-levels.

-      That sounds really threatening. But is it only climate change that worries scientists?

-   Not only, of course. There are different types of pollution: air pollution, water pollution, even noise pollution. Radioactive contamination is a form of pollution, too. So, nuclear plants are very hazardous. Take Chernobyl or Fucusima, for example.

-      Nuclear waste is also a huge issue, isn’t it?

-    All types of waste, actually. However, it is widely recognized that waste materials are a valuable resource, too. An English proverb says "One man's trash is another man's treasure." But let’s get back to the treasures of our planet. There’s the issue of resource depletion, as well. In the last decades people have been cutting down lots of trees, especially in tropical areas. Forests are being destroyed at the rate of 40 hectares a minute! Deforestation destroys the environmental balance and reduces biodiversity.  

-    Talking about biodiversity. More and more animals and plant species are becoming extinct.

-   Biodiversity is a term which describes how rich the Earth is in the amount of species. So here we’re dealing with another environmental issue: conservation. Environmentalists and conservationists are trying to save the endangered species. But as an American astronaut said, “If you want to see an endangered species, get up and look in the mirror."