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本文是一篇关于环境保护问题探讨的文章，是作者对大学生演讲的现场文稿。主要分为三大板块：history---介绍环境问题的起源，工业的快速发展所带来的环境问题，开始吸引人们的关注，科学家对环境问题做了更多研究，政府也开始注意环境保护，但污染问题还是日益严重；Ecological problems ---介绍了当前严峻的问题类型，主要包括农药、石油、核辐射、森林火灾等，这些问题给下一代带来的问题就是气候变化；Possible solutions---作者在这一部分针对环境问题提出了一些可行补救措施，节约能源、垃圾分类等等。通过三部分的讨论，向读者强调生态环境的重要性，号召人们积极应对，采取行动。

Hello fellow classmates. As you all know, today we are going to talk about prosperity, how it’s acquired and its impact on our environment. The environment, climate change in particular, is one of the most important political topics of our time. That’s why first we’re going to look into the history of ecological awareness, as it’s a fairly new topic.

History

In the late sixties of last century the effects of continuous industrial growth came to attention to a larger group of people, and scientists started publishing research on the dangers of pollution to our planet. This was picked up by the hippie movement. Their protests helped raise global awareness about the environmental problems caused by industrial pollution. In the early seventies the governments of most of the industrialized countries came up with a general policy concerning the environment. In the years after that the debate about preserving our natural riches became increasingly important to the general public. From then on, Politicians couldn’t afford not to show respect for our earth. Governments started developing legislation to protect nature from further damage. On an international level world leaders started cooperating to reduce the impact of pollution on nature. This resulted in many treaties of which the Kyoto treaty is the most famous example.

Ecological problems

The contamination with pesticides, the petroleum spills in the sea, the dangers of the nuclear radiation and forest fires threaten the Earth’s ecosystems. It is essential for the preservation of the life on the planet that we investigate and analyze the errors that have caused situations of serious ecological damage.

One of the big causes of oceanic contamination are the petroleum spills. 46% of petroleum and their industrial derivatives that are spilled in the sea are remainders that overturn the coastal cities. The sea is used like a very accessible and cheap deposit of polluting substances, and the situation will not change while strict controls do not exist, with severe sanctions for the violators. A quarter of the spills are caused by accidents of great petroleum containers boats that by negligence of the authorities and of the oil companies transport the fuel in inadequate conditions. In the last years, some of the most spectacular accidents were the one of the ship-tank Valdés of Exxon, it happened in front of the Alaskan coasts on 24th of March of 1989, and the one of the Aegean Sea oil tanker, on the 3rd of December of 1992, in front of the entrance of the port of Corunna, in Spain. Another 32% of the spills come from the washing of the tanks of the big ships that transport this fuel.

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