PETS3 Unit3.doc

Unit 3 Environment 环境Dialogues & Monologue Mr. Zhang: visits his hometown, where he spent his childhood. Now he is talking with Mr. Jackson.Zhang: Were nearly there. All has come back to me. Look, the old park Peoples Park is still there. I used to pass the park to go to school each day. Jackson: Really? I thought you are living in Xian city all your life. Zhang: No, I used to live in this old city from 1970s to early 1980s. Jackson: Have you ever been back since you left here? Zhang: No, but Im always dreaming of visiting it. I didnt have enough time, so Ive never come back. Jackson: Now, we are in the city center? Zhang: Er, oh, yes, youre right. The busy road, the skyscrapers. It seems that the old department store has disappeared. Jackson: Its there! Right? Zhang: Yeah, it has changed a lot, bigger and taller than ever, but there was no flyover here in 1980s. Jackson: Look at these skyscrapers! Zhang: Wonderful! But in the past, there were only small shops. I especially liked to buy sweets in one of them. Its name was Xiao Hong Shop. Jackson: Twenty years have passed. Great changes have taken place, we have been getting older, just as a saying goes Time is waiting for no man! Zhang: I agree with you. My old guy, lets find a parking lot and walk around the city, OK? Jackson: OK, Im glad to. QuestionWhere does Mr. Zhang live now?What changes does the old department store have?Where did Mr. Zhang buy sweets in this city? Tim and Ann are talking about Mr. Marks new house.Tim: Ann, have you received your invitation? Ann: No, I havent. My invitation? By whom? Tim: A house warming party next Sunday. Ann: Whose party? Tim: Mr. Marks. They have bought a new house beside the North Gate. Its about half an hours walk from here. Ann: Have you seen the house? Tim: Of course. I went there yesterday. Ann: Is it quite nice? Tim: Yes. Their house is surrounded by a large and beautiful garden, full of all kinds of flowers. The house is standing in the middle of the garden. It has three storeys. Ann: It sounds good! Tim: The house has five bedrooms, a big living room, a dining room, a kitchen and three bathrooms. The carpet in his sitting room is made in China. Ann: It must be very delicate. Tim: Yes, it goes very well with the curtain and their sofas. Ann: Anything else? Tim: Mr. Mark has decorated his study with many expensive works of art. Ann: Its well known that he likes to collect works of art wherever he goes. Tim: They also have a four-car garage. Ann: Really? Its just his dream. Tim: How I wish I had a house like his! Ann: Its a piece of cake. I suggest that you sell up all your stocks for a new house. What does the party celebrate? How many rooms does the house contain? How did Mr. Mark decorate his study? Mr. Brown and his son Robert are walking along the river.Robert: Dad, how foggy it is this morning! Mr. Brown: Yes, its a new problem. Robert: A new problem? Why do you say so? Mr. Brown: The problem results from smog. Robert: Smog? What is it? Mr. Brown: Smog is blended with two words smoke and fog. It has seriously affected people more than any other type of air pollution. Robert: I see. Look, there are some plastic bags floating on the river. Mr. Brown: Some citizens are still ignorant of the environmental protection. Its really a pity! Robert: But, anyway, public concern over the environmental pollution has greatly increased. There is hope for the future. QuestionWhats the weather like this morning? What is smog? Whats the other environmental problem beside the river? The following monologue is about some threats to the forests in America.The Forest Service is responsible for the forests on public land in the US.It supervises almost 78 million hectares of forests, grasslands, rivers and lakes.Its an agency of the Department of Agriculture.Forest Service officials say there are 4 major threats to forests and wild land in America.The first is the threat of fire and fuel.Fires are a natural enemy of forest growth, but they can also threaten lives and property.Fuel is dead plant material and small plants that grow under tall trees.The Forest Service estimates that up to one-fourth of the forests it supervises have dangerous levels of fuel.Sometimes foresters set controlled fires to remove the fuel.Other times the fuel must be cleared by hand.Another threat to forests is from invasive species.These are non-native plants and animals that push out native kinds.They can cause a lot of economic damage.Some invaders are insects, some are diseases, and others are plants like the fast-growing kudzu vine.The agency says another threat to the health of wild land is the loss of open space.It says over 1 hectare of forest or grassland is lost to development every minute.Development also leads to the division of large natural areas into smaller ones.The fourth threat to public land is what the Forest Service calls unmanaged recreation.People can hunt, fish and camp in many national forests.But careless use of motor vehicles and other actions can be destructive. What does the Forest Service supervise? What does the Forest Service belong to? What are the 4 major threats to the forests?PassageIn Our Rurban Age-To know the countryside, you must live in the cityIn his book Badgers, the naturalist Michael Clark describes surveying the animal back in the 1960s. Calling at a farm cottage, he asked an old countryman whether he knew of any badgers living nearby. What are badgers? came the reply. The countryman, Clark writes, genuinely did not know of the species. You can be a countryman, it seems, and know little of the country. But traditionally, country folks are regarded as being in tune with the land. They live there, dont they? What can townies know of the way of nature? This assumption infects much of our culture. It predicates the existence of a clear division between town and country. It enables the rural lobby to characterize itself as an indigenous culture, its native traditions and pastimes (hunting and fishing) threatened by an oppressive urban majority. The underlying message lies in that the countryside is best managed by country people. After all, they know about such things. Unfortunately, too often, they dont. As the historian Keith Thomas showed in his study Man and the Natural World, the growth of our knowledge about nature has come by correcting the vulgar errors of country people. And although Thomas was writing about the period between 1500 and 1800, that process continues today-what country dwellers take for granted is still being confounded by the careful observation of reality. A study, from York University, has cast strange new light on the farmers enemy-foxes. The more foxes a farmer kills, the more lambs he appears to lose to foxes. That is because: new foxes will almost certainly occupy the slain animals territory, and new animals, unused to the terrain, may then choose more obvious prey-such as lambs. The message of studies such as this is that natural systems are complex, unpredictable: understanding them requires patient observation and careful analysis. The lack of these conditions explains why, in the early modern era, grass snakes were killed as venomous, and gardeners destroyed worms because they were thought to gnaw plant roots. The assumption that country people ought