Unit 5 Why do you do that

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EARTH DAY April 22 地球保护日

　　Born in America as an outgrowth of the 1960s’ ecology movement－remember those green-and-white “e” flags? －Earth Day is a very young holiday; flexible, ripe with potential, and very very green. The ecologists who dreamed up the Earth Day hoped that it would serve as a focus for discussions about the environmental dangers and possible solutions. First observed in 1970, the Earth Day enjoyed a brief flurry of media attention. Ecology was hip. Soon enough, however, attention dwindled, and so did the Earth Day. For years it went “underground,” almost universally forgotten. By the time the holiday’s twentieth anniversary approached, ecology－by this time it was called environmentalism－was hip again. Earth Day, phase two, blossomed with a vengeance.
　　Contemporary environmental dangers were greater, more numerous, and more widely known than in 1970. In its tatter incarnation, the Earth Day has become a focus for activism: broad-based and diffuse, but all with the same impassioned sense of save-the-planet urgency. Now the Earth Day is the framework on which the communities worldwide hang their annual environmental fairs, highway cleanups, fund-raisers, tree plantings, auto-free days, earth-healing rituals, and bike-a-thons.

The Abuse of Natural Resources

　　When the first European settlers arrived in North America, they found a continent rich in natural resources. Much of the land was covered with forests where wild animals abounded. Great herds of bison roamed the grasslands. The soil was deep and fertile. Clean lakes and streams, unpolluted with silt and chemical wastes, held a wealth of fish.
　　In the struggle to obtain food, clothing, and shelters, the settlers cut down and burned most of the eastern forests. As they moved westward, they plowed up the grasslands to plant corn and wheat. Their growing cities dumped sewage and waste materials from factories into the lakes and streams.
　　Much of the spring and summer rain in the United States falls in torrential thunderstorms, especially in the vast Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio river basins. The farmers who settled in the country were mainly European who had been used to gentle rains. The methods of tilling and planting which they brought with them were not suited to the new climate. The land’s capacity for water storage was diminished by the loss of the grasses that hold the soil in place and prevent the escape of rainwater. With the blotterlike plant cover gone, many rivers flooded when the winter snows melted. During the natural drought periods, wells ran dry and crops died in the fields. Dust storms blew the topsoil away. Birds and animals that once thrived in the forests and on the prairies became scarce. Some kinds vanished forever. Fish died in the unclean waters.

The Conservation of Natural Resources

　　The abuses of the past and even the present have emphasized the need for the wise use of natural resources. Conservation groups have promoted corrective legislation and instituted legal proceedings against the violators. People have been made increasingly aware that their continued existence depends on these efforts to stop the environmental deterioration.
　　Individuals have no right to destroy the nature's wealth for profit. The logging company that cuts down too many trees without replanting for the future; the industrial plant that fouls a river or pollutes the air with its wastes; the farmer who neglects his own farm and so damages his neighbor's land are injuring their whole community. The camper whose carelessness starts a forest fire; the automobile driver who wastes gasoline; the picnickers who tear up armfuls of the wildflowers or litter the landscape with their garbage; the hunter who kilts more than the legal limit－all are abusing natural resources. Conservation is everyone's responsibility. It is a uniquely human problem. Stringent laws to stop the waste and destruction of natural resources must be supported and effectively enforced.
　　Conservation can help maintain the natural beauty of a community. When land is mistreated, the countryside can become unattractive. Vacant tots covered with trash, bare roadsides, and garbage-laden streams are ugly. 　　　　Conservation also helps preserve areas suitable for recreation. As the cities grow crowded, natural areas are needed for people's enjoying leisure time. People need city parks, county forest preserves, and national parks; grass and trees bordering roads and highways; and sparkling streams.

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