Environment

Environment includes plants, animals, air, water, our civilization etc. We could say that is everything what is around us. Environment is influenced by processes in nature, but mainly by activity of people.
Natural disasters
In our country we can notice quite often the floods. Floods are generally caused by long heavy rains or when a lot of snow melt in the spring and water run down from mountains. This water flood towns, roads and their surrounding. The floods damage houses, bridges,roads and kill people and animals who don´t run away.
Fires burns also everything what is on the way. It´s caused by someones´s inattention or by dry, hot season. Wind helps to extend(expand) the fire. But fire brigade try to stop this catastrophe. I think this profession is one of the most dangerous at all.
Huricanes and tornadoes are caused by presure changes in the atmosphere.We can meet with this phenomena often in area of Caribian sea. The speed of huricane can reaches up 119 km/hour. It´s very strong wind destroying everything on the way.
The movement of the litospheric bords caused earthquakes and explosions of volcanoes. In the course of earthquake the land is crashing and shakeing. Buildings fall down and everybody is in danger. Earthquake under the ocean can cause a big tidal wave which floods the coast. On the other hand, the volcanoes produce a lot of dust, smoke and lava which pours out and burns everything what is in the land´s surface.

Civilization has brought people many advantages but its products also pollute and damage the environment in which we live.
Air pollution is the biggest problem in large cities and in areas with concentrated industrial production. Emissions range from smoke(produced by coal-fired power stations and factories which burns fossil fuels), dust, and smells to car and lorry exhausts. Substance such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide mix with the air moisture and then acid rain falls down onto trees and slowly kill them. Trees are very important for us, because they produce oxygen for breathing. A big danger in nowdays is destruction of rain forests for a building materials.
Global warming is caused by the greenhouse efect. Manmade atmospheric emissions, like carbon dioxide(produced by burning fossil fuels), nitrogen oxides(from car exhausts), freon(from aerosol and refrigerators), methan and water vapour prevent the heat from escaping. Then the Earth´s temperature rises, arctic ice melts and areas near the sea level floods.
How can the problems of air pollution be solved? First of all, people should try to use alternative sources of energy, such as solar, water, wind, geothermal and perhaps tidal energies. People should use public transportation or fast railways more. New cars should run on unleaded petrol. Factories and power stations should have effective filters and households should use natural gaz.
Water is polluted by households, industrial processes, by pesticides and other chemicals used in agriculture,by waste and ships(mainly by tankers which crashed and oil run out). We should find technologies for saving water, reduce chemical fertilizers, controlle industrial processes.
Ozone hole
Ozone forms a layer in the upper atmosphere which protects life on Earth from ultraviolet rays, which cause skin cancer. This layer is destroyed by freons. The biggest ozone hole has formed over Antarctica and Australia.
Protection
Many ecological organizations také care about our nature, but everyone can do something for our environment. For example we can sort waste, recyclide, use glass bottles, make our surrounding clean or save energy.

Maturita.cz - referát (verze pro snadný tisk)
http://www.maturita.cz/referaty/referat.asp?id=3469