The climate in Great Britain is generally mild and temperate due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The south-western winds carry the warmth and moisture into Britain. The climate in Britain is usually described as cool, temperate and humid. British people say: "Other countries have a climate, in England we have weather".
The weather in Britain changes very quickly. One day may be fine and the next day may be wet. The morning may be warm and the evening may be cool. Therefore it is natural for the people to use the comparison "as changeable as the weather" of a person who often changes his mood or opinion about something.
The weather is the favourite topic of conversation in Britain. When two Englishmen are introduced to each other, if they can't think of any thing else to talk about, they talk about weather. When two people meet in the street they will often say something about weather as they pass, just to show their friendliness. Every daily paper publishes a weather forecast. Both the radio and television give the weather forecast several times each day.
The English also say that they have three variants of weather: when it rains in the morning, when it rains in the afternoon or when in rains all day long. Sometimes it rains so heavily that they say "It's raining cats and dogs". Rainfall is more or less even throughout the year. In the mountains there is heavier rainfall then in the plains of the south and east.
The driest period is from March to June and the wettest months are from October to January. The average range of temperature (from winter to summer) is from 15 to 23 degrees above zero. During a normal summer the temperature sometimes rises above 30 degrees in the south. Winter temperatures below 10 degrees are rare. It seldom snows heavily in winter, the frost is rare. January and February are usually the coldest months, July and August the warmest. Still the wind may bring winter cold in spring or summer days. Sometimes it brings the whirlwinds or hurricanes.
We may say that the British climate has three main features: it is mild, humid and changeable. That means that it is never too hot or too cold. Winters are extremely mild. Snow may come but it melts quickly. In winter the cold is humid cold, not the dry one. This humid and mild climate is good for plants. The trees and flowers begin to blossom early in spring.
In the British homes there has been no central heating up till recently. The fireplaces are often used, but the coal is not used as it's very expensive. Britain has no good coal now and imports it itself. Many schools and universities have no central heating either, and the floors there are made of stone. The British bedroom is especially cold, sometimes electric blankets or hot water bottles are used.
Britain was originally a land of vast forests, mainly oak and beech in the Lowlands and pine and birch In the Highlands, with great stretches of marshland and smaller areas of moors. In the course of time, much forest land was cleared and almost all Lowlands outside the industrial areas were put under cultivation.
Today only about 6 per cent of the total land area remains wooded. Extensive forests remain in eastern and northern Scotland and in south-eastern and western England. Oak, elm, ash, and beech are the commonest trees in England, while Scotland has much pine and birch. The Highlands with thin soil are largely moorland with heather and grasses. In the cultivated areas that make up most of Britain there are many wild flowers, flowering plants and grasses.
The fauna or animal life of Britain is much like that of north-western Europe, to which it was once joined. Many larger mammals such as bear, wolf have been hunted to extinction, others are now protected by law. There are many foxes. Otters are common along rivers and streams, and seals live along much of the coast. Hedgehogs, hares, rabbits, rats and mice are numerous. Deer live in some of the forests in the Highlands of Scotland and England.
Some 230 kinds of birds live in Britain, and another 200 are regular visitors, many are songbirds. The most numerous are blackbirds, sparrow and starling. Robin Redbreast is the national bird of Britain. The number of ducks, geese and other water fowl has diminished during recent years.
There are many threats to wildlife and ecological balance around the coast. The biggest threat to the coastline is pollution. Even much-loved Blackpool is not officially asafe. More than 3.500 million tons of industrial waste is pumped into the North Sea every year. "We cannot continue to use our seas as a dustbin and expect our coastline to survive", says Greenpeace.
CLIMATE IN ENGLAND
In England it is never too hot or too cold. This is be-cause of the sea which keeps the island warm in winter and makes the air cool in summer.
The weather in England changes very often. They never have the same kind of weather for a long time.
In spring the weather is generally mild but sometimes they have really cool days. In summer it is not so hot as on the continent. In winter they have all sorts of weather. Sometimes it rains and sometimes it snows. In England it is never so cold in winter as on the continent, the rivers and lakes are seldom covered with ice.
But the worst thing about the climate in England is the thick fog which they so often have in autumn and in winter. In London the fog is sometimes so thick that cars run into one another. The fog is one of the worst typical features of London and the Londoners cannot imagine their capital without it, as we cannot picture winter in Leningrad without snow.
The climate influences British architecture very much, British houses have large windows to let through more light during winter. Sunshine is a welcome visitor for the British people, and it is not usually from the heat of the sun that they seek shelter, but from wind and rain and cold.
And yet British houses give little protection from cold. Double windows are unknown. Few houses have central heating. The usual heating of a room is an open fire. British rooms are kept much cooler than is the custom in America and Central Europe.
Ecological problems
Since ancient times nature has served man, being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with environment and it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. But with the development of civilization man's interference in nature began to increase. Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises have appeared all over the world today. The byproduct of their activity pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we grow grain and vegetables. Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with about 1000 million tons of dust and harmful substances. Many cities suffer from smog. Vast forests are cut and burn in fire. Their disappearance upsets the oxygen balance. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever, a number of lakes and rivers dry up. The pollution of air and the world's ocean destruction of the ozone layer is the result of man's careless interaction with nature, a sign of ecological crises. As a result of the Chernobyl tragedy the Belarussian people faced the most horrible ecological disaster. About 18 per cent of the territory of Belarus was contaminated with radioactive substances. A great damage has been done to the republic's agriculture, forests and people's health. The consequences of the atomic power station explosion are tragic for the Belarussian nation. Only a small percent of Belarussian land remains contamination are being discovered every year. Not only Chernobyl but many of our "peaceful" factories and towns cause a great damage to the environment. Dangerous dust and blow-outs of the enterprises are being carried out by winds for long distances destroying the life around. People all over the world are worried about what is happening to the environment. They understand that the earth is their home, a big green home. The environment protection should be our universal concern. Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries - members of the UNO have set up environmental protection agencies. Numerous conferences have been held to discuss questions of ecologically poor regions including the Aral Sea, the South Urals, Kuzbass, Donbass, Semipalatsinsk and Chernobyl. An international environmental research center as been set up on Lake Baikal. The international organization Greenpeace is also doing much to preserve the environment. But these are only the initial steps that must be carried forward to protect not only for the sake of the present but for the future generations.Ecological problems. Since ancient times nature has served man, being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with environment and it seemed to them that natural riches were unlimited. But with the development of civilization man's interference in nature began to increase. Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises have appeared all over the world today. The byproduct of their activity pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we grow grain and vegetables. Every year world industry pollutes the atmosphere with about 1000 million tons of dust and harmful substances. Many cities suffer from smog. Vast forests are cut and burn in fire. Their disappearance upsets the oxygen balance. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever, a number of lakes and rivers dry up. The pollution of air and the world's ocean destruction of the ozone layer is the result of man's careless interaction with nature, a sign of ecological crises. As a result of the Chernobyl tragedy the Belarussian people faced the most horrible ecological disaster. About 18 per cent of the territory of Belarus was contaminated with radioactive substances. A great damage has been done to the republic's agriculture, forests and people's health. The consequences of the atomic power station explosion are tragic for the Belarussian nation. Only a small percent of Belarussian land remains contamination are being discovered every year. Not only Chernobyl but many of our "peaceful" factories and towns cause a great damage to the environment. Dangerous dust and blow-outs of the enterprises are being carried out by winds for long distances destroying the life around. People all over the world are worried about what is happening to the environment. They understand that the earth is their home, a big green home. The environment protection should be our universal concern. Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries - members of the UNO have set up environmental protection agencies. Numerous conferences have been held to discuss questions of ecologically poor regions including the Aral Sea, the South Urals, Kuzbass, Donbass, Semipalatsinsk and Chernobyl. An international environmental research center as been set up on Lake Baikal. The international organization Greenpeace is also doing much to preserve the environment. But these are only the initial steps that must be carried forward to protect not only for the sake of the present but for the future generations
Environment and ecology
The poisoning of the world's land, air, and water is the fastest-spreading disease of civilisation. It probably produces fewer headlines than wars, earthquakes and floods, but it is potentially one of history's greatest dangers to human life on earth. If present trends continue for the next several decades, our planet will become uninhabitable.
Overpopulation, pollution and energy consumption have created such planet-wide problems as massive deforestation, ozone depletion, acid rains and the global warming that is believed to be coused by the greenhouse effect.
The seas are in danger. They are filled with poison: industrial and nuclear waste, chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The Mediterranean is already nearly dead; the North Sea is following. The Aral Sea is on the brink of extinction. If nothing is done about it, one day nothing will be able to live in the seas.
Every ten minutes one kind of enimal, plant or insect dies out for ever. If nothing is done about it, one million species that are alive today will have become extinct twenty years from now.
Air population is a very serious problem. In Cairo just breathing the air is life threatening- equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. The same holds true for Mexico City and 600 cities of the former Soviet Union.
Industrial enterprises emit tons of harmful substunces. These emissions have disastrous consequences for our planet. They are the main reason for the greenhouse effect and acid rains.
An even greater environmental threat are nuclear power stations. We all know how tragic the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are.
People are beginning to realise that environmenta problems are not somebody else's. They join and support various international organosation and green parties. If governments wake up to what is happening - perhaps we'll be able to avoid the disaster that threatens the natural world and all of us with it.
Environmental protection
Since ancient times Nature has served Man, being the source of his life. For thousands of years people lived in harmony with environment. But with the development of civilization man's interference with nature began to increase. Large cities with thousands of smoky industrial enterprises appear all over the world today. They pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we live in. Many cities suffer from smog. Vast forests are cut and burnt in fire. As a result some rare species of animals, birds, fish and plants disappear forever. Environmental protection is a universal concern. That is why serious measures to create a sistem of ecological security should be taken. Some progress has been already made in this direction. As many as 159 countries-members of UNO- have set up environmental protection agencies. The accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station in April 1986 caused radioactive pollution of a vast area. The international organization Greenpease is also doing much to preserve the environment. The Earth is our home. We must take care of it for next generations and ourselves.
