M inistry o f Higher and Secondary Specialized Education o f the Republic o f Uzbekistan

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
and try to guess a general message.
Scale Up

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1 Work in pairs. Read the statements and put 
them in order they come in the record. Listen 
again and check.
_
_
On hearing that information Chinese leader Mao
Zedong ordered the extermination o f sparrows.
__
The overflow o f insects, plus the added effects
o f widespread deforestation and misuse o f poisons 
were a significant contributor to the Great Chinese 
Famine (1958-1961) in which an estimated 30 
million people died o f starvation.
^Humanity did a lot o f mistakes in past but they 
should serve us as a good lesson. 
g^jNests were torn down, eggs were broken, chicks 
killed, and sparrows were shot down from the sky. 
_ On the advice o f the Chinese Academy o f 
Sciences, Mao declared full-stop to the Great 
Sparrow Campaign.
__
Consequently, agricultural yields that year were
disastrously low.
__
But the story to be told today, we hope, will be
a lesson for what can happen when changes are 
made to an ecosystem.
__
They swarmed the countryside as there were no
sparrows in sight.
__
They reasoned that sparrows ate grain seeds.
__ By 8 pm o f that night, it was estimated that a 
. total of 194,432 sparrows were killed.
5 Work in groups of four or five. Discuss the 
following questions. Share the results with the
I whole group.
1. Can you remember any other human deeds which 
I brought to tragic but unintended consequences?
2.
What other future human fault is likely to happen?
3.
What consequences it may cause?
6 Look at the notes and complete the sentences.
1... when the agent 
is obvious 
to 
[everybody.
в
f Nuclear 
energy, 
r was invented to 1 
facilitate human’s 1 
life, but...
Г. when you don’t 
know the agent 
(i.e. doer of the 
action
Aircrafts 
were 1 
invented to explore 1 
the space, but...
I, when you don’t 
want to identify 
Tfie agent
In China sparrows 
were killed to save 
the harvest, but...
El
К У Ш
6 Think about famous inventions of the 
humankind, tell whom they were invented by 
and what were their unintended consequences. 
Share your findings with the whole group.
a. e.g. Invention o f nuclear energy was a great 
discovery for humankind, but Japanese suffered 
from it terribly.
7 Read the text and fill in the blanks with the 
appropriate verbs in passive from the box.
deplete, bring, destroy, call, release, emit, use, 
consider, produce
The Hole in the Ozone Layer
Since existing o f humanity they tried to make 
their life much easier, happier, so they invented 
cars, air-conditioners, fire extinguishers and many 
others. As a result the ozone layer
_______________
.
Ozone itself is a useful protective layer high 
above our heads. Scientific evidence indicates 
that the damage o f the ozone in the stratosphere
high above the planet’s surface
_______________
as the result o f the widespread use o f chemicals.
The stratospheric ozone 
_______________ by
manufactured chemicals, containing chlorine and/
or bromine. These chemicals
___________
«ozone-
depleting substances» (ODS) which under normal 
conditions are chemically harmless. Stratosphere 
is about 15-50 kilometres above the Earth surface.
What’s more, ODS have a long lifetime in 
our atmosphere - up to several centuries. This
means most o f the O D S
_____________ over the
last 80 years and they are still making their way 
to the stratosphere, where they will add to the 
ozone destruction. For example, large amounts of
gas called C F C s
___________
__ in the twentieth
century for use in everyday appliances like fridges, 
aerosol spray cans, and fire extinguishers.