М. М. Кутепова The World of Chemistry Мир

Listen to the report again if necessary and say in what connection the name of V. Vernadsky is mentioned.

a) Listen to the report again if necessary and answer the following questions:

1. 
   What is one of the constitutional duties of Russians?
   
2. 
   What does man depend for his life on?
   
3. 
   In what way is the biosphere affected by man?
   
4. 
   What is happening to forests?
   
5. 
   When did V Vernadsky introduce a new approach to the biosphere?
   
6. 
   Do you know anything of his approach?
   
7. 
   What do you know about environment protection organization in Russia?
   

2. 
   Using an encyclopedia define the following notions: atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, noosphere.
   
3. 
   Read the following text and comment on the ideas and facts expressed in it: The idea of the biosphere was introduced into science almost a
   

century ago by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess, who was the first to use the term in a discussion of the various envelopes of the Earth in his book published in 1875. The concept played little part in scientific thought until the publication in 1926 of two lectures by the Russian mineralogist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. It is essentially Vernadsky’s concept that we use today.
The necessity to quite a new approach to the biosphere was realized by Vernadsky as early as the mid-forties. According to him man has become a geological and biological factor by far exceeding everything that preceded him throughout evolution, the rate of his intervention in nature steadily increasing.
7 Английский язык i c) }
для студентов-химиков

Yet it was with optimism that he looked ahead when he wrote: ^UI think we undergo not only a historical but also a planetary change as well. We live in a transition to the noosphere.” By “noosphere” Vernadsky meant the envelope of mind that was to supersede the biosphere, the envelope of life.

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