Dialogue

Michael and Alec, discussing environmental problems

Michael: (entering the room): What are you doing?

Alec:I’m reading. Can you….

(taking the newspaper): Oh, the London Bulletin. What article?

Michael:Can you believe it? There is another oil spill off the Baltic Sea coast! Why don't oil companies find another way to transport oil?

Alec:We haven't got the technology to transport it any other way.

Michael: But oil spills from tankers are a serious threat to the environment. They kill birds and fish and destroy the beaches.

Alec:It doesn't happen often. And. besides, don't we need the oil? Our country, for example, depends on oil imports. Even plastics come from oil.

Michael: Sure we need the oil. But the big companies are destroying the environment. They don't care about anything but money.

Alec:You're exaggerating. Look, the oil companies make big profit, but they use the money to get more oil.

Michael: Yes, you're quite right. They use the money to make their business bigger and bigger, but not to protect the environment.

Alec:I see, you are engaged with the problem. Did the paper depress you so much? What is it?

Michael: That one about the big companies and the environment. The article hits out at companies and the big oil ones in particular, whose activity often results in industrial pollution. 70 percent of cancer is caused by industrial pollution If is amazing that these companies make both the chemicals that create cancer and the medicines that treat it.

Alec:Well, ecology problems are getting more and more popular nowadays and different organizations fighting environment contamination are growing as fast as mushrooms.

Michael: There is nothing strange in it. These problems exist though we are sometimes not even aware of them. Sure, I can. 'To my mind the biggest of them dioxin.

Alec:When you say dioxin, do you mean the chemicals which are not deliberately manufactured in production of paper, textile, plastics, perfume, food, many other products and even while incinerating municipal garbage?

Michael: Yes, I do. The scientists have proved that one millionth part of a milligram of dioxin found as an airborne contaminant is capable of causing cancer, not to mention many other, diseases with birth defects, central nervous system problems and others. And if you live next to a paper mill or a burning garbage pile? The dioxin. made by a paper mill in a small town of Sweden can end up in the ice cream eaten by residents of Helsinki. The dioxin emitted by municipal waste incinerator in St .Petersburg can get into the hamburger bought in Amsterdam.

Alec:Is this really as horrible as it sounds?

Michael:Yes, it doesn't sound hopefully. The only way out, as I see it, is to improve conventional technological processes and change drastically our attitude to the environment.