Reading comprehension

 

 Read the passage given below carefully and write your answers to the questions that follow in clear, correct, and concise language : 

Life on planet earth has been possible for millions of years largely because of certain basic services associated with the biosphere. Important among these are Climate and radiation regulation; Microbial transformations and decomposition; Biological diversity; and Opportunities for sustainable advances in biological productivity. 

We now find ourselves in a state where these essential services are in jeopardy, largely as a result of human-induced damage to the basic life support systems of land, water, flora, fauna and the atmosphere. Symptoms of an impending and general breakdown of the life support and ecological systems are already here. Some of these are mounting population growth; vanishing source of drinking water; vanishing forests, plants, and animal biodiversity; intensifying drought and floods; loss of grazing lands; growing degradation of fertile land and desertification; deterioration of the quality of air and water; accumulation of toxic and non-biodegradable wastes in the biosphere; the explosive growth of rural and urban unemployment and mushrooming of urban slums. It is the poor and the marginalized urban and rural people who are suffering most from such environmental breakdown. 

The threats to climate change and radiation regulation are receiving the most prominent public attention largely because of the all-pervasive nature of their potentially harmful impact. “Our Common Future” the report of the World Commi Environment and Development by the United Nations is indicative that ecologically the fates of people whether rich or poor everywhere are interwined. Recent reports on the state of the world paint a frightening picture of the rapid depletion of the world's natural resources coupled with rising social and economic problems. They reflect the widespread frustration about the inability of current approaches to solve the interlinked problems of environment and development and call for major changes in the way people think, use the finite resources of the earth and programme their development. Developing countries like ours are faced with the urgent need for accelerating economic growth in a manner that the poor become the main beneficiaries and not the rich. We should also avoid proceeding on those developmental paths where environmental costs are high and the developmental activities cannot be sustained for long. The new paradigm of development should promote economic activities and lifestyles based on the concept of “man with nature” and not “man against nature”. 
Today, we are passing through an era of global change whether it is in politics. or economics. Inequity in the resource distribution and consumption between the developed and the developing nations of world has become most apparent. The earth is undergoing drastic climatic changes. The last few years have been the warmest ones ever recorded. The heat trap works differently in different latitudes and altitudes having a tremendous effect on major crops like wheat. The protective ozone layer is being slowly damaged giving rise to medical problems for human beings and affecting several plants and their yield, animals and their behaviour Though the causes of pollution of our soils, lakes, and vegetation are different, the effect is the same. Mercilessly every day pristine wild habitats are being destroyed. Nearly half of our country is tilled for agriculture and only 11 per cent of the land area has to bear the brunt of growing population, housing, roads and factories and its “carrying capacity” is under severe stress. 
The dreaded nuclear autumn or nuclear winter is a potential threat to the environment which might result in large scale habitat destruction, species extinction, air pollution, toxic chemicals, acid rain, ozone depletion etc. A nuclear non-proliferation movement with the abolition of nuclear weapons, has to be spearheaded enthusiastically. 

Experts have predicted that serious food shortages could occur during this decade. Such a prognosis is based on three major factors – Soil erosion; Unsustainable utilization of groundwater; and Deforestation. They are together reducing the global potential for food production by nearly 14 million tonnes each year. New technologies, including biotechnology, are unlikely to help in achieving a quantum jump in productivity improvement at least during this decade. Due to the continuing damage to the ecological foundations of stable and sustainable agriculture, land degradation and water depletion ecological access to food may become the most important food security challenge of the 21st century. 

(a) According to the passage what are the factors responsible for the evolution of life on earth ? 
(b) What does the author mean by environmental breakdown ? What are its  impacts ? 
(c) What suggestions does the author offer to balance environment, development and inequity in consumption ? 
(d) How is life on earth being affected by climate change as per the passage ? 
(e) How is environmental breakdown related to probable food shortage ? 15