Day reading Passage (Australian culture and culture shock)

Day 8 Reading Passage 2 (Russia’s boreal forests and wild grasses
could combat climate change)
Word list
1 
Vulnerable (adj) 
(C2) - able to be physically, emotionally, or mentally hurt, influ­
enced, or attacked
Example: I felt very vulnerable, standing there without any clothes on.
2
 
Coniferous (adj) 
- one of various type of evergreen tree that produce fruit in the 
form of cones
Example: A coniferous tree.
3 
Accumulate (v) 
(C2) - to collect a large number of things over a long period of time
Example: As people accumulate more wealth, they tend to spend a greater propor­
tion o f their incomes.
4 
Absorb (v) 
(B2) - to take something in, especially gradually 
Example: Plants absorb carbon dioxide.
5 
Irreversible (adj) 
(C2) - not possible to change; impossible to return to a previous 
condition
Example: Smoking has caused irreversible damage to his lung.
6 
Exhaust (v) 
(C1
) -
to use something completely
Example: How long will it be before the world’s fuel supplies are exhausted?
7 
Practicable (adj) 
- able to be done or put into action 
Example: The troops will be brought home as soon as practicable.
8 
Long-standing (adj) 
- having existed for a long time 
Example: A long-standing agreement.

---

Day 8
You should spend about 20 minutes on 
Questions 14-26, 
which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
Russia’s boreal forests and wild grasses could combat climate
change
A
Scientists believe Russia’s ancient forests are the country’s best natural weapon 
against climate change, even though the stockpile of carbon beneath the ground 
also makes these areas vulnerable to carbon release. A recent study found that half 
the world’s carbon is stored within land in the permafrost region, about two-thirds 
of which lies in Russia. Overlying former glaciers, they are a coniferous mix called 
the boreal forest. There’s a lot of carbon there and it’s very vulnerable,’ says Josep 
Canadell co-author of the study. ‘If the permafrost thaws, we could be releasing ten 
percent more carbon a year for several centuries more than our previous models 
predicted. It’s going to cost a lot to reduce our emissions by that much - but it will cost 
more in damage if we don’t.’
В 
The study was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Researchers found 
that the region contains 1,672 billion tons of organic carbon, much of it several feet 
underground, that would account for approximately 50 percent of the estimated 
global below-ground organic carbon’. Another paper published in Nature found that 
old forests, which make up perhaps half of the boreal forest, “continue to accumulate 
carbon, contrary to the long-standing view that they are carbon-neutral’. Even though 
fires and insect infestations destroy entire swaths of forest and release into the 
atmosphere the carbon they contain, old-growth forests still take in more than these 
natural disturbances release, says lead author Sebastiaan Luyssaert, a biologist at 
the University of Antwerp in Belgium. T h is is all the more reason to protect Russia’s 
boreal forests, which take in 500 million tons of carbon a year, or about one-fifth of 
the carbon absorbed by the world’s landmass, says Mr Canadell, who is executive 
director of the Global Carbon Project, based in Canberra.
С 
Jing Ming Chen, a University of Toronto geography professor who specialises in 
climate modelling for the boreal region, says: ‘Cutting boreal trees increases the 
amount of carbon in the atmosphere and it takes 50 to 100 years to put that carbon 
back in the ground.’ Luysaaert and Chen argue there’s a strong case for conserving 
the old-growth forests. It’s better to keep as much carbon in the forest as possible 
right now, Mr Luyssaert explains. ‘If we want to avoid irreversible processes like 
melting permafrost or changing ocean currents, we absolutely have to control our 
emissions in the next two or three decades. It’s a case where you need to be short­
sighted to be far-sighted. The threats to the boreal forests don’t seem significant right 
now,’ explains Nigel Roulet, a carbon cycle specialist at McGill University in Montreal,

---

Reading Passage 2
‘but I’m convinced pressure will increase as the region gets warmer and it gets easier 
to operate there. Also, I expect these resources to become more valuable as others 
are exhausted.’
D 
Scientists say Russia and Kazakhstan could make a unique contribution to the fight 
against global warming by harvesting wild grasses that have overgrown 100,000 
square miles of agricultural lands abandoned in the nineties, and using them to 
make ethanol - or, better yet, burn them in coal-fuelled power plants. According to 
Nicolas Vuichard, principal author of a paper published in Environmental Science and 
Technology of Washington, DC, using the grasses to make ethanol would sequester 
in the ground, over 60 years, about 10 million tons of carbon a year-one-quarter 
as dead root matter in the soil and the rest in producing ethanol as a substitute for 
petroleumbased fuels. That’s not huge on a world scale, but it’s substantial,’ he says. 
Fossil fuels emit about eight billion tons of carbon a year, of which about two billion 
tons are absorbed by plants and soil.
E 
Renton Righelato, visiting research fellow at the University of Reading and former 
chairman of the World Land Trust, agrees. “Given that it would take the world’s 
entire supply of arable land to replace just two-thirds of our transport fuel needs,’ he 
says, ‘biofuels are not a practicable long-term solution for transportation emissions. 
What we need is carbonfree fuel. But in the case of abandoned croplands, using 
grasses as biofuels could make a contribution, he adds. Study co-author Adam 
Wolf, of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, cites a study by 
Elliott Campbell in Science magazine that showed that burning grasses in a coal- 
fuelled plant doubles the savings in carbon emissions compared to using the same 
grasses to make ethanol. ‘If biofuels are going to reduce emissions, using abandoned 
croplands to make electricity and offset coal use is our best bet,’ he says. Both of 
these countries have coalfuelled power plants, so the process could start soon.’
Thus, Russia and Kazakhstan are now in a position to become leaders in green 
energy, and could use the grasses to export clean electricity in addition to oil and 
gas, according to Mr Wolf.

---

Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A -E , in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.