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White mountain, green tourism

The French Alpine town of Chamonix has been a magnet for tourists since the 18th
century. But today, tourism and climate change are putting pressure on the surrounding
environment. Marc Grainger reports.

A The town of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc sits in a valley at 1,035 metres above sea level in
the Haute-Savoie department in south-eastern France. To the north-west are the red
peaks of the Aiguilles Rouges massif; to the south-east are the permanently white
peaks of Mont Blanc, which at 4,810 metres is the highest mountain in the Alps. It’s a
typical Alpine environment, but one that is under increasing strain from the hustle and
bustle of human activity.

B Tourism is Chamonix’s lifeblood. Visitors have been encouraged to visit the valley ever
since it was discovered by explorers in 1741. Over 40 years later, in 1786, Mont Blanc’s
summit was finally reached by a French doctor and his guide, and this gave birth to the
sport of alpinism, with Chamonix at its centre. In 1924, it hosted the first Winter
Olympics, and the cable cars and lifts that were built in the years that followed gave
everyone access to the ski slopes.

C Today, Chamonix is a modern town, connected to the outside world via the Mont Blanc
Road Tunnel and a busy highway network. It receives up to 60,000 visitors at a time
during the ski season, and climbers, hikers and extreme-sports enthusiasts swarm
there in the summer in even greater numbers, swelling the town’s population to
100,000. It is the third most visited natural site in the world, according to Chamonix’s
Tourism Office and, last year, it had 5.2 million visitor bed nights - all this in a town with
fewer than 10,000 permanent inhabitants.

D This influx of tourists has put the local environment under severe pressure, and the
authorities in the valley have decided to take action. Educating visitors is vital. Tourists
are warned not to drop rubbish, and there are now recycling points dotted all around
the valley, from the town centre to halfway up the mountains. An internet blog reports
environmental news in the town, and the ‘green’ message is delivered with all the
tourist office’s activities.

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E Low-carbon initiatives are also important for the region. France is committed to
reducing its carbon emissions by a factor of four by 2050. Central to achieving this aim
is a strategy that encourages communities to identify their carbon emissions on a local
level and make plans to reduce them. Studies have identified that accommodation
accounts for half of all carbon emissions in the Chamonix valley. Hotels are known to
be inefficient operations, but those around Chamonix are now cleaning up their act.
Some are using low-energy lighting, restricting water use and making recycling bins
available for guests; others have invested in huge projects such as furnishing and
decorating using locally sourced materials, using geothermal energy for heating and
installing solar panels.

F Chamonix’s council is encouraging the use of renewable energy in private properties

too, by making funds available for green renovations and new constructions. At the
same time, public- sector buildings have also undergone improvements to make them
more energy efficient and less wasteful. For example, the local ice rink has reduced its
annual water consumption from 140,000 cubic metres to 10,000 cubic metres in the
space of three years.

G Improving public transport is another feature of the new policy, as 80 percent of carbon
emissions from transport used to come from private vehicles. While the Mont Blanc
Express is an ideal way to travel within the valley - and see some incredible scenery
along the route - it is much more difficult to arrive in Chamonix from outside by rail.
There is no direct line from the closest airport in Geneva, so tourists arriving by air
normally transfer by car or bus. However, at a cost of 3.3 million euros a year,
Chamonix has introduced a free shuttle service in order to get people out of their cars
and into buses fitted with particle filters.

H If the valley’s visitors and residents want to know why they need to reduce their
environmental impact, they just have to look up; the effects of climate change are there
for everyone to see in the melting glaciers that cling to the mountains. The fragility of
the Alpine environment has long been a concern among local people. Today, 70
percent of the 805 square kilometres that comprise Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is protected
in some way. But now, the impact of tourism has led the authorities to recognise that
more must be done if the valley is to remain prosperous: that they must not only protect
the natural environment better, but also manage the numbers of visitors better, so that
its residents can happily remain there.

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Questions 1-5:
Reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A-H.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
You may use any letter more than once.

1. _______ a list of the type of people who enjoy going to Chamonix

2. _______ reference to a system that is changing the way visitors reach Chamonix
3. _______ the geographical location of Chamonix
4. _______ mention of the need to control the large tourist population in Chamonix
5. _______ reference to a national environmental target

Questions 6-7:
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
The writer mentions several ways that the authorities aim to educate tourists in
Chamonix.
Which TWO of the following ways are mentioned?

A. giving instructions about litter

B. imposing fines on people who drop litter
C. handing out leaflets in the town
D. operating a web-based information service
E. having a paper-free tourist office

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Questions 8-9:
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
The writer mentions several ways that hotels are reducing their carbon emissions.
Which TWO of the following ways are mentioned?

A. using natural cleaning materials

B. recycling water
C. limiting guest numbers
D. providing places for rubbish
E. harnessing energy from the sun

Questions 10-13:
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

10. The first people to discover the Chamonix valley were___________

11. Chamonix’s busiest tourist season is the___________
12. Public areas, such as the___________ in Chamonix, are using fewer resources.
13. The___________ on the mountains around Chamonix provide visual evidence of
global warming.

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Air pollution
Part 1
A Air pollution is increasingly becoming the focus of government and citizen concern
around the globe. From Mexico City and New York to Singapore and Tokyo, new
solutions to this old problem are being proposed, Mailed and implemented with ever
increasing speed. It is feared that unless pollution reduction measures are able to keep
pace with the continued pressures of urban growth, air quality in many of the world’s
major cities will deteriorate beyond reason.

B Action is being taken along several fronts: through new legislation, improved
enforcement and innovative technology. In Los Angeles, state regulations are forcing
manufacturers to try to sell ever cleaner cars: their first of the cleanest, titled "Zero
Emission Vehicles’, have to be available soon, since they are intended to make up 2
percent of sales in 1997. Local authorities in London are campaigning to be allowed to
enforce anti-pollution laws themselves; at present only the police have the power to do
so, but they tend to be busy elsewhere. In Singapore, renting out road space to users
is the way of the future.

C When Britain’s Royal Automobile Club monitored the exhausts of 60,000 vehicles, it
found that 12 percent of them produced more than half the total pollution. Older cars
were the worst offenders; though a sizeable number of quite new cars were also
identified as gross polluters, they were simply badly tuned. California has developed a
scheme to get these gross polluters off the streets: they offer a flat $700 for any old,
run-down vehicle driven in by its owner. The aim is to remove the heaviest-polluting,
most decrepit vehicles from the roads.

D As part of a European Union environmental programme, a London council is resting

an infra-red spectrometer from the University of Denver in Colorado. It gauges the
pollution from a passing vehicle - more useful than the annual stationary rest that is
the British standard today - by bouncing a beam through the exhaust and measuring
what gets blocked. The council’s next step may be to link the system to a computerised
video camera able to read number plates automatically.

E The effort to clean up cars may do little to cut pollution if nothing is done about the
tendency to drive them more. Los Angeles has some of the world’s cleanest cars - far
better than those of Europe - but the total number of miles those cars drive continues
to grow. One solution is car-pooling, an arrangement in which a number of people who
share the same destination share the use of one car. However, the average number of

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people in a car on the freeway in Los Angeles, which is 1.0, has been falling steadily.
Increasing it would be an effective way of reducing emissions as well as easing
congestion. The trouble is, Los Angelinos seem to like being alone in their cars.

F Singapore has for a while had a scheme that forces drivers to buy a badge if they wish
to visit a certain part of the city. Electronic innovations make possible increasing
sophistication: rates can vary according to road conditions, time of day and so on.
Singapore is advancing in this direction, with a city-wide network of transmitters to
collect information and charge drivers as they pass certain points. Such road-pricing,
however, can be controversial. When the local government in Cambridge, England,
considered introducing Singaporean techniques, it faced vocal and ultimately
successful opposition.

Part 2

The scope of the problem facing the world’s cities is immense. In 1992, the United
Nations Environmental Programme and the World Health Organisation (WHO)
concluded that all of a sample of twenty megacities - places likely to have more than
ten million inhabitants in the year 2000 - already exceeded the level the WHO deems
healthy in at least one major pollutant. Two-thirds of them exceeded the guidelines for
two, seven for three or more.

Of the six pollutants monitored by the WHO - carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone,
sulphur dioxide, lead and particulate matter - it is this last category that is attracting the
most attention from health researchers. PM10, a sub-category of particulate matter
measuring ten-millionths of a meter across, has been implicated in thousands of deaths
a year in Britain alone. Research being conducted in two counties of Southern
California is reaching similarly disturbing conclusions concerning this little-understood
pollutant.

A worldwide rise in allergies, particularly asthma, over the past four decades is now
said to be linked with increased air pollution. The lungs and brains of children who grow
up in polluted air offer further evidence of its destructive power the old and ill; however,
are the most vulnerable to the acute effects of heavily polluted stagnant air. It can
actually hasten death, so it did in December 1991 when a cloud of exhaust fumes
lingered over the city of London for over a week.

The United Nations has estimated that in the year 2000 there will be twenty-four mega-
cities and a further eighty-five cities of more than three million people. The pressure on

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public officials, corporations and urban citizens to reverse established trends in air
pollution is likely to grow in proportion with the growth of cities themselves. Progress
is being made. The question, though, remains the same: ‘Will change happen quickly
enough?’

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Questions 1-5
Look at the following solutions (Questions 1-5) and locations. Match each solution with
one location. Write the appropriate locations in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any location more than once.

SOLUTIONS
1. Manufacturers must sell cleaner cars.
2. Authorities want to have the power to enforce anti-pollution laws.
3. Drivers will be charged according to the roads they use.
4. Moving vehicles will be monitored for their exhaust emissions.
5. Commuters are encouraged to share their vehicles with others.

Locations
Singapore
Tokyo
London
New York
Mexico City
Cambridge
Los Angeles

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Questions 6-10
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 23?
In boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet write

YES if the statement reflects the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

6. According to British research, a mere twelve percent of vehicles tested produced

over fifty percent of total pollution produced by the sample group.
7. It is currently possible to measure the pollution coming from individual vehicles
whilst they are moving.
8. Residents of Los Angeles are now tending to reduce the yearly distances they
travel by car.
9. Car-pooling has steadily become more popular in Los Angeles in recent years.
10. Charging drivers for entering certain parts of the city has been successfully done
in Cambridge, England.

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Questions 11-13
Choose the appropriate letters A—D and write them in boxes 11-13 on your answer
sheet.

11. How many pollutants currently exceed WHO guidelines in all mega cities
studied?
A. one
B. two
C. three
D. seven

12. Which pollutant is currently the subject of urgent research?

A. nitrogen dioxide
B. ozone
C. lead
D. particulate matter

13. Which of the following groups of people are the most severely affected by intense
air pollution?
A. allergy sufferers
B. children
C. the old and ill
D. asthma sufferers

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Sustainable architecture - lessons from the ant

Termite mounds were the inspiration for an innovative design in sustainable living

Africa owes its termite mounds a lot. Trees and shrubs take root in them. Prospectors
mine them, looking for specks of gold carried up by termites from hundreds of metres
below. And of course, they are a special treat to aardvarks and other insectivores.

Now, Africa is paying an offbeat tribute to these towers of mud. The extraordinary
Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, is said to be the only one in the world
to use the same cooling and heating principles as the termite mound.

Termites in Zimbabwe build gigantic mounds inside which they farm a fungus that is their
primary food source. This must be kept at exactly 30.5°C, while the temperatures on the
African yeld outside can range from 1.5°C at night only just above freezing to a baking
hot 40°C during the day. The termites achieve this remarkable feat by building a system
of vents in the mound. Those at the base lead down into chambers cooled by wet mud
carried up from water tables far below, and others lead up through a Hue to the peak of
the mound. By constantly opening and closing these heating and cooling vents over the
course of the day the termites succeed in keeping the temperature constant in spite of
the wide fluctuations outside.

Architect Mick Pearce used precisely the same strategy when designing the Eastgate
Building, which has no air conditioning and virtually no heating. The building the country's
largest commercial and shopping complex uses less than I0% of the energy of a
conventional building ns size. These efficiencies translated directly to the bottom line: the
Eastgate’s owners saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building because an air-
conditioning plant didn't have to be imported. These savings were also passed on to
tenants: rents are 20% lower than in a new building next door.

The complex is actually two buildings linked by bridges across a shady, glass-roofed
atrium open to the breezes. Fans suck fresh air in from the atrium, blow it upstairs through
hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents.
As it rises and warms, it is drawn out via ceiling vents and finally exits through forty- eight
brick chimneys.

To keep the harsh, high yeld sun from heating the interior, no more than 25% of the
outside is glass, and all the windows are screened by cement arches that just out more
than a metre.

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During summer’s cool nights, big fans flush air through the building seven times an hour
to chill the hollow floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the
building, to circulate the air which has been in contact with the cool floors. For winter days,
there are small heaters in the vents.

This is all possible only because Harare is 1600 feet above sea level, has cloudless skies,
little humidity and rapid temperature swings days as warm as 3l°C commonly drop to
14°C at night. ‘You couldn’t do this in New York, with its fantastically hot summers and
fantastically cold winters,’ Pearce said. But then his eyes lit up at the challenge.' Perhaps
you could store the summer's heat in water somehow.

The engineering firm of Ove Amp & Partners, which worked with him on the design,
monitors daily temperatures outside, under the floors and at knee, desk and ceiling level.
Ove Arup's graphs show that the temperature of the building has generally stayed
between 23"C and 25°C. with the exception of the annual hot spell just before the summer
rains in October, and three days in November, when a janitor accidentally switched off the
fans at night. The atrium, which funnels the winds through, can be much cooler. And the
air is fresh far more so than in air-conditioned buildings, where up to 30% of the air is
recycled.

Pearce, disdaining smooth glass skins as ‘igloos in the Sahara’, calls his building, with its
exposed girders and pipes, ‘spiky’. The design of the entrances is based on the
porcupine-quill headdresses of the local Shona tribe. Elevators are designed to look like
the mineshaft cages used in Zimbabwe's diamond mines. The shape of the fan covers,
and the stone used in their construction, are echoes of Great Zimbabwe, the ruins that
give the country its name.

Standing on a roof catwalk, peering down inside at people as small as termites below.
Pearce said he hoped plants would grow wild in the atrium and pigeons and bats would
move into it. like that termite fungus, further extending the whole 'organic machine’
metaphor. The architecture, he says, is a regionalised style that responds to the biosphere,
to the ancient traditional stone architecture of Zimbabwe's past, and to local human
resources.

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Questions 1-5
Choose the correct answer, A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

1. Why do termite mounds have a system of vents?

A. to allow the termites to escape from predators
B. to enable the termites to produce food
C. to allow the termites to work efficiently
D. to enable the termites to survive at night

2. Why was Eastgate cheaper to build than a conventional building?

A. Very few materials were imported.
B. Its energy consumption was so low.
C. Its tenants contributed to the costs.
D. No air conditioners were needed.

3. Why would a building like Eastgate not work efficiently in New York?
A. Temperature change occurs seasonally rather than daily.
B. Pollution affects the storage of heat in the atmosphere.
C. Summer and winter temperatures are too extreme.
D. Levels of humidity affect cloud coverage.

4. What does Ove Arup’s data suggest about Eastgate’s temperature control
system?
A. It allows a relatively wide range of temperatures.
B. The only problems are due to human error.
C. It functions well for most of the year.
D. The temperature in the atrium may fall too low.

5. Pearce believes that his building would be improved by

A. becoming more of a habitat for wildlife.
B. even closer links with the history of Zimbabwe.
C. giving people more space to interact with nature.
D. better protection from harmful organisms.

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Questions 6-10
Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 273.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

6. Warm air leaves the offices through ..................

7. The warm air leaves the building through ..................
8. Heat from the sun is prevented from reaching the windows by ..................
9. When the outside temperature drops .................. bring air in from outside.
10. On cold days .................. raise the temperature in the offices.

Questions 11-13
Answer the question below, using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage
for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
Which three parts of the Eastgate Building reflect important features of Zimbabwe’s
history and culture?

A. entrances
B. quill
C. cages
D. elevators
E. fan covers
F. stone

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