Day3 PTE listening-SST

International Environmental Legislation

Listening Scripts:
Before we consider international environmental law and climate change we need to considerate domestic legislation, as it within the sovereign states, international law is put into practice. This reflects the environmentalist maxim ‘think globally act locally’.

United Kingdom legislative control over the impacts of the men's activity on the environment is not new. As long ago as the reign of Charles II, the main concern was about the burning of sea coal, almost all areas of trade and industry were subject to very detailed legislative control at that time, although some were under control by self-regulation in a form of guilt, who regulated both apply and methods of production. However, the measures implemented were mostly ineffective because then, as now, the specifying of legal duties and standard without providing any appropriate enforcement merely indicated good intentions but were of little practical effect.

The next stage was prompted by the Industrial Revolution with the urbanization of society and its profound effects on the environment. Local industrialists used the Adam Smith Model to maximize their economic benefits, but this was to the detriments of the local environment with the operation to the law. That is the bad drives out the good. Those industrialists who were concerned for either the health of their employees or the local environment faced higher cost than the competitors.The result was the need for increasingly comprehensive statutory controls on the discharge pollutants to the various receiving media.

Summarize answer：
The environmentalist maxim is ‘think globally act locally’.
As for UK, the environment law is not new, as long ago as the reign of Charles II,almost all areas of trade and industry were subject to very detailed legislative control but the measures were mostly ineffective because of littlepractical effect.
Then during Industrial Revolution, local industrialists always try to maximize their economic benefits, those industrialists who concerned for their employees orthe local environment faced higher cost, so there is a need for comprehensive statutory controls on pollutants discharge.