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Welcome! This site is for students to practice their English and keep up to date with environmental issues.

TEN MINUTES OF ENGLISH A DAY!
You can find a mixture of reading, crosswords, videos and short English lessons: these will normally be vocabulary, but I may also treat you to some grammar!

There are now over 260 lessons on this blog. Look through the Blog archive, Post labels and Popular Posts to find what you want.

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''Let nature be your teacher''
William Wordsworth, poet, 1770-1850

''Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift''
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955

''... to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed''
P.M. Roget, lexicographer, 1779-1869

Thursday 16 January 2020

Grammar lesson 22: Future tenses - Ecological disaster

Level: Intermediate / B1


Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

Time for another grammar lesson!
Back to one of our favourites - tenses!



Put the verbs in brackets into the correct future form:

Professor Robert Tawnley, Institute of Ecological Research:
‘‘I’m not too optimistic about the future. My main worry is the greenhouse effect.
The Earth is heating up and at current rates the sea level (1) will have risen (rise) by about 20 centimetres by the end of the 21st century.
It might not seem like much but it (2)                              (have) devastating effects.
Large parts of the Indian sub-continent (3)                                              (be) under water during the monsoon season – an area that already suffers from famine.
We have an observation centre in Antarctica and we (4)                                                             (watch) the ice-caps carefully over the next decade.
From what I have seen so far it’s clear that the ice (5)                                                                (continue) to melt at an accelerating rate in the future.
And the destruction of the rain forests doesn’t help. By 2035 over 95 % of the rainforest in South East Asia (6)                                                                 (lose)
I (7)                                               (fly) out to Brazil next month to chair a conference on this very subject and we (8)                                                                         (discuss) the loss of the natural habitat in the Amazon region.

If we want the Earth to survive we (9)                                         (do) something about it soon.’’

Answers below!




‘‘I’m not too optimistic about the future. My main worry is the greenhouse effect.
The Earth is heating up and at current rates the sea level (1) will have risen (rise) by about 20 centimetres by the end of the 21st century.
It might not seem like much but it (2)     will have          (have) devastating effects.
Large parts of the Indian sub-continent (3)         will be             (be) under water during the monsoon season – an area that already suffers from famine.
We have an observation centre in Antarctica and we (4)            will be watching          (watch) the ice-caps carefully over the next decade.
From what I have seen so far it’s clear that the ice (5)   will continue                (continue) to melt at an accelerating rate in the future.
And the destruction of the rain forests doesn’t help. By 2035 over 95 % of the rainforest in South East Asia (6)    will be lost / will have been lost                      (lose)
I (7)          am flying                     (fly) out to Brazil next month to chair a conference on this very subject and we (8)            will discuss / will be discussing          (discuss) the loss of the natural habitat in the Amazon region.
If we want the Earth to survive we (9)    (will) have to do          (do) something about it soon.’’

Climate change explained

Level: Intermediate / B1


Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

Many people are saying that 2020 is crucial for climate change action. Why is that?

Watch this excellent BBC video * (3 minutes) about it and answer the following questions:

1) What three extreme events are mentioned early in the video?
2) What are fossil fuels? (Three examples given in the video.)
3) How much higher is the Earth's temperature than it was in pre-industrial times?
4) How much Arctic sea ice has been lost since the late-seventies?
5) Where and when is the next climate conference?

Bonus question - which was the warmest year on record? (You will have to do a bit of extra research for this one!)

And if you want to practice your grammar with a climate change theme, please have a look at grammar lesson 22: Future tenses - ecological disaster

* apologies for the link not working properly on the original post

Answers below!



1) Fires in Australia, floods in Indonesia, and record temperatures in Europe.
2) Coal, oil, gas.
3) 1.1 degrees
4) Half (of the volume)
5) Glasgow, 9-19 November 2020.

Bonus question: 2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Warmest_years)

Tuesday 7 January 2020

Travel by train, not plane!

Level: Intermediate / B1


Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

Many people have made a new year's resolution to fly less so they can reduce their carbon footprint.
But how do other forms of transport effect the environment?

Read this BBC article about it and answer the following questions:

1) How much does the aviation industry contribute to global carbon emissions?
2) Which form of transport emits forty-one grams of CO2 per kilometre travelled?
3) Germany has announced it will cut rail fares by how much?
4) When does Austria aim to be carbon-neutral?
5) How long did it take Elias Bohun to travel to Vietnam?

Bonus question - how many people fly every year? (You will have to do a bit of extra research for this one!)

Answers below!



1) About 2% of the total
2) Domestic rail
3) 10%
4) 2040
5) 16 days

Bonus question
The IATA said that in 2017 the number of air passengers exceeded four billion for the first time. Recently monthly figures show a rise of over 3% compared to the same month last year.