Starting off

It will probably be best to do this task in two parts, checking the vocabulary task as a class and clarifying any troublesome items before getting the students to discuss the questions. Key:

	temperature	wind	rain	snow & ice	other
nouns	a heat wave a drought a cold snap	a breeze a wind a gale a hurricane	drizzle rain a downpour a flood	frost sleet snow a blizzard	clouds mist fog a storm
adjectives	boiling hot warm mild cool cold freezing	breezy windy	damp wet rainy	frosty snowy	cloudy overcast misty foggy stormy
verbs	rise fall	blow gust	drizzle rain pour	snow	clear up

First reading

The task is a global/skimming task and so the students should read quickly, not for detail at this point.

Key: 3 (real and partly caused by man)

Second reading

The titles are marked on the Teacher's Copy of the text.

Vocabulary 1

Key:

1. cataclysmic

2. shortage

3. key

4. vociferous

5. in play

6. overall

7. overwhelming

8. contribute to

9. cope with

10. over

11. surely

12. sacrifices

Vocabulary 2

Key:

1. sacrifice

2. key

3. surely

4. in play

5. shortages

6. over

7. coped with

8. contributed to

9. overwhelming

10. cataclysmic

11. vociferous

12. overall

Speaking

The speaking task focuses on personal experience and opinion, so should allow all students to contribute. After discussing the questions in small groups, a reporting stage would be appropriate where the discussion can be brought into open class.

Extension

The topic lends itself to a research project based on the students' own town or country, either using reference sources (encyclopaedias, the internet etc) or questionnaires - if the latter, then the questionnaires could be prepared in class and conducted over the following week with a target number of interviewees; the results could be collated and presented for display.

TEACHER'S NOTES AND KEY

December 2009

© Pearson Longman 2009

developed countries argue that all countries must make sacrifices. A deeper argument, which many do not wish to face, is whether we can reverse climate change without radical change to our car-driving, air conditioned way of life.

What can we as individuals do?

The short answer is quite a lot. We can reduce our `carbon footprint' - the our contribution to climate change - by living in ecologically friendly ways. This does not mean one big change but rather countless small steps which, if we think about it, we should surely do not only because of climate change but simply because we only have one world to give to our children and we should surely take care of it as best as we can.

What is climate change?

Climate change is a noticeable change in weather patterns over anything from decades to millions of years. It can happen gradually or rapidly, locally or globally.

Climate change is a natural phenomenon which is constantly happening. However, many climatologists feel that there is a new element in play: in addition to natural climate change, there is a strong consensus that man's actions are having an increasingly dramatic effect.

How far are we responsible for climate change?

There are some vociferous opponents of the idea of anthropogenic climate change (climate change caused by human action). The overwhelming majority of scientists, however, has accepted for many years that our actions play a key role in climate change:

"The overwhelming majority of scientific experts...believe that human-induced climate change is already occurring and that future change is inevitable."
Dr. Robert Watson, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001.

What will climate change mean for the world?

`Climate change' is a newish term. People used to speak of `global warming' but this was a poor name for a phenomenon which is far more complex and varied than simple `warming'. It is true that climate change will result, over the next few decades, in an overall temperature rise; however, the pattern will be complex and it is quite likely that certain parts of the globe will see average temperatures fall.

Whatever the local effects of global climate change, the speed and extent of change could be extreme in most places and cataclysmic to human civilisation not able to cope with such sudden and deep change. Rising sea levels, freshwater shortages, mass extinctions and extreme weather phenomena are all likely.

What can be done?

Attempts are being made to cut emissions of the pollutants which are believed to contribute to climate change. There are many areas of disagreement, however, particularly between developed and developing countries: as most of the pollution to date has come from developed countries, developing countries argue that that is where the main cuts in emissions should come;

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