Hello everyone, Anna here from englishlikeanative.com
today we're learning 30 or so, advanced phrases to use when talking about the environment.
This lesson has been kindly sponsored by Lingoda but more about them later.
Okay so first on our list is the words global warming, global warming,
now global warming refers to the increasing temperature of the world brought about
(which means created by) brought about by gases such as carbon dioxide.
So you might say global warming should be top priority for politicians around the world
the next phrase is air quality so air quality refers to the cleanliness of
the air that we breathe often if you live in a big city or somewhere where there's lots of
cars and traffic then you might find that the air quality is quite poor there
next we might talk about an oil spill this year 2020 there's been quite a bad oil spill
in mauritius or off the coast of mauritius an oil spill refers to waste oil that is deposited into
the seas after an accident at sea so usually a boat crashing or running a ground or capsizing
or setting on fire exploding will cause an oil spill which can obviously affect
the water the marine life the coral and then wash up onto the beaches and have devastating
effects on the people who live there and rely on the ocean for work and for food
the next phrase is humanitarian aid humanitarian aid so humanitarian aid is the act of showing
support to people who are struggling to survive so if there are a group of people who have
experienced perhaps a terrible oil spill which has wiped out their entire ecosystem
so there's no fish there's no tourism they can't make any money they can't survive in terms of food
so they might need some humanitarian aid which would be probably provided by another country
the next on the list is energy conservation energy conservation this is about the
careful management of energy resources to ensure that they last as long as possible
so at home you might try to conserve energy by turning off the lights when you leave the room
shutting down your computer at the end of the day perhaps making sure that items aren't left
turned on when you don't need them so do you conserve energy the next phrase is
renewable energy renewable energy renewable energy is an energy that comes from a source that's
not depleted it doesn't go down when used so renewable energy would be something like
wind power or solar power do you have solar panels on your house or as part of your work do you use
wind power in your country some people live very close to those windmills the big
turbines many people complain about them but it's a source of renewable energy
can you think of other types of renewable energy if you can please or write it in the comments
now another phrase which we do use commonly in conversation is environmentally friendly
environmentally friendly and if something is environmentally friendly then it's a product
or a type of behavior that does not harm the environment that perhaps does the opposite
maybe helps the environment so for example plastic packaging is not environmentally friendly
but if something is packaged in recyclable materials things that break down very
easily like cardboard perhaps that would be more environmentally friendly or perhaps your product
has been produced in a way that's friendly to the environment are you environmentally friendly
next we have the phrase carbon footprint carbon footprint this refers to the amount of carbon
dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a person
a company or a whole community so a person who travels on a plane very often perhaps takes
a flight every week for work or pleasure would have a high carbon footprint and they probably
want to work on bringing that down to be more environmentally friendly One way to keep your
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Next on our list is exhaust fumes this refers to the toxic gases that are given off when a vehicle
is switched on so this will be vehicles that are fueled by petrol or diesel you turn them on and
out of the exhaust pipe comes these horrible fumes that are toxic so they are exhaust fumes next we
have flash floods flash floods these are floods that happen very quickly perhaps there's suddenly
a storm and a heavy downpour of rain and the drain system the drainage system can't cope
so everything floods that would be a flash flood we experienced a lot of flash flooding last year
here in the uk next we have drought drought it's a very odd spelling so listen to the pronunciation
ow drought drought a drought is a prolonged period of very low rainfall creating a water shortage
so it's the opposite of flooding there's no water have you experienced flash flooding or a drought
let me know in the comments section below now if things are heading towards a drought then they
might dry up to dry up a phrasal verb means to become dry so you could say the river has dried
up or the pond if you have a pond in your back garden my pond has dried up the lake has dried up
the reservoir has dried up okay next we have the word famine
famine now a famine is when you have widespread and extremely low levels of food now this could be
caused but for any number of reasons in many cases it's man-made so usually war any sort of conflict
could create a famine but if we have issues with weather that destroys crops or makes it
hard for farmers to do their job then that can also create a famine next we have fossil fuels
fossil fuels whenever you hear a discussion about global warming people often refer to fossil fuels
and this is energy resources like gas and oil that are produced deep in the ground over millions of
years they're dug up so people are often drilling for fossil fuels the next phrase is climate change
so you definitely would have heard this in the news especially recently this is quite a hot topic
climate change talks about the change in worldwide weather patterns i wish
that people would take climate change very seriously because it has an impact on all of us
next we have the words to combat or tackle climate change so obviously climate change is the issue
and we would often use the verb to combat or to tackle climate change next we have toxic waste
toxic waste so waste of course is rubbish but if it's toxic waste then it's poisonous
a poisonous type of rubbish this is often produced by industrial processes so you don't
want any toxic waste being pumped into the water system because that would make people very poorly
next we have pollution levels pollution levels so this is the amount of toxic waste either
in the water in the atmosphere perhaps in the earth so you want to make sure those pollution
levels are not too high perhaps people who live in a city with poor air quality because of exhaust
fumes might have high pollution levels next we have contamination to contaminate something is
to make something impure by polluting it so you could contaminate the water if you dumped your
toxic waste into the drinking water that water would become polluted poisonous contaminated
you could contaminate food by putting something unwanted in there the next phrase
is the phrase the natural world the natural world you might hear this phrase when talking about the
world of nature how it should be naturally so the the jungle would be part of the natural world the
desert part of the natural world unfortunately out in the natural world you'll find poaching poaching
poaching is the activity of hunting and killing wild animals illegally we often hear on the
news over here about the poaching of elephants or rhinos usually because of the value of their tusks
it's very sad okay so to stop these kinds of things from happening you might have a pressure
group a pressure group a pressure group is a group of people who try to raise awareness of issues and
try to affect the views and actions of people and organizations perhaps they'll hold protests they
might take around petitions to be signed and try their hardest to get these issues like poaching
sorted out now when talking about the natural world you might hear about the loss of habitat
the loss of habitat now this is the decline of areas of land where animals and plants would
normally live where i live in the outskirts of london we have a lot of foxes so foxes i've
had foxes come in the house they are regularly my garden they steal our shoes and chew our shoes up
they'll steal my son's toys if we don't put them away and so foxes are a little bit of a problem
because there's so many of them and they open up the rubbish bins and spread rubbish everywhere
they make a lot of noise at night time screaming and howling
but the reason we have a problem with foxes in the city is because they have lost their habitat
their natural place where they would normally live and so now they have to
live in the city because they have nowhere else to go next we have man-made disaster
a man-made disaster it's quite self-explanatory it's widespread damage or loss of life
brought about by the actions of humans so something that man has done has created a disaster
like a big explosion obviously opposite to that you would have a natural disaster so something
that man didn't cause such as an earthquake a flood or a hurricane which again causes widespread
damage or loss of life next you might hear the phrase natural environment this is just a place
where animals and plants would normally be found in nature very similar to the natural world so
foxes are not really now in their natural environment they live in a new type of environment
next we have the words to become extinct extinct and a type of animal will become extinct if it no
longer exists so if that type of animal dies away and they're not breeding there's no more of them
then unfortunately that becomes extinct and that's very sad there's lots of species of animal
that are becoming extinct these days because of man-made issues loss of habitat climate change
it's all having an effect on the natural world now when talking about animals we might talk
about animals that are under threat they are under threat and this means they're in danger of
becoming extinct there is another word that we use here which i'll come on to in a moment now if they
do become extinct then you could use the phrase to die out so you might say the dodo died out
many years ago they became extinct in i'm not sure what year they became extinct but they died out
now as i said before if an animal is on the way to becoming extinct if they are under threat
then you could say that they are endangered or an endangered species this means a category of animal
or plant that's in danger of becoming extinct okay next we have future generations often during
these climate change debates we talk about how future generations will view us now and view our
actions and decisions around climate change because it's the future generations who will
be living with the results of our actions now future generations refers to people who live
after us so our children's children next we have this the phrase sustainably sourced sustainably
sourced you might see this in advertising for certain products it means something
where a supply of that product can be constantly maintained so by making that product you're not
depleting the natural world you know perhaps if you are making coconut oil and selling it so fast
you're just chopping down all the coconut trees and not planting any more coconut trees and those
coconut trees are in danger of becoming an extinct species of tree then that's not sustainable so
often with things like that they have to make sure there's a program running where
what they take is then replaced so they might plant more or only take so many limit the supply
so that could then be advertised as sustainably sourced if you're going to be environmentally
friendly you want to make sure you're buying sustainably sourced products a way to protect
animals and plants might be through the work of wildlife conservation so wildlife conservation is
um to protect animals and plants and their habitat okay so it feels a little bit heavy this lesson
because we're talking about things that obviously all of us are experiencing
in some way these are big issues but i do hope that you found today helpful
if any of these phrases are new then i recommend that you write them within a sentence down in the
comments section below don't forget about that free trial with lingoda go and check
them and their courses out otherwise I will see you in another lesson, take care, bye