Develop Global Ecological Conscience

Green
Deal
The
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How to
Develop Global
Ecological
Conscience
1
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The environmental
condition of our planet
is getting worse.
Human activity has
caused such damages as
pollution and climate
change that are producing
disasters in the physical,
chemical and biological
characteristics
of our land, air and water.
The best way to help our
environment is to
develop global ecological
conscience and establish
a new set of values.
IN THIS ISSUE
THE IMPLICATIONS
OF GLOBAL WARMING
Signs of the effects of rising
temperatures are appearing
everywhere, and some
of them are surprising.
The heat is not only melting
glaciers and sea ice…
page 2
TAKING ACTION
AGAINST GLOBAL
WARMING
How to reduce your carbon
footprint on the planet to be in
harmony with yourself and
with the environment.
page 4
GOING “GREEN”
Learn about how a British
family have changed their
lives for the better and read
about a student attending a
new university degree course
on “Climate Change”.
page 6
SINGING RESPECT
FOR NATURE
Mother Earth, a famous song
by Canadian singer
and songwriter Neil Young.
page 8
Green
Deal
The
The implications
of global warming
The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole,
and everywhere in between.
ABRIDGED FROM
Water and disasters,
UN, World Meteorological
Organization, Geneva)
Climate change is a monumental
challenge1 to human adaptability.
Earth’s climate is a marvel of equilibrium involving a host2 of interactions and processes between the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces, ice
sheets3 and biosphere. This system
is driven by energy from the sun
which is naturally balanced, as the
Earth eventually re-emits solar energy back to space. The problem now
is that during the last half-century,
land clearance4 and emissions from
industry, cars and other sources have
overloaded5 the atmosphere with
greenhouse6 gases and effectively
turned up the heat. This disruption7
from the natural climatic balance is
KYOTO AND COPENHAGEN
CONFERENCES ON
The first conference on climate change took place in Kyoto, Japan, in
1997. There, developed countries agreed to specific targets for cutting
their emissions of greenhouse gases. Industrialized countries agreed to
an overall reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases to 5.2% below
1990 levels for the period 2008-2012. But the USA – as the largest CO2
producer worldwide – and most developing countries refused to sign this
agreement.
In 2009 more than 40,000 representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations descended upon Copenhagen, Denmark,
for an historic climate conference in order to draw13 a comprehensive,
fair, and ambitious treaty that replaced the emissions reduction
mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. Unfortunately the delegates did not
reach a binding14 agreement.
fuelling some extreme weather
events, such as floods, droughts8,
storms, heat waves.
There are, of course, a number of
natural causes driving climate
change, including variations in the
amount of energy from the sun, volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts and
slow shifts9 in the circulation and
temperature of the oceans. However,
the human input is likely to have the
more responsibility: levels of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases
are constantly increasing.
A global scenario is therefore emerging. A warmer world means a wetter
one, so the northern part of the
Northern Hemisphere will probably
see even more storms, and some continental areas will have drier sumActivities
2
climate change
1. Read the text about global warming and say if the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
1. Climate depends on the interactions of the earth’s
surface, atmosphere, and biosphere.
2. This natural balance has been broken during the
last ten years.
3. Changes in climate are mostly due to greenhouse
gases.
T F
T F
T F
mers and more risk of drought. Sea
levels could rise, in part fed by melt10
water from glaciers and ice caps11.
Along with this, extreme high-water
levels may occur with increasing frequency. Higher sea levels could cause
flooding of coastal lowlands, and
erode sand dunes.
All in all, it is a bleak12 picture.
1. challenge: sfida
2. a host: un gran
numero
3. sheets: coltri
4. clearance:
deforestazione
5. overloaded:
sovraccaricato
6. greenhouse:
serra
7. disruption:
sconvolgimento
18. droughts: siccità
19. shifts:
cambiamenti
10. melt: sciolta
11. ice caps: calotte
di ghiaccio
12. bleak: desolante
13. to draw: stilare
14. binding:
vincolante
4. The Earth’s temperature has decreased
in the last half century.
5. Floods, droughts, storms, heat waves are effects of
climate change.
6. The human factor is most responsible for global
warming.
7. Asteroid impacts may produce greenhouse gases.
8. The melting of glaciers is going to cause floods.
T F
T F
T F
T F
T F
Develop Global
Ecological Conscience
Effects of global
warming
ANNUAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY SECTOR
Industrial processes 16,8%
Power stations 21,3%
ADAPTED FROM
National Geographic
Rising temperatures would raise sea
levels reducing supplies of fresh water
as flooding occurs along coastlines
world wide and saltwater reaches inland. Many of the world’s endangered
species would become extinct if rising
temperatures changed their habitat.
Transportation fuels
14,4%
Waste disposal3 and treatment 3,4%
Agricultural byproducts1
12,5%
Fossil fuel retrieval,2 processing,
and distribution 11,3%
Land use and biomass burning
10,0%
Residential, commercial, and other sources
10,3%
Effects that global warming has already produced
• Ice is melting world wide, especially at the Earth’s poles. This includes
mountain glaciers, ice sheets covering West Antarctica and Greenland,
and Arctic sea ice.
• Sea level rise became faster over the last century.
• Precipitation (rain and snowfall) has increased across the globe, on
average.
• Ecosystems are changing – some butterflies, foxes, and alpine plants
have moved farther north or to higher, cooler areas.
• Species are extinguishing. Biologists have noted that since the mid1980s, with less ice on which to live and fish for food, polar bears
have got considerably skinnier.
Effects that could happen later this century, if warming
continues
• Sea levels are expected to rise between 18 and 59 centimetres by
the end of the century, and continued melting at the poles could
add between 10 to 20 centimetres.
• Hurricanes and other storms are likely to become stronger.
• Plants could bloom earlier than their pollinating insects become active.
• Floods and droughts will become more common. Rainfall where
droughts are already common could decline by 10 per cent over the
next 50 years.
• With the melting of ice caps less fresh water will be available.
• Some diseases will spread, such as malaria carried by mosquitoes.
• Ecosystems will continue to change – some species will move farther
north or become more successful in adapting to new environments.
Other species won’t be able to move and could become extinct.
1. byproducts: prodotti
secondari
2. fossil fuel retrieval:
estrazione di
combustibili fossili
3. waste disposal:
smaltimento rifiuti
Activities
2. Read the text and find
1. where ice is melting;
2. why sea level rises;
3. why polar bears are getting skinnier;
4. what is changing as a consequence of global warming;
5. what will become scarce and what more common;
6. what will spread.
3
Green
Deal
The
Taking action against
global warming
Everyone has a responsibility to reduce their individual carbon
footprint, and there are lots of ways to do so. Think about your
lifestyle decisions and find opportunities to reduce your climate
impact.
10 Simple tips to reduce
1
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle paper, plastic, glass and aluminium. Up to 60% of the rubbish
that ends up in the dustbin
could be recycled.
2
3
Walk more, drive less. Cars
on the road produce millions
tons of carbon dioxide each
year. You can walk, bike, take
a bus instead.
4
Buy locally if possible. Shipping burns fuel. A 5-pound
package shipped by air across
the country creates 12 pounds
of CO2 (3½ pounds if shipped
by truck).
5
4
Carry a reusable shopping
bag. Globally we consume between 500 billion and 1 trillion
bags each year, most of which
end up in the landfills1 or into
the sea.
1. landfills: discariche
2. poultry: pollame
3. tuned: regolato
4. faucet: rubinetto
5. unplug them: staccali dalla spina
Eat less meat. If you’re already
a vegetarian, you save at least
1,500 kilos of CO 2 per year
compared to meat eaters. If
you’re not a vegetarian, just increase the number of vegetarian
meals you eat each week. Also,
poultry2 is less greenhouse gas
intensive than beef.
Develop Global
Ecological Conscience
Many nations and communities are taking action to slow
global warming by reducing
dependence on fossil fuels, increasing the use of renewable
energy and expanding forests.
More and more individuals
are making significant
lifestyle choices that help to
sustain the environment.
Whether they will be able to
recruit enough people to join
them, and whether their combined efforts will be enough
to avoid the most serious effects of global warming, are
open questions that can only
be answered by future developments.
your carbon footprint
6
Don’t waste food. About onequarter of all the food prepared
annually is thrown away, producing methane in landfills as
well as carbon emissions from
transporting wasted food.
7
Replace incandescent light
bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs
save more than 2/3rds of the
energy of a regular incandescent.
9
Save water. You can reduce
water and heating costs. In your
bathroom turn the faucet4 off
when brushing or shaving.
These simple changes can save
many thousands of litres of water annually.
10
Activities
8
Keep your heating and cooling
system tuned 3.
Move your thermostat down 2
degrees in winter
and up 2 degrees
in summer.
rage
Encou
to
others ir
the
reduce
carbon
ints!
footpr
Turn electronics off and unplug them5 from when you’re
not using them to prevent
“vampire” energy loss from electricity usage on standby. Always remember to turn lights
off when you leave a room.
3. Read the tips. Find which tip(s)
encourages to
a. share information about recycling
and energy conservation: ___
b. reduce the use of energy: ___
SPEAKING
4. Discuss.
c. reduce waste: ___
d. turn off the lights: ___
e. become a vegetarian: ___
• What else can you do to reduce your
impact?
5
Green
Deal
The
Going “Green”
People in search of more sustainable energy paths
VISIT
http://www.telegraph.co.
uk
BACK TO THE LAND
A different form of agriculture can change the way you live
John Rudgard was leading a
stressful life in the hospitality
sector, when his wife,
Stephanie, sent him on a
course – “Permaculture for
Busy People”. This changed
their lives. John left his job two
years ago to turn to the land;
1. advocates:
propugna
2. mimicking:
mimando
3. sewage system:
sistema delle
acque di scolo
follow in their footsteps, from
their house, Rifleman Cottage,
in Kent.
Most of permaculture’s
principles are familiar to all of
us: use less, grow more, buy
less. The philosophy of
1
permaculture advocates a
more sustainable way of living,
using an ecologically
harmonious system that can
be adopted by anyone. John
uses the landscape as well,
growing a forest garden,
2
mimicking the structure of
natural woodland by planting
productive plants in layers.
now they no longer go on
holiday abroad or eat out in
trendy restaurants any more,
but they find their new life
healthier, invigorating and
affirmative. They raise
animals, grow food, and make
a living teaching others how to
The system is highly
productive and biologically
sustainable, requires low
maintenance and it’s the most
stable type of ecosystem for
this climate. Most of John and
Stephanie’s day is spent
outside looking after their
hens and pigs, working their
orchard, improving insulation
and managing their sewage
3
system . They also give
courses promoting their way
of life and rent out half of their
cottage to visitors.
Permaculture is an approach to agriculture that is
modelled on the relationships found in nature. In
permaculture each element supports and feeds other
elements, ultimately aiming at systems that are virtually
self-sustaining and into which humans fit as an integral
part.
Activities
6
5. Read the text and answer the questions.
1. What changed John’s life?
2. What kind of life do he and his wife lead?
3. What else do they do, apart from cultivating?
4. What does permaculture philosophy involve?
5. What does this system require?
Develop Global
Ecological Conscience
Lara Hill
Lara Hill, a student from the
UK, provides a local
perspective on climate
change and its implications
for her country.
A STUDENT’S VOICE
challenge. The impact
globally is already being
felt. A clear indicator is the
rising temperature and the
changing weather pattern
we are witnessing. Recent
catastrophic weather events
such as heat waves in
America, Europe, and India
attest to this. The droughts
in parts of Africa and Asia
are another manifestation.
What do you think will be the
biggest impact locally?
In the UK it is difficult to tell –
whilst global patterns1 see
a rise in average
temperatures, local weather
systems won’t necessarily
reflect this. A likely scenario
seems to be fluctuations in
extreme weather conditions
and loss of seasonality.
1. global patterns:
ciò che accade a
livello globale
2. scam: truffa
What do you think are the
most important steps to take
now?
To understand climate we
must think holistically;
similarly our actions must
be holistic.
The first step should be a
global energy network,
linking up national power
networks worldwide. It is
only the politics of corporate
interests that prevent it.
There are scores of other
good ideas – we have all
been told to cut our carbon
footprint. However, I worry
that by partitioning the
responsibility on individuals,
people will either feel there
is no hope or that it is all
just a big scam2 to make us
buy green technology.
What do you do?
I believe I was one of the first
students to begin a “Climate
Change” degree course at
Coventry University last
year.
How personally concerned
are you about climate
change?
Very. As it is a human-induced
threat, climate change
presents a peculiar
Activities
6. Read the interview. Are these statements true (T) or false
(F)?
1. Lara attends a new course at Coventry University.
T F
2. She thinks there will be little or no impact of climate
change on British weather.
T F
3. Actions to stop climate change should be thought
of globally.
T F
4. Politicians are against the creation of a global
energy network.
5. Lara says that sharing the responsibility will
encourage people to take action.
T F
T F
7
Green
Deal
The
Develop Global
Ecological Conscience
Singing respect for
Nature
A love song to the Planet
Mother Earth
by Neil Young
1. greed: avidità
2. healing: salutare
3. trade away:
svendere
Neil Young is a Canadian guitarist,
singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential
musicians of his generation. Neil
Young is an outspoken advocate for
environmental issues and one of the
founders of Farm Aid, a movement
started in 1985 to keep family farmers on the land. The singer has
worked since then to make sure
everyone has access to good food
from family farmers.
Mother Earth is a call to respect Mother Earth for her beauty, her offerings
and for future generations.
Oh, Mother Earth, with your fields of green
Once more laid down by the hungry hands
How long can you give and not receive
And feed this world ruled by greed1?
Oh, ball of fire in the summer sky
Your healing2 light, your parade of days
Are they betrayed by the men of power
Who hold this world in their changing hands?
They hold the world in their changing hands.
Oh, working man will you let this go?
Down to the streets where the numbers grow!
Respect Mother Earth and her healing hands
Don’t trade away3 our children’s days.
(from the Album Ragged Glory, 1990)
Activities
7. Read the song lyrics and answer the questions.
1. Who does the singer refer to?
2. What are the “hungry hands” referred to in your opinion?
3. What does the singer urge people to do?
Il presente fascicolo è stato curato da
Alessandra Brunetti
Direzione editoriale lingue straniere Adriana Massari
Redazione Silvia Bisi
Progetto grafico e impaginazione Enrica Bologni
Ricerca iconografica Eleonora Calamita
Referenze iconografiche
Archivio Principato, ICPOnline
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dell’Associazione Italiana Editori.
Il fascicolo è allegato al volume
8 Culture and society
Prima edizione: febbraio 2012
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8. Watch the video at
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This is a broadcast of Farm Aid 25, 2010:
Growing Hope for America.
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