UNIT 10_SESSION 1

RADICAL WAYS TO SAVE THE PLANET

1.a. _Richard Branson, his full name is Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18
July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor, author and the most popular
entrepreneur in the world. He has interest in humanitarian and ecological issues.
In 2006, he founded Virgin Comics LLC, stating that Virgin Comics will give ‘a
whole generation of young, creative thinkers a voice”.
_ Not only this photo, in every photo of Richard Branson, I always see he smiles
and laughts a lot. To be honest, we like people who smile and laugh. When seeing
Richard smile in this photo, his joyful spirit is contagiuos and makes me feel
better. So I think this photo was taken to spread his positive energy to everyone.
1.b. 1) Richard Branson offered $25 million for anyone who can identify a way to
reduce greenhouse gases.
2) I think he did this in order to decrease the greenhouse gases to safer
levels for a more stable climate and healthy oceans. His idea is really smart. In our
century, everyone can access the internet and high technology. Not just only the
solution of scientists is right, but a small idea and answer from one person could
be useful, too. Using this way, Richard can motivate everyone to present their
idea to the world, and he also could find more solutions that have real potential
and starting to prove them in the real world.

LANGUAGE FOCUS: CLIMATE CHANGE

2.a. 1) temperatures, humans, carbon dioxide, global warming, atmosphere and
greenhouse gases are directly connected with climate change.
2) Write sentences to show connections between the words.
_ Richard Branson is a billionaire.
_ Richard Branson will award 25 million dollars.
_ Climate change has caused the global warming.
_ Humans are the main factor lead to climate change.
_ The United Nations provides information on removals of the greenhouse gases
to and from the atmosphere.
_ Global warming is more than 90% likely to have been caused by humans.
_ The United Nations predicted temperatures increases six degrees in this
century.
_ Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural
gas, and oil), solid waste, trees and other biological materials.
_ 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide need to be removed from the atmosphere in
2025.

READING and SPEAKING/P.106+107

3.a) What different ideas do you think these images show?
_ Image A: putting a huge glass sunshade in space which would orbit the Earth so
that it would always face the sun.
_ Image B: seeding cloud with salt-sprayed up to the air from unmanned or wind-
powered ocean-going vessels in order to make the clouds more reflective, send
warming sunlight back out into space, and fertilizing the world's oceans to try and
force them to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
_ Image C: it’s artificial tree. It’s made of metal but works in the same way as a
real tree. It means this metal tree extracting CO2 from the air as it flows over its
‘leaves’.
_ Image D: pumping fine particles of sea water into the cloud in order to make a
thicker cloud block, so the sun’s rays would be reflected.
_ Image E: create enclosed ‘plankton farms’ in the sea. Then plankton grow and
absorb CO2 from the air.
3.b) The articles describes four of the ideas. Which involves:
 Reducing CO2 levels: create enclosed ‘plankton farms’ in the sea
 Absorbing the sun’s heat: put a huge sunshade in space
 Deflecting the sun’s rays: put a huge glass sunshade, fire rockets loaded
with sulphur into the tratosphere, pumping sea water.
ARTIFICIAL TREES
1. It’s made of metal but works in the same way as a real tree. It means this
metal tree extracting CO2 from the air as it flows over its ‘leaves’. But its
leaves are unlike in a real tree. In the real tree, the leaves are spread out as
much as possible to catch the sunlight. The leaves on an artificial tree could
be packed much more closely together and be parallel wit each other. So
an artificial tree could extract far more CO2 than a natural tree.
2. After could and would, we can use an active or passive infinitive.
_ Active: the apparatus would extract carbon dioxide.
_Passive: carbon dioxide would be extracted by the apparatus.
3. Cover the article above and complete the sentences.
_ Giant sunshade: the sunshade would deflect a small percentage of the
sun’s rays back into space, so the temperature of the atmosphere would be
reduced.
_ Sulphur rockets: the sulphur would be released and it would form a thin
cloud-like layer around the Earth, which would block some of the sun’s rays.
_ Pumping sea water: this would increase the thickness of the clouds, so
the sun’s rays would be reflected.
_ Plankton farms: plankton would absorb CO2 from the air. The plankton
could be fed huge quatities of fertiliser.
4. Speaking
It seems to me that each radical ways mentioned in the article are creative
and truly useful to help the world combat global warming. It’s no wonder
that one day in the future, these inventions could be used in the real world.
But look more closely at these inventions, all of them would cost a huge
consumption of the government. It’s hard for the government to apply it
even though it's helpful.

READING: GLACIERS
New words
_ Glaciers (N) a large mass of ice that moves slowly
_calve: Calving is when chunks of ice break off at the terminus, or end, of a glacier
_ Flotilla (n) a large group of boats or small ships
_Eerily (adv) in a strange, frightening, and mysterious way
_Iceberg (n) a very large mass of ice that floats in the sea
_Jagged (adj) rough and with sharp points
_ice sheet (n) or ice cap: a thick layer of ice that permanently covers an area of
land
_smother (v) to cover most or all of a surface
_sail (n) travel; a journey by boat or ship
_fjord (n) a long strip of sea between steep hills
_stretch for (v) to spread over a large area or distance
1. In the first photo, there is snow everywhere but in the second one, the
layer of snow is melted, forming a lake. It maybe took many decades to
turn into different scene. In my opinion, I think the climate change caused
these difference.
2. a) _ “calving season” means glaciers calving or iceberg calving.
_ “a flotilla of icebergs” means many huge of ice floating in the sea as a
large group of boats.
_ “eerily beautiful” means beautiful in a mysterious way.
b) In my opnion, the writer says this is “a chilling view” because he see the
iceberg in many different shape, such as a fairytale castles or dinosaur eggs
and calve from the ice sheet is huge and move lively. The writer also says
the icebergs are “utterly terrifying”. Some icebergs are small but some can
also be huge. The real danger is not what you see on the surface of the
water but most of the mass of an iceberg lies below the surface of the
water are the point. The ice below the water is dangerous to ships. The
sharp, hidden ice can easily tear a hole in the bottom of a ship.
3. a) read the article

New words
 decisively (adv) quickly
  land(on) (v) to arrive on the ground or other surface after moving down
through the air
 vanishing (adj) beginning to disappear
 glaciologist (n) a scientist who studies glaciers and other natural
phenomena involving ice
 hit on/upon sth (phrasal verb) to think of an idea when you didn't expect or
intend to, especially one that solves a problem
 daring (adj) brave and taking risks
 march (v) to walk with regular steps of equal length in a group
 pace (n) speed
 accelerate(v) to get faster or speed up
 abruptly (adv) suddenly
 equilibrium (n) a state of balance
 calve off icebergs: chunks of ice that break off glaciers and fall into water
 replenish (v) to fill something up again
 shedding (n) the process of losing covering (in the article is ice)
 accumulate (v) to gradually increase in amount
 steadily (adv) calmly and in a controlled way
 trigger (v) to cause something to start
 astounded (adj) very surprised or shocked
_What seems to be happening in Greenland? The icebergs are melting far faster
than the climate models predicted and far more decisively than any political
action to combat our changing climate.
_Do scientist fully understand it? Obviously the scientist don’t fully understand it.
They are focusing on research the “dynamic effects” to find the answer but they
are astounded by the greater pace of the icebergs’ changes.
b) Make note about
1) The Greenland ice sheet: it’s vanishing, melting, disappearing.
2) Gordon Hamilton: he is a glaciologist; he is landing on a moving glacier in a
helicopter
3) Air temperatures: stood at a record 5 degrees above normal
4) “dynamic effects”: researching is focusing on “dynamic effects”; the melting
triggers dynamic new effects, which in turn accelerate the melt.

LANGUAGE FOCUS: PROCESSES

4.a) These verb describe processes. Use them to answer these question?

Melt shed disappear replenish flow rise transmit

Trigger accelerate march maintain vanish

1. What is happening to: the ice? The glacier? The ocean?

_The ice sheet is now sheeding/ the ice is now melting/ the ice in
Greenland is vanishing so much faster than expected
2. What used to happen before?
_The glacier was marching forwards
_The glaciers had accelerated not just by a little bit but by a lot.
_The ice sheets maintained an equilibrium.
_The ice sheets was then replenished with more frozen snow.
_The glaciers were transmitting ice from the ice sheet into the ocean.
4.d) greenhouse gases, global warming, the unpredicted changing weather,
supercell storms, Worsening Droughts, Flooding,…

READING: 2084
1.a) in my opinion, Phaethon could be a metaphor of human, main cause burns up
the Earth.
b) In the year 1984, I wasn’t born so 1984 doesn’t have any significiance for me.
2.a) What expressions talk about climate change?
b) Find expression which refer to:
_Bicycles: paired wheels
_Solar heating: PV panels
_Computers: screen
_A group of houses/flats: estate
3. 1) How many references to Phaethon can you find? Infelix Phaethon,
magic brand
2) Find expression refer to “fire”: burn, light out
3) Who are the “unfortunate” ones in this case? The children or young
generation
4. a) The poem’s main message is how we will be accountable to our children for
what we’re doing now-what they will say to us. I agree with the meaning but I
think the poem also want to threat young generation about the effect of climate
change.
b) Which part of the poem talk about:
 People’s lifestyle in 2084: Part 1
 The kind of society it will be: part 1
 What the children want: part 2
 What their parents did to the earth: part 2
5.a) The poem and the article on page 108 are talk about the future visions cause
by climate change.
b) _Cars will be electric powered (it will reduce greenhouse gases)
_Your bus will come to your home to take you to work at the same time every
morning if you signed up and pay a monthly fee.
_The air will fresh and sweet-smelling.
_ Have more trees, shrubs, waterways, and plants.