The Future Has Just Begun

The future has just begun

LEAD-IN

15 Global Challenges

1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change?

2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?

3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?

4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

5. How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?

6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?

8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced?

9. How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?

11. How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition?

12. How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?

13. How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?

14. How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition?

15. How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

USE OF ENGLISH

Read the text below and think of the word that best fits each space

Predicting the world we live in

Which nineteenth-century writer predicted the world we know most accurately? 'Jules Verne' would be areasonable guess, but is not the (0) correctanswer. The man who foresaw most of the technologicaladvances we take for (1)………. was a French writer, Albert Robida, (2) ……….novel 'TheTwentieth Century' appeared in 1882. Robida did not know nearly as (3)………. science as Verne but he possessed an intuitive sense of what technology would be capable of in a hundred years' time even thoughhe did not understand (4) ……….the advances would be achieved.

His successful predictions make a formidable list. He not (5) ………. foresaw radio and television butair travel and fast-food restaurants. He was also far-sighted enough not to share his contemporaries' blindfaith (6)……….progress, realising that technological advance might cause problems as well as(7) ……….life more comfortable.

In some ways, however, Robida failed to foresee (8)……….our world would be like and in each casethe error was due to his personal prejudices. When cars came (9) ………. fashion later in his life, hedisliked them so much (10)………. of their noise and fumes that he refused to revise his predictionsto include them. (11) ……….did he envisage the development of computers and the extent of theirinfluence (12) ……….every aspect of our lives today.

But his most serious errors were sociological. He was typical (13) ……….his age and social class in thinkingthat women were less intelligent than men and the working class would always be mainly employed (14) ……….servants. Though he foresaw many of the technological developments that have (15) ……….into being inour time, he could not imagine the sexual and social revolutions of the twentieth century.

READING 1: Read the text and answer the questions that follow

The challenges we face are considerable: immigration and employment, shrinking population, healthy food and clean water, safe energy and extinction of species, to name a few.

Decisions taken today may impact the future of life on this planet for decades or even centuries. Yet, the current economic systems are driven by short-term profit-making and representative democracies hardly reflect the interests of non-voting and succeeding generations. That is why it is critically important today to think and act so that responsibility for our common future becomes priority.

To meet the key global challenges for human security in the 21st centurywe also need to findsolutions on renewable energy, bio sequestration, energy sufficiency and energy security, green collar jobs, sustainable and livable cities, transport, agriculture and food, regional economies, and civil participation and democracy.

It is now accepted that the global economic picture in 2050 will look very different from today. The established G7 economies are already seeing a shift of their traditional economic power to the emerging countries, the so-called E7 of China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey.In addition to economic change, we are going through a period of huge social transformation, as we move into a future of labour shortages, skills gaps and a world in which the educational and economic empowerment of women will become even more significant.

How can we address and accommodate these changes? What are the actions which will help us face the challenge of the future? What efforts need to be made by governments, companies and NGOs?

Topic 1 CLIMATE CHANGE

http://climate.nasa.gov/

There is now little doubt that climate change has become a reality. Glaciers are melting all over the world. Weather patterns are becoming more erratic. The IPPC forecasts increases of global mean temperatures of up to 5.8 degreesCelsius*this century and sea level rises of up to one meter. Half the world's people live within 50 km of seashores and their lives will be severely affected by flooding. Up to a million species of plants and animals could be extinct due to climate change.

*Celsius and Fahrenheit cause confusion because they are so different. 25o Celsius is lovely, while 25o Fahrenheit is dreadful. 100o Fahrenheit is hot, while 100o Celsius would kill you instantly.

To convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, you multiply by 9/5 and add 32.

To convert from Fahrenheit to Celsius you subtract 32 then multiply by 5/9.

Some of the figures are worth remembering:

· Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit

· Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit

· The commonly accepted average core body temperature is 37.0C (98.6F).

· In Russia, the commonly quoted value is 36.6C (97.9F)

· 1 km is 0.6 mile (100kph=60mph)

· 1 mile is 1.6 km (50mph=80kph)

· 1 meter is 3.3 feet

· 1 foot is 30.48 cm

· 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds

· 1 pound is 453 grams

REDING 1: Read the texts and do the assignments that follow (vocabulary units may also appear in the lead-in)

Climate Change Research

Stefan Bronnimann

Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Switzerland

…The questions of whether and how climate changes and whether and how man influences climate have been debated by scientists at least since Theophrastus in the 4th century B.C. His works were translated into Latin in the Renaissance period and were influential to the thinking of scientists at that time. Two important lines of debate in the discussion on climatic change up into the 19th century concerned the impact of land-use changes on climate and progressive climate changes. In the early and mid-18th century, climate change was a subject treated by the philosophers of the enlightenment period such as Montesquieu and Hume. More scientific approaches to climate change research started in the second half of the 18th century, in line with efforts in agricultural, forestry and medical research and further advanced by scientific travelling and exchange and the availability of meteorological instruments.

A milestone in the history of climate change research and its public awareness was the theory of ice ages which had important implications for climate research in general. It required mechanisms able to explain a large change in mean temperature. This challenge was a trigger for many climate change theories, some of which have influenced the discussion until today. The theory of the CO2 greenhouse effect originated, at least partly, in the debate on the causes of ice ages. Some scientists speculated that lower concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide could have caused ice ages.

The processes considered in the 19th century to cause shorter-term climate changes were mainly solar influences and anthropogenicactivity, but volcanic forcing and themeltingof icesheetsandglaciers were also discussed. Among the anthropogenic influences on climate, the oldest topic is the effect of land-use changes. The debate on this topic became more and more popular during the 19th century when in many European countries deforestation and desertification became politically relevant. Effects of anthropogenic fossil fuel combustionon weather and climate have been considered since the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century, the debates about climate change and anthropogenic influence on climate was not confinedto the scientific community, but also included political institutions and was carried out in public.

The Discovery of Global Warming

Spencer R.WeartThe Johns Hopkins University, the Eugene Lang College and Princeton University

February 2011

Since 2001, greatly improved computer models and an abundance of data of many kinds strengthened the conclusion that human emissions are very likely to cause serious climate change. Most scientists and ever larger number of individuals, corporate entities, and government agencies at every level decided that something had to be done. They found that effective steps could be taken right now that are not only cheap and effective, but will actually pay for themselves. For example, coal-fired power plants could be taxed in proportion to their emissions. This could be compensated by an equal decrease in other taxes, leaving government revenue unchanged. (A market-based "cap and trade" system of selling permits to emit pollution can be designed to have an equivalent effect.)

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time advance prosperity is to develop better technologies and practices. But a technology does not magically grow by itself. According to economic demand, research may stagnate or dash forward to solve problems with amazing speed. It can also be accelerated by direct government support.

Global warming is not a technical problem; it's a political problem.To say that strict limits on emissions are socially or politically impossible is to forget that people have made far greater changes once they set their minds to. Citizens can reconsider their personal practices, and put pressure on businesses and governments at every level.

It is now very nearly certain that global warming is upon us. It is prudent to expect that weather patterns will continue to change and the seas will continue to rise, in an ever worsening pattern, through our lifetimes and on into our grandchildren's. The question has graduated from the scientific community: climate change is a major social, economic and political issue. Nearly everyone in the world will need to adjust. Citizens will need reliable information, the flexibility to change their personal lives, and efficient and appropriate help from all levels of government. So it is an important job, in some ways our top priority, to improve the communication of knowledge, and to strengthen democratic control in governance everywhere. The spirit of fact-gathering, rational discussion, toleration of dissent, and negotiation of an evolving consensus, which has characterized the climate science community, can serve well as a model.

Find in the text words corresponding to the following definitions or synonymous with the following words:

·  a significant stage or event in the development of something(n)

·  things that are likely to happen as a result of sth. (n)

·  an event that is the cause of a particular action, process, or situation(n)

·  a very large quantity of something,plentifulness(n)

·  to stop changing or progressing, become inactive or dull(adj)

·  sensible and careful (adj)

·  adapt or become used to a new situation(v)

·  trustworthy (adj)

·  ability to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances(n)

·  suitable or proper in the circumstances(adj)

·  the holding or expression of opinions at variance with those commonly or officially held(n)

Find in the text terms relating to the topic of climate change that correspond to the following definitions:

·  the capture and storage of the atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by biological processes

·  conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources

·  the average temperature

·  the average weather for a particular region and time period

·  a warming effect felt on Earth’s surface, produced by greenhouse gases

·  a heavy colorless gas that is absorbed from the air by plants and does not support combustion

·  human activities which affect the climate

·  a very large body of ice moving slowly down a slope or valley

·  the change of forested lands to non-forest uses

·  the progressive destruction or degradation of vegetative cover, especially in arid or semi-arid regions

·  a fuel that is formed in the Earth from plant or animal remains

·  the release of a substance into the atmosphere

·  gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and re-emit radiation from the sun

·  the introduction into the environment of a substance which has harmful or poisonous effects

USE OF ENGLISH: Complete the text with the words from the box and do the assignments that follow

Acid, biodiversity, contaminated, deforestation, ecosystems, species, emissions, environmental, erosion, exhaust, drought, fertilizers, greenhouse, waste, pollution

The advances made by humans have made us the dominant (1) ………. on our planet. However, several eminent scientists are concerned that we have become too successful, that our way of life is putting an unprecedentedstrain on the Earth's (2)…………… and threatening our future as a species. We are confronting (3) ………. problems that are more taxingthan ever before, some of them seemingly insoluble. Many of the Earth's crises are chronicand inexorablylinked. (4) ………. is an obvious example of this affecting our air, water and soil.

The air is polluted by (5) …………… produced by cars and industry. Through (6) …………… rain and (7) ………. gases these same (8) …………… fumes can have a devastating impact on our climate. Climate change is arguably the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet with increased storms, floods, (9) …………… and species losses predicted. This will inevitably have a negative impact on (10) …………… and thus our ecosystem.

The soil is (11) …………… by factories and power stations which can leave heavy metals in the soil. Other human activities such as the overdevelopment of land and the clearing of trees also take their toll on the quality of our soil; (12) …………… has been shown to cause soil (13) …………… Certain farming practices can also pollute the land though the use of chemical pesticides and (14) …………… This contamination in turn affects our rivers and waterways and damages life there. The chemicals enter our food chain, moving from fish to mammals to us. Our crops are also grown on land that is far from pristine. Affected species include the polar bear, so not even the Arctic is immune.