Learning English

Climate change in 60 seconds

You are going to watch a short video about climate change that was made ahead of the 2014 UN Climate Change Conference.

Before watching, look at these three statements. Which one (or ones) do you think is true?

1. The world’s weather is getting worse. This is a dangerous situation but there is nothing we can do about it.

2. The world’s weather is changing and we shoud accept this as a natural part of the world’s weather cycle.

3. The world’s weather is getting worse and we must act now to protect the planet and ourselves.

While you are watching the video, think about the statements carefully. Which one best matches the message of the video?

Watch the video and do the activity

What did you think about that? The statement that best matches the video is number 3: The world’s weather is getting worse and we must act now to protect the planet and ourselves.

Talking about cause and effect relationships

The video talked about some of the possible effects of climate change. We often use may, might and could to describe cause and effect relationships.

For example, we can join a cause - rising temperatures, to an effect - flooding, with may, might or could+ verb, like this:

Rising temperatures may cause flooding

The word may shows that the effect (flooding) is a possible result. If the result is definitely going to happpen, use will:

Rising temperatures will cause flooding

To do

Let's practise. Try this activity.

Next

That was a useful introduction to climate change. Now let's take a closer look at some of the problems we might face in the future.