Richest 1% harm planet most: BBC News Review

Frequent flying,

big houses and luxury lifestyles. The world's richest are damaging the planet

more than any other group of people.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn all the vocabulary

you need to talk about this story.

And to understand more about the world in English,

don't forget to subscribe to our channel.

Now, the story.

The richest one percent of people create the same amount of carbon

as the poorest two-thirds in the world.

That's according to data published in a new report by charity, Oxfam.

It found that the lifestyles of the wealthy, such as taking frequent flights

and eating out in restaurants, are closely connected to climate change.

Oxfam's chief called for world leaders to "end the era of extreme wealth".

You've been looking at the headlines,

Beth. What's the vocabulary

people need to understand this story in English?

We have: 'well-off' 'plundering' and 'clean up their acts'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first headline.

This is from The Guardian.

  Restaurants, pets and holidays:

how UK's well-off, have outsize carbon footprints.

So, this headline is saying that the UK's well-off have

outsize carbon footprints. 'Outsize' means too big and

your carbon footprint is the impact

you have personally on the environment.

But we are looking at the word 'well-off'.

We are, and 'well-off' means 'rich' and it's an adjective.

It might look like a phrasal verb,

because it has two parts and that second part is 'off',

but it's an adjective.

Now, this headline says that 'the well-off',

that's the rich and wealthy, are having a worse impact on the environment.

We have these words, 'rich' and 'wealthy' already

so why do we need 'well-off', what's the difference?

Well, it's a bit softer and it sounds more polite than 'rich',

which isn't always a positive thing and a similar,

but even softer way of saying 'well-off'.

is 'comfortable'. That's a word

you already know, but it's a slightly different meaning here.

Yes, and then the other extreme

is this word 'loaded'.

It means 'extremely well-off', 'extremely rich' and it's not that polite.

It's very direct. Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from The Washington Post.

World's richest 1% 'plundering' the planet, Oxfam report says.

We are looking at the word 'plundering'.

Now Beth,

when I hear this word 'plundering', I think of thieves or pirates stealing things -

treasure!

Well, yeah. That's right.

The literal meaning of 'plunder' is taking things that don't

belong to you by force. Now, in this headline

the richest are plundering the planet. So Neil,

does that mean that the richest are stealing things by force?

Well, not exactly,

but by choosing the word 'plunder' the writer is suggesting

that what the rich are doing is wrong.

The sense is that they are using resources that actually should be shared more equally

amongst people and that word 'plunder'

they actually took from the Oxfam report to support their opinion.

What other words for 'steal' can we use?

Well, there's 'nick' and 'pinch'. They're both

a bit informal, though.

Has anyone ever nicked your phone?

No, nobody has ever nicked my phone,

but it looks like someone is trying to pinch my wallet,

Beth. Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from The Herald.

  Yousaf urged to use Budget for richest Scots to "clean up their acts".

So, campaigners in Scotland

want the richest to clean up their act and 'clean up their act'

is the expression that we're looking at. This word 'act'

I recognise from the theatre, like Shakespeare.

To be or not to be.

No, no, no stop stop stop,

That's not the 'act' we're talking about here.

Here, 'act' means behaviour and 'clean up your act' means

make your behaviour better, improve it.

Yes, and although the expression has the word.

'clean' in it,

it's not really about cleaning. It means 'to improve'.

So, the campaigners want the... So, the

campaigners want the the rich to do better

when it comes to climate change.

I was going to say that, that's my line.

You need to clean up your act.

I really do. Let's look at that again.

We've had 'well-off' - rich,

'plundering' - taking what doesn't belong to you,

and 'clean up their acts' - improve their behaviour.

Now, if you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about this topic,

watch this episode of News Review, where we asked 'Can flying ever be green?'

And click here to subscribe to our channel, so you never miss another video.

Thanks for joining us, bye! Bye!