Amazon water emergency: BBC News Review

Amazon River hits its lowest water levels

in over 120 years.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English. I'm Beth.

And I'm Phil. Make sure you watch to the end to learn the vocabulary

that you need to talk about this story.

And don't forget to subscribe to our channel, like this video

and try the quiz on our website.

Now, today's story.

Water levels in the Amazon river are at their lowest since records began

121 years ago.

It's because of a shortage of rain caused by the natural El Niño effect.

But Brazilian scientists say that climate change is also to blame.

A state of emergency has been declared in Manaus and 20 other cities.

You've been looking at the headlines.

What's the vocabulary?

We have 'drought', 'overwhelm' and 'taints'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.  

Let's have a look now at our first headline.

This is from CNN.

Amazon rivers fall to lowest levels in 121 years

amid a severe drought.

This headline says that the Amazon has fallen to its lowest level

in 121 years.

And this is because of a drought.

'Drought' is the word

we're going to be learning about. Phil,

what can you tell us about drought?

OK, so drought is a period of very dry weather where there is little

or no rain and it can cause problems -

things like crops failing or wildfires. To talk about the situation,

we can use it as an uncountable noun 'drought'.

But we can also talk about 'a drought' to talk about a specific period of drought.

OK, but it's not just used for dry weather.

I've heard this term used in sports,

For example.

Yeah. So, in football

you could talk about a 'goal drought' and that's where you have a player

who usually scores lots of goals and they just stop scoring

and we used drought here because in the same way that water stops flowing

so the goals have stopped flowing.

And one more thing to note

about 'drought' is that the pronunciation and the spelling are quite different

so we spell it d.r.o.u.g.h.t.

But it's pronounced 'drought'.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

This is from The Times.

Forest fires threaten to overwhelm the Amazon Basin.

The headline says that there are forest fires in the Amazon basin.

That's because the drought is making everything dry.

Now, the word we're interested in is the verb 'overwhelm'. This has lots

of different meanings,

Phil, but it's quite literal here, isn't it?

Yes, it is. The forest fires could suddenly and completely cover the area -

they could overwhelm it.

But we can actually use in different ways as well.

Yes, we can use 'overwhelmed' to talk about work or emotions, can't we?

Can you give us some other examples?

Yes. So, we can use it as a passive or we can use it as an adjective.

So, if for example, you say that you're overwhelmed with work,

it means you've got too much. You can't cope with it.

If you watch a film

that's very emotional,

you could say it is 'overwhelming',

if it makes you cry a lot.

Well, hopefully, this episode

of News Review hasn't overwhelmed you.

Although Phil, your presenting has been very moving.

OK, let's look at that again.

Next headline, please.

This is from VOA:

Wildfire smoke taints air for millions in Brazil.

So, we've already heard that the drought in the Amazon has led to wildfires.

This headline says that the smoke from the fire taints the air

and we are looking at the word 'taint'.

Now Phil, doesn't this mean turning something good bad?

Yes, the smoke taints the air

and we don't want smoke in the air.

We can use it more generally to talk about turning something good

into something bad.

And actually we often use it by turning it into the adjective 'tainted'.

That's right and other things can be tainted, like you said, For example,

a relationship.

Maybe someone in a relationship does a bad thing,

the other person can't trust them

so the relationship is ruined -

it's tainted.

We can also use it to talk

about people's reputations.

Think of a politician caught up in a scandal.

It can taint their reputation with the public.

OK, let's look at that again.

We've had 'drought'.

a period of time with no rain.

'Overwhelm' - cover something completely and quickly.

  'Taints' - makes something good turn bad.

Now, if you're interested in the Amazon

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Thanks for joining us. Bye!