Advanced Speaking: Environment Vocabulary in English

Hello everyone, Anna here  from englishlikeanative.com  

today we're learning 30 or so, advanced phrases  to use when talking about the environment.  

This lesson has been kindly sponsored  by Lingoda but more about them later.  

Okay so first on our list is the  words global warming, global warming,  

now global warming refers to the increasing  temperature of the world brought about  

(which means created by) brought  about by gases such as carbon dioxide.  

So you might say global warming should be  top priority for politicians around the world  

the next phrase is air quality so air  quality refers to the cleanliness of  

the air that we breathe often if you live in  a big city or somewhere where there's lots of  

cars and traffic then you might find  that the air quality is quite poor there  

next we might talk about an oil spill this  year 2020 there's been quite a bad oil spill  

in mauritius or off the coast of mauritius an oil  spill refers to waste oil that is deposited into  

the seas after an accident at sea so usually a  boat crashing or running a ground or capsizing  

or setting on fire exploding will cause  an oil spill which can obviously affect  

the water the marine life the coral and then  wash up onto the beaches and have devastating  

effects on the people who live there and  rely on the ocean for work and for food  

the next phrase is humanitarian aid humanitarian  aid so humanitarian aid is the act of showing  

support to people who are struggling to survive  so if there are a group of people who have  

experienced perhaps a terrible oil spill  which has wiped out their entire ecosystem  

so there's no fish there's no tourism they can't  make any money they can't survive in terms of food  

so they might need some humanitarian aid which  would be probably provided by another country  

the next on the list is energy conservation  energy conservation this is about the  

careful management of energy resources to  ensure that they last as long as possible  

so at home you might try to conserve energy by  turning off the lights when you leave the room  

shutting down your computer at the end of the  day perhaps making sure that items aren't left  

turned on when you don't need them so do  you conserve energy the next phrase is  

renewable energy renewable energy renewable energy  is an energy that comes from a source that's  

not depleted it doesn't go down when used  so renewable energy would be something like  

wind power or solar power do you have solar panels  on your house or as part of your work do you use  

wind power in your country some people  live very close to those windmills the big  

turbines many people complain about them  but it's a source of renewable energy  

can you think of other types of renewable energy  if you can please or write it in the comments  

now another phrase which we do use commonly  in conversation is environmentally friendly  

environmentally friendly and if something is  environmentally friendly then it's a product  

or a type of behavior that does not harm the  environment that perhaps does the opposite  

maybe helps the environment so for example  plastic packaging is not environmentally friendly  

but if something is packaged in recyclable  materials things that break down very  

easily like cardboard perhaps that would be more  environmentally friendly or perhaps your product  

has been produced in a way that's friendly to  the environment are you environmentally friendly  

next we have the phrase carbon footprint carbon  footprint this refers to the amount of carbon  

dioxide released into the atmosphere as  a result of the activities of a person  

a company or a whole community so a person who  travels on a plane very often perhaps takes  

a flight every week for work or pleasure would  have a high carbon footprint and they probably  

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Next on our list is exhaust fumes this refers to  the toxic gases that are given off when a vehicle  

is switched on so this will be vehicles that are  fueled by petrol or diesel you turn them on and  

out of the exhaust pipe comes these horrible fumes  that are toxic so they are exhaust fumes next we  

have flash floods flash floods these are floods  that happen very quickly perhaps there's suddenly  

a storm and a heavy downpour of rain and the  drain system the drainage system can't cope  

so everything floods that would be a flash flood  we experienced a lot of flash flooding last year  

here in the uk next we have drought drought it's  a very odd spelling so listen to the pronunciation  

ow drought drought a drought is a prolonged period  of very low rainfall creating a water shortage  

so it's the opposite of flooding there's no water  have you experienced flash flooding or a drought  

let me know in the comments section below now if  things are heading towards a drought then they  

might dry up to dry up a phrasal verb means to  become dry so you could say the river has dried  

up or the pond if you have a pond in your back  garden my pond has dried up the lake has dried up  

the reservoir has dried up okay  next we have the word famine  

famine now a famine is when you have widespread  and extremely low levels of food now this could be  

caused but for any number of reasons in many cases  it's man-made so usually war any sort of conflict  

could create a famine but if we have issues  with weather that destroys crops or makes it  

hard for farmers to do their job then that can  also create a famine next we have fossil fuels  

fossil fuels whenever you hear a discussion about  global warming people often refer to fossil fuels  

and this is energy resources like gas and oil that  are produced deep in the ground over millions of  

years they're dug up so people are often drilling  for fossil fuels the next phrase is climate change  

so you definitely would have heard this in the  news especially recently this is quite a hot topic  

climate change talks about the change  in worldwide weather patterns i wish  

that people would take climate change very  seriously because it has an impact on all of us  

next we have the words to combat or tackle climate  change so obviously climate change is the issue  

and we would often use the verb to combat or to  tackle climate change next we have toxic waste  

toxic waste so waste of course is rubbish  but if it's toxic waste then it's poisonous  

a poisonous type of rubbish this is often  produced by industrial processes so you don't  

want any toxic waste being pumped into the water  system because that would make people very poorly  

next we have pollution levels pollution levels  so this is the amount of toxic waste either  

in the water in the atmosphere perhaps in the  earth so you want to make sure those pollution  

levels are not too high perhaps people who live  in a city with poor air quality because of exhaust  

fumes might have high pollution levels next we  have contamination to contaminate something is  

to make something impure by polluting it so you  could contaminate the water if you dumped your  

toxic waste into the drinking water that water  would become polluted poisonous contaminated  

you could contaminate food by putting  something unwanted in there the next phrase  

is the phrase the natural world the natural world  you might hear this phrase when talking about the  

world of nature how it should be naturally so the  the jungle would be part of the natural world the  

desert part of the natural world unfortunately out  in the natural world you'll find poaching poaching  

poaching is the activity of hunting and killing  wild animals illegally we often hear on the  

news over here about the poaching of elephants or  rhinos usually because of the value of their tusks  

it's very sad okay so to stop these kinds of  things from happening you might have a pressure  

group a pressure group a pressure group is a group  of people who try to raise awareness of issues and  

try to affect the views and actions of people and  organizations perhaps they'll hold protests they  

might take around petitions to be signed and try  their hardest to get these issues like poaching  

sorted out now when talking about the natural  world you might hear about the loss of habitat  

the loss of habitat now this is the decline of  areas of land where animals and plants would  

normally live where i live in the outskirts  of london we have a lot of foxes so foxes i've  

had foxes come in the house they are regularly my  garden they steal our shoes and chew our shoes up  

they'll steal my son's toys if we don't put them  away and so foxes are a little bit of a problem  

because there's so many of them and they open up  the rubbish bins and spread rubbish everywhere  

they make a lot of noise at  night time screaming and howling  

but the reason we have a problem with foxes in  the city is because they have lost their habitat  

their natural place where they would  normally live and so now they have to  

live in the city because they have nowhere  else to go next we have man-made disaster  

a man-made disaster it's quite self-explanatory  it's widespread damage or loss of life  

brought about by the actions of humans so  something that man has done has created a disaster  

like a big explosion obviously opposite to that  you would have a natural disaster so something  

that man didn't cause such as an earthquake a  flood or a hurricane which again causes widespread  

damage or loss of life next you might hear the  phrase natural environment this is just a place  

where animals and plants would normally be found  in nature very similar to the natural world so  

foxes are not really now in their natural  environment they live in a new type of environment  

next we have the words to become extinct extinct  and a type of animal will become extinct if it no  

longer exists so if that type of animal dies away  and they're not breeding there's no more of them  

then unfortunately that becomes extinct and  that's very sad there's lots of species of animal  

that are becoming extinct these days because of  man-made issues loss of habitat climate change  

it's all having an effect on the natural world  now when talking about animals we might talk  

about animals that are under threat they are  under threat and this means they're in danger of  

becoming extinct there is another word that we use  here which i'll come on to in a moment now if they  

do become extinct then you could use the phrase  to die out so you might say the dodo died out  

many years ago they became extinct in i'm not sure  what year they became extinct but they died out  

now as i said before if an animal is on the way  to becoming extinct if they are under threat  

then you could say that they are endangered or an  endangered species this means a category of animal  

or plant that's in danger of becoming extinct  okay next we have future generations often during  

these climate change debates we talk about how  future generations will view us now and view our  

actions and decisions around climate change  because it's the future generations who will  

be living with the results of our actions now  future generations refers to people who live  

after us so our children's children next we have  this the phrase sustainably sourced sustainably  

sourced you might see this in advertising  for certain products it means something  

where a supply of that product can be constantly  maintained so by making that product you're not  

depleting the natural world you know perhaps if  you are making coconut oil and selling it so fast  

you're just chopping down all the coconut trees  and not planting any more coconut trees and those  

coconut trees are in danger of becoming an extinct  species of tree then that's not sustainable so  

often with things like that they have to  make sure there's a program running where  

what they take is then replaced so they might  plant more or only take so many limit the supply  

so that could then be advertised as sustainably  sourced if you're going to be environmentally  

friendly you want to make sure you're buying  sustainably sourced products a way to protect  

animals and plants might be through the work of  wildlife conservation so wildlife conservation is  

um to protect animals and plants and their habitat  okay so it feels a little bit heavy this lesson  

because we're talking about things that  obviously all of us are experiencing  

in some way these are big issues but  i do hope that you found today helpful  

if any of these phrases are new then i recommend  that you write them within a sentence down in the  

comments section below don't forget about  that free trial with lingoda go and check  

them and their courses out otherwise I will  see you in another lesson, take care, bye