BBC-Carbon Footprints

 
BBC Learning EnglishWeekenderCarbon FootprintsJackie:  Do you throw your bottles in the bin, drivea big heavy car, or leave the lightsswitched on when you go out?
　　I’m Jackie Dalton and, as part of National Science Week inBritain, we are going to find out about how we can help theenvironment by changing the way we shop, travel and useenergy in our daily lives: how we can reduce our‘carbon footprints’.
　　A 'carbon footprint' is a measure of how much harm we causeto the environment in our everyday lives. It depends on howmuch ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ we each produce.
　　Greenhouse gases are gasses which have a warming effect onthe Earth’s surface, causing what we call the ‘greenhouseeffect’ and climate change – changes in the generalweather conditions.
　　The average carbon footprint per person in the UnitedKingdom each year is ten thousand kilograms! What can we doto reduce this? As we find out, we’ll also practise somehelpful expressions we can use when talking about theenvironment. We’ve heard a few already. Just as areminder, they were:
　　Voice:  greenhouse gas emissions the greenhouse effectclimate changeJackie:  We’re about to hear from environmentexpert, David Reay. Why does he think we need to reduce ourcarbon footprints?
　　David:  At the moment we’re seeing rapid increases ingreenhouse gas. So we’ll seevery rapid climate change and we need more time to adaptand to get more time we need to reduce the rate ofemissions that we’re producing. So, really, each of us canplay a role in giving us a bit more time.
　　Jackie:  Well, he says greenhouse gas emissions havegone up which means the climate will change quickly. And weneed more time to adapt. To change the way we behave.
　　So what are the main things in our daily lives that areharming the environment? John Barrett from the StockholmEnvironment Institute is about to list three. What arethey?
　　John:  Domestic energy consumption – that includes bothour gas and electricity.
　　Our transport use - again, combining air travel and our cartravel… car travel at the moment being by far the mostsignificant, although air travel is increasing rapidly.
　　And, also, our food consumption…the distance our food hasto travel, techniques, methods required to provide us withour food.
　　Jackie:  Did you get the answer? The three thingswere domestic energy consumption, which means the energy weuse at home when we do things like watch television. Thesecond was transport. And thirdly, food. Here in the UK, wedrink bottled water from Canada, eat apples flown in fromNew Zealand and beans from Kenya…when we can get all ofthese things here anyway! What a waste of energy!
　　But we can make a difference. Two questions now: by howmuch could each of us cut down our carbon footprints? Andwould we have to make a big change to the way we live ourlives?
　　David:  There’s a lot we can do, lots of these smallthings to bring down our emissionssignificantly, so 60% is the figure which is thepossibility for most people, without changing theirlifestyle radically, the small things - the energy savinglight-bulbs, using more public transport, using trains.
　　These things can really make a big difference.
　　Jackie:  The answers to the questions are Davidthinks we can cut down out emissions by as much as 60%. Wecan do this without radical changes to our lifestyle – wewould only have to make small changes in the way we live.
　　So how much effort are people making already to reducetheir carbon footprints? Do many ‘recycle’ which meansre-use things instead of wasting them by just throwing themaway? Listen to these people telling us what they do tohelp the environment.
　　Insert(‘What I do to help the environment.’)Jackie:  Well, if you want to measure your owncarbon footprints and find out how you can make adifference, you can always go to the links at the bottom ofour webpage.
　　Meanwhile, don’t forget to turn off your lights when youdon’t need them on, recycle your bottles and next time you’re about to switch on the TV, ask yourself whether youwouldn’t just rather go for a walk instead!