I

Read the next text attentively.

The weather is changing. Temperatures and sea

levels are rising. Summers are getting hotter,
winters are getting wetter. But what does that
mean for us here in the UK? What will it be like to
live here in the future? And why should we even
care?

In the first few years of this century alone, floods, storms

and heat waves have shown just how vulnerable we are to
extreme weather. In August 2004, a 9ft wall of water
swept through the villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven, in Cornwall, washing 75 cars, six
buildings and several boats out to sea. Between June 25 and 26 this year, three people lost their
lives in floods in the north of England. In the 2003 north west Europe heat wave, 27,000 people
died.

Extreme weather events such as these become more frequent and more deadly with climate
change: if average temperatures in the UK go up by as much as 5.8°C – the upper end of scientific
predictions – by 2100, the effects will be unbearable... and inescapable.

By 2020, well within most of our lifetimes, the number of days in London hotter than 25°C will
have doubled. Fast-forward to 2050, and we’ll experience up to five times as many hot days.
Rubbing your hands together with glee and reaching for the tanning lotion? Not so fast: in central
London, the urban heat island effect can add a further 6° to the highest temperatures elsewhere,
making a hot day in the suburbs an absolutely unbearable day at Charing Cross. The number of
really hot days (higher than 30°) is also expected to increase: heat waves, reminiscent of last July,
when Hyde Park famously stood empty in searing 36° heat, will soon be common in the city.

Climate change will prove fatal for some, uncomfortable for many, and extremely expensive for
everyone. But if you think we’ got it bad, other parts the world will fare much worse: the effects to
global warming could decimate much of the developing world a small island and coastal areas
become uninhabitable, whole regions are plunged into long-term drought, agricultural productivity
drops dramatically and the spread of infectious diseases increases exponentially. When it comes
to climate change, no man is an island. htpp://news.uk.msn.com/The-climate-future-of-the-Uk.aspx

(abridged)

A. Find the evidence in the text for the following statements.

1. Extreme and alarming climatic events are more likely to occur these days.
2. Temperature increased will lead to intolerance and unavoidable consequences.
3. Within just a little more than a decade, the UK capital city will have twice as many hot days.
4. It will be impossible to endure the extremely high temperatures in the middle of London.
5. The bad effects of global warming will be much worse in the poorer nations.
B. Match the words with their equivalents in the context of this text.
1. vulnerable (l.9) a. delight
2. swept (l.10) b. intolerance
3. washing (l.12) c. exposed to possible damage
4. unbearable (l.17) d. unavoidable
e. severely damage, destroy
5. inescapable (l.18)
f. moved along quickly with force
6. glee (l.21) g. carrying
7. decimate (l.29)

C. Give complete answers to these questions about the text.

1. What recent bad effects of climate change are mentioned in the text?
2. Why will the developing world be more affected by global warming?
3. Who wrote the text and what do you think about their predictions for the future?
4. What do you think was the aim of this organization when writing the text?

II

A. Complete the sentences with the right form of the verbs in the brackets.
1. Physical arguments suggest that significant changes in global precipitation _____________
(occur) as a result of global warming.
2. Water-related disasters, i.e. floods and droughts, ______________ (know) to cause devastating
death tolls, suffering and economic damages.
3. Physical arguments clearly indicate that global warming ______________ (cause) an increased
of evaporation from the ocean.
4. Moreover, a warmer atmosphere can ______________ (carry) more moisture, which
______________ (lead) to larger amounts of precipitable water.

B. Rewrite the sentences, using the words provide.

1. We don’t stop putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The average temperature will
increase.
Unless __________________________________________________________________________
2. We didn’t stop burning fossil fuels. Pollution didn’t decrease.
If we ___________________________________________________________________________
3. Temperatures are rising. This doesn’t mean that we will have nicer weather.
Temperatures are using, _____________________________________________________________
4. The weather was very dry last summer. My town’s reservoir has an alarmingly low water
level.
We had such _______________________________ the water level __________________________

III

A. In about 150 words, comment on the following

statement:
“When we look at the patterns of change, we increasingly believe that a large of the recent
warming is due to fossil fuel burning.”