📘 Part 3: Climate

This episode's vocabulary

To be at the mercy of someone/something (phrase) - to be in a situation where someone or something has complete power over you.

Testy (adj.) - easily annoyed and not patient.

Lethargic (adj.) - having little energy; feeling unwilling and unable to do anything.

Drastic (adj.) - (especially of actions) severe and sudden or having very noticeable effects.

Habitable (adj.) - providing conditions that are good enough to live in or on.

Hospitable (adj.) - providing good conditions for living or growing.

En masse (adverb) - all together and at the same time, in large numbers.

Strain (noun) - a force or influence that stretches, pulls, or puts pressure on something, sometimes causing damage.

Grid (noun) - a system of wires through which electricity is connected to different power stations across a region.

Strained resources (plural noun) - limited resources.

Disruptive (adj.) - causing trouble and therefore stopping something from continuing as usual.

Downturn (noun) - a reduction in the amount or success of something, such as a country's economic activity.

Icecap (noun) - a thick layer of ice that permanently covers an area of land.

Knock-on effect (noun) - When an event or situation has a knock-on effect, it causes other events or situations, but not directly.

Miserable (adj.) - unpleasant and causing unhappinessю

Severe (adj.) - causing very great pain, difficulty, worry, damage, etc.; very serious.

Heatwave (noun) - a period of days during which the weather is much hotter than usual.

To bleach (verb) - to remove the colour from something or make it lighter, with the use of chemicals or by the effect of light from the sun; to become lighter in this way.

To regenerate (verb) - to grow again.

Habitat (noun) - the natural environment in which an animal or plant usually lives.

Biodiversity (bound) - the number and types of plants and animals that exist in a particular area or in the world generally, or the problem of protecting this.

Airborne (adj.) - in the air, or carried by air or wind or by an aircraft.

To churn something out (phrasal verb) - to produce large amounts of something quickly, usually something of low quality.

Scrubber (noun) - a system or piece of equipment for removing substances that are harmful to the environment from a gas.

Viable (adj.) - able to work as intended or able to succeed.

Turmoil (noun) - a state of confusion, uncertainty, or disorder.

Questions and Answers

M: How can the climate people live in affect their character?

R: Well, I'm not sure people are so completely at the mercy of the elements, but I can imagine it might make their lives a bit more difficult, so they might get testier as a result. I mean, for example, people might be more easily tired out by extreme heat, which could make them lethargic and less likely to cooperate or less able to cooperate.

M: Do you believe that climate change will affect people's way of life?

R: I'm not sure there's much chance it won't, to be honest. I mean drastic changes in weather patterns will force people to move from places which were once more habitable or hospitable. So that could create issues with people moving across borders en masse. Even if they stay where they were, they will have to adjust to things like energy consumption so as not to make it worse, or because there is more strain on the grid due to equally strained resources.

M: How do you think climate change might impact the global economy?

R: Well, the obvious answer is to talk about the negative aspects. If we lose access to resources because of disruptive extreme weather events, then that could cause a downturn. On the other hand, if the ice caps melting has freed up access to Arctic trade routes, so there could be some positive knock-on effects like that too.

M: How has climate change affected the weather in your country?

R: Well, I feel like Scotland has always had miserable weather, regardless of climate change, but when it comes to the UK as a whole, there are more severe storms and heat waves, which is definitely a noticeable set of changes.

M: Has climate change affected biodiversity?

R: Oh, definitely. I mean, if we take the Great Barrier Reef, for example, the increase in temperatures and ocean acidity has bleached the coral there, so it can't regenerate, and whole species of fish have lost their habitats. That's bound to affect the biodiversity. At least in the South Pacific.

M: Is there more pollution now than in the past?

R: Unfortunately, yes. More people means more pollution, both in absolute and relative terms, since we have more people and they want more things, so there's more waste in greater amounts compared to decades ago when choices were more limited.

M: Does the wind have any effect on pollution?

R: I suppose it could. It could spread it out over a larger area if airborne particles get caught on a breeze.

M: For example, how?

R: Well, let's imagine that factory is just churning out fumes from whatever process it has. Then if they get caught on the breeze, then they'll spread out over a wider area, rather than if they were just going straight up in a straight line into the atmosphere. That would still be bad, but at least the area of effect would be smaller.

M: What can factories do to reduce pollution?

R: There are technologies like air scrubbers, which can be installed in chimneys, and probably cleaner production processes could be developed too. I don't know much about how factories function, to be honest. So I don't think I could comment on those in more detail.

M: What can companies do to reduce pollutants?

R: Well, in simple terms, by producing fewer things, though, that's probably not economically viable. So what? They could... Well, they could still certainly invest in more environmentally friendly processes and products with similar materials. That would definitely help.

M: And what do you think? What are the effects of climates on people's feelings?

R: I mean, that's a very broad question, to be honest. What, do you mean, if the climate suddenly changes, then of course, it's going to put people into some sort of emotional turmoil. But that would happen even if it wasn't a climate-related thing.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers!