Environment

‘An Inconvenient Truth’ is the name of a movie by former U.S. vice president Al Gore. The movie is a presentation about climate change and its effects. The purpose of the movie is to inform the people of the world, and especially the U.S., that global warming is real and caused by humans.  It also shows how we can change global warming. Watch the movie trailer with English subtitles and give your opinion about the following questions :

  • What are some ways that you can reduce pollution in this country?
  • What can you do to help prevent pollution?
  • What can you do to make this world a better place?
  • Which is more important, increasing people’s standard of living, or protecting the environment?

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/wnjx6KETmi4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Interesting Stories is a collection of interactive stories that focus on the intersection of human health and the environment.
These stories are based on real-life problems that involve the effect of our environment on our health.

Throughout the story, you will encounter information that explores the science behind the key health questions in the story. Analyze this information and then use it to answer the open-ended question that completes each story.

inside-stories

Vocabulary, articles, news, games and information relating to the environment


12 thoughts on “Environment

  1. Marina López

    Hello! I like to watch documentary films because most of the times they show, in a clear way, an interesting society trouble. Then, I think is a very good idea to make this documentary film to closer this real world trouble to whole society.

    My opion about climate change and all according with than it isn’t very clear. Sometimes I think that it’s something very big and difficult to change doing something from myself. Other wise, I don’t want to have this kind of thoughts because if everybody do the same all will be worse. Then, I always try to do small things for the enviroment because like the advertisement from “Generalitat” about recycle shows as “The revolution of small gesture is important for the future”!

    Anyway, like the trailer shows the climate change is caused by humans. According with this idea, the people should be aware about this big trouble that effect all the world. Then, I hope that the future will be less worse than the film explains us.

  2. Verónica

    Hello,
    In my opinion this film is very interesting and I think everybody should see it. In 2006 the film won the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and for Best Original song. Therefore, there are some convincing reasons for see it.
    1- We can reduce pollution using the public transport more than the our own car. An other thing is recycle all kind of cans, bottles of plastic or glass bottles. We can also recycle the paper and batteries.
    2- I can help to prevent pollution using recycled paper at the office. Also I can print in black and white, instead of in color, and making copies the minimun as possible.
    3- For making this world a better place I want to stimulate the use of the electric car, with the purpose to reduce the amoung of dangerous fumes.
    4- From my point of view is more important protecting the environent than increasing peoples standard of living. We need to make aware of how important is our planet. Nowadays, we don´t attach enough importance to the environment. If the world disappears we will disappear too.

  3. Miquel Gallardo

    Good morning boys and girls!
    Climate change doesn’t exist. It’s the 21st century biggest lie and lots of politicians want us to believe it’s true. We are used to thinking there are so many interests behind those people who don’t accept it. But there are hundreds of articles claiming there are hidden interests in the Climate change. Just look for them on the Internet.
    For example, did you know Al Gore produced 20 tons of CO2 emissions because of his private jet while traveling around Spain for a week?
    Well, as you can see, my point of view is a little bit different from the other comments.

  4. paco

    Hi!

    I hadn’t watched Al Gore’s film before so thanks to show me and I’m going to try to watch entire but while I’m going to tender to be more environment friendly or green friendly…!
    I think Climate Change is a fact. Our planet is not prepared to keep the increasement pollution and we must to do small things, like says Mariona, so the sum of small things make big thing !
    There are a twice of small things you can do to reduce your electric consumption, and as a result prevent the pollution:
    – Shut down or suspend you PC if you aren’t working with
    – Turn off all you electric device if you are out of home
    – To tend to work near windows
    – Not set up 21 º in your Air conditioning

    See you later…!

  5. Marta Quintero

    Hello,

    From my point of view, we can do a lot of things to reduce pollution, we can use the public transport instead of private car, or if we are lucky and work quite near our home, we can go on foot or riding a bicycle.
    I always go to my job in public transport, it takes me an hour and fifteen minutes, but I don’t mind because I make the most of that time, I sleep or read, it depends on the day. I also try to go walking everywhere. Besides, I recycle paper, cardboard, plastic, organic matter, olive oil, batteries, glass, and so on. Furthermore, I use the water from the tumble dryer to wash the floor.
    I do these and other things in order to make our world a better place. Now I remember the song sung by Michael Jackson “Heal The World, Make It A Better Place, For You And For Me, And The Entire Human Race”
    In my opinion protecting the environment is more important than increasing people’s standard of living because it will be difficult to increase our standard of living if we are living in a dying world.

    Have a nice weekend
    Marta.

  6. Josep

    Hi everybody!

    This is an interesting topic of discussion to which we should all give much more relevance. This affirmation can be easily understood if we remember last Copenhagen Climate Conference and its final conclusions.

    From my point of view, all possible actions undertaken to improve this situation are necessary. We currently talk about recycling and we have improved a lot in this aspect, but we should go a little bit further. We should design products in such a manner that after finishing its life we could recycle it without problems. A more difficult topic would be to cut some poorly sustainable habits down. I refer to the fact of throwing off many electronic gadgets when they don’t work properly because of the high price of repair. We can’t afford to pay the cost of repairs but the environment can do it!!

    Research to improve the existing new sources of energy -not being carbon based- has to be done: solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, tidal energy, etc. need investment to increase their efficiency. Moreover, we can’t forget nuclear energy, is it a necessary danger? Many governments are thinking of waking the nuclear dream up because of the mandatory emission reduction and the push of economical lobbies related to it. This short-term action could be accepted if other half or long-term are undertaken, i.e. research should focus on fusion instead of fission, the current way of obtaining nuclear energy.

    We could be writing and talking about this wide topic for hours and even days. Words come easy but, what about actions?

    Have a nice sunny Saturday. I don’t say anything about Sunday: it is said to be overcast and rainy!

    Josep

  7. Maria T.

    Hi!

    I think that pollution is really a problem nowadays, and in order to fight it, we would have to change a lot of things of our lifestyle, but that’s not easy. Although we don’t want to lose our comforts, we can do some little things, which will not produce a big change, but sure that they will help. I’m thinking of having energy-saving light bulbs, moving by public transports, recycling or saving water.

    Even though we can change little things, I think that government has a lot to do with climate change. Politicians can do big things to help the environment, such as building wind farms, improving public transports or controlling the nuclear centrals.

    Regarding to the fourth question, I think that we have to try to search a balance. We can’t lose most of our comforts, but we have to understand that we can’t go against the environment. For this reason we have to think twice before we do something that could seriously damage the environment.

    Have a nice weekend!

    Maria T.

  8. juanjo

    Hi everybody!

    I supose that i’ll like this movie because it’s a bit diferent from the tipical amrican movies, wich are always very similars with a ficticial end of the world and they always save the world. In this case the movie talks about the real end of the world if we don’t do anything, furthermore in this case the americans can´t save the world alone, we all together must change a lot of things of our lives if we want that our childrens will be able to enjoy a beautifull planet like us.

  9. Begoña

    Hi,

    From my point of view it’s useful to watch movies, trailers or documentaries about the environment because we reflect on how to protect our planet . It’s necessary to be aware of recycling, not wasting water, using public transport, not throwing away garbage anywhere, protecting reserve natures… for keeping a better planet.

    On the other hand, I’ve heard theories against to Al Gore about the Climate Change. It’s possible economic interests are behind these reports, like Mikel said before. Some scientist talk about a next glacial period what it could be the reason many different species like bees, butterflies and amphibians start to disappear and anybody know the cause .Nowadays, the climate could be crazy because this period glacial is close. Experts about this topic say the carbon dioxide isn’t so negative because it’s useful to grew the plants.Too, carbon dioxide doesn’t cause the global warming and can help to delay the glacial period.

    About the last question, we can increase people’s standard of living if we are care of the earth so that the planet’s protection is the most important reason.

    Suming up, we all are responsible for the protection the environment and I believe that if we want can avoid disasters like the pollution.

    See you.

  10. PABLO

    Hi everybody,

    This is the topic of this century and after years doing bad things, now we have realised that we have to find solutions.

    We can do a lot of things to improve our enviroment and I really believe that we are achieving. We have changed many habits, in our daily life, such as recycling or saving energy, but I think that the question should be another:

    What can the great companies and goverments do to make the world better? From the last Kioto’s summit until the current of Copenhagen, the goverments and great companies haven’t make anything, only empty words.

    The main pollution countries, USA and China and their great companies don’t want to assume the price of reducing pollution because it would involve to lost a lot of money, so I really think that the solution is far.

    In my opinion, the origin of problem is our economic system. The capitalism, from the begining, is a ruthless system where the poor and the enviroment are the weakest.

  11. Raúl

    Hi everybody!

    I believe the climate change is a really interesting matter to worry about. Everyone will have his own thought but a lot of facts show us like the weather and nature are changing so fast. The earth has changed this climate conditions, estructure’s lands, etc… since it exists but some of this facts are speeding up thanks to hand’s man, especially the CO2 emissions.
    There are a lot of things that we can do to try helping our earth, like for example the majority of tips our partners have wrote before me. However, until the main goverments don’t change his interests we don’t get the most important goals.

    Well, I’ll see you tomorrow!

    Bye, Raúl

  12. Joan

    Hi people,

    I saw this film, even before than the known 2012 film, and yes, it was about an inconvenient truth, that the majority of humans avoid to see. About the questions, here the answers:

    1.- One idea could be helping people to reduce the cost of electric cars; another measure could be: Making the season tickets for public transport cheaper, instead of rising them. Promote or give support to local ecological agriculture, saving a lot of fuel in transport and pesticides and other chemicals.
    2.-I could use recycled paper, reduce the energy of central heating and wear thick clothes, I could walk more instead of taking the car, I could take less showers a week, …
    3.- Well, I could give advices to people concerning to be friendly with the environment. I could show this Al Gore film in a cinema club in my village, I could join Greenpeace to combat Global Warming, encourage all my email adresses to see this online film:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject?blend=1&ob=4

    4.- Which is unavoidable, would you mean? The Peak Oil is near, I mean, the end of cheap oil is near, and I predict that this success will inevitably drop the standard of living. My prediction for this 21st century is that Earth will continue with the global disasters, maybe they could be bigger than the last century, but humans will arrive to an equilibrium between harming the atmosphere and biosphere and taking the resources to live in a sustainable way because of a change in our minds, maybe (or not) forced by the convergence of the End of the fast fuels, the Greenhouse effect and the global economical Crisis. The perfect Storm (like the movie).

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