miércoles, 11 de septiembre de 2013

Talking point: The ethical man

Today's talking point has to do with the environment, and we are bringing the BBC programme The Ethical Man to take the topic to an extreme.

Before you get together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

What does the following have to do with the environment?
Justin Rowlatt is BBC's Ethical Man. His family and he spent a year trying to cut our carbon emissions and reporting on the exercise for BBC’s Newsnight.

Rowlatt’s ethical reports include a year without car, flying ethically, going vegan, ethical whaling, ethical man making his house as green  as possible, ethical capitalism, ethical man’s turbine on his garden, ethical man’s water consumption, can the average person really do something practical? and urban foraging.

Watch BBC's Panorama programme Go green or else!, which introduced The Ethical Man to British audiences back in 2007, by clicking on the picture below or on the link here and discuss these questions:

Would you be interested in watching this programme?
Would you be willing to take part in a project like this?

 
[You can read the transcript of the programme here.]

Other questions related with the environment are:
  • What environmental disasters can you think of?
  • What are the threats to the environment in your country?
  • Do you think your country is protecting the environment enough?
  • How green are you?
  • How big is your carbon footprint?
  • What personal actions can a normal person take to reduce their carbon footprint?
  • In what ways does the destruction of the environment affect us?
  • Do you see a future for renewable energies?